Post by J. ClarkeI'll start out.
I consider myself to be rather fortunate in that I have a job that I
can do as well from my living room couch as from my cubicle at work.
I'm also fortunate to work for a company that has rather deep pockets
so there shouldn't be any immediate layoffs. And that they are set up
to support working from anywhere for most employees. And that the
local governor seems to have decided that we are "essential" so the
government isn't going to shut us down. And I have enough toilet
paper and paper towels to last until some are delivered in early April
(confirmed in stock). Kleenex on the other hand may be a problem. I'm
a senior so I can use the early hours when the shelves haven't been
stripped by the hoarders. It's surprising how many seniors get out at
6 am to go grocery shopping.
I'm annoyed because I suspect that several of my favorite restaurants
will have folded by the time the governor decides to take his boot off
our necks, if he ever does, and I've done a lot of cleaning that I had
been putting off and I'm going a little bit stir crazy.
So, anybody else want to go?
*Me*, not much. I was a champion of social isolation _before_ this
month, who hadn't held down a job since 2006 and hadn't held down a job
for more than 2 weeks since 2004, with a failed second attempt at
college between those dates (basically, there are few jobs for an
autistic person who also needs intellectual stimulation. And then after
2009, I didn't offer a strong back even if someone _wanted_ to force me
to work menial jobs that would drive me insane during the workweek) and
had all of _one_ person she interacted with offline who was _my_ friend
rather than being a friend of my parents or my sister. The longest I was
spending in greater proximity than 4 feet _before_ this was when I was
in for dental work or various issues with my GP.
Now on the other hand, I live with my parents due to everyone involved
knowing that even were I to somehow manage to start drawing disability
_under Trump,_ I'm incapable of keeping house on my own for more than
about the 2 weeks that their vacations have maxed out at. And _they_ are
both going to turn 71 before May, with Dad additionally having worked
his way through college in a brake factory (though Mom and I don't know
any more about his health than that as he's notoriously private about it).
_He_ had been spending extended periods of time at our vacation condo at
the foot of one of the now-closed ski areas, and the original plan had
been, just before the governor asked that people stay the eff out of
Summit County, for him to return there for the following couple of
weeks. So he's getting stir-crazy.
Mom and I, meantime, had been in the habit of dining out once a week,
usually without Dad in tow, on a night other than Friday or Saturday
(though the last month before the closures, he came with us 3 out of 4
times). She's so insistent on that that two nights before the state
closed restaurants, we were eating at Outback (I _usually_ check in on
Swarm if for no other reason than to see if there's a member special
going on; for reasons related to "that auto-posts to Twitter", I skipped
that step that night). I have no illusions whatsoever that she'll pass
on going into restaurants again the second the no-dining-in order is
lifted, because she values the whole experience, not just the "eating
foods we can't cook ourselves" part, and is even largely passing on
takeout for that reason so far.
She prepares taxes; client contact is still done only in person and both
she and her associates-who-aren't-quite-employers are very clear that no
one in that discussion wants to set up her work computer so that she can
telnet in and basically use her home machine as a dumb terminal [and of
course, actually having _live data_ on the home machine would be even
less acceptable). I don't know what her response will be if the state
tries to stop her going into the office, since it has individual rooms
set off as offices rather than a 'modern' open-office plan and she'll
protest that means she's properly distanced.
We didn't do an emergency stock-up of _any_ sort, not least because all
of us are somewhat dependent upon being able to grocery shop at least 2
days a week if not more (though Dad is now ruling out Costco for the
duration as it's the only one keeping all its lines outside the store
for now, and he won't stand in line for three hours just to get in).
Softsoap is starting to hang around on the shelves for a short time, but
only the individual bottles and usually not in our chosen scents; it
looks like another week for refills. We have plenty of paper towels, in
part because I bought the last 8-roll pack of Bounty from Lowe's a week
ago Sunday, but we're down to just over a week of toilet paper and no
one realised that pasta and ketchup would be thin on the ground for a
while, so we have one box of the former and probably about a week's
worth of the latter (which means we're on the lookout for both). Our
bread situation will probably get us to past when it's no longer being
snapped up; there's nearly a whole loaf of Oroweat Oatnut in the bread
box and another in the freezer, along with the loaf of Oroweat Whole
Wheat that Mom had to settle for because as I was at the local
Kroger-affiliate snagging the last two Oatnuts, it was all that was on
the shelf at the Safeway by where she works (which would still have been
more than at the Safeway by where we live!). We have plenty of Minute
Rice, but very little in the way of Rice-a-Roni, Pasta Roni, or instant
mashed potatoes, and none of us are all that good at making white rice
palatable without a full preparation of a gravy or similar sauce that
pretty much requires a main dish. We haven't had _fresh_ potatoes in the
house in weeks and buy as few as possible, and pretty much plan to buy
fresh veggies every couple days at all times (we can_not_ grow them; the
deer problem in the entire subdivision is severe enough that a garden
would basically require a greenhouse.) We also didn't stock up on enough
frozen vegetables _yet,_ so we're hoping that a full lockdown doesn't
happen until after frozen-veggie supplies recover.
I'm semi-dependent upon pseudoephedrine, not so much to breathe properly
as so that mucus doesn't build up at the top of my throat and then core
my larynx down to layers that make it hurt to speak. I've been taking
two Mucinex a day, at least one with 12-hour pseudoephedrine, since
before I was fired from the call-centre job in 2004 (get an actual cold,
it goes up to two to keep the sinuses clear enough to not make me wish I
only had a migraine!). However, my _lower_ respiratory system last threw
flags sometime in the early twokays, with asthma that somehow eventually
cleared up entirely--I was even able to _jog_ part of the route between
Safeway and Wal-Mart on Sunday, which is at least 3/4 mile each way, and
while there was some "getting winded" more of the reason I called it off
is that my back absorbs shocks _very_ badly and I really need to get
into more high-energy _dancing_ than running or even jogging (blame the
congenital stenosis).
Pseudoephedrine is…a bit of an issue sometimes under normal
circumstances thanks to the Feds' obsession about not permitting anyone
to amass the raw materials for meth-cooking, It's _more_ of one when you
might at any point be forbidden to step out of the house for 15 days,
and there's a 17-day countdown between when one purchases one 20-pack of
pseudoephedrine and when they're next permitted to purchase one
(especially combined with _literally_ having to present one's photo ID
in person to buy, so you can't order it in). Thankfully, I have 9 left
from last month's, and purchased a new 20 on Sunday afternoon.
So outside of a lockdown commencing between 13 and 16 days from now, I
should be able to speak painlessly into May.
Of course, at this point, said lockdown would have to come from the
_state_ level, since Trump's going to order on a Federal level the
country _back to business_ on Monday instead.
I don't know what happens if any of us contract the virus either; I
should _survive,_ but I can't cook; I personally rate Dad's chances of
survival worse than Mom does, and if _she_ passes, I'm in dire straits
whether or not Dad does (she's the only buffer keeping him from likely
either throwing me out or worse, so him surviving without her is bad; I
also can't _cook_--I rely on frozen meals and deli salads when they're
out of town-- and the two of them are moderately more able to, so losing
them both would be even worse).
And did I mention that the website encouraging draconian measures says
that without at least a three-month-long shelter-in-place, the state
will be 70 percent infected even _if_ it practices social distancing,
and have no free hospital beds for a month?
--
Chrysi Cat
1/2 anthrocat, nearly 1/2 anthrofox, all magical
Transgoddess, quick to anger.
Call me Chrysi or call me Kat, I'll respond to either!