Essential trips

“In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends.” 

Okakura Kakuzo 

Seattle is one of four key cities that has made some progress "flattening the curve." People here are following the stay at home orders.  In other places on the west coast, the number of new infections has also stabilized.

So far, Washington hospitals are coping. The emergency field hospitals set up at Century Link Field never had a patient, and were sent elsewhere. But the virus is still very much here, and the only way to slow the spread is with a massive change in public health behavior.

Giving up the right to go wherever you please is almost un-American. I'm kind of surprised (and proud) at the level of compliance in liberal, outdoorsy, free-wheeling Seattle. Not just here, but everywhere around the world, people are doing the same thing, isolated from friends, family and social activities. We're all coping the best we can. 

Anyway, what's an "essential trip?"  Well, John and I go to the grocery store once a week. He brings in the recycle cans from the alley. He mowed the lawn. I'm outside more, walking around the neighborhood for exercise or working in the garden.  I've been to the cash machine. I mailed a box. But that's it for the week's essential outings.

Are spring flowers and tomato plants essential to health? Depends who you ask.

Yesterday morning (they open at 6 am) I drove to Home Depot with my disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer. The outdoor nursery breezy and sparkling in the sun, deserted, except for a couple of other old early risers wearing masks and carefully avoiding each other. My cart soon filled with gardener eye candy: 8 red geraniums, 2 tomatoes, 1 hot pepper plant, violas. Two big bags of potting soil. Heaven. 

A stop at Home Depot is suddenly a tremendous treat? Gosh, the things we once took for granted.

The geraniums are punier than the bushy Costco ones, but with some TLC and fertilizer, they should soon fill in the kitchen window box. I spent the rest of the day outside, potting and planting my treasures.