lummi island wine tasting april 3 ’20
click on photos for larger images
Wine Shop Remains Open for Wine Emergencies!
In Solidarity with our neighbors across the country and around the World, the wine shop will continue to remain closed while Social Distancing is mandated, especially rational for us Old-Timers. That means no weekend wine tasting and no Friday Bread. 🙁
It is a well-known fact of Economics that alcohol sales usually rise during recessions, and This Shutdown is no different. We are pleased and grateful to have helped several of you cope with imminent Wine Emergencies, and continue to offer this service as necessary to Maintain Civil Order.
Fortunately for Public Health the wine shop has seen only a few visitors in the last few weeks, and provides a neutral environment to visit and, while maintaining appropriate social distance, fill your wine bags and enjoy a sample or two while we visit.
Twentieth Anniversary
Today as we go to press (Thursday, April 2) we are celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversary. Yep, it was 20 years ago today, a beautiful day here on Lummi Island. The ceremony was held at the cottage at Ann Morris’s studio grounds (where many of us have been doing yoga for years with Constance), and was led by our old friend Eileen, longtime Buddhist teacher and recent new Island neighbor just a block down the street. About twenty old friends and family attended.
In part of the ceremony I got to sing “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” So probably that’s what was going on in this photo at left. We served tea to our guests in raku tea bowls I had made for our guests, and closed with an informal procession through the magical grounds of the surrounding Sculpture Garden. It was a beautiful, sunny, and warm Spring Day.
In the afternoon we filled the Beach Store Cafe with good friends, many toasts, a great dinner, and lots of good cheer, smiles, and warm memories. A very good day!
Mar a Lago Update: Blue Slates, Red Slates
An article in today’s New York Times discusses the differences in political leadership strategies regarding Covid19 among States. In particular, many states in the South and Southeast–Republican Territory- have only recently (and half-heartedly) advocated for social distancing strategies in their states and cities. The question on the Floor is how these different strategies will now play out across the nation.
Metaphorically, in order to start a nuclear chain reaction it is necessary to achieve sufficient density of atomic collisions per unit of time to establish a Critical Mass. The strategy of Social Distancing aims to slow the spread of the Covid 19 pandemic to give the world more time to develop effective strategies against it. Social distancing is aimed at Stopping the pandemic from reaching a Critical Mass.
Therefore we would expect states that instituted social distancing mandates early in the pandemic to achieve a stable goal of zero net new cases before states which are only now adopting the strategy, and with a smaller proportion of the population infected. This is because without social distancing the number of new cases keeps increasing exponentially, as with more and more molecules moving faster and faster and closer and closer together– i.e. a critical mass.
Curiously, Governors of Blue States, including our own Jay Inslee, California’s Gavin Newsom, and New York’s Andrew Cuomo, were the first to grasp the gravity of the coming pandemic and take immediate steps to reduce impacts, including closing schools, restaurants, and businesses where people gather in close proximity. At the moment there are some preliminary indications that the practice is beginning to pay off with slowing of the growth rate of new cases.
Many other nations were much better prepared to mobilize widespread testing to identify who is carrying the virus and who is not. Along with slowing the rate of spread of the virus, identification of active cases is the next piece of essential information to help us improve strategies for controlling and even eliminating the Tweetster’s Virus. (That’s right we are naming it after him since he has played such an important role in helping it spread so successfully by not believing it was Real. Let’s have a Big Hand for Corona’s Best Fiend…er….Friend!)
We are glad to be living on our little Island in our Blue-Green State out here in Northern Ecotopia through all of this. We don’t know what is going to happen, but a couple of things seem pretty likely: 1) the better we practice social distancing in our ccommunities, the slower the spread of the virus around us; and 2) the longer Red State subpopulations assert denial that the pandemic is real, the more difficult it is going to be for everyone.
Sorry, weekly wine tastings temporarily cancelled
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2072 Granger Way