Coronavirus Quarantine Diary: Day Six, Entry Four, I Talk to a Confused Squirrel

That's Strawberry Creek which meanders through campus

Keen observers of this blog (both of us) may have noted that there was no post yesterday and that two days prior instead of Coronavirus Quarantine Diary I had a post on film quotes. Get used to it. This will be fairly consistent but somewhat sporadic and totally unpredictable -- like life.

I have lived during the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, Watergate, political assassinations aplenty (JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcom X, Harvey Milk) the AIDS epidemic the dawn of a new millennium, protests, demonstrations, riots, terrorists attacks, mass shootings, the illegal invasion of Iraq, the first three years of a narcissistic, incompetent, lying, morally bankrupt president but nothing compares to this stupid, mother fucking virus.

Through all else I could still go to a ball game, watch live sports, eat at a restaurant, take in a film, browse in a bookstore and go to orgies (full disclosure, never been to an orgy). Now none of those wonderful diversions are available. The only good thing is that it's easy as hell to cross what are normally busy streets.

Fuck this.

It's a strange new world and there's nothing romantic about it. It is a painfully boring, uninspiring form of tragedy which will mainly be remembered for isolating people. It's not quite a week yet and I, like millions of others, am over it. Make that like tens of millions of others, hell hundreds of millions.

Took a long walk today. Again.

I traipsed through the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. It was as lovely as ever, especially with so few other people strolling about. (I can't wait until we are overcome again by the hustle and bustle.) I stopped on numerous occasions. I stopped and looked at the creek, I stopped and looked at plaques, I stopped and looked at trees, I stopped and looked at flowers, I stopped and looked at an empty Sproul Plaza, I stopped and looked at lawns, I stopped and looked at the eucalyptus grove, I stopped and looked at the Campanile, I stopped and looked at the Pappy Waldorf statue, I stopped and looked the architecture, I stopped and looked at the huge puffy white clouds. I stopped. I looked. Absent the circumstances, it was most pleasant.

One of the plaques I looked at commemorated the arrival of a Spanish expedition to the area around Strawberry Creek in 1772. That's a far ways back when you're talking about Berkeley or even California -- unless the topic is the Ohlone or any of the other native tribes who made this area their home for centuries until whitey came along.

A virtually deserted campus

During my walk one of the ubiquitous panhandling squirrels of the UC campus approached me. The squirrels on campus are known to be fearless, having figured out that a human is far more likely to toss some victuals their way than they are to cause harm. But this squirrel did not get all cutesy and wag its furry tail or hop around. It just looked at me and asked, "where the hell are all the people?"
I explained about Covid-19. "Well, that sucks," replied the squirrel, "looks like the family and I are on our own for food for awhile." I replied, "I guess you are." The squirrel asked, "say, have you got any nuts or anything on you?" I said that I didn't but, "I've got a couple of bucks you're welcome to."
The squirrel gave me the side eye and snapped, "come on dude, what am I gonna do with money? Be real." I allowed that it was perhaps a stupid offer. We wished each other well and then one of us scampered up a tree.

I later alit from the tree and moseyed on home.

The day has been occupied with much of the usual. Chatting with the wife, reading, being alternately angry, depressed and amused at what I read online and watching a movie. I can safely predict that more reading and another movie await. I will also be enjoying the dinner that the missus is just now preparing. I'm very good about dispensing the food she cooks. Usually down my gullet.

I've also done a bit of writing. I've got two novels in the works in addition to the one that is complete and available for reading via Amazon Kindle. I'll be dedicating an entire post to a discussion about said novel soon.

That's a wrap on today's blog post. If you enjoyed reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it then I got twice the pleasure out of it as you. So there.

P.S. The coronavirus sucks and you can tell it I said so.