Oh, I Think So

The US Embassy in Tokyo has raised the threat level to yellow which is don't come for nonessential travel if you have a chronic illness or are an older person.  I have no chronic conditions.  I am an older person. My drop dead last date to cancel was to be February 27th but it's now February 28th. I'll get to work early tomorrow to see what vacation I can have in October or early November.  I will see what precautions the Japanese government sends out about the illness.  I will see if there is waiver from the carrier.  I'll investigate what hotel bargains I can find. In honor of this epidemic, I've acquired approved face masks.  If I don't go there and it comes here, I am all set. Regardless of go or no-go, I am taking the next weeks off.  Unless I don't.  Ha.  You have to read to find out.

The Americans evacuated their citizens on the Diamond Princess and they will complete -- or extend -- their quarantines in California.  Forty Americans contracted the virus on that floating petri dish.  Hong Kong has done the same.  Britain doesn't want to do it yet.  But things are being carefully controlled and Japan had things well in hand or as much as things could be had in hand when you've a cruise ship -- which viruses love -- and 2,000 people. The Cambodians were not as careful.  They let almost everyone go and then found someone with the virus as they went to Malaysia.  Retesting there, the 85-year-old husband and wife were sent immediately to hospital for isolation.  Those who were still on the ship have to remain on board and those who were not tested or asymptomatic were sent home.  This is a colossal slip up because on a cruise ship if there is one, there are two or twenty or 221 as there are in Japan thanks to the cruise ship epi...

The coronavirus in China has already started its path to devastating world economies.  The supply chain from auto parts manufacturers in China can't get product to Hyundai in South Korea and so Hyundai has shut down production.  South Korean workers get laid off.  Hyundai dealers around the world can't get cars and if you have nothing to sell, you can't make money.  If you can't make money, you can't get groceries or pay your mortgage or, well, you get it. At work on Friday, with tongue in cheek my coworker said to me, "No reported cases in North Korea!"  I said, "Because they're dropping like flies and Kim Jung-Un is on a respirator in Switzerland."  "But no reported cases!" he exclaimed.  Correct!  Nor will there ever be.  When 250,000 to 3.5 million -- they will never tell for sure -- died of the North Korean Famine, also called the Arduous March or the March of Suffering, did we really know the scope of it?  Nope, because of ...

About five or six years ago, I tripped over my nemesis, an uneven Chicago sidewalk, and fell down.  Unlike my fall three years ago where I hit my head and trashed my favorite glasses -- which I believe saved my life -- I had my hands out that time and sort of stopped the fall although my purse smashed so hard that it broke a mirror deep inside a cosmetic pouch.  I also sprained the living crap out of my left hand and the muscles below my thumb.  I wore an Ace bandage -- clips and all -- for several weeks.  I've had hand surgery that required wearing an Ace bandage and thanks to take first aid in my early 20s, I am quite adept at putting a figure-eight wrap which is very secure and also firm.  Admittedly, when I first did this decades ago, if I wrapped it too tight, I had to unwrap it and wrap it up again, sometimes three times because if it's too tight, you are working against the point of it.  You want support, not painful squeezing. So like that Bunion-...