How we got here...Notes to myself

 

Notes to myself:

February 28 Corona is taking over, the Virus not the beer. 

February 29 The market is down 2500 points, a daughter in Florida on Spring Break, another at school in New Orleans preparing for Mardi Gras.  My son takes the subway in New York every day to work.

March 2 Pete Buttigieg is wins Iowa, or not.  Went to see a novelist speak at an overcrowded independent bookstore.  She said it feels like we are in a flashback sequence of a pandemic movie when things were normal, and we didn’t know what was ahead.

March 3 College kids are being recalled from abroad.  My business trip to London gets cancelled, not so much for fear of getting sick, but getting stranded.

 March 4 A friend cancels his 50^th birthday party. I wash my hands until they are chapped. I flinch every time I scratch my nose.

March 9 I took the subway in New York and the Amtrak home.  Someone coughed on the train and everyone got up and left the car.

March 10 Biden’s deficit in Michigan has turned into a 20-point surplus, how?  The market is plunging.

March 11 Today everything changed.  The market approached bear territory, the World Health Org classified it a Pandemic and Trump is addressing the nation.

 

I’m supposed to go to the Washington Capitals game tomorrow, but the DC government said there should not be gatherings over 1,000 people.  Are they going to cancel?

 

March 12 The headlines scream:  The day the sports world stopped

March 14 One daughter comes home from school in New Orleans

March 15 My College Senior texts me: “They just cancelled graduation”

March 17 Today a new term, “shelter in place” where New Yorkers may have to stay where they are.

March 18 They are saying months now. The Treasury Secretary says we could be in for 20% unemployment. They want to send everyone $1000 checks. Biden is sweeping the primaries

We get our son home from New York

March 19 Restaurant reservation site OpenTable said reservations in its top cities from Boston to Washington went to zero, as in none, not one.

March 20 Images emerge over China and California with clear skies.  Fish in the Venice canals.  Car plants close in Detroit. Tax Day gets moved

March 21 Once impressive companies like Airbnb, WeWork, and Uber sound like terrible ideas.  Sharing offices, using other people’s cars and houses?

March 23-The Washington Post has a sports page, but no sports section

March 24 It feels like the world stopped spinning

March 25 The Olympics are postponed

March 26-India and the UK close for 21 days.  Three million people in the US file for jobless claims

March 29 2,000 people have died

March 30 Here comes the week that matters:  Will people pay their rent, their mortgages, their employees?

They build a field hospital in Central Park

April 1 Axios put it perfectly: “At least 835 people died today, the stock market dropped almost 5 percent and it just feels like Wednesday.”

Death toll predictions skyrocket to 100,000-240,000

April 2- I tell my employees we are making salary cuts.  The DNC postpones the convention and Wimbledon is cancelled

April 3 6.6 million file for unemployment.  A friend’s mom dies, and we have Shiva by Zoom

April 6 The Queen speaks to calm everyone

April 7 The UK Prime Minister goes into intensive care.  Some good news, they think the curve is flattening

April 8 We have Seder over Zoom.  The most oft repeated phrase is not Dayenua, but “I can’t hear you”

April 9 Bernie Sanders drops out of the Presidential race

April 10 Our office landlord writes us notes telling us the office is open and clean, even though we can’t go there.

Deaths top 100,000.