The promised second storm has blown in and unlike yesterday’s, it is truly a storm, with everything beyond the western hills lost in gray and gusts of wind that make tree-tops pitch, windows rattle, and rain hit the panes like handfuls of gravel. It’s always the wind that makes a storm in San Francisco. Windstorms have been known to knock out the power city-wide, blow out windows, and turn the Golden Gate Bridge into an enormous, thrumming harp. This one is not at that level, but it darkens the apartment to where lights have to be turned on, and it makes me grateful to be inside.

During the Friday Zoom meeting our head librarian said the sidewalks around the public library in the Tenderloin are almost impassable with tents as the homeless do their best to “shelter in place.”

For me, sleeping late is 7:30 am. Michael, quite sensibly, is still in bed. Even the cat, who normally demands her breakfast before dawn, stays in the bedroom next to her radiator, and if I so much as peek around the door at her she mrrrs irritably at me without opening her eyes or raising her head.

A friend posted the figures on the numbers of those known to have the virus, and the largest number seems to be those not considered at risk, the young. This may be due to the false sense of security that comes from not being in the “vulnerable” category. Yes, some of the young went out and partied, but in our neighborhood at least, many of them offered to help by delivering food, running errands, volunteering to manage the lines at grocery stores, etc. They now may be paying for either foolishness or unselfishness. I hope the statistics on the severity of the virus hitting older folks harder stand up, and those young people suffer only a couple of weeks of sickness.

11:10 am

Both Michael and the cat are up now. The cat is on her customary spot on the sofa behind me, Michael at his desk, and rain is steady for the moment. The wind has died down, Grace Cathedral is broadcasting its service, and the shadows and the steady patter of rain are all tied together with the meditative rumble of an organ.