Interesting times these are. According to Quora, the saying “May You Live in Interesting Times” is misattributed to Confucius. It was first used by Sir Austen Chamberlain in 1936, and later popularized through a speech by Robert F Kennedy in 1966. The phrase “live in interesting times” dates at least to the late 19th century. The “Chinese curse” element was likely added by Sir Chamberlain as an (effective) embellishment. There is no evidence of a Chinese origin.
When we’re not traveling, I’m usually content to be a homebody. Why is it then, when I’m told not to go out, I want to go out? When we saw Monday’s announcement that people should stop eating in restaurants, almost immediately followed by an announcement from our favorite fine dining establishment that they would be closing immediately, Kathy & I did the sensible thing and dashed out to our favorite Italian restaurant for pizza! That’s essential travel, right? 🙂
When I walked this morning, it was business as usual at our local Micky D’s and Eat Mo Chikn, but now we’re getting word that the governor has ordered all restaurants to close their dining rooms after 5:00 today – take out and drive through only. So it’s a good thing we brought home extra pizza! And a good thing we like to eat our own cooking!
The grocery stores should still be open, although there’s no telling what the shelves will look like. Kathy & I are well stocked with vittles to get through, although we’ll continue to shop as long as we’re able to get to the store.
The whole thing seems like a ridiculous overreaction from here at this point, but I know that we see a very small sliver of the world, and I know that we are – for the moment – mostly out of the epicenter of the exposure to this nasty bug. Hopefully we can keep it that way. A reminder like this video from people in Italy helps keep the perspective.
So we’re good for now. We’ve got food & wine, music, internet, LOTS of photography books to look through, and several thousand photos to process if I choose to. So I think as long as our neighbors don’t try to sing we’ll be able to get by just fine! I told Kathy earlier that, since the economy (and our retirement fund) has gone to sh1t, we might as well do our best to stay healthy and keep ourselves occupied while it has a chance to recover.
The links are from friend and photographer Jeff Curto’s blog. He and his wife are “stuck” in Italy (by choice – read the blog) and he has been posting about his time there. Because Italy is a few weeks ahead of us in terms of the virus, they are experiencing what we might have to endure if things progress in this country.
We’re also tracking the progress of some friends who have been on a world cruise. When the cruise line decided to shut down operations and send everyone home, they started looking for a place to dock. They are currently in the Pacific Ocean somewhere, headed to Australia, but Australia might not take them. The good thing is that they have been sailing since early January and no one on board has been exposed, so hopefully they will be able to land somewhere!
The photos are ones I’ve recently rediscovered from a macro workshop in 2009. I’d forgotten about them and am having a blast with the processing, especially using software technology that didn’t exist back then. Looking at these photos reminds me to get my macro lens back out! (And yes, a few of them have some nasty fringing from the closeup diopter I was using at the time. Others really do have pink edges!)
