May 31

Good morning on this last day of May. We are still in a cool period just not as cold as the last couple of days have been. One weather reporter said it felt more like March than late May. However, everything in the gardens made it through. I hope the few spaces I have left will be filled by the end of the week.

June 1

I intended to get back to this but didn't make it. After I accidentally pulled out three rounds on the table cloth from hell (the one I actually had to frog and start over) intending to only take out one because I made a mistake that couldn't be finessed. The one row was bad enough negating about an hour and a half of work. Three rounds meant losing some 6+ hours. Oh well, I regained a round this morning.

We visited the city market on its opening day today. Normally we wouldn't go there until Saturday because that is when most of the venders will be there. Tuesday usually has fewer sellers. I was on the hunt for some plants to fill in my containers and found three there. The early truck gardeners weren't in yet--maybe on Saturday if we decide to go again this week. We might wait until the second Saturday. The whole thing is open air and no one wore masks so we didn't either. We are vaccinated anyway.

I still needed plants so we went out to the local Home Depot. Over the last few years they have had the best selection in the best condition. I saw only two or three masks though most of us maintained our distance. Again, it was open air so I didn't put my mask on. I did find four plants. Only two more to get. Maybe I will find them tomorrow when we do our regular shopping.

The news this morning had a poll asking respondents how likely they would  do certain things like fly in an airplane (not very many positive responses) or eat out in a restaurant (almost 80% positive). The only activity we used to do regularly was eating out but we probably won't do that but not because of COVID fears or precautions. Even before the pandemic hit we found that we simply couldn't get around a full restaurant meal. Trying would simply leave us painfully stuffed which took much of the enjoyment away. We had been taking half of the meals home for the next day but that gets more than a bit old.

A number of the bloggers I read faithfully have mentioned over the last few months that the pandemic has made them carefully reconsider their lives and whether they really wanted to go back to them post-pandemic. This piece by Belle Chesler pretty much lays out the problems. I have been listening to the news coverage of the "negotiations" between the Biden Administration and Republicans over infrastructure which is snagged primarily on their insistence that the term means roads, bridges and other physical structures plus broadband (maybe). I put the quotes around negotiations because it seems to me that the Party of No is living up to its appellation and starting/staying at no is not negotiating. If the Republicans really want to get the economy growing again they are going to have to get women (who have been hardest hit but the pandemic recession and form the majority of the unemployed) back into the workforce which means dealing with the "care economy"--that is child and elder care. That is the last shred of the household economy that existed two centuries ago. After taking all of the woman's economically productive functions and women themselves out of the home we still saddle them almost solely with the burdens of caring for the young and the old without the help they once had when the home was an economically productive unit. It would not be surprising if many refused to go back to an untenable situation and told society to "take this job and shove it." If what I am reading is any indication a large number of men might do the same.

Another interesting article on the post-pandemic labor shortage. Actually that should be "shortages" because it appears to be more widespread and have different wrinkles depending on where the story comes from.

Although this story concerns Mongolia and northern China, I wonder if something similar is on our horizon. It reminds me too much of stories from the Dust Bowl.