We're making tangy ribs, grillin' beans and cole slaw along with a few IPA's.

Galveston put in mandatory masks till September. A very good idea at the rate the Houston area is increasing in the cases.

Duh. We'll have to keep this merry-go-round spinning indefinitely (those who don't will get sick and some will die) until the politicians get real about imposing and enforcing shutdowns and closures to let things simmer down.

The failure to do that is why things are worse now than they were in March and why we're back to Square One.

The mayor of our small city has finally decided to cancel the big annual 4th of July celebration. They initially announced it was going to be "limited" to 3500 attendees, but cases here keep increasing and city leaders decided they couldn't take the chance. I wonder how many people would have showed up.

We will be grilling chicken and having it with potato salad, baked beans and watermelon. Not sure about dessert yet.

If it's not too hot out, I plan to do some yard work.

After the premature reopening of TX disaster and a likely decline in their base, I suspect Patrick, Cruz and Abbott and their ilk will be voted out in a landslide next election. As a former repub acquaintance put it, GOP now stands for “get out party”.

Dan Patrick is the one that said the older folks (us) should take one for the team and open up the economy. So glad I don’t live amongst the covidiots in Texas

I'll be working 12 1/2 hour shifts for 3 days starting Friday. I'm sure most people in Ky will go on as normal, having large family bbqs and fireworks. Infections will keep going up including deaths.

Lots of California beaches were just announced closed for the weekend also. We had to cancel a ride. The ridiculousness is the beach we ride on isn't a swimming/surfing beach. However it and nearby beaches will be closed to sand activities but you can do just about anything in the water, swim,surf, paddle board, kayak etc. How is sitting with your head 8 to 10 feet foot off the ground on a horse that is at least a horse length away from others on a lightly used beach more dangerous? These type of idiotic mandates are what are making people crazy and rebellious. It shows that this isn't at all about health but control.

Oh well, off into the forest we go. Longer, tougher ride through the hills and valleys. Good for the body. good for the soul.

My county in Kentucky has only had one death, an 88-year-old woman who passed away early on when we only had a few cases. Now, the number of cases has gone up sharply, but thankfully no more deaths.

I've sat in my son's car and watched people entering and leaving stores here, and the majority of them were wearing masks.

IMO, it's the young people who are helping the spread of this disease. A lot of them refuse to wear masks and they're out going here and there, hanging out with friends, etc. I know some older people are doing the same. They don't take it seriously,and think the government is lying about the virus and the amount of cases and deaths.

Some older people have decided they have lived long enough not to be afraid of dying. They are afraid of being sent to a care center.

My brother (in his early 50s) had cancer surgery last year and had 22 lymph nodes removed, which puts him in the high risk category. We are both very afraid of what might happen in the near future before a vaccine is released.

Younger people do not feel as vulnerable and are often disrespectful of their elders - I learned this when I visited Cabo San Lucas during Spring Break. The younger Mexicans were respectful, but not the Americans on holiday.

Fourth of July in Galveston is way too hot, humid, and uncomfortable IMO, and even the water (which is full of jellyfish and Portuguese Man of War) for me to want to go there - plus the sand is way too hot. I have also stepped on a sand shark in Galveston because the water is too murky to see the bottom, even when less than two feet deep. Better to stay in Houston by a pool. I wonder how apartment complexes in Houston are handling their pool areas.

I prefer Galveston in October, after the hurricane season, and I have seen bio-luminescence there, which was fun.

Texas now has a face mask requirement except it does not cover counties with less than 20 positive cases. Should soon cover all of the counties soon.

Greg Abbott (the governor) has finally mandated masks for all Texas counties with 20 or more positive covid 19 cases, takes effect at noon tomorrow. $250.00 fine after first verbal or written warning. And localities can now restrict outdoor gatherings of 10 or more people.

I don't know what the wait for this gained him, except many more positive cases/deaths, Houston tried to mandate masks near the end of April, that was when he ripped authority out of localities' hands and started his re-openings, which has led to the dire situation we're in now.

maifleur03 - I type much slower than you. lol

I don't know what the wait for this gained him...

It gained him trump's favor = further "opportunities."

Kinda sux to be expendable, huh?

We went to Surfside and drove through Galveston over Memorial Day weekend. It was possible to be more than socially distanced where we were at.

Here's a picture.

A lot of people were like us and just wanted to get out of the house. The bathrooms were closed and we didn't bring our own potty so we only stayed a couple of hours and ate our picnic lunch. I only walked along the beach. I didn't get in the water. I'm not a fan of flesh eating bacteria that seems to make an appearance every summer.

Galveston itself was more crowded. We drove through, but didn't stop. I wasn't comfortable with the close proximity of some of the people. Too many people at too close of a distance for my comfort level.

Not sure what we plan to do here for the 4th. We had planned to go to San Antonio next weekend, but original reason for going got cancelled so we rescheduled our visit until later. I need milk so will grab some burgers when I run to the store tomorrow. My neighbors appear to be well stocked in fireworks. My little doggy will be terrified.

" It was possible to be more than socially distanced where we were at."

Are you missing all the people standing and sitting together, and the vehicles parked closely together? Not adequately distanced to my eye.

I used to go to Surfside when I lived in Houston, but because it is so close to the mouth of the Brazos River, the water is somewhat more murky than Galveston, as I remember. I did like Surfside as a town and that it was less crowded than Galveston.

"Are you missing all the people standing and sitting together, and the vehicles parked closely together? Not adequately distanced to my eye."

I saw families standing and sitting together. I wasn't parked in with those people. We were by ourselves on the other side. People were parked, but not sitting in their vehicles. There were gaps in there so you weren't actively walking by people.

So it was possible to be more than socially distanced but many seemed to not be doing that.

I'm curious how you know that the groups of people aren't related and living in the same household. The people I saw appeared to be socially distanced when I was there.

I'm looking at the apparent group of adults seated together in front or under the red umbrella/tent and those standing to its right under the blue one. Groups of adults are rarely members of the same household. Your question to me is fair but in return, what made you think they WERE from the same household?

I wasn't there and you were, so I'll defer to what you saw. The explosion of cases in Texas beginning a few weeks after Memorial Day suggests that there were a lot of careless and unsafe public interactions in many places and your photo seemed to show that. Maybe not.

If people were generally seen by the authorities to be keeping away and at safe distances from one another, why was it thought to be necessary to close the beaches? No need to answer that, it's a rhetorical question.

The topic of the thread is Galveston and so I'm not picking on this part of the country or Texas specifically. The same problem of irresponsible behavior and carelessness is happening in my area too.

Texas is a hot bed for covid. Texans in general, me included as a Texas native....don't like being told what to do. "Cowboy mentality". This is going to be a herd immunity state. Note: I wear a mask everywhere...anywhere....not trying to get sick. I keep saying....I made it this far in life, I was not planning on dying from covid.

Lucille, what is a pan butter cookie with jam?

There must be a Russian name for them, my grandfather would make them several times a year. The dough is rich with butter and egg yolks and a bit of sour cream. Half is rolled out on the bottom of a cookie pan. Then a layer of jam is added. My grandfather always used plum jam, for a few years he made it with plums from a little tree on his property. (I have some nice strawberry preserves and will be using those). Then long strips of dough are made from the other half of the dough and criss-crossed on top of the jam. The cookie is baked at a fairly low temp for 45 minutes or so. It is allowed to cool and cut into individual cookies , each one having a cross on it. The cookies went into the old jar in Grandma's kitchen, where Grandpa cast a loving blind eye to little children making cookie jar depredations before dinner.

There is no actual recipe, I made it by watching him. I miss him.

Wow! That sounds really good, Lucille! (The cookies) Similar to Linzer cookies? But I don't think Linzers have eggs.

And closing the beaches also sounds good. Seems like too many people just aren't taking this virus seriously. I wonder how many have to die from it before they realize it's a very real threat to everyone and dangerous.

Rusty

Mexico has closed its border with Arizona. https://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/national/article243985782.htm