Project Resilience (Cheever) by John K Cheever https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0 A corona diary en-us 2019-02-22 19:13:24 UTC 2023-07-29 16:53:39 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-uploads.storage.googleapis.com/231536427/a52ad142ae873f2fc06c9773aa0beee4/photo.jpeg April 5, 2020– the absolute essentialness of Pepper jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/487606534 Whenever life gets me down, I just find Pepper and either take her for a walk or just scratch her behind the ears.
 I’m tempted to say that she is a basic necessity for survival— Level 1 Maslow— but if I’m being really honest with myself, she is more realistically aligned with the need for love.  That is the beauty of animals. They give unconditional love— meaning it is pure and unadulterated by the human tendency to seek something in return.  
She is truly a member of the family, and we all take care to nurture her and protect her.  As a result, that common purpose has brought our family closer together.  Family falls in the “Belongingness and love needs” level of Maslow's Hierarchy as we all want to believe we are part of something bigger than ourselves. And tiny as she is, nothing is bigger than Pepper in our family.  
 I found a really great article by Nugget Newspaper called “Animals help us in Times of crisis” that really captures the value of animals. 
https://nuggetnews.com/Content/Health/HEALTH/Article/Animals-help-us-in-times-of-crisis/117/221/29405https://nuggetnews.com/Content/Health/HEALTH/Article/Animals-help-us-in-times-of-crisis/117/221/29405
]]> 2020-04-01 20:10:06 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/487606534 April 7, 2020— what my family is doing about coronavirus jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/498215276 Three of my neighbors work in health care— two are nurses, one is a doctor of geriatrics (care of the elderly) and they told me they were concerned about their hospitals not having enough masks and other Personal Protective Equipment.  In response, my family (well, my daughter) has been making masks for about three weeks now.  To date we/she has made over sixty masks using fabric that her aunt and grandmother gave her for Christmas.  We gave out the first batch to family and close friends, and then donated the rest to our neighbors to take to their respective hospitals.
Ironically, the Center for Disease Control and Preventions initially said that wearing masks wouldn't make any difference in protecting people from COVID-19.  https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-03/cdc-recommends-wearing-face-masks-during-coronavirus-pandemic  Now they are recommending them so one unexpected outcome from this is that as people have been wearing my daughter's masks out in public, other people have noticed and asked where the stylish masks came from.  Now my daughter has a nice little business going with people offering to pay up to $10 per mask.   ]]> 2020-04-08 08:18:24 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/498215276 My mother wearing a mask made by my daugther, her granddaughter. jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/499661546 2020-04-09 00:08:03 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/499661546 April 11, 2020 jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/504196358 My family has been playing a lot of board and card games every night during the quarantine: gin-rummy, Mexican dominoes, and, of course, Catan.  At first my family blew me off every time I suggested this game.  When I finally got them to sit down for it and tried to explain the rules, they were terrible listeners and acted all put-out by "all the rules."  Ugh.  We watched an instructional video which said exactly what I had said but they claimed the people on the video were much nicer so they found it easier to understand. WTH!
Anyway, my family is now obsessed with Catan, it's very competitive and everyone has one at least twice.  This picture is from one of my victorious campaigns (I use the orange pieces).
The best part of the game-play (which may actually be more of a sign that we are losing our minds) are the quirky habits we have adopted whenever a certain event occurs: when a person places a city we (well, I) have taken to singing Journey's "When the lights go down in the citaaaay..."; when someone purchases the resource brick, we (well, I) start singing "She's a brick...bah-bah-bah-bah... hooouuuse"; when someone builds a road we (well, my wife and I) sing "May the road rise to meet you..."  When things get really edgy we've taken to calling whoever is winning "a dirty ore" whenever that person buys ore to build a city.  (I know, not entirely appropriate, but we're going a bit batty).  
Anyway, I would say this game-play has certainly brought us closer together and it will be something we try to do more of even after the quarantine.]]> 2020-04-13 08:13:08 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/504196358 Food supply jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/509318253 I read an article in the Sunday paper about how we need to build up food resilient networks and hubs.  It always amazes me how MPX is ahead of the curve in covering topics whose relevance gets presented to us in powerful and meaningful ways.
My family decided to plant a mini-garden to start the process of growing at least some of our own food.  We planted kale, carrots, mint, and spinach.  We'll see what works and then maybe we'll grow more.  We don't have a lot of land around our house but we did plant a papaya tree about five years ago and it is going bonkers.  We couldn't live off of that, but it's nice to know we have it for some kind of sustenance if the shiatsu were to really hit the fan.  
Basically, if everyone grew a little something on whatever land they have available (or a window sill even) or on public land somewhere— guerrilla gardening— we would help get our state one step closer to resilience and  independence than we are right now, importing 85-90% of our food. That's a risky game to play if shipments were ever stopped for some reason, oh say a global pandemic causing ports around the world to close for any amount of time.  ]]> 2020-04-15 19:45:05 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/509318253 Resilient food collage jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/509350542 If everyone grew just a little bit of food, would that make our island more resilient?]]> 2020-04-15 20:05:44 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/509350542 Haircut jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/527091564 It is a testament to how much I love my wife that I let her cut my hair.  Anyone who knows me knows that my hair is extremely important to me, hence how good it looks at all times. ;)   
I also had some fun with facial hair which was not popular with anyone in my FAMILY (except maybe Pepper because she's the greatest living creature of all time).
I'm fascinated to see how other people manage their grooming, especially those who really do care about how they look and therefore require a considerable amount of outside help which is not available during the quarantine.  (I am not one of those people despite what I wrote above.). It's interesting that part of the protests against the quarantine are to reopen the beauty salons.  Vanity knows no bounds, even in the face of a pandemic.]]> 2020-04-23 23:28:12 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/527091564 This about sums it up. jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/529103270 A lot of people are under stress due to the upending of their beauty routines:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-quarantines-are-upending-beauty-routines/608689/]]> 2020-04-24 18:40:22 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/529103270 jcheever2 https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/529117405 I got the #6 (almost had a #2), although I was tempted by #7. Maybe if I lived alone...  ]]> 2020-04-24 18:48:02 UTC https://padlet.com/jcheever2/t4xnbsc7o6m0/wish/529117405