Impatience

Tuesday we went plant shopping at Fred Meyer. It's a sort of big box store with good prices on common plants. Yesterday we went plant shopping at one of our favorite nurseries, Vassey's in Puyallup. They were set up for sanitary conditions and self distancing and we enjoyed shopping and finding the plants we were after.

One of the things we were after was Impatiens. We use a lot of them along the edge of the patio under the cedar tree.

I got to thinking about the name of this flowering plant, Impatiens, and decided it should be the official plant of the season. People everywhere are experiencing impatience. 

Social distancing is causing loneliness.  Business closures are causing financial hardship. Parks and recreational facilities are causing boredom and lack of opportunity for fun and exercise. 
Everywhere, on all news sources, I am hearing and seeing now that we need to open up!

Conspiracy theorists on right wing media are doing their best to convince folks that this COVID-19 shutdown is all a hoax designed to hurt Trump's chances for reelection by purposefully ruining the economy. They have made the pandemic political. They are calling for herd immunity; let the virus run rampant because it only kills old people. They are hitting their mark with many who are tired of quarantine and want to have their freedom, and in many cases, their livelihoods back.

On the other hand medical and scientific experts are urging caution. Where we have managed to lower the curve and slow the spread of the virus down, we have been able to keep up with the medical needs of those who are stricken by the virus. In places like New York, where the virus ran a muck, we saw how health care providers and facilities were overwhelmed. 

The virus is not going away. We do not have a cure for it. We are still learning about how it acts. There are still huge unknowns. Some states are ready to open everything up. Some are extending their stay-at-home rules. Others are compromising, doing limited openings. 

Some companies are forcing their employees back to work, with loss of jobs and no unemployment insurance the result if they don't report for work, even if the plants are still not safe places to work. Some people who are hurting financially may have no choice.

  For those of us who do, we will have to rely on our own good sense to guide us. We are entering into a vast experiment driven not so much by science as by Impatience!

Don't be a bloomin' idiot.