Things to do in quarantine while we wait
Hello, friends. Hope your time of being healthy at home (at least that's what Kentucky's governor calls it) is going well.
It's just my wife and me here, so we're doing OK. I think we've settled into some routines that are not all bad, and we're both getting ample rest.
My work in medical sales has become all virtual, so can only make contact with people by e-mail and telephone, with the occasional videoconference meeting thrown in. That's not too bad, but it can get a little monotonous. And believe me, I am most grateful that my employer, the corporation that owns the medical facility I represent and countless others, considers me and my colleagues to be essential.
So here are some of my customary observations about the lives we're leading these days...
Meals are a highlight, as they represent an opportunity at least once or twice a day for some variety. My wife usually doesn't take time for lunch (she normally cares for our youngest grandchild but is not during this period, for obvious reasons) but said that she's enjoying having something midday. I always eat lunch, but have managed to keep things mixed up so as not to tire of too many things.
I'm also enjoying the time to cook at home, now that I'm not traveling regularly. We generally have a brief discussion each evening, so that we can do a little planning (and thawing, if what we have in mind is currently in the freezer). And now that the weather here in central Kentucky is warming, we're grilling most every night, which is just fine with me.
About our only respite from being at home are weekly trips to the grocery and occasional other jaunts to get supplies of one kind or another, like a prescription or gasoline for the lawn mower.
The grocery trips were endlessly frustrating the first couple of weeks of our stay-at-home culture, and our local grocery still has little, if any, toilet paper, paper towels or cleaning supplies of note. On the bright side, they are stocking much more fresh meat and produce. So much so that two weeks ago I chatted with an employee who was stocking the produce area, and expressed to him our appreciation of how hard he and his associates must have worked. I thought the guy was going to cry, but he quietly thanked me and told me how hard it had been.
Judging by the parking lot and the relative crowd inside the store, people have apparently stopped their panic buying after their first couple of weeks of it. I suppose if you were concerned that martial law was coming in order to keep people in their homes, you'd buy all of the fresh chicken, too.
We also are experiencing some challenges as far as how to spend our evenings. We're trying very hard not to watch wall-to-wall news coverage, opting instead for Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear's daily updates (complete with the mantra "we will get through this, and we will get through this together," which he asks viewers to say along with him; childish but effective, because ultimately he's right) and NBC Nightly News.
We would be in the early stages of the baseball season, but instead I've watched parts of Reds games from previous seasons and even some very poor quality tape of the 1975 World Series (hint-the Reds win in seven games!).
So we're pillaging our movie collection most nights, which is why we have it, after all, and finding things in Netflix to watch here and there, also. And we're not watching anything to do with pandemics, either (Note: if that's your interest, I'll just say you should watch Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion," as that seems almost to the letter what's happening right now).
We'll make it to the other side, by following the guidelines we've been given and, frankly, with some luck as well. That day will come, although it will be a little difficult to identify it when it does, as I doubt we'll get a general "all-clear" order.
But we can look forward to it all the same.
It's just my wife and me here, so we're doing OK. I think we've settled into some routines that are not all bad, and we're both getting ample rest.
My work in medical sales has become all virtual, so can only make contact with people by e-mail and telephone, with the occasional videoconference meeting thrown in. That's not too bad, but it can get a little monotonous. And believe me, I am most grateful that my employer, the corporation that owns the medical facility I represent and countless others, considers me and my colleagues to be essential.
So here are some of my customary observations about the lives we're leading these days...
Meals are a highlight, as they represent an opportunity at least once or twice a day for some variety. My wife usually doesn't take time for lunch (she normally cares for our youngest grandchild but is not during this period, for obvious reasons) but said that she's enjoying having something midday. I always eat lunch, but have managed to keep things mixed up so as not to tire of too many things.
I'm also enjoying the time to cook at home, now that I'm not traveling regularly. We generally have a brief discussion each evening, so that we can do a little planning (and thawing, if what we have in mind is currently in the freezer). And now that the weather here in central Kentucky is warming, we're grilling most every night, which is just fine with me.
About our only respite from being at home are weekly trips to the grocery and occasional other jaunts to get supplies of one kind or another, like a prescription or gasoline for the lawn mower.
The grocery trips were endlessly frustrating the first couple of weeks of our stay-at-home culture, and our local grocery still has little, if any, toilet paper, paper towels or cleaning supplies of note. On the bright side, they are stocking much more fresh meat and produce. So much so that two weeks ago I chatted with an employee who was stocking the produce area, and expressed to him our appreciation of how hard he and his associates must have worked. I thought the guy was going to cry, but he quietly thanked me and told me how hard it had been.
Judging by the parking lot and the relative crowd inside the store, people have apparently stopped their panic buying after their first couple of weeks of it. I suppose if you were concerned that martial law was coming in order to keep people in their homes, you'd buy all of the fresh chicken, too.
We also are experiencing some challenges as far as how to spend our evenings. We're trying very hard not to watch wall-to-wall news coverage, opting instead for Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear's daily updates (complete with the mantra "we will get through this, and we will get through this together," which he asks viewers to say along with him; childish but effective, because ultimately he's right) and NBC Nightly News.
We would be in the early stages of the baseball season, but instead I've watched parts of Reds games from previous seasons and even some very poor quality tape of the 1975 World Series (hint-the Reds win in seven games!).
So we're pillaging our movie collection most nights, which is why we have it, after all, and finding things in Netflix to watch here and there, also. And we're not watching anything to do with pandemics, either (Note: if that's your interest, I'll just say you should watch Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion," as that seems almost to the letter what's happening right now).
We'll make it to the other side, by following the guidelines we've been given and, frankly, with some luck as well. That day will come, although it will be a little difficult to identify it when it does, as I doubt we'll get a general "all-clear" order.
But we can look forward to it all the same.
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