Written in March 2024
This missive describes our lives in 2020 during the first months of the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It covers our subsequent illness and living under the quarantine restrictions that were imposed. Below is the outline of the missive.
Preface – The COVID-19 Pandemic 🦠
Coronavirus
Corona means crown in Latin. The name coronavirus was chosen because when the virus is examined under a microscope, you can see spikes on its surface.
The medical term coronavirus actually describes a family of viruses. Coronaviruses are common in both animals and humans, and in rare cases they have spread from animals to humans.
The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all coronaviruses is estimated to have existed as recently as 8000 BCE, although some models place the common ancestor as far back as 55 million years or more, implying long term coevolution with bat and avian species.
COVID-19 Coronavirus
Initially discovered in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, the coronavirus COVID-19* enters the conversation in the U.S. in January 2020, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) alerts the nation of the outbreak abroad.
* The derivation of the acronym COVID-19 is as follows: CO stands for corona, VI stands for virus, D stands for disease, and 19 indicates the year the virus was first discovered (2019).
The first American case is reported on January 20, 2020, and President Donald Trump declares the U.S. outbreak a public health emergency on January 31. Restrictions are placed on flights to and from China, but the initial U.S. response to the pandemic is otherwise slow, in terms of preparing the healthcare system, stopping other travel, and testing.
The first known American deaths occur in February, and larger outbreaks of the virus are occurring in Europe and elsewhere.
On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declares COVID-19 a pandemic.
On March 13, Trump declares COVID-19 a national emergency.
The first statewide order in the United States that restricts mobility to reduce the transmission of coronavirus is issued by California's governor on March 19, 2020, and it requires all residents to remain at home except when engaging in essential activities.
The quarantine period in California lasts over five months until the end of August 2020. However, wearing masks is required in public places for over two years until April 2022, when nearly all state-level mask mandates have been lifted.
It is not until March 1, 2024, four years after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, that it can officially be treated like the flu in the U.S.
COVID-19 Timeline
COVID-19 Deaths
Worldwide: As of 7 March 2024, there have been 7,033,430 confirmed COVID-19 induced deaths that were reported to the World Health Organization (WHO).
As of January 2023, taking into account likely COVID-19 induced deaths via excess deaths,* the 95% confidence interval suggests the pandemic to have caused between 16 and 28.2 million deaths worldwide.
* The excess deaths or excess mortality is a measure of the increase in the number deaths during a time period and/or in a certain group, as compared to the expected value or statistical trend during a reference period (typically five years) or in a reference population.
United States: As of 8 March 2024, there have been 111,612,534 coronavirus cases resulting in 1,216,965 deaths.
Prologue - The Trip of a Lifetime
Trip Planning
For several months from late 2019 to March 2020, I plan a month-long trip of a lifetime to northern India and Nepal with Stan and our three youngest granddaughters.
The Five of Us in 2020
Top left: Barbara (age 80) & Stan (age 84)
Top right: Jessica (age 16)
Bottom left: Charlotte (age 14)
Bottom right: Juliet (age 10)
Our travel agent books us on private tours wherever we go, with our own personal guides.
Our granddaughters are very athletic, so I select activities that include parahawking, ziplining, an elephant safari, and a flight around Mount Everest.
Parahawking
Parahawking is an activity that combines paragliding with falconry, where birds of prey are trained to fly with paragliders, guiding them to thermals (photo on the right). Thermals are upward currents of warm air, used by gliders, balloons and birds to gain height.
While hang gliding, you hang horizontally suspended and face-down underneath the hang glider (photo on the left).
Paragliders on the other hand, sit comfortably upright (photos on the right above and on the right).
In 2020, Nepal is the only place in the world that you can do parahawking. Each of us will take off from a mountaintop in a tandem paraglider in front of an instructor with a hawk standing on our gloved arm. We feed the hawk a piece of raw meat, and he flies off to find thermals (rising air currents). You follow the hawk up the thermals until he flies back for another piece of raw meat. This process is repeated until we finally land at the bottom of the mountain on the shore a lake.
Ziplining
Ziplining is riding for recreation along a suspended, inclined cable equipped with a pulley and a harness.
We plan to do ziplining in both Nepal and India. In Nepal, we will zipline down the face of a mountain – the steepest zipline in the world (photo on the left).
In India, we will do a series of four zip lines starting from the top of the ramparts of a castle located on the summit of a high ridge and passing over a small lake until you end up below by a city (photo on the right).
Elephant Safari
In Northern India, we will go on a safari. However, instead of riding in Jeeps or vans like we do on our African safaris, we will ride on the backs of elephants (photo on the left).
Flight Around Mount Everest
Lastly, we plan on flying in a small plane around Mount Everest, the tallest peak on earth (photo on the right).
Originally, our trip is going to last for two weeks, but my travel planner has described so many more exciting things that we can do. Then Stan says that if we are going to travel to the other side of earth, we should stay longer and do more things. So I extend the trip for 10 more days – from March 20 - April 13, 2020.
We plan and pay for four of us by early March (by this time, my granddaughter Charlotte has to back out because she can’t afford to lose nearly a month of classes).
Trip Cancellation
With the first American deaths due to COVID-19 occurring in February 2020 and as larger outbreaks of the virus are occurring in Europe and elsewhere, we are getting increasingly worried about traveling. We especially do not want to be caught in a lockdown situation in India or Nepal. On March 3, 17 days before we are scheduled to depart for India, we cancel our trip.
Eight days later on March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declares COVID-19 a pandemic. At the same time, Qatar Airways (the carrier we were booked on) cancels all of their flights to/from India.
On March 13, Trump declares COVID-19 a national emergency.
Although we purchased trip insurance, our policy does not cover canceling for any reason. Since we canceled 10 days before the official emergency declaration, our insurance policy is void. However, I manage to provide sufficient proof of medical problems, and we get a full refund of our considerable trip costs.
We Come Down With COVID
For 19 days in 2020, from April 15 to May 3, Stan is quite ill with symptoms of the COVID-19 virus. His temperature is frequently as high as 104º F during the night – I am almost ready to call 911.
Stan has a few good days in between and thinks he is over it, but then he relapses. I am not feeling well myself during some of this time, but with milder symptoms.
April 16: I meet our doctor’s nurse in the parking garage to be tested for COVID-19. I am swabbing my own nose while the nurse waits several feet away in protective gear.
Our concierge doctor has us tested three times for COVID, and each time the results are negative. However, he is convinced that we really had the virus because of our symptoms, and also the tests are only 70% accurate.
Quarantine Tales 😷
The quarantine period in California lasts over five months in 2020 from March 19 until the end of August. However, wearing masks is required in public places for over two years until April 2022, when nearly all state-level mask mandates are lifted.
It is not until March 1, 2024 – nearly four years after COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic – that it can officially be treated like the flu in the U.S.
Following are three emails that I send to family and friends about our experiences during the early days of the quarantine from April 28 to May 8, 2020.
😷 April 28, 2020 – Busy Days During Quarantine
Coffee on the Front Patio
Stan keeps coming up with fun things to keep us occupied during the quarantine. This morning, for example, we drank our coffee outside on the swing in the front patio.
Top: There is a low cloud haze over the city all morning which spoils the view, although Henry & Ginger are finding something interesting to look at.
Bottom left: Ginger watches Stan drinking his coffee on the swing.
Bottom right: Barbara on the swing drinking her coffee with Henry and Ginger.
A Drive Around Town
After breakfast, Stan suggests that we take my car out for a spin with the top down. It hasn’t been driven for a month.
I never get tired of my 20-year-old roadster! I am seated in it in our driveway. I never put the top up unless it is raining or Stan begs me to when it is dark and cold.
We drive to the top of Rolling Hills and then down many roads we haven’t been on in some time. We wave to each of our neighbors as we drive by (of course, we never see any neighbors, only the entrances to their driveways).
Dining Out During Quarantine
We have begun ‘dining out’ lately. We started eating outside on our back patio in front of the three-story waterfall flowing down the hill behind our house. The hillside is gorgeous with all of the wild weed flowers.
Dining Out on the Back Patio In Front of Our Waterfall
Left: Stan is dining out on our back patio with our dogs Henry and Ginger in front of our pool and waterfall.
Right: The three-level waterfall behind our house flows down the hillside into the pool. Stan hauled most of the rocks used to construct it in the bucket of his tractor from our land below the house.
We also dined out twice recently when we roasted hotdogs and heated baked beans in the outdoor fireplace that Stan built in his 'retreat' below our house.
Dining Out in Stan's Retreat Below Our House
Top left: Looking down at the retreat that Stan created in the lower area of our property below our house. It took Stan three years to carve the retreat out of the hillside using his tractor and its attachments. The stone fireplace he built is on the left side.
Top right: I am standing in front of the stone fireplace that Stan built, where he roasts our hot dogs.
Bottom left: I am eating my hot dog and beans at the picnic table.
Bottom right: Stan is eating his hot dog and beans at the picnic table in front of our ever-present chess game.
Kitchen Duties
When I'm not being the sous-chef and galley slave, there is still plenty to do In the kitchen – like squeeze oranges for juice to freeze for smoothies when the trees are no longer bearing or bake pies.
Kitchen Duties
Left: I am squeezing oranges to freeze the juice for smoothies later. Fortunately, I find my old electric orange juice squeezer. It still takes me two hours to squeeze three quarts of juice, and it's tough on my arthritic body. And Stan keeps bringing in more buckets of oranges!
Right: Stan is standing by the six apple pies that I just baked using frozen sliced apples he picked from his tree last fall.
Working in the Fields
Stan has been feeling better for a few days and has gone back to his outdoor work.
We have very little flat land on our acre and a half. Our property is on a large hillside ending in the canyon below, and our house was built using the 'cut and fill' method. Thus, our arable land is mostly on steep slopes and requires more effort to care for.
Stan's Outdoor Work
Top left: I missed a photo-op yesterday when Stan passed by the kitchen window carrying a HUGE load on his back of the yellow flowering weeds that he is pulling from the upper garden area in this photo.
Bottom left: I did snap a photo of him pulling a trash can full 0f flowering weeds through our lawn.
Top right: Today, Stan got his tractor out of its 'garage' in the container in the background next to the stable. He has his chipper/shredder attached on the rear to create mulch from all of his tree trimmings.
Center right: Stan is wearing his special mask, not for the quarantine, but to filter the air he is breathing when he is working his chipper/shredder.
Lower right: Smelling the roses – Stan is using his electric weed whacker to remove the weeds around the rose bushes lining our driveway.
A Relapse
Stan overexerted himself yesterday, and is paying the price now. This morning, he is exhausted with a dry cough, running a low fever, and wanting to be waited on. 🤒
Stan is resting on the couch with Henry.
It’s good that I seem to always get better when he gets worse.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
I look at the two old people in the photos above, and I have a hard time believing that they are the same two in this photo taken 43 years earlier.
1977 after returning from a backpacking trip.
We are standing in front of my Manhattan Beach house, Stan is 40-years old and I am 36.
That’s enough of life in the fast lane.
😷 May 5, 2020 – Another Day in Quarantine-Ville
Stan seems to finally be over his bout with COVID-19 since his relapse on April 27. For the last couple of days, he appears to be fully recovered.
My Birthday
Who would ever guess that there is so much to write about when one is quarantined. But this is a special day because it is my 79th birthday. Thanks to all who remembered, especially since I don’t remember all of your birthdays. 😛
Stan starts out the morning by making waffles for our breakfast .
Chess Board
Next, Stan brings down his very special present for me – the chess board that he has almost finished making at my request.
He wanted a project to work on during our self-isolation days, but he didn’t have enough wood to make anything he could think of. So I suggested another small chess board like the one that we play on while we are dining, so I can display one of my favorite set of hand-carved, hand-painted chess pieces that I have named Queen Nefertiti – she is featured in this Egyptian-style set.
Top: Stan is in the doorway of his woodworking shop in our stable.
Bottom left: I am holding the chess board that Stan is making – it is sanded and ready for the three finishing coats.
Bottom right: Stan is playing chess with me at our dining table on our Queen Nefertiti chess set. We usually play two or three games with each meal.
My New Orange Squeezer
Stan has also ordered me another present which won’t arrive for a few more days – a more modern and powerful orange juicer (on the left) so I won’t have to stress out my back and still-painful fractured wrists (from falls last November and February) using my antique electric juicer.
Is anyone else getting tired of cooking three meals a day and doing your own house cleaning? I never had to clean my own house for 55 years before this quarantine!
Our Crazy Birds
For years, we have had this particular kind of bird that loves to sit on our outside door handles and peck on our windows.
Lately during the quarantine, the pecking has become an intense rat-a-tat-tat! If you enter the room where it is occurring and try to video them, they fly away to another room and start up there.
I am just able to capture this video of one in the living room. Click on the photo on the right to view a video of Crazy Bird pecking away!
😷 May 8, 2020 – Quarantine Life Goes On
Finally Recovered
We are finishing our seventh week of quarantine. Stan is getting stronger every day after recovering from his recurrence of COVID-19. Even though we both tested negative, our doctor is convinced that Stan had it. Fortunately, he didn’t have it badly enough to require hospitalization, and his recurrence was mild. I may have had a ’touch’ of it – I had a few milder symptoms and my body was evidently fighting off some viral infection.
Working Out Again
Stan has resumed doing his 25 push-ups by the bed when he gets up and before he climbs into bed each evening.
Yesterday, Stan swam in the pool for the first time this year without heating the jacuzzi next to it and warming up in it first – I missed snapping a photo of him in the pool on the left. The pool temp is already up to 77 degrees from the sun & weather – we never heat it. I’ll have to go in later today if I have any energy left after processing more oranges (see 🍊 No Mo’ Oranges below).
We have also started working out again in our gym in the stable.
Top left and right: Stan and I are in our jacuzzi warming up to swim in our attached pool.
Top center: I am riding my recumbent bike in our stable gym while Henry lounges beside me.
Bottom left, center and right: Stan is doing pull-ups and arm presses (while Ginger lounges on the floor), and Is lifting weights in our stable gym.
Hiking the Horse Trail
We are back to walking the dogs on the horse trail that runs along one side of our property.
There is a reason it is called a horse trail. We enjoy visiting the horses along the way, and we always take a baggie of carrots as treats. Henry loves to create some excitement by charging them.
Stan is also back to picking oranges, working in his shop, and working in the fields pulling weeds and using his weed whacker. And yes, he even is back to being a chef.
We are still staying quarantined so we don’t catch the virus again or another mutation. There is yet so much unknown about this coronavirus.
Venturing Out
We did venture out today (with masks & sanitizer) with the dogs in the Tesla to the Duffy Boat Service center in Newport Beach. Our electric boat engine in the desert stopped working.
December 2014: Stan is getting ready to kayak from our lot at the Motorcoach Country Club in Indio, CA. Our Duffy 18’ electric boat is behind him.
On our last trip to the desert in early March, Stan checked the engine out himself with directions from the Duffy technician, and the motor seemed OK. So he removed the controller & throttle and brought them back with us. The Duffy technician in Newport Beach checked them out this morning while we waited, and said they were good.
So now we are going back to the desert with the parts in a week so Stan can check out the motor again. We will take all of our own food and probably stay for a night. We also need to close the motorhome and lot properly for the hot summer season – we didn’t realize when we left it over 7 weeks ago that we wouldn’t be back soon.
🍊 No Mo’ Oranges
Thirty-three years ago in 1987, we purchased our home on an acre and a half in Rolling Hills. Since then, Stan has planted over 70 fruit and nut trees on the hillsides above and below our house. These include a dozen or so orange trees of different varieties.
Most years, the orange pickings are sufficient for our daily consumption for several months from December through the summer months. Every four years or so, there is a bumper crop, and I am inundated with far more oranges than we can possibly consume.
Having been raised as the eldest of 11 children on a cherry and dairy farm with all kinds of fruit trees and a large vegetable garden, we were taught to never waste anything.
So my solution to our orange surplus is to make orange juice, which I freeze and use throughout the year in smoothies. I spend hours slicing and squeezing oranges each week at the beginning of each plentiful season.
This year is another bumper crop. Every day at the end of his walk with our dogs on our horse trail, Stan brings me a bucket of oranges. Once again, I am overwhelmed with the fruit.
Stan before 7 a.m. this morning (in the photo above) returning with his orange picker and another bucket of the beautiful large oranges from his special tree below the house.
No! No Mo’ Oranges! Don't Bring No More Buckets of Oranges in Here!
At least my job as ‘Chief Orange Squeezer’ has become much easier for me now with the new more modern and powerful orange juicing machine that Stan got me for my birthday. As you can see in the photo above, it can be operated in a seated position with one finger.
📦 Food Deliveries
We are so fortunate and thankful to have a son & daughter-in-law and wonderful neighbors who have been delivering food to us during our 7+ weeks of COVID-19 and quarantine.
We receive all kinds of food via several methods of delivery during our quarantine!
My son Mike and his wife Carrie bring us our large orders of groceries every week or so. Carrie (lower left and lower right) delivers a weekly order. Last week while Mike was out riding on his Harley, he delivered two saddlebags full of groceries (upper right).
Our neighbor Dan frequently drops off a loaf of his freshly baked bread and eggs from his chickens at our back gate (middle left and middle right).
Our neighbor’s daughter Nina often picks up a few grocery items when she shops (lower center). She also is a chef and loves to cook, and she once dropped off a whole dinner for us (baked spaghetti & cheese and bread pudding, upper center) and another time a lunch (toasted cheese sandwiches, upper left).
👨🍳 My Favorite Dinner
My favorite dinner that Stan makes is a stir fry served over tortillas with condiments.
My Favorite Home-Cooked Dinner
In a large wok or frying pan (upper left), Stan stir fries a vegetable melange of sweet yellow onions, zucchini, sweet peppers, asparagus & minced fresh ginger with a small amount of pre-cooked chicken. Instead of the chicken, he often separately pan fries a chunk of salmon or steelhead trout over fresh rosemary.
The condiments that we use are chopped sweet onions, sliced avocado, fresh salsa and sour cream (lower left & lower right).
The vegetable mixture, fish or chicken, and condiments are served over lightly browned flour tortillas, which are then wrapped (upper right and lower left).
Of course, sous-chef Barbara spends her hour of chop-chop and clean-up so Stan can perform his 10 minutes of magic at the stove making his master creation.
Epilogue – 😜 I’m Published!
Rolling Hills Living Magazine published my story of our orange surplus, our food deliveries and my favorite dinner in a section titled, "Quarantine Tales" in the July 2020 issue. Below is an image of the three pages from the magazine. Click on it to read a pdf version.
Bonus – 🎸 A Quarantine Song
Listen to this song titled, Wastin’ Away in Quarantineville! It is sung to the tune Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet.
The two women singing it are Alto 1’s Deb and Mil from CHARIS, the St. Louis Women's Chorus (in the photo on the right).
Click on the photo to view Deb and Mil singing this song in a FaceTime video. The lyrics are below.
Enjoy life, and stay safe & healthy,
😷 The End 😘
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