Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (1)
March 23, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Week 1 of shutdown in the Bay Area.
I haven’t written anything substantial about this because I’ve just been too busy trying to deal.
We had begun taking steps weeks ago. Around March 1st, PiC and I were adding moderate overage to our canned and frozen food stores.
A week later, I started cooking up fresh and frozen stores to make actual meals in case I got sick myself. (Not that PiC wouldn’t care for me but he’d also have JB and the two dogs to care for. That’s a lot for any one adult.) Traffic was noticeably light going to and from work this second week of March, many employees who could were already working from home. Unfortunately since we have no help, and we both had to work full time and on site (PiC), we weren’t prepared to make that shift. Still, it was in our future and I was going through our stores of supplies to create a Treasure Box for JB.
By March 14, I was on the verge of pulling JB out of school. We had planned to spend the weekend finalizing our stock up of our supplies and start to hunker down. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for us, and we had to spend the whole weekend fixing the house instead. That was frustrating but we were so (so so so) very fortunate to have a couple of friends who were available and willing to come help us with the repairs and with entertaining JB. I haven’t had local friends in a long time and I’m still stunned by their generosity.
By the evening of March 15, I couldn’t justify keeping JB in daycare even if they stayed open. I didn’t want to risk them being exposed to anyone who had been exposed to the germs over the weekend. We made the call when we went to bed.
By Monday when this post goes up, it’ll be Day Ten in calendar days but I’m only recording weekdays.
Day 1: March 16th, the changes came in fast and thick. Schools had already been shut down, businesses were looking at suspending operations, then the order came for a 3 week shutdown. Only essential businesses (groceries, pharmacies, banks) were permitted to stay open, restaurants could only be open and serving at half capacity with six feet between customers. PiC foraged for the remaining supplies we meant to get on the weekend. It took him four hours to pick up the medications and remaining food items we needed. I had charge of JB all day since he then had to try to figure out the situation at his job which was all kinds of mucked up.
JB and I had a deal: one chore earned 1 item from the treasure chest. My house has never been so tidy on a Monday! I was exhausted but the day wasn’t so bad.
Day 2: Still chaotic, still unclear as to what was going on with PiC’s work, so we swapped around parenting in large chunks.
Restaurants now only permitted to offer take out and delivery. I’m worried for our local restaurants can’t take a month long loss of income but they aren’t set up to offer gift cards either.
By the afternoon, I was hearing that schools might be out until fall and my mind just shut down a bit. I can handle the logistics of several weeks of this but months? Nope. Not ready to even begin figuring that out. I stress cooked dinner for the night and made up a soup for the next night.
Soup and cake appear to be my stress food of choice during this mini-apocalypse. I’m very prone to flavor fatigue so it makes sense, soups have more complex flavors than my usual non soup entrees (*cough* sort of lazy cook *cough*).
Day 3: I’m so tired. Not having to get everyone ready “on time” is the one luxury of this whole thing, it’s an easier transition to the start of my day. But I’m still very tired. It’s both double duty of parenting and work physically taking a toll and the stress from the dread of family members getting sick (I have a lot of loved ones in healthcare and on the front lines) and the massive unknowns for the future. The economy hitting the skids and the people who will get hurt from that is bad enough, but the pandemic aspect is pretty horrifying considering how badly this thing will spread.
I worked for a few hours with my Child Coworker sitting nearby. They explored virtual museums and nature trails, then played on some pattern games at NASA’s site. I made everyone lunch while PiC walked the dogs, baked myself a stress cake, cleaned, bleached hard surfaces and door handles, then finally sat down to some lunch for myself. My body is incredibly sore. PiC and JB went outside to do a lot of hopscotch and other random driveway games. He’s also the Director of Being Enthusiastic about Kid Things.
We’re talking about how to safely support local businesses. JB had a special request for lunch: a turkey and cheese sandwich. They ate 1.5 sandwiches… What on Earth.
My chicken turmeric stew? Perfection. Everyone was a fan. I could think of a few tiny changes to make but I’m very happy it turned out well.
I am craving many snacks because I can’t go out to get them. Bet you anything that even if we weren’t shut down, I still wouldn’t go get them. I just want what I can’t have. This will likely be a recurring theme of this shelter in place experience.
Day 4: I woke up at 4 am thinking about virus related stuff and never got back to sleep. Partly too much thinking, partly because of body aches. One day at a time is a good mantra but it also doesn’t do anything for my worries.
I’m currently concerned about sustainable water supply in case we get treated to a break in public water supply in the midst of the outbreak. I’ll be ordering a few smaller (half gallon) water containers for home storage from REI so we can keep a fresh water rotation for short water stoppages. (I avoid buying bottled water if at all possible.) I’m also researching larger volume water storage to figure out how to store enough for a real emergency like an earthquake.
PiC was away at work more than half the day, wrapping up projects, so I was working and solo parenting and caring for the dogs. I didn’t mind but it was not a day of me getting much done and that undone work hangs over my head. He was appalled to see coworkers hanging out having lunch together. He avoided his own teammates entirely. I’m grateful for a spouse who takes this whole thing very seriously and is super conscious of my medical vulnerability. He’d never put me or JB at risk for a lunchtime chat.
Day 5: I’m a whisper away from screaming. We started the day late. I couldn’t sit down to work until 9. I had to take care of a couple things for PiC. By the time I got close to getting in my groove, I was interrupted by questions. And more questions. And more. Then JB had a distance learning lesson I had to set up for. Then I had therapy which was good for me but it was also more time away from my work.
PiC basically solo parented all day so I could do what I could do but it still felt like a day of not getting anything squared away and that was frustrating.
I did manage to pay a bill and order some water bottles from REI so we can beef up our water supply well in advance of needing it. I don’t want to be caught short of clean drinking water in the middle of a pandemic because a pipe burst or a quake hit.
We’re leaning toward getting water bricks for high volume storage. I can lift a half brick (1.6 gallons) on a good day (probably) but I shouldn’t do the full brick (3.5 gallons) and risk reinjuring myself. It’s a tough balance: how do we store enough water for survival but also make it accessible?
I’m having complex feelings which brain therapist tells me is both normal and ok.
- I’m so so grateful we are (relatively healthy ish) warm, dry, safe, we have ALL the amenities of modern society in electricity, clean running water, working plumbing, the ability to work from home and keep our kid safe at home, we still have income, and the ability to access healthcare (albeit in a limited way because we don’t want to add stress to the system AT ALL).
- I’m so so worried about my family and friends and people I’ll never meet who are all on that sharp end of the stick, working to help patients, and staying away from their loved ones to protect them. And I’m worried for the people who are considered essential and cannot stay home.
- I’m worried that PiC’s hand injury won’t get better soon, I’m worried that my stress won’t let me rest which makes my pain and fatigue worse. I’m scared for the world as this spreads and I know that the economic impact on the most vulnerable among us will be incredibly rough.
I’m working on letting myself feel these feelings like I do for JB. It’s apparently the healthier thing to do than shoving it all down and locking it up.
We have an adequate supply of food. Why do I keep wanting to go grocery shopping??
*hug* we’re right there with you. Knowing that we’re as ready as we can be for what’s coming, and yet how can anyone possibly be ready for THIS?
One thing that’s helping me a little is to keep thinking back to WW II. There were hundreds of thousands of families that followed rationing, bought war bonds, and planted victory gardens – because that was their way of fighting. They couldn’t be on the front lines but they could do their best to help those who were.
*hug* I’m glad for every one of you being safe as long as you can be.
That’s a good reference point and a philosophy I’m trying to follow.
Such incredibly strange times. Could never have imagined something like this happening in our lifetimes and yet here we are. We go into full shelter in place from Wednesday night and have two days of restricted movement to ease into it. Very grateful for flex working, great teammates and managers, friends and family. We’ll get through this but there are going to be some hard days for sure.
Definitely some hard times ahead. I’m glad you’re sheltering soon, I feel like people cannot get isolated fast enough for my peace of mind.
I am so grateful for the internet that lets us all stay in touch though.