Alone Together

April 18, 2020



Petey

Reverend Peyton





Alone Together

We have sort of settled into a quarantine groove as the days pass by during this Covid-19 pandemic that continues fairly unabated throughout the United States and across the globe. As of today there are currently 701,610 confirmed cases in the United States with 37,055 people who have died as a result of the infection. Here locally the numbers have jumped to 73 confirmed cases, with 35 of those being here in Key West, 9 people have been hospitalized here and we are holding steady with just 3 deaths locally.









The numbers continue to grow and while the curve growth may be slowing a bit here, overall the growth seems to still be on the upswing. It hasn’t mattered though as each day that passes more and more people seem to grow impatient with the restrictions and people have begun pushing back against the stay at home directives. Pressure is slowly building to reopen businesses and the economy in spite of the fact that it would certainly mean a spike in infections and death. This movement is being encouraged and instigated by President Trump and many Republican governors and leaders and the talking heads at Fox News whose continuous irresponsible actions are both dangerous and shameful.









For our part, we are just trying to get by day by day, obeying the stay at home directive other than our daily walks and bike rides, during which we take great care to avoid basically any human contact. It is tough being alone so much, isolated and away from family and friends. We continue to make good use of things like facetime, skype zoom and other social media that allows contact with people who are far away.

Lily

Petey



We do regular chats with our friends Dakota and Andy and their daughter Sloane who celebrated her second birthday this week. We also chatted with Kathy’s cousin Alex and his wife and baby Petey, which was great fun. In addition we have had a few drive by visits from our friends, who stop by to say hello while maintaining a safe distance. Our friends Bonnie and Mike dropped by some yummy food and we have had others stopping by as well, which always cheers us up.









We try and avoid watching too much news coverage. The daily White House press briefings are the absolute worst, propaganda with no real plan on display and mostly nauseating misinformation, outright lies and incredible amounts of shifting the blame for the horrific federal response to the ongoing disaster. The media seems to play along for the most part and it is depressing to say the least.

Dakota and Sloane

Smokey







What keeps us sane and happy are the good people who are trying to make this all bearable. These include our musician friends like Carter Sampson who broadcasts a daily web broadcast from her home in Oklahoma where she plays songs, reads uplifting stories and basically keeps her friends and fans company. Locally our friend Landon Bradbury does a similar daily broadcast called Coffee with Landon that serves the same purpose of bringing friends together, seeing a familiar face who is calm and reassuring during this crazy time.











I have been watching a lot of live concert broadcasts including weekly shows from Todd Snider and Frank Turner and the first live concert broadcast by our friends Reverend and Breezy and their band Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. The show was live from a studio in Nashville, Indiana and was a wonderful, upbeat and positive celebration of music and solidarity that was watched live by several thousand fans. We simply loved it.







It is a dark and mostly scary time and we have been relying on each other and our friends and positive people to keep us sane and focused and to help us get through the long and seemingly endless days of solitude and isolation. We have been spending more time with our pets and in our yard than we have ever done in the past and our recently upgraded yard has been a source of great joy. Watching our local chicken population has been pretty fun as well, at times our yard is like a wild kingdom.







We have been enjoying nightly cocktails and lots more time in our yard, watching our neighbors as they get out for their walks and seeing the many dogs that our walked by our house each day. Trying hard to maintain an upbeat attitude in spite of the obvious hard times that so many are going through.