156,363 positives in Italy. Up 2.7% – 19,899 deaths.
1,319 positives in Umbria. Up 0.7%.

546,874 cases in the US – 21,686 deaths.
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Easter dinner. Very scrumptious. Racks of lamb. Potatoes Dauphinois and eggplant with tomatoes in saffron. 

Today is Pasquetta…little Easter. It is, and always has been, a holiday when the Italians go out and enjoy nature and celebrate after Lent. Usually with family groups, or friends and a big picnic…or they go to the seashore. Of course, none of this will be happening today. 

Being Monday of yet another week on lockdown it is a little depressing. It doesn’t help that the skies are gray. But I know we are marching towards the light at the end of the tunnel. We will get there one day. 

Spring flowers – so pretty and cheerful…thank you Jill!

Short post today. 🌈 Andrà tutto bene…

152,271 positives in Italy. Up 3%. 19,468 deaths.
1,309 positives in Umbria. Up .5%.
This was a slide backwards a bit for us and a large rise in deaths 😢

519,453 cases in the US – 20,071 deaths.
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Buona Pasqua a tutti. It is Easter. People will be celebrating alone or with whomever they live with in their homes. Strange. It really goes against the grain to not gather with family. There are happy excited voices from the little house behind us…it’s a old lady and her husband…nonna and nonno to an extended family…sounds like they are all there today. It’s scary. They are quite old. Maybe the family could have given it a miss this year. Or not. 
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Yesterday was Sabato Santo… Holy Saturday. An amazingly pretty day. Sunny and upper 70s.

The Sindaco, mayor, of Umbertide did a nice address to the town. We all lit candles and placed them in our windows to honor our dead, and our health care workers here in Italy.

Otherwise we were very productive yesterday. We both did some cleaning, vacuuming, mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms. I also finished our packets for our Permessi renewals. We need to get the packet in as we are approaching the 60 days before expiration day. Not that the Questura are doing anything right now on this.

You may remember back before this viral apocalypse we had high hopes of trying for our Long Term permits. Well, that all has fallen by the wayside. We are still one document short and no way to get it now, so we will just apply for the Permessi again and maybe next year…

I got my sewing machine out as well. It’s plugged in and standing at the ready. Soon I will sew some masks. But we can’t rush into this.
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Easter Sunday. Today I got to go out of the house!! I was meeting Ely (Calagrana) with our Sunday deliveries. I carefully chose my wardrobe…and I carefully applied my makeup. 🤣 

I took the opportunity to carry out trash and I also was carrying Ely’s boxes from last delivery. The Carabinieri slowed and watched me walking with my trash…I guess I passed muster as they kept going. Whew! I whizzed across the bridge. And parked behind my bush. Ely arrived, with a fashionable face mask. We unloaded and loaded boxes. It was nice to see another person. Then my friend Heather came,  and another I didn’t know…we were all masked. So strange.  I was happy to hear from Ely they just “may” be able to survive if they can keep delivering food. It is so worth it to us to support them. We get good food, they can stay afloat. We wouldn’t want to lose them. They are our friends…but also they have a wonderful place which we would all miss.

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Buona Pasqua a tutti. Of necessity quiet but for the best. Enjoy the day. Stay home…stay safe. 🌈 Andrà tutto bene.

147,577 positives in Italy. Up 2.7%. 18,849 deaths.
1,302 positives in Umbria. Up .3%. 52 deaths total.

486,994 cases in the US. 18,022 deaths. Catching up to Italy 😢
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I learned a new thing today…don’t microwave your mail! I had heard that was a good way to kill the virus…well, I’m here to tell you it is NOT a good idea. It set my mail on fire…and now I’ll never know what that letter from the American Embassy said! 😂
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From a news article…liberally shortened for brevity by me.

A community on the (US) Pacific Coast had its own brush with covid-19 after a party appears to have spread the virus among the political elite.
It was a birthday party…someone was COVID positive. They spread it. This was in early March. [When the dangers were already known,… Eye roll.]

A dozen got sick, including the mayor.
“It’s always the hindsight,”  [another eye roll. they knew it was stupid] he said. “We’re all singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Even if it’s just one person who’s infected, that’s gonna get airborne. It lands on the cake. And we all eat the cake. So there you go.” He had “four days of hell,” complete with headaches and hallucinations. But he emerged with a hard-won respect for just how serious COVID-19 can be.

To not gather, he said, goes against every instinct. But given the potential consequences, those instincts will have to be denied — at least for now.
“Humans like to be around other humans. We need to be around people,” he said. “Now we’re just going to have to figure out again how to do that safely.”
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Yesterday was Good Friday. Normally there is a holy procession throughout the streets of the old town. The priests, the coffin of Jesus, and a statue of the mourning Mary. The town band playing dirges, and the townspeople following behind. Today, we had nothing. Sad. Below is the empty Via Grilli. Our street. So quiet. Normally the procession follows this street.

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Sadly, another Saturday without our local kilometer zero market. What are the farmers doing with their produce? I wish I knew. We have another market box coming from Calagrana tomorrow. I congratulate myself on using up almost everything I got last week, except for potatoes and onions…but they will keep awhile.

Tonight I will have either Pasta with Fava beans, or shrimp risotto. Here are pictures of the beans…

Next I boiled them for about 5 minutes. Now I need to skin them. Then we will be ready for dinner…I think the Risotto will have to wait.

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Stay safe all my friends…stay home…🌈 Andrà tutto bene…

Today, I decided change my title from Corona Virus, to COVID-19. Here’s why.

1,298 positives in Umbria. Up 0.6%. 51 deaths total.
Amounts up from yesterday 😕.

452,582 cases in the US. 16,129 deaths.
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A group of us on Facebook have a page for those of us around here. We were discussing garments for the isolation. For myself, I just change from night PJs to soft yoga pants and tunic tops. Very comfy. Then back to night PJs. Of course, if I’m going to take out the trash, I put on makeup, and change into good jeans and a sweater. Keeping up appearances is SO important… 👄 👁

Another friend mentioned they’ve rigged up a box outside their house for deliveries. Then when they get food or a package they take it to the disinfecting station, he said. Well, I was duly impressed that his town even HAD a disinfecting station! I was envious. Umbertide doesn’t have one. So I asked him what it was. Turns out he and his wife have cleared a storeroom in their house and a potting table and they put any new things on it and spray with a disinfecting solution. Then put on shelves for 72 hours. This, they call, their disinfecting station 🤣😂  Hahaha. Joke’s on me.
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Death rates are going up in most nations who shut down a couple weeks after Italy. We also had this here. The death rate lags significantly behind the infected rate, as we are now seeing in NY. Don’t be discouraged.  It is to be expected as the very sick are dying behind the curve.😕
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Wowzers moments!
”When the British government asked people to help the National Health Service (NHS) during the coronavirus crisis, it called for a “volunteer army.” Within four days, 750,000 people had signed up — three times the original target and four times the size of the British armed forces.”

To me this defines the British spirit…takes me back to stories of WWII days when every last British citizen was doing “something” in the war effort….we need this now. Everywhere.

I loved, loved this little story…” Michael Hayes, 55, is a taxi driver who joined the volunteer army and is awaiting his first official assignment. In the meantime, he spends about five hours a day driving NHS staff home, at no cost, from Newham University Hospital in East London, where his three children were born.
“Some of them come out, they’ve had dreadful days, the worst . . . and they are walking out thinking, ‘I still got to get home,’ I’m sort of like a little ray of sunshine,” Hayes said. “They see me sitting there and I whiz them home.”🥰

Happily I can report some of the same in the US.
Celebrity chef José Andrés’s organization and Nationals Philanthropies are partnering to use the [DC] ballpark as a cooking and distribution site for free meals in the community. The effort’s production capability target is 50,000 meals a day.
Kudos to José Andrés and Nationals Philanthropies!
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Last night we had hamburgers…absolutely Luthers favorite meal. I would roll my eyes but well, you get the picture. I do a small patty for myself and have it with a nice salad. It is OK.

Yesterday I heard from two long lost friends! It is SO good to touch base again. One from AnviCom, my favorite company to work for during my working career. It was really like a family. And the other a friend who worked mostly with Luther on a project. She has retired to her ancestral home in Kennebunk Maine. Happy to touch base again. 🥰 Sometimes a tragedy like this has silver linings of a sort.
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It’s a beautiful new day now. Sunny and mild weather for days on end. I would love to plant something. Maybe it’s too early. I just would love to see flowers on my terrace. Here are some more flower pictures, and a picture my neighbor got of the pink Super Moon.

Stay safe and stay the course…don’t give up. We are doing it! 
🌈 Andrà tutto bene…

135,586 positives in Italy. Up 2.2%. 17,171 deaths. All numbers are dropping.
1,263 positives in Umbria. Up 0.07%. 49 deaths. This is in line with what is wanted to relax the restrictions. Great news!

386,800 cases in the US. 12,285 deaths.
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So, speaking of restrictions…The below is from Tuesday edition of Corriere della Sera.

4th May will be an important date here in Italy as the government will assess the numbers of new infections and study the possibility of relaxing the lockdown.

In the meantime, there is word that Phase 2 is in the planning stage with hopes that certain industrial enterprises may reopen mid April on a limited basis.

Above all else, the government’s priority is to avoid a resurgence of infections during the summer months.

The restrictions pertaining to activities, gatherings and non-essential services ie. hairdressers, clothing shops etc will remain in effect throughout the weeks of May.

Furthermore, the distance between individuals in public, face coverings and the personal declaration forms will be enforced for the foreseeable future.
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I also saw this line in a newsletter published by MIT.
“This isn’t a temporary disruption. It’s the start of a completely different way of life.”

That got my attention.

“The world has changed many times, and it is changing again. All of us will have to adapt to a new way of living, working, and forging relationships. But as with all change, there will be some who lose more than most, and they will be the ones who have lost far too much already. The best we can hope for is that the depth of this crisis will finally force countries—the US, in particular—to fix the yawning social inequities that make large swaths of their populations so intensely vulnerable.”

I have wondered how this will permanently affect our world. The article these excerpts came from gave some pretty good best guess scenarios. People do adapt. This may be more difficult than most things…
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So, look what I did yesterday! I feel pretty good about this. I also watched the YouTube how-to video. Next….the sewing machine…

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So, time to say arrivederci…until tomorrow…stay safe at home…🌈Andrà tutto bene…

132,547 positives in Italy. Up 2.7%. 16,523 deaths.
1,253 positives in Umbria. Up 1.1%. 44 deaths.

352,546 cases in the US. 10,389 deaths.
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Buongiorno a tutti. Tuesday. Martedì. Today marks the fourth week of quarantine. 28 days.

Italy has turned the so-called corner. Which is good. The lockdown continues however. Luther and I were discussing just how long the Italian populace…or any populace for that matter, can be told…”just 2 weeks longer” before anarchy ensues. Is it better to say right up front, this is going to take two months? Set expectations more realistically. Because when you say you are locked down for two weeks…people hunker down and try. Then they say, well, that was good, but we need two more weeks…so we do it again….now we’ve got two MORE weeks. And people are definitely not being as good anymore. Not sure the answer.

I watch the news from the US and other countries daily. And see the numbers going up. I enjoy Governor Cuomo. And I hear him say the curve is flattening…and that’s good too. But, from our experience here it seems way too early to believe it is truly under control. I hope it is so. If the Italians get antsy being told to stay inside for weeks, I know the Americans will chaff against it even more.
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I decided to make masks for Luther and I…I decided this last week. Since then I have thought about it each day. Which means I’m making progress. A couple of days ago, while cleaning out the kitchen drawer, I found a dishcloth that looks like a good thing to use to make the masks. Big, big step! Yesterday, I ACTUALLY downloaded and printed a pattern for masks. HUGE step. Now, the patterns are sitting on my desk. I will contemplate them for at least a day or two… before looking at the sewing machine. It may take a day or two more to get that out…🙃

I took trash out yesterday. 🗑 I also went to the ATM. 💶 And I made minestrone soup for lunches. 🍲. Luther went to the farmacia. I counted 18 people waiting in front of the bank this morning. I think I will go out on the terrace and add guano to the pots of soil to enrich the dirt. Sigh. As you’ve probably noticed, I don’t have too much to talk about…on day 28 of quarantine. Living through historical events can be amazingly boring.
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Stay home and safe… no matter how boring.🌈

128,948 positives in Italy. Up 3.4%. 15,877 deaths.
1,239 positives in Umbria. Up 2.3%

331,151 cases in the US. 9,441 deaths.
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President Trump on Saturday warned that the nation would face “a lot of death,”  while also saying he would like to consider relaxing social distancing rules for Easter services.

I am sorry to tell our illustrious leader that you cannot turn on, and turn off, social distancing! If you do, do you think people will just decide to keep their sicknesses to themselves for that bit of time?!  If you allow Easter services, people WILL spread the infection…and prolong this agony of enforced isolation…not to mention major economic downturn and many more deaths. Puleeeze. I would say use your brain…but well, I forgot you haven’t visited the Wizard to get one yet…

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True-ism for the US…“From the Oval Office to the CDC, political and institutional failures cascaded through the system and opportunities to mitigate the pandemic were lost.”
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”Denial is not likely to be a successful strategy for survival,” GOP pollster Neil Newhouse concluded in a document that was shared with GOP leaders on Capitol Hill and discussed widely at the White House. Trump’s most ardent supporters, it said, were “putting themselves and their loved ones in danger.”
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Luther returned from a trip to pick up our weekly dinners from Calagrana. Starting this week they are preparing a box of fresh vegetables and fruit. It helps us stay home longer with less trips to the grocery. The produce will vary according to what is available. Such a great idea..

Our dinner was also courtesy of Calagrana. Cabbage packages – they were stuffed with pork along with cauliflower cheese gratin! Maximum comfort food.

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So, a new day. And a new week. Tomorrow we begin our fifth week of isolation. It has been a long slog and I fear we have a ways to go. But the heartening news is that our curve has flattened and begun to fall from its peak, as was hoped.  This makes it worthwhile. People here are taking this duty to stay home pretty seriously, nonetheless the police are out in force everywhere. If you stray far from home they will stop to ask why you are out and where you are going.
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I was talking to my brave niece last night. She is a nurse on the front lines in this war against COVID. I am so proud of her. A hero.  We talked of a lot of things but how to personally deal with this catastrophe did come up. It is something I wondered about. The nurses and doctors have to compartmentalize. They kind of check part of themselves at the door, kind of like checking a coat. Then, they work hours helping very sick people and trying to save lives. And, when the shift is over, they pick up that part of themselves and return to life as well as possible. It is a good way to do it. And one day, when the war is over, these brave people will have to deal with their feelings.  And she has a standing offer to come to Italy. If anything can heal a person, Italy can. Thank you for what you are doing my sweet niece. Be careful and stay safe.
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Stay home everyone, and stay well…Andrà tutto bene – it will be better. 🌈