1 Mai, 2020

Happy Labour Day!

All my friends in the US are going, WAIT!! WHAT?? Labour Day isn’t until September. I learned something new last night. Most of the world celebrates Labour Day the first of May.

The first May Day celebrations focused on workers took place on May 1st 1890 after its proclamation by the first international congress of socialist parties in Europe on July 14th 1889 in Paris, France, to dedicate May 1st every year as the “Workers Day of International Unity and Solidarity.”

The date was chosen due to events on the other side of the Atlantic. In 1884 the American Federation of Organized Trades and Labour Unions demanded an eight-hour workday, to come in effect as of May 1st 1886. This resulted in the general strike and the Haymarket (in Chicago) Riot of 1886, but eventually also in the official sanction of the eight-hour workday.

Some of the articles I read yesterday gave a couple of reasons why the US celebrates a different day. Though I have not been able to find a definitive reason. The first reason seems to be that when Labour Day began to be recognized President Grover Cleveland did not want the celebration. to be on the same day as the riots. He thought that commemorating the riot would be a bad thing. So when it was ratified as a holiday in 1894 it was set to commemorate the end of summer. I found some other articles that say the US considered moving the holiday back to 1 May, but when the old Soviet Union began to celebrate Labour Day as a sign of communist strength, the US decided to keep the holiday in the fall. Apparently, it is still a holiday in the US, though; today is Loyalty Day and Law Day. I guess the Government in the US felt it was better to celebrate these two things on the day the Labour Unions showed disloyalty and a willingness to break the law!

Well, I hope you feel like you learned something. Now back to life in Switzerland.

Today marks the 4th day in a row of nearly constant rain. Thank goodness we live on a hill. I would be worrying about flooding if we lived at the bottom. Now I am worried about all the construction going on right above us. I hope the supports they have in place to keep the hillside from coming down are staying strong! I think we went 6 weeks without a drop of moisture, and nature is trying to make up for it all at once. 🙂

Other than the rain, just like everyone else we are still in a shutdown, this week has been mostly the same as every other week. Switzerland began easing the lockdown 4 days ago. Since then there has been an uptick in number of daily cases. The graph had been on a downward trend. Remember Switzerland is a small country, so the numbers are more comparable to a state in the US. The day before the lockdown was eased there were 59 new cases. The first day a big spike to 229. (My guess is that this is because Dr offices were opened up, and if someone was exhibiting symptoms they were tested, but that is just a guess on my part.). Yesterday, there 183 new cases confirmed. I am guessing that is within the expected growth, because there is no talk, yet of delaying phase 2. I am trying to show solidarity with Julie and not get my hairs cut until she can get into the salon. I honestly do not remember the last time I went over two months without a haircut. I think it was probably high school. Now, for some reason, there is a lot of white and grey mixed in with the brown though. It is driving me crazy though, I hate having to put goop in my hair to keep it out of my eyes.

Phase 2 takes place on 11 Mai. Phase 2 includes opening of schools, limited opening of restaurants, all stores can open, gyms and health centers can open, as well as museums and libraries. Restaurants have to follow some very strict rules, though. Only 4 can be seated at a table, and each table has to be at least two meters apart. Julie and I were talking about what this means for our favorite place. Our favorite restaurant fits people in like sardines. it is a very small place, but they squeeze in between 75 and 100 people. My guess is that with the new guidelines, they will be lucky to seat 30.

Julie and I were thinking about making a hotel reservation that first weekend restaurants are open, but we still have our trip scheduled back home the end of May. Right now the trip is still scheduled, so we are waiting to see if we make it back home before doing any travel here.

Well, I had to come back and edit this before I sent it out. We have had a break in the rain; so I was able to get out and jog 6 miles this morning. I had planned on taking the day off. To get exercise the last 4 days I have been relegated to riding my bike in the laundry room. Treadmill running is the absolute worst, but a close 2nd place is riding a bike in the basement. I have done 120 miles on my bike this week, and watched 9 or 10 episodes of Daredevil while I was pedaling; so I was really glad to be able to get outside before the rain came back. I did hit a milestone on my jog this morning. (that is why I am writing about it.) On my normal course, the first 1/2 mile is up hill. Today was the first time I made the 1/2 mile jogging the whole way. It was very slow, but I made it! I think my next jogging goal will be to jog to the bottom of the hill and jog all the way back up. Yeah, that is probably NOT going to happen!

That is it for today. I hope you stay healthy!