Bliss - sort of

Quarantine is not so bad. I spend my days floating on a houseboat on a calm river in gorgeous countryside, not engaging with people. (A houseboat-load of unbowed Trump supporters live nearby and fly a “Trump 2024” flag.) 

This is the life – well, other than, y’know, that darned inconvenient pandemic….

Worldwide (Map) 
June 3, 2021 – 171,746,400 confirmed infections; 3,693,300 deaths
   Vaccinated worldwide: 2,002,900,000 

February 25, 2021 -128,260,000 confirmed infections; 2,805,000 deaths
February 25, 2020 - 112,534,400 confirmed infections; 2,905,000 deaths

US (Map) 
June 3, 2021 – 33,308,000 confirmed infections; 596,000 deaths
February 25, 2021 - 30,394,000 confirmed infections; 551,000 deaths
February 25, 2020 - 28,335,000 confirmed infections; 505,850 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
June 3, 2021 – 1,669,300 confirmed infections; 56,610 deaths
February 25, 2021 - 1,547,000 confirmed infections; 52,790 deaths
February 25, 2020 - 1,507,450 confirmed infections; 49,525 deaths

News blues

The made-for-America culturally appropriate bribe-for-vax effort continues. West Virginia gives “away guns, trucks, cash as COVID-19 vaccine lottery prizes; hunting licenses and scholarships will also be among the vaccine incentives offered in the state.” 
Ah, Americans, adept at giving away democracy and one’s fellow humans’ well-being for trinkets.

***

India and Indians have a lot on their plate right now.
India's government is promising to vaccinate the whole of the adult population by the end of 2021, although its biggest vaccine maker has been struggling to meet demand ... Problems, problems, problems plague the vaccination program  as a second wave of Covid-19 overwhelms the healthcare system. Hospitals struggle to cope and critical drugs and oxygen are in short supply.  Moreover,

Cyclone Tauktae has flooded hundreds of villages and cities on India's western coast. 
Strong winds and torrential rainfall destroyed homes and uprooted trees and electricity poles. At least 12 people have died.
Meanwhile, 90 people are missing after a barge sunk off the coast of Mumbai city in the wake of the cyclone. The Indian navy has rescued 177 people so far.
The storm weakened after making landfall late on Monday but authorities have advised caution as strong winds are still sweeping coastal areas in Gujarat state.

Peru and Peruvians have it bad, too, as the rate of Covid deaths more than double… making it the country with the world's highest death rate per capita….
The official death toll is now more than 180,000, up from 69,342, in a country of about 33 million people. 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Unwelcome guests and alien invaders:
South Africa: The hidden threat to food, water and wild places 
California has its share of aliens and invasives, too … 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

After owning my houseboat for two years – and due to lockdown, etc., inhabiting it only for six months - I know I must have the pontoons cleaned and maintained. But the cost of professional maintenance – piloting the boat to the boatyard for haul out and labor - is beyond my pocketbook. 

I must delve into the arena of creative maintenance. Until necessity drove me, I avoided swimming under the boat between pontoons (the space between water surface and boat is about 3 feet). It’s creepy. (I’m too much of a South African to not feel queasy in tight, watery spaces with long strands of freshwater weed brushing against my legs… reminds me of shark-fear while swimming off Durban beaches.) Yesterday I screwed up my courage and explored the pontoons and found, to my pleasure, that they’re not as algae infested as I’d expected. Alas, there are small rust patches on areas of the iron/steel/non-aluminum frames that hold the aluminum pontoons. There’s rust on the iron/steel/non-aluminum foundational structure of the boat, too. The latter will be time consuming and expensive to correct – scrape, seal, repaint – but it is something I can do. Scraping and cleaning the pontoons? Hmmm, not something I can do without guidance, direction, help – and funds for haul out.
The elderly 85 HP Evinrude outboard motor that ran well when I departed 18 months ago has not been started or run since then. I must find “someone” who can prep, lubricate it, check the engine before I can try restarting. But who?
For now, I must forgo my interior decorating ideas – installing a shower, revamping the impractical kitchen counter and sink, scraping and repainting the decks and overall structure….
Ah, the inescapable downside of owning an elderly boat.

Observations of a single woman in the traditionally male world, particularly in California's Sacramento Delta):
The people who seek and can afford the boating lifestyle tend toward the uber-male persuasion – and are not urban-dwellers (indeed, they’re skeptical of urban-dwellers).
Eighteen months ago, only one other single (older) woman lived on a boat in this marina. (Today, I’m quarantined and, back then, she liked privacy so I’ve not explored whether she still lives here.) The other women seen here back then were coupled with men who piloted the boats, maintained the boats, talked about boats while the "little ladies" supported male activities and cooked, cleaned, and rode shotgun in the male-piloted boat…
I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was someone men chuckled about behind my back: a woman who, clearly, knew nothing about boats (true); clearly, who’d expect favors from the superior male species (false). Moreover, since I’d purchased my elderly houseboat from a gay couple, two women who, likewise, “knew nothing” about boats (also false, they know a lot) … I was probably gay, too.
How to sum up my attitude to this male-heavy environment? Oppressive. Isolating. Constrictive. And, this makes me more determined to learn as much as I can, reach out to the reachable, and enjoy my chosen life on the river….

***

Temperatures dropped precipitously in KZN. Snow at higher elevations. Frost, too. Cold. Cold. Cold. Thank the gods I escaped in time. I worry about my son-in-law becoming dispirited. So far, he’s coping.
California and Californians head towards summer:
Memorial Day, May 31, sunrise 5:46am, sunset at 8:23 pm; temperature 104 F/40 C.
June 3: sunrise 5:44am, sunset at 8:25pm; temps heading into the upper 90s.