More power to the people. This sounds like a slogan for the oppressed but I am talking about electrical power. We have had 4 power outages in 24 hours. One was just as I finished cleaning up the dinner dishes and found myself standing in a pitch black room. I made my way over to the cupboard where we keep the flashlights and first found one with dead batteries. My husband had another outside with him, but eventually I found one that worked. We are heading into a heat wave this weekend and not looking forward to more outages. There was one nice effect of living by flashlight. We set up 2 little flash lights in our bedroom and I really liked the softer light in our room. Makes me want to find lamps or light bulbs with softer light. The flashlight is such an important device. It was invented by David Misell in 1899. A bright idea!

I am ready for the next blackout

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is to start your post with the word ‘more.’

Image of the first Flashlight Patent from US Patent Office via Wikimedia.org

Each morning I check my email and read one or two newspapers online. Not every word but I skim through and pick out a few articles. The LA Times has a Coronavirus newsletter. We are stuck in place here waiting for some good news. They say it will take a couple of weeks to see if the steps taken now will slow the virus. We seem to take one step forward and two steps back. I know I am lucky to have a roof over me ,enough food, and my health so far. I have gotten very tired of washing dishes, though. I always found housework very tedious, but what am I complaining about. I am alive, I can read books, look out at my backyard and see the hummingbirds that visit the sage bushes every day, do some genealogy research, take walks with my daughter, and do online exercise. I even ordered some dumbbell weights, small ones. You’ll have to check back with me later to see how I am progressing with the exercise. I am starting with the little blue ones.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt words for today check/checque/Czech.

“We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”-Crosby, Stills, Nash &Young

As billion year old carbon our connections go way, way, back in the universe. I look for something to sustain me during this long epidemic in inspirational books. I just finished one by Jack Kornfield. In it he mentions that we are breathing in molecules from Julius Caesar’s last breath because the molecules were dispersed throughout the earth’s air. Better than breathing in a virus. So far away from ‘the garden,’ were we ever really meant to live in Eden? What can sustain us now? In Nazi concentration camps, people wrote poetry, and hid it in the walls.  Just like ancient molecules, written words passed down connect us. We are part of all who have come before, links in a long chain. ‘We are stardust, we are golden.’

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt word for today is ‘link.’

Featured image ‘We Are But Specks of Stardust’ by Jason Jacobs on Flickr.com

I want to go back to the old normal. I know that probably is not possible. Will we be on ‘stay at home’ status for 3 more months? Hopefully, it will be phased out slowly over these next few months. In LA County we are supposed to wear masks when outside if any chance of contact with another human. I have been wearing a mask when I open the door for my grocery delivery. I don’t have to open the door unless I have ordered wine, then I need to show my ID. Most times the delivery person tells me not to worry about it. The delivery people have masks on as well. We can get deliveries from Costco which means TP and just recently, paper towels. Yay!

My brother is recovering from coronavirus. He was lucky to have a milder case.  But it is still not back to normal at the Nursing Home and I worry he is not getting enough support. They are moving residents around like musical chairs because their numbers of positive test results are still rising. They are working to separate those residents with positive test results from those who are negative. More staff have tested positive as well. My brother is now out of isolation but not back in his old room and the Wi-fi is not good where he is. The social workers have been trying to help us. One of them visited my brother today. They had only one Skype visit while he was in isolation because of the poor internet connections in the facility. They really have to work on that. There is one iPad and one portable phone for the residents in his section. They have a waiting list for the iPad and I have been told the connection for it is not so great either.

In the old normal I would be able to visit him in person. I would have easier access to talk with him on the phone.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt word is “want.” Make the word “want” the first, second, or third word of your post. 

Featured image ‘Water Lily in Bloom’ via National Park Service Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens