Ugh. Quinn has Covid. His daycare has had quite the outbreak, and most of the kids tested positive. Thankfully, Quinn is asymptomatic (some of the kids do have symptoms), at least for now. And he’s PISSED. He doesn’t WANT to have Covid. It means he and his mama are homebound for a week, and that is NOT sitting well with Quinn. He loves being with his daycare “boys” (that are mostly girls) and he’s just not having it. (Poor Sandra). I saw a video of him expressing his fury about it, and there was fire spewing from his eyes! Whoa.
Sandra let me know the other day that Nate’s ship was docked in Singapore. (For ship repairs. Yikes?) She and Quinn were able to Zoom/Skype/FaceTime (whatever) with him and she took a brief video of Nate and Quinn chatting. (Even got to see Nate on-screen!) But get this: they were not allowed to leave the ship for the two or three days they were there. I’m sure it was because of Covid, and I have to wonder if their entire deployment (which always involve many ports-of-call) will require the same thing. Never leaving the ship for nine whole months? Never being able to have a day or two to enjoy the local foods and sights? In previous deployments he has enjoyed exploring cities in Australia, Japan, Oman, and the Philippines, among others. (Mostly Nate enjoys the food. He has always been adventurous with food, even weird stuff).
Our neighbors were all set to leave for their place in the Dominican Republic (it’s a nice duplex near the gorgeous sandy beaches where they fly down for 6 weeks or so a few times every year, and then rent it out via AirB&B the rest of the time). Their house plant named Medusa was delivered to Casa Watkins for me to take care of, and then Mr. M. headed up to Doug’s place, located above our neighborhood on a side road from us, for him to drop off his mailbox key for Doug to pick up his mail while they were gone. He stepped inside briefly to say hi to Doug’s wife, who is pretty much bedridden with cancer. Doug, known well around here because he’s a pretty decent fix-it man and care-takes when people are on vacation or snowbirding, is a simple man, and I’m not that fond of him because whenever I’ve been around him he tells long, boring, sexist, racist jokes. Anyway, while he was there, out of the blue, Doug says, “I have a 101° fever!” Our neighbor backed the hell out of the house! We gave him one of our Covid test kits and he had Doug take it—and yes, he was positive. Of course. And one of those who refuse to wear a mask. (Apparently he is vaccinated, though). But I worry about his sick wife. Our neighbors opted to head down to the Dominican anyway (the CDC recommends that fully vaccinated people can do so if they’ve been exposed, wearing an N95 mask and testing 3-4 days after exposure. Photos from the sunny, warm, lovely Dominican on Facebook show that all is well!
I’ve put together a “deployment box” for Nate, and it’s ready to be shipped. All kinds of snacks (both healthy and not so much), a portable Cribbage board and playing cards, a small coffee press and coffee, toiletries, and other fun stuff. The boxes we are allowed to use are not very big, but I managed to cram quite a bit into it! I also wrote him a letter!
I’d already given him a BUNCH of paperback books for Christmas (which I know he’s been reading), and in his next box I’ll give him some more.
Ahhhh, cleaned the house today and it’s so nice to sit and appreciate the gleam! (It really needed it!)
“He lied about losing, tried to seize the voting machines, had states forge elector slates, promoted bogus audits, invited mobs to ransack the Capitol, and actually admits he tried to get the VP to overturn the election. This is not someone you vote back in, you fucking morons.” -Jeremy Newberger
