Phase I of reopening

First you get to hug your grandmother. And what a wonderful response you have paid to that moment, thank you all so much. I gather that in the Blip community there are many grandparents and many who have grandparents, and you all know what it is to be prohibited from hugging each other for three months. The Buddhist word for your response is mudita, rejoicing in the good fortune of others. Thank you for your mudita. 

Tomorrow Portland begins to open up in other ways. People can get haircuts. Restaurants and bars can have sit-down customers, but they have to maintain social distancing, so they are expanding into the sidewalks and streets, setting up fencing to protect diners from cars, repainting, refurbishing, and generally hoping for an up-tick in business and a spell of sunny weather. Everyone has to wear masks to enter public places, but outdoors, if there is social distancing, people can take their masks off to eat and drink.

Amazingly, there has been no surge in Covid cases since the mass public protests began, so that's encouraging. 

Thank you for your good wishes for my daughter Angel. While I was hugged and hugging, she was at work. A large metal bookcase fell on her left leg and pinned her down. When her coworkers were able to remove the bookcase, she tried to stand and the pain was searing. By the time she found a friend to take her to the emergency room, the swelling was so extensive that they couldn't set the three bones that were broken in her ankle and foot, so they gave her a shot of steroid, wrapped her ankle, and put her in a boot. On Wednesday next week they will look at it again. She is fiercely independent and deeply introverted, so she insists she will be fine, she doesn't need anything, and no, she doesn't want to go anywhere. "I can handle it," she insists. 

I wring my hands, send her lots of heart emojis by text, wish I were closer to her, and order some food delivered to her apartment on the outskirts of Houston.