It Was Supposed to Be 15 Days of Change

Coronavirus Reflections

On March 16th, 2020 President Trump asked Americans to “Stop the Spread”. In January 2021 the United States Capitol Building was under siege during an insurrection of disgruntled Americans convinced the 2020 President election had been fraudulently hijacked.

In 10 months the world broke.

It was not “fake news” or a Canadian tv epidemic series from the 1990’s, we were suddenly wearing masks and grocery stores were out of canned vegetables.

Everyone believed (or wanted to believe) that Coronavirus COVID19 couldn’t be as bad as alarmists claimed. Eventually schools closed, international borders were shut down, and, desperate to feel some sense of control, good intentions spiraled into riots.

All history is revisionist to some degree so here is how it began for me:

15 DAYS of CHANGE

Social distance and limiting our physical interaction and travel was announced as the best tool we have to “flatten the curve”.

These phrases will be part of our idiomatic vocabulary for decades.

Closing bars, encouraging teleworking, shuttering schools… it’s surreal and hard to digest.

Social distance — an introvert’s dream.

Flash forward to March 18th and the Candian-US border is closed to non-essential travel, the military has announced releasing ventilators and masks to the broader medical system and reassurance that Department of Defense is working to protect us both home and abroad. Yesterday, my local city put out “Order #1” reducing restaurants to a 10 person occupancy. We don’t have a Coronavirus case yet but they are taking this seriously.

The 15 Days mentioned by President Trump feels ambiguous but here we go.

I’m going to consider March 17th Day 1 so it matches up with local Order #1.

DAY 1 (Tuesday)

I’ve been home since Friday afternoon.

I’m happy I already had a stock of food. I didn’t however, hoard toilet paper. We have several rolls but there isn’t any on store shelves. Fingers crossed that they stock is back in the next 10 days.

Glad I went to Costco last week because by all accounts there are hoards of shoppers out. Thermometers aren’t available on Amazon. Saturday night I realized we didn’t have one. My husband scored one at the local grocery store.

Yesterday, my daughter (who lives an apartment on the other side of town) looked for a thermometer several places and eventually got the last one (with a duck on it) stuffed behind other items at the same grocery store.

Today, she is at work in a corporate training program that’s not observing the recommendations yet. None of us love that but she went. Her sister, a college senior, is impatiently awaiting information from her professors on how on-line classes are going to work.

I’m supposed to be in Atlanta, GA editing a forthcoming book.., that’s on hold while we focus on the pandemic at hand.

My husband is “key personnel” so he continues to go to work but he’s driving instead of taking train and his office of 40+ is <10. The house is definitely being vacuumed and wiped down more often. I’m almost on a 1950s cleaning schedule.

Over the weekend local closed groups had a posts offering baby sitting and pet sitting services. I’m not seeing those anymore.

We did let our college daughter’s friend in for a while. She bribed her way in with a drink from the Taco Bell drive-through and promise that it’s her first trip out in several days. They kept social distance playing SIMs and texting each other for a few hours.

News from my daughter’s apartment at college is that all three of her roommates are there now. One thinks she may have picked up COVID-19 at the airport (no symptoms), one is still going out to party. We’re glad our daughter is here.

DAY 2 (Wednesday)

About noon it occurred to me that even though I already work from home I’m more sedentary that usual.

I need to slow the spread of my waist.

To keep my social media happy and offset the email barrage of every company I’ve ever ordered from assuring me they care about my health in this fast evolving situation I’ve been posting daily photos of my garden.

Birds are singing and buds are springing so I pushed myself to get moving in the garden after dropping plastic bottles off to my neighbor for a science experiment. School closures aren’t effecting them as much because they homeschool.

A month ago homeschool families were often misunderstood, now homeschool parents considered valuable resources.

The Flying Dragon Trifoliate Orange is always a FaceBook favorite so of course I shared its spikey splendor.

This virus is so big that social media missed the Ides of March, Pi Day, Friday the 13th, and St. Patrick’s Day. It’s insane.

President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act and the press is reporting the COVID-19 deatb of a 14 year old boy. Children are not immune.

The yellow Schwanns truck arrived on time for delivery just like it does every two weeks. A different driver from a different depot but just as friendly as usual. (David, my Schwan’s guy for the last decade+ broke his foot about eight weeks ago so we’ve had substitute deliverymen.) The news says Coronavirus stays on cardboard up to 24 hours and plastic for “two to three days”. After we kept our social distance I wiped down the plastic bag handles and the food boxes windering if the shiny boc coating counts as cardboard or plastic. Then, I washed my hands humming the intro to The Final Countdown by 80’s hairband Europe

At least people are washing thier hands — concerning that they were no doing that before.

Hand sanitizer doesn’t replace hand washing!

Not much has changed for the cats.

While most of the world begins to emerge from shock we begin to deal with the first stage of grief- denial and emotional isolation. Bits of anger are popping up but I think most of the work is still in shock or denial.

DAY 3 (Thursday)

The First Day of Spring

My husband is still going to work in DC.

All of this reality, the loss of her last bit of college, is sinking in for my youngest daughter.

My oldest daughter started working for Geico a couple of weeks ago and is watching the Fredericksburg call center scramble for solutions in this fast evolving situation.

That’s become the keyword phrase for life. “Rapidly evolving situation.”

I’m still working from home but my attention is focused on connecting with people. Checking in by text, a dozen acquaintances or so a day; the shock is starting to wear off but most people are thinking of this as a short term problem. Compared to a lifetime this is short term I just don’t want to be short sighted.

It’s our 23rd Anniversary.

We’ve experienced family deaths, 9/11, hurricanes, tsunami, earthquakes, health threats, other epidemics… we will get through this too.

Today, I venture into the bigger world for unavoidable business.

As government works on a trillion dollar economic savior package and businesses around the works shutter up, the lease on a friends small shop ends this month. An Italian family with fiery spirit. I think this crazy thing is the catalyst they needed to close up the shop and I have merchandise to pick up.

In the President’s daily Coronavirus Taskforce Press Conference Americans stuck overseas gets a little airtime. There’s talk about efforts to bring political prisoners abroad home. When reporters get to ask questions there’s mention of American travelers stranded abroad and I’m sure that will start to fill in some of the news cycle. The main focus is on rushing treatment trial through FDA and hope that an old malaria drug now used to treat arthritis may be a partial COVID-19 treatment. Vaccines are coming but not fast enough. Medical supplies are being manufactured but not fast enough. Things sound brighter. The emohasis is on light at the end of this tunnel. If we keep social distance and flatten the curve things are looking up.

When I drive into Fredericksburg my optimism fades. Too many people are milling around in gaggles of 4–6 eating ice creams.

I see one person lick someone elses cone.

I consider turning around and going home but this is a business trip and picking things up next week isn’t going to be better it will just frustrate my customer. My college senior is riding with me. We both try to hold our surprise in.

Loading back into the car with merchandise packed up I’m thrilled it took less than 20 minutes. A small stack of our children’s book “COURAGE” was part of the pickup. As soon as we get into the car she squirts hand sanitizer for me.”It’s 63% alcohol.” she offers. The recommendation is over 60%

Hubby gets home early. Daughter makes us a romantic dinner. My older daughter calls to tell us the entire Geico center on route 17 is being shut down.

Everyone is beimg placed on tekework. The desktop computers are being sent home with employees and everyone has bern assured they will keep getting paid. The rumor mill panics with gossip that the President is getting ready to order a nation wide lock down.

Earlier in the day I spoke with an old friend in Las Vegas. Casinos and the entire strip is shut down. He’s part of the construction crew for the new sports arena — they are still working.

By bedtime California is on lockdown.

DAY 4 (Friday)

The TV remained off until 5pm. Too many things to do. News alerts still come to my phone and I get more promotional links to the latest mass media stories. The theme seems to be “people flocking to beaches” and “college students can get sick too”.

My daughter’s university now has a confirmed student case and according to my phone there are confirmed cases at Vanderbilt which has offered all students a pass/fail options. Secondary school districts across America are in a virtual school battle between having teachers teach and providing education with the real world problem that not every student has internet and computer access so its not fair to the disadvantaged student to grade anything remotely. Yep. It’s a cunnundrum.

I’m grateful that my biggest virus challenge was deciding if I should have my two hour a week housekeeper come. Don’t judge me — some people go to Starbucks I hired some help on Care.com

My biggest concern was “is it safe to let another person into my house”. Not just the risk of her bringing the virus in but also the risk that my husband is still going to DC everyday and it’s possible one of us has it without knowing. I don’t think we do but that’s the big threat: the contagion is invisible.

“Contagion” is a cantankerous term and perhaps a subject matter expert can comment below on if I’m using the word correctly but Coronavirus is contagious which means there’s a contagion involved right?

I also wonder if our cats can incubate it. Their response continues to be sleeping and swatting at the feather on a stick.

I decided on leaving it up to the housekeeper. From my perspective she’ll be cleaning so the risk in low. Daily rounds of disinfectant wiping and soft surface lysol are good but a hearty bit of deeper cleaning is better.

The risky part seemed like going to the ATM to get money. I took a stylus so I wouldn’t have to touch the buttons or the screen, put the cash in an envelope and washed my hands as soon as I got home.

Slippery slopes are always the problem with human behavior. I was already out and my daughter has been watching Tic-Toc videos of people making a frothy drink with instant coffee. How dangerous could it be to stop into CVS and pick some up?

Everyone was doing well keeping social distance and I didn’t have to touch anything because I still had my trusted stylus with me.

Disinfecting cleaning products were on a shelf behind the counter that may normally stocks cigarettes and restricted items.

Allergy pills, canned air, and spray paint haven’t been sold to minors for a few years… is there an age limit on cleaning supplies now? How does that work into the one per customer limit?

It didn’t seem fair to let the house keeper in and then not let my 22 year old have a visitor so we fell a little down that slippery slope. Most of their conversations have been about other college students not taking this seriously so I chose to believe they are being reasonable not hypocritical.

As my cell phone vibrates with alerts that the State of Illinois has issued at stay-at-home order and the local military pharmacy has closed their lobby I understand why no one wants a lockdown but my slippery slope shows why public orders may be needed.

Meanwhile, I did get out into the front yard for a bit of gardening. Japan has stopped hanami (flower viewing picnics) but I can still enjoy our cherry tree which is almost in full bloom. Considering out cats live their entire life in the house I’m confident we can handle more time at home. If not I’ll have start taking them on walks.

DAY 5 (Saturday)

Movies are a big part of our life.

What better way to excape the surreal situation around us that close the curtains and focus on an animated movie. We paid $20 to stream “Onward”. Nope, no one in the house under 22.

Of, course movie watching is better with popcorn. I’ve kept food stock up so going out is a choice. It’s kept my stress at bay.

This morning hubby and I ventured to Wegmans. Constant cleaning everyone and clear directions on social distancing were in place. We touched as little as possible, came home and disinfected each item.

Spent the rest of the day watching movies and cooking big batches of pork, beef, and barley so it will be ready for soup, Mexican burrito night, and some lunches. Pulled pork BBQ on homemade hamburger buns for dinner.

I’m seeing so many posts about making masks for hospitals but this seems like the kind of good idea that gets thrown in the trash. Note to self: research “reusable masks for COVID19”.

DAY 6 (Sunday)

Churches remain closed.

1. People remain is shock and denial.
2. Germany limits gatherings to 2 people.
3. I stayed home making donuts and checking on my family.

ABC published Coronavirus updates.

FLASH FORWARD through my youngest daughter’s college graduation and moving to Boston, my oldest daughter’s wedding, my husband’s retirement, a presidential election, and all of American trying to bake homemade bread and giving up.

Days 1–6 seemed to repeat like Groundhog Day and as of January 17th the “15 day plan” was overly optimistic.