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America Gets Sick.
The glow of the Christmas tree illuminated the living room where I now sat glued to my laptop watching YouTube. I typically don't spend too much time on the site. However, the news reports we're enough to drive me to feast my eyes on the new danger. There was a flu in China that was growing more serious America sat just a few days away from 2020 and it looked like it was going to start with some excitement. Scanning the site, I'm seeing Chinese citizens in a place called Wuhan, confined to their homes, singing songs, in what I assume is some type of communist solidarity. The scene is so foreign to me, I close my laptop, and file it away as "couldn't happen here."
My beautiful, very pregnant wife waddles in, "what are you up to Andre?" "Not much, I was watching YouTube, have you heard about this virus in China?" I know she has not. Like me, Fatima does not spend much time concerned with anything outside of our family. "No, is it serious?" "It does not look to be, probably more hype than it's worth." I instinctively downplay any hard news, Fatima grew up in Iraq, she is used to hard news, but she is still easily excitable. At this stage in the pregnancy, I dont want any unneeded drama in her life. Fatima was weeks away from birthing our second child. Our son Dieter, six, was preparing for what would be his sister. Yes, we were one of those couples. I dont understand couples who wait to know the sex. I am a planner by nature. It would drive me nuts not having everything not already mapped out.
I eeked out an existence for us as a real estate investor. Ive done well for our family, we own several rentals, and occasionally, I still work with a client or two. We lived in a quintessential southern California suburb, for all intents and purposes, we lived a decent life. I am a typical surburbanite guy. I work out, I work, I make my wife pregnant. She takes them to Karate and various other soccer mom type activities. Fatima pads back over to me, "while you're wearing your tinfoil hat about that virus, see if you can order me some more of that chocolate I like?" Never missing a beat, "I have that chocolate right here girl!" Fatima laughs, "Yeah, well that chocolate gets me too fat," pointing at her very pregnant belly.
January 9 - I'm on twitter writing tweets that nobody cares about, scrolling to the search section, I see the following. WHO is now looking into a cluster of pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan China. My jaw drops. This is the same place I was just reading about in December. Maybe this is more serious than I thought. I tell myself, I better keep an eye on this. Fatima comes downstairs around this time, I tell her, "baby, the WHO is talking about that virus in China, it may be serious." She gives me that classic uninterested look, tosses me my car keys, "be useful and get...
My beautiful, very pregnant wife waddles in, "what are you up to Andre?" "Not much, I was watching YouTube, have you heard about this virus in China?" I know she has not. Like me, Fatima does not spend much time concerned with anything outside of our family. "No, is it serious?" "It does not look to be, probably more hype than it's worth." I instinctively downplay any hard news, Fatima grew up in Iraq, she is used to hard news, but she is still easily excitable. At this stage in the pregnancy, I dont want any unneeded drama in her life. Fatima was weeks away from birthing our second child. Our son Dieter, six, was preparing for what would be his sister. Yes, we were one of those couples. I dont understand couples who wait to know the sex. I am a planner by nature. It would drive me nuts not having everything not already mapped out.
I eeked out an existence for us as a real estate investor. Ive done well for our family, we own several rentals, and occasionally, I still work with a client or two. We lived in a quintessential southern California suburb, for all intents and purposes, we lived a decent life. I am a typical surburbanite guy. I work out, I work, I make my wife pregnant. She takes them to Karate and various other soccer mom type activities. Fatima pads back over to me, "while you're wearing your tinfoil hat about that virus, see if you can order me some more of that chocolate I like?" Never missing a beat, "I have that chocolate right here girl!" Fatima laughs, "Yeah, well that chocolate gets me too fat," pointing at her very pregnant belly.
January 9 - I'm on twitter writing tweets that nobody cares about, scrolling to the search section, I see the following. WHO is now looking into a cluster of pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan China. My jaw drops. This is the same place I was just reading about in December. Maybe this is more serious than I thought. I tell myself, I better keep an eye on this. Fatima comes downstairs around this time, I tell her, "baby, the WHO is talking about that virus in China, it may be serious." She gives me that classic uninterested look, tosses me my car keys, "be useful and get...
