Overpiled maladically

Serge said to me last night, "Today is the first day of spring, isn't it?" Wut? Wait just one minute now, I am the announcer of seasons in this household. It was just another in a long line of examples of how much life has changed in the last couple of weeks. The first day of spring, by the way, turned out sunny and cold, much like today. We did not leave the house.

This morning's cases and body count

I have only left the house 3 times in 13 days. I have walked a block to the market or across the street to the drugstore for a total of maybe one hour outside the house.  The first time I did this on March 12th, there was a line to enter the market and panicky shoppers with overpiled shopping carts. Everyone had toilet paper. I wondered if coronavirus caused diarrhea as I paid for my onions at the express checkout.

My job vanished that day along with millions of others. Falling squarely in the double whammy category was the complete cancellation of all our short term lodging reservations for the next few months. If we can add to the whammies, my side gigs of travel agenting and dog sitting are also devoid of customers. In every scenario of the future that has played out in my head (a constant element of my mental real estate, maladically) none of them even remotely looked like what we are living through. It's wartime without the guns.

I don't want to touch anything anyone has ever touched, ever.

When this started, I had a positive attitude about it, yay, free time at home, but over the last two weeks, dread and anxiety have crept in, disrupting my sleep. Keeping the news on surely doesn't help so I am trying to cut down on that and do more creative things such as updating the blog. We need to go out every few days for perishables, otherwise, we are doing much as you are: cooking, cleaning, hobbying, social networking, and trying to stay upbeat in the face of the grim facts unfolding.

This morning I went to the market and hit the jackpot. Clorox wipes! Bleach! Lysol! When I got home, I saw on Ebay Canada that Clorox wipes were going for over $15 and I had just paid $4.60! When I told Serge, he immediately forbade me from selling the wipes on line.

Jackpot at the Maxi Supermarket this morning

A lot of people are talking about hope. What hope? There is no way out of this mess that does not involve serious carnage to humans and economies. Unless we get a vaccine. That is where the hope lies, but since that's over a year away, we may have to endure such changes to life until then, which is clearly unacceptable. Glad I am not a policymaker at the moment.

So. I've got taxes to prepare and homework reading to do (my class where I am a student has just switched to on-line format with Adobe Connect) and work to do on Serge's scarf. Peace out peeps!