Pandemic, Social Distancing and Shelter in Place

My coworker snores.

Sunday, March 15th

John and I went to Kroger this a.m. After reading facebook posts yesterday from around the
U.S. I was expecting empty shelves and stressed shoppers. The only totally empty thing I saw
was the meat counter. And a butcher was packaging up some meat in the back for people.
I did not look for hand sanitizer or TP. I did hear a lady mention there was no ground beef.
There were no crazy people. Except for yours truly of course. 

I think I embarrassed John with the way I piled stuff in  the cart, but I started to feel stressed in
the store. Crazy! I was doing a tally in my head of how many meals I could make and what I
needed to fill out meals. Plus there were good things on mega sale still in stock, so I would
have bought a lot of certain things anyway. All that stocking up stuff gets in your head. And
eating out does not appeal at all. I need to stop reading the prepping stuff and focus on the
real, true story. My main motivating factor is limiting trips to the store so as to not bring anything
home to Mom. 

And then I came home and touched things and forgot to wash my hands. Good lord! 

I like normal. Chaos is not my thing. And It isn’t even here yet.

I watched Panic in Year Zero, Night of the LIving Dead, and the Andromeda Strain.
The current strain is not alien. There are no zombies. Right? 

Friday, March 20

Last night my friend sent me a text she had gotten from an acquaintance (which turned out
to be untrue), which I’m not going to repeat, and that, along with potential bad weather last
night, made me more nervous about my supplies. If the power goes out a good bit of my
pandemic supplies will be in jeopardy. More canned/shelf stable things would make me feel
better. Everything gets in my head. No Walmart pick up dates for days, no Amazon pantry.
Despite my intent to avoid the stores, yesterday on my lunch hour I drove by Jewel, WalMart,
Stock & Field, Menards . . . all packed except for Dollar General. Parking lot was strangely
deserted. I thought maybe they were out of stock on things, that would be the reason, but no,
they had some of the canned/pantry goods I was wanting. There was only one other shopper
in the store besides me, weird. I asked the clerk how they had avoided the madness and she
said it has been crazy up until that morning. Maybe the miserable, rainy weather helped.
Canned/shelf stable food worked like an anti-anxiety drug. You never know how life is gonna
go. Craziness.

Thursday, March 26, 2109

Back to present day . . . Joe's birthday today, 59! I made a cake. Joe still going on
unauthorized outings, but at least he is going less . . . I think. I think a Mallaney cousin shares
Joe's birthday, but mom is napping and I can't remember who it is, so Happy Birthday! We are
getting pizza tonight, Joe's choice. Nice not to have to cook, but I'm not entirely sure eating out
is safe.

I put a bra on and wet down my wild hair yesterday and went into the office for a bit yesterday
and then last night my friend walked by and I saw her and we maintained proper social distance
and had a nice visit. I was on my bed propped up on a pillow sort of with my head in the window
and she was standing outside. I got the giggles thinking about how it looked from outside . . .
someone standing between two houses, talking to herself? LOLOL So I talked to 3 live people
yesterday who are not in my family and it was very nice! Make that 4, I also talked to the nice girl
at the drive through at the bank while I made a deposit for work and picked up some dirty germy cash for Mom.

Mom watches too much news. Of course she does not have the internet to amuse and terrify
her. I turn on the TV in the morning and Seinfeld is on, then Friends. I have so much available,
and so far this is what I watch. Interesting. Except I throw in the occasional pandemic/killer virus
movie. Now I can have even more Seinfeld funnies to share with my young coworkers that they
don't know what I am talking about. It is amusing how many work situations parallel Seinfeld
episodes. Sometimes being the oldest one in the office is fun. Sigh. I miss my coworkers. I sure
got lucky there. Co-working from home is just not the same.

Our fridge is full, we never have this much food at one time. So imagine my shock when I
opened the door the other day and the light did not come on! While I was standing there, in
shock ,it kicked on, whew, it was just the bulb. Some timing on that bulb burning out, right!
Amazon to the rescue! But now I read how you are supposed to sanitize everything, from
Amazon and the grocery store and everywhere, ewwww. That is life now, like it or not.

My friends and I keep saying stuff like did you ever think you would see something like this in
2020, or in your lifetime, or in the USA?

Stay safe and well.

Kathleen ☘

March Madness

2020 St. Paddy's Day Shirt for Kay! I will rock this shirt  . . . I'm just not sure where . . .  

No news is good news! Life is quiet right now . . . except for all the chaos going on in the world!

Mom is doing well. John invited us over for lunch last weekend. He has invited us before over the last few months but Mom either was tired, or didn't sleep well, or just didn't feel up to the trip when the day came. And honestly, getting Mom out voluntarily in the winter is hard! Well, last Saturday she surprised us all and we had a nice visit and lunch over at John's. Always nice to see his weird and amusing kitties. Mom hadn't been out for ages, except to routine doctor's appointments, so it felt good to get her out.  She did very well. And some fresh air can do wonders for you.

Joe is well too, and takes excellent care of Mom. I wish he'd quit the ciggies, but gosh, that is so hard.

I had been sort of polling my friends and co-workers, to see if they were "Deniers" or "Preppers" (Reddit terms), and I think most of them were Deniers until very recently. I made jokes to my friends that I was ready, I had picked up some chocolate chips and some vodka, but in reality I fell somewhere in between, and had started picking up a few extra things weeks ago when doing my regular shopping. Then one night I was looking at photos of people's stockpiles on Reddit, and got a little nervous, so I placed a pick-up order at Walmart and did an Amazon pantry order, so I was spared any last minute grocery trips the last few days. I wanted to have some easy heat and eat things on hand just in case we do get sick. I suppose a real "prepper" would be amused by my pantry, but it sure makes me feel better. And I already had a good supply of paper goods on hand so I have not contributed to the TP shortage! I really feel for the people who do not have the means or transport to lay by some extra things without undue hardship.  I am one of the lucky ones, I know.

Mom and I were laughing about the freezer. We all like soup, and there were cheap hams at Jewel a few weeks back, so I grabbed a couple, so then over a few weeks I ended up with nice meaty ham bones. Soup freezes so well I made extra, so I have split pea soup, ham and beans, and 15 bean soup in there.  Too bad Bernie is gone, he would love all that bean soup! LOL Now there is no room in freezer for any freezer pandemic (junk food) goodies because of all the healthy soups and chunks of ham.  And NOBODY is in the mood for more bean soup! It will taste good again soon, I'm sure. And too bad if it doesn't, we are eating it anyway!

I feel eventually we will all be housebound for a while and, while I am dreading it, my biggest fear is bringing something home to Mom, so I will probably be relieved when it happens. It will be a problem for Joe to stay home, he likes to get out a few times a day, but even he is starting to acknowledge that he will have to change his ways for a while.

I have plenty of food for Finnegan too. I would not want to stress him out. When I left today he was sprawled in the middle of mom's bed taking up a tremendous amount of room and she was contorting herself so as to not disturb him! Amuses me to no end.

I am at John's this weekend and was hoping to pick up some weekend deals at Kroger, but now I'm not even sure I want to go there. They probably don't have any mega sales goodies left anyway. I might be done with grocery stores for a while. The parking lot was a little scary today. I have an interesting list, including sauerkraut and rye bread . . . luckily I picked up corned beef before things got too crazy! Bernie's favorite. March 9th was Mom and Dad's 61st anniversary.

Stay safe and well. It is coming near, cases in Springfield today. If anybody needs any TP or a can of beans (or bean soup!) just whistle! ☘