It’s like we’re living with no destination. We can go out for a walk but can’t stop casually at the store or the library or café. Maybe wave to neighbors through a window.
To call what we’re doing “monastic” misses the mark. After all, monks live in communities, working and praying together. And being single, as he is, still doesn’t mean monkish.
We can’t hug or even touch anybody outside of our household, not if we’re maintaining quarantine.
Humans are social animals, after all.
At the moment, the one thing that makes sense doing is prayer.
First, it’s chicken, as we discovered trying to reserve thighs for the local soup kitchen. Our usual supermarket can’t guarantee us it can have them for Thursday.
(Let’s not start a run on the stores, though. They should be smart enough to be limiting purchases to one per customer or so by now.)
Next will be pork, apparently, followed by beef.
Blame the Covid-19 outbreaks out in the big-producer lands. Workers too sick too work.
I’m wondering about eggs, though many of those are grown locally. I hope.
What do you suppose those protesters out in Michigan are going to do about this?
We were wrapping up yet another committee session on Zoom and trying to look ahead to our next one when one member made an unsettling comment.
Said he, “I don’t expect to be out of this (self-isolation) for another two years, not until they have the vaccine in place.”
He’s a retired medical professional, and the other (now unretired) one in our group didn’t correct him.
It’s a gloomy prognostication, not just personally, I’ll admit as senior with a pre-existing condition, but as one considering its dire social consequences as well.
I was going to say the quip hit like a ton of bricks, but considering that the emotional impact had more of a slow motion effect, I’ll say like a ton of hay (hey, a ton is a ton, right?).
So much for dashing our hopes.
I think I’ll go listen to “Casey at the Bat” again, the poem with the phrase “but there is no joy in Mudville.” As if we’ll ever again have baseball, either.
So this general shutdown or shelter-in-place or self-isolation, call it want you want, is dragging on and will likely do so. Any novelty’s worn off. I miss my old routine and acquaintances. Can I assume I’m speaking for everyone?
My wife and I are lucky to live in a big enough old house so that we’re not always tripping over each other except in the kitchen. (Not that you care.) We have a big yard, too, which this time of year is beginning to demand gardening attention, getting me outside in the dirt and, well, mud. We also have access to a lovely carriage trail we can follow through a nearby woods to the top of a hill, giving us some decent exercise almost daily.
But I’ve definitely reached the state of blah, even when it’s not one of those dull wet deeply gray days. No, as I draft this, it’s partly sunny outside my window.
So here I am, up in one end of the third-floor attic, while my wife’s “working from home” with an online meeting on the first floor. I hate to walk through that. You know, the little square showing her face in the upper right-hand corner? Anyone else know the feeling? I’d move her to another room, but she’s comfortable in that particular spot. We try to adjust.
I can’t imagine being cooped up in a tiny apartment, much less with kids, though I’m sure that’s the case for many. Even a mobile unit in a trailer park would be way too confining.
What’s shut down goes beyond much of what most of us are seeing. Look, it even includes playgrounds! The one around the corner saved my sanity with the younger one more times than I can count. Let me sympathize with every parent during this duration.
As we were considering the possibility of extending an online workshop to our Quaker fellowship, to replace an in-person one we had cancelled, some of us sighed and admitted feeling Zoom’ed out.
That’s the phrase they used. Zoom’ed out. Bet it’s quickly popping up around you, too. The way Google went from a way of looking (as in googly eyes) to an online search engine (capitalized) to a verb reflecting generic online usage, as in “googling,” even when you do it on Bing or DuckDuckGo.
Zoom isn’t the only platform being used for virtual meetings. Go To Meeting is also popular, and Skype is still there for one-on-ones, among others. Feel free to mention alternatives.
So, now that we’ve recently added “coronavirus” and “Covid-19” as new words in our common vocabulary, we’re about to add one more.
My Quaker Meeting is part of two local ecumenical groups, one of them providing free twice-a-week community suppers for people in need. Our dinner guests are the homeless, especially, and others living in subsidized housing, but nobody asks questions as we welcome anyone who simply shows up. Each congregation cooks and serves its own menu on a monthly rotation. We Quakers do barbecued chicken thighs, mashed potatoes, and cole slaw, with pulled pork as the previous feature. Hey, it’s yummy and something nearly everyone likes. I love the rare times we have leftovers.
Even though the event is commonly called a soup kitchen, none of us serve soup anymore. The term simply points back to the tradition’s origins. The Methodists do lasagna. The Greek Orthodox do American chop suey and Greek salad. You get the idea.
So when our hosts at the Episcopal church decided to close their hall during the duration of the Covid-19 crisis, a concern for the dinner’s guests led to an exemption. The various congregations could still use the kitchen, but all the food would be takeout, something restaurants were later also ordered to do, while sit-down dining was prohibited.
It’s not the same, of course. We’re getting less than half of the turnout, but many are asking for two meals, to share with others, as well as an extra for the next day. So we’re happily dishing out about the same amount of food.
What we’re really missing is the community interaction. Many of the regulars enjoyed this as a time to socialize without having to spend precious cash on a place to sit. Better yet, this place was free of alcohol. Many would come early and stay till closing time, when an AA group prepared for its own meeting.
Another factor in shifting to takeout is that many of the volunteers are retirees in a Covid-19 susceptible range. Many of them are staying self-isolated, reducing the pool of workers. Usually, with everyone on board, it’s a kind of party, but when everything falls on just a few, things can be stressful. We’ll see.
But I do wonder if that’s what tipped one congregation to call in some caterers. That, or a desire to help our suffering local restaurants, too.
One other influence to consider is transportation. Our region is served by two public bus systems, both of them shut down by the coronavirus, and that may be keeping some of the regulars from getting to the church social hall.
What similar sorts of adjustments are you seeing where you live?
Back at the beginning of February, my wife and I each began using little notebooks to record all of our out-of-pocket spending, a practice I’ve discussed on the Talking Money series at my Chicken Farmer I Still Love You blog.
While both of us had a good grasp of where these little expenditures were going, by sitting down together once a week to compare them, we had a clearer of idea of what the other was up to as well as how some of our own impulse purchases were adding up. Or, more accurately, subtracting from our resources. I hate to admit I was probably stricter on my own indulgeances when I knew I was being watched. Ahem.
Well, we did well for most of the month and then slid on the data sharing as out schedules got out of kilter when it came to finding time of the comparisons.
Flash forward two months from that start, and I’m looking at what’s left of my notebook as well as at my wallet and coin change pile.
Quite simply, during the self-isolation of Covid-19, I’m spending very little beyond the usual checks for utilities and the like. I’m not going much of anywhere, so gasoline usage, car maintenance, and highway tolls spending are way down. My wife’s working largely from home, so her commuting costs are down, too. We can’t dine out and we’re not ordering takeout, apart from one mushroom-and-sausage pizza several weeks ago. I’m not dashing out on small grocery runs, and we are being more focused in the usual supermarket shopping, trying to keep it to once a week. Instead, we’re trying to work down through our pantry and big freezer, as far as food goes.
In addition, this is Great Lent, so we’re off wine, beer, and gin, not that we can blame that on the virus, but the savings there are significant, even as the ennui of quarantine does raise the temptation level. Admittedly, I do miss my evening ‘tini.
With many stores open reduced hours, the major shopping temptation is online. Gotta be careful there, as I see from all the Amazon and UPS and FedEx trucks popping down the street. I’m grateful every time one goes past without stopping here.
We are realizing that our charitable donations will be more important than ever.
And looking ahead, I am wondering about this year’s yard sales and how they’ll be affected.
How is the Covid-19 impacting the money in your life?
With all of the college students furloughed home to study online, it’s hard to believe the last time American campuses shut down was springtime a half century ago. Make that the ONLY time.
It was different, though, in several key ways.
The kids weren’t told to pack up and go home. No, we stayed together rather than scattered.
The strikes came from the students and then faculty as a protest against administrators and national events, rather than orders from the top-down.
They were triggered by the slayings of unarmed students at Jackson State in Mississippi and Kent State in Ohio by police and national guardsmen. (Sorry about the pun.)
There were other factors as well.
For those who are interested, my novel Daffodil Uprising covers much of that experience.
~*~
What’s happening today reflects a much different generational divide.
We shared a dream, and our career options appeared wide-open, though they chilled greatly in an economic downturn later that spring. We felt a hippie kinship across much of the nation. And we were angry.
By the way, we weren’t burdened by tuition debt, much less one we’d likely never be able to pay off over our working lifetime.
~*~
At the moment, the generational divide I’m watching is an attitude many have that Covid-19 is just for old folks (like me) or those with preexisting conditions (like some younger people I’m worrying about). Some of them think they’re immune or won’t get truly sick. As one I overheard saying, “I’d take a coronavirus for the team.” Oh, dear.
Let’s get real. I’ll go back to that report from France, where half of the intensive care beds were occupied by people under 30.
Still, there’s much more in this generational divide that’s simply festering. We ignore it at our own peril. What’s your take?
When I was a rug rat, family physicians would still visit patients in their homes. The docs even carried little black bags, as I remember, along with a different demeanor than we see today.
And then all of that became history. The front-line medical personnel even became referred to as primary caregivers or physician assistants or nurse practitioners rather than docs.
The Covid-19 outbreak, though, has it returning with a twist. The medico in question, even a specialist, is now calling some patients at home. Yup, on the phone. Voice, not texting. I’d say dialing them up, except nobody has a dial phone anymore.
And that’s what’s happening with my latest cardiologist checkup.
OK, I did have the echocardiogram at the hospital lab, so he has those results to work with. I’m wondering if he’s going to want my latest weight and blood pressure readings. I do have the home kit for that. There will be no listening to my breathing and other internal sounds.
Well, I’m also told of psychotherapists who are conducting their sessions over the phone, though I have trouble imagining that going very deep. Dunno. There are just certain things that come up in face-to-face interactions that don’t happen by telephone.
Where I live, any weather forecast of an approaching nor’easter, big snow, or deteriorating hurricane is enough to prompt a run on all of a supermarket’s milk, canned soup, and bread, usually in that order. It’s idiotic, I know, but it is a New England tradition for many households.
Somehow, though, those grocery shelves are always reloaded by the next day or two. Not to worry.
What we’re seeing with Covid-19, however, is something different. I mean, toilet paper? At first, I thought it was a joke, considering all the BS emanating from the hat-guy and the mess we’ve been hoping to clean up through the last three years. But no, not quite that, even if it does make for an easy-to-connect symbol of what’s passing for leadership.
I’m not sure where this one originated, but my old roommate from the early ’70s sent it my way.
Face it, people are scared.
Scared of something they can’t see, a virus.
They want something to hold on to, a sense of security or invincibility.
No wonder sanitizer suddenly became a valued commodity.
As “it” spread – the virus and the hoarding – the dried bean shelves were soon also emptied of something most Americans normally wouldn’t eat on a bet. (When’s the last time you had bean soup? It raises a specter of soup kitchens and poverty in the Great Depression, right?) So leave the chick peas (garbanzos), lentils, turtle beans, and the like for those of us who really cook with them, will ya? Store after store, ransacked.
‘Fess up. How are using beans in your kitchen? Which ones? Kidney beans in chili count, by the way.
Add to missing in action list all those ramen soup packets, which do reflect changing tastes in the USA. Besides, they’re easy to cook, even for a 10-year-old, so I can understand why they’ve been raided. But the sriracha? Maybe we should spread a rumor that it’s Chinese. (Its roots are Thai or Burmese, actually, but why quibble?)
Coffee and beer supplies, meanwhile, seem to be holding up, at least here.
We’re told of massed shoppers queued up in lines winding around one Costco building in California days on end. We just don’t have one within an hour of home, so we haven’t witnessed that phenomenon for ourselves.
We do know of one independent grocery, however, that’s being shunned – the Chinese one down the road. That’s a shame, for their food’s notable. You want fresh fish? They know their stuff. Where do you think we first found ramen and Sriracha and tofu, anyway?
Well, in all of this, we can add another phrase to our common usage: shelf-stable items.
What empty shelves and missing items have surprised you the most?
Jnana's Red Barn 