Covid numbers keep rising; food finally delivered

The number of new Covid cases keeps creeping up in and around Dong Nai, the province in Vietnam where we live. Nothing huge, mind you, but the numbers keep rising. In Dong Nai, we've gone from 15 new cases, to 40, to 87, to 104 and finally, to at least 146 on Saturday, July 24. (I'm trying to interpret Vietnamese so the numbers could be higher or lower, but most likely higher.) Ho Chi Minh City is a hotbed right now with its neighbor Binh Duong second and nearby Dong Nai third. New cases in Vietnam have gone from about 1,000 or less a day a few weeks ago to nearly 10,000 on Saturday.  Thousands have been vaccinated in a country of millions, so a Covid vaccination is not an option for the common man or woman at the moment, and that includes our family. I guess you could get on a waiting list for a Russian vaccine, but for now we'll social distance, go with a mask and shield, and hope for the best. The best would be that my wife gets a waiver and visa to enter the U.S.
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We've been pretty much on serious lockdown since July 9, but the screws have been tightened a little in the past few days with reports of cases in markets and motels in our area. Everybody who goes out, even guys sitting on the bridge fishing, are wearing masks. A few people will stand in front of their houses without masks, and a handful of teens don't wear them, but that's pretty much it. Clear plastic sheets protect cashiers, and taxi service has been halted. Food isn't a huge issue if you can handle Vietnamese food. Neighbors share with each other and markets and supermarkets remain open even if the crowds are large and the inventory small. You can get food but it may not be what you would normally eat or buy. My wife got a bunch of canned liver ... that's not for me so I've been eating the stockpile of Korean cakes and other sweet items I bought at an expensive specialty store before the recent surge. So I remain fat while other folks scramble for vegetables.
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On July 4, we ordered groceries to be delivered from a local supermarket when the number of daily Covid cases began to increase. The groceries arrived July 22. My wife would call from time to time to check on the delivery since we were initially told the groceries would arrive July 6 at 2:30 p.m. When it became clear that cases were surging and we were facing lockdown, we stopped calling. The store reached out to us, was contrite but didn't need to be, and ultimately delivered the goods. If we pleaded starvation and played the kids-have-no milk-or-food card, the store would have somehow gotten the groceries to us. They said as much. People started stockpiling around this time, but it was no big deal for us. And many people here are willing to pull together for the greater good. The folks who have the least so often give the most.
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The lockdown is a little difficult on our kids, especially Joanna, 5, who wants to take walks and look for creatures. Creature searches have been halted by the park's closure, so we look for house geckos, spiders, flies and ants. Spiders are rare, but there are lots of flies and ants – too many, in fact – and geckos come out at night. With no real outdoor exercise for Joanna, bedtime has been gettng later and later, so she gets to see the geckos. Wakeup time is later as well. She's never napped. Her "studies" continue but they start 9:30 a.m. or thereabouts and go until lunch or thereabouts. She still loves to color and draw, and that gives me a little break sometimes. We could all use a break.
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My friend in the USA continues his amazing recovery from pneumonia, a fractured vertebrae, kidney issues and God knows what else the doctors have found. Hopefully, they'll stop looking for stuff soon so my buddy can eventually get out of the hospital and back to living his life again. 

Lockdown means good food limited, boredom in excess

My wife came into the house this morning with two rolls. She gave one to Joanna and me to share and we ate it like ... like we haven't had good bread in about a week. And guess what? ... The big issue right now with the Covid lockdown here is food. It's difficult to go shopping due to long waits in long lines – with cutting creeping back into the equation – and extremely short supplies. A few markets, restaurants and coffee shops are open for takeout only, but that's about it. My daughter and I enjoy sharp cheese, but since the Covid surge and subsequent lockdown, cheese, peanut butter and bread are tough gets ... especially cheese. I get my cheese fix from takeout pizza at Pizza Hut, not that I need a cheese fix given my weight. Vegetables were scarce early in the lockdown, but as the week went on vegetables became more accessible. Usually, you can get lettuce and carrots, but I haven't seen asparagus or broccoli in a while – it's hit and miss. Which reminds me. Hoarding is a big issue. I saw a woman filling three shopping baskets with instant noodles. Yum. Another woman bought every egg in the little market around the corner. My wife asked the woman why she didn't leave some eggs for people with kids. The woman didn't respond, which is a typical response (anywhere in the world) from people who know they're in the wrong. Peanut butter being in short supply is interesting since a lot of folks here have never, or rarely, eaten it. Hoarders can be dangerous and selfish people.
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There have been a few coronavirus cases in our neighborhood, most notably at the rent-by-the-hour (or minute) motel on the street behind us. For some reason, it wasn't shut down. It was "cleaned up." I walked to the bank on Sunday to use the ATM, and the streets were incredibly quiet for 1:30 p.m. Unreal. On my way home, I saw a group of people sitting around plastic tables in the street under an instant tent, probably for a funeral. I'm a little surprised people would do that during a pandemic and surprised officials would allow it.  But everyone had a mask on even if they were somewhat clumped together. The numbers in the country are not encouraging: from 1,000 new cases a day about two weeks ago to nearly 6,000 yesterday (July 18). Joanna and I aren't fond of math, but even we know these numbers add up to trouble.
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Being stuck indoors much of the day is tolerable given the heat here, but everyone gets a little stir crazy late in the afternoon, especially the children. That's when Joanna and I would take our daily walk to get milk tea, or coffee, or whatever. Now, our big treat is a raspberry-orange ice from the Coffee House along with a cappuccino for dad (takeout, of course). And on a rare occasion, I'll let Joanna come with me -- with mask and shield on, of course.
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Our son Elijah loves the outdoors and kicking his ball, even during the heat of the day. The park is closed and that was his favorite place to go, so he kicks a ball around the street near our house.  My wife will hit a badminton birdie with her nephew. Everyone has to be extra vigilant because motorbike traffic, while very light, still doesn't slow down for children, even kids as small and young as Elijah.
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My 5-year-old daughter pretty much gets it as far as Covid is concerned. She knows the situation is serious even if she doesn't understand all the subtleties. We still do our classes, but I allow a little more video time since she's stuck indoors most of the day. She loves drawing animals and coloring birds of paradise while adding her own drawings and creating little stories that go with the drawings. I'm pleased her imagination is so active. She'll pull material from the two books we've read: Charlotte's Web and Little House in the Big Woods. In fact, we're reading Charlotte's Web a second time and we're almost finished. We still nab stories online and when she's in the mood, Joanna will read them and do a remarkable job sounding out unfamiliar words.
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I'm in the middle of the sixth and last book in Frank Herbert's Dune series, Chapterhouse, and I run hot and cold on the Dune series, so to speak. Sometimes, I'm engrossed, but other times I'm thinking about what I'll make for  tomorrow's dinner. Pulled pork sounds good. They are long books ... Bought some new music to drown out neighborhood noise: Wooden Shjips and Spacemen 3 ... My friend in the U.S. continues to make slow but remarkably steady progress in the hospital from his series of life-threatening ailments. Incredible stuff. Maybe I should pray more often. However, that could be going to the well once too often.

We're locked down; turning 5; decisions to make

 As coronavirus swarms around Vietnam in general and Bien Hoa in particular, we're spending 98 percent of our time indoors. New cases, possibly from the new strain, have topped 1,000 a day for the past four days; July 8 had 1,300 new cases and July 9 had 1,600. We're trending in the wrong direction. I ran down to the market in monsoon rain to get some groceries, and the shelves were empty and the place was packed.  It could have been a super-spreader event. People were buying all the noodles available. Some markets limit the amount of a particular item you can buy. My mother-in-law was allowed only one ear of corn at Bien Hoa Market, which has since been shut down. Vegetables are scarce, even in cans. Hard to hoard vegetables, but masses apparently are swarming the few markets that remain open. Our daily trips to the park have stopped, and even the Coffee House is open only for takeout. I got a cappuccino to go yesterday. Seats have been removed from the Pizza Hut, where we go for takeout, which, like all restaurants here now, is all that's available anyway. Ho Chi Minh City announced a 14-day shutdown on Friday, so officials are clearly concerned if they're shutting down the financial hub of the country. Our daughter's passport expires in August and we're told we have to get tested and produce a negative result in order to go to the U.S. Embassy in Ho Chi Minh City. I'll guess this is what life was like in the U.S. a few months ago.
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Our daughter Joanna turned 5 on Friday so I got her one shrimp pizza and one pepperoni pizza, and Pororo grape drink, and my wife decorated the house beautifully for her. I also made her a Birds of Paradise mask, and her cousins got her a stuffed frog, which she absolutely adores until a new favorite comes along. Frogs are her new favorite animal now along with Birds of Paradise. She copies the Birds of Paradise dance and even cleans the dance area, just like the birds do in the David Attenborough BBC video. Joanna was very excited and happy for her birthday and seemed to enjoy herself immensely. She doesn't really have any friends here but there's probably no party gatherings allowed anyway.  She's starting to play a little with her brother Elijah, but he's still having an extremely difficult time with teething. He's a bit of a fussy Gussy, and seems happiest kicking a soccer ball around.
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With new Covid variants and the coronavirus situation here, my wife's waiver application to get a U.S. visa is expected to take longer than usual. No shock there. That puts a decision on Joanna's schooling up in the air. I could continue working with her. She's shown real improvement pronouncing unfamiliar words and can read pretty much anything I put in front of her. Her work with scissors and glue, and her drawing seem very age appropriate. She doesn't like math, which is also probably age appropriate. My issue is that I'm not sure my energy level can be maintained to teach such an active child. Joanna's motor never stops running. I'd really like to get her involved in some sort of sport. She doesn't need much sleep and has never napped, a source of difficulty here for her in the schools. I need more than the 6 hours a night of sleep I've been getting as a 66-year-old.  I was hoping a sport would force Joanna to get to bed earlier and get some more rest, but sports for a girl here even in the best of times would be difficult to arrange.
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My son Elijah is a climber, and readily moves chairs, boxes, pillows or whatever's available – and stack them if necessary – to reach his desired altitude and destination ...  Joanna says to me that she likes speaking English and doesn't want to speak Vietnamese.  She understands more Vietnamese than she lets on ... my reading streak with Kindle is at 84 weeks and 580 days in a row. Since we're locked down, I suspect my streak will continue ... of course there's no more tobacco in my life (more than 5 years) and I haven't had any alcohol (other than what's in Cool Mint Listerine) in more than 19 months. I could see having one glass of champagne if my wife ever gets a U.S. visa ... my friend continues to fight for his life in a USA hospital, and has shown slight signs of improvement. If he gets through this, he deserves to be called Highlander.

Coronavirus getting too close for comfort; 'Real' birds

Coronavirus is in our neighborhood, four or five blocks from our house. A patient at a nearby clinic tested positive. Now the staff is quarantined for 21 days and the clinic is locked down. The staff at the Indian restaurant I frequent for takeout happened to be at the clinic for some kind of testing when all this went down. The owner informed me that he told his staff to take some time off.  My wife said there have been 15 confirmed cases of Covid in Dong Nai, the province where we live. The numbers have jumped around a lot lately, with 300 new cases reported one day and nearly 900 the next. It isn't a good situation regardless of the numbers.  I held off on a shopping trip for groceries for two main reasons: 1) I don't want to get sick and die because ... 2) I have two small children that need me at full strength. Joanna needs me to function at a level where I can teach and entertain her in a constructive manner. Elijah just needs me when he's bored. The work next door has slowed significantly but will unexpectedly flare up. The same people bought a house across the street and the some of the same noisy noise has started up again. Plus, the guy with the welding flashes has started "working" again. I'm sort of surprised that people can do these types of disruptive construction projects featuring unknown workers parading around, sometimes sans mask, during a pandemic. It's worth repeating: this country doesn't have the medical infrastructure to handle a massive surge of coronavirus cases. The U.S. has seen more than 600,000 die and hospitals stressed to the breaking point, and there's been an uptick recently despite vaccinations. Joanna and I have reduced the number of walks for milk tea (very close to the clinic) and our park trips are shorter and more supervised. Things are clearly quieter -- I see fewer people peeing outside in daylight, and less folks riding their motorbikes on the sidewalk, and fewer instances of trash burning. It's a shame people have to fear getting really sick to reduce churlish behavior. We've cut back on trips to the park since about half the folk walking and talking on phones don't wear a mask. And people tell me how stubborn I am. That may be the case, but for my sake, the sake of my family and the sake of others, I'll wear a damn mask. How's that for stubborn?
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Our birds of paradise stickers, T-shirts, and children's fact book all arrived within a week of each other, making my daughter a very happy camper in grim times. None of the stuff was cheap, even the stickers. So what. It was priceless to see my daughter running around the house squealing with glee with a "Real" T-shirt in her arms. We call the Greater birds of paradise Vogelkop -- as well as the Smiley Face --  "Real" because of the What a Wonderful World video with David Attenborough. It briefly shows the Vogelkop or Smiley Face, and  Joanna, who was 3 at the time, thought it was a cartoon or drawing. When I told her the bird was "Real", a new name was created. Honest to goodness, Joanna just woke up and looked over my shoulder to read what I was typing and excitedly said "Real" when she got to this item. She doesn't miss much.
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After I had Joanna's hair cut short to deal with the heat -- it's extra humid and remains in the 90s during  our rainy season -- people looked at her and said "That's a cute boy." Now my wife is trying to let Joanna's hair grow out again, which I'm not crazy about because of the heat and the fact she'll chew on it. Granted, there are bigger issues.
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Our son Elijah acts like he's living with the Jetsons. He demands control of the TV remote control and when he gets it with batteries removed, he points it at the TV, lights, air conditioners, fans and  microwave, expecting it to work its magic and make those appliances turn on or off. Hasn't happened yet, but Elijah is master of the unexpected
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My friend continues to battle numerous challenges in a U.S. hospital as he fights to stay alive. Sometimes it seems the treatment can present issues as serious as what he's facing, but I believe he's getting the best care and support from family and friends as possible. ... Nothing yet on our bid for a waiver to get my wife into the U.S. Just have to wait and see, which is becoming something of a mantra these days.