Shelter in Place!

So we’ve been told to stay home for the next three weeks.  First area in the country to take this step.  Probably a wise move, given what’s going on these days.

I’ve been following this pandemic thing more and more attentively over the past few weeks.  The increasing severity.  The seemingly inexorable spread from Asia to Europe to here.  The lack of any effective response from our national government – self-congratulatory happy talk about how well we’re doing and shifting blame for what isn’t going well.

And wondering how it will affect me.  Given how old we are, both Sandra and I are high risk candidates for succumbing to a viral infection.  Neither of us has underlying medical conditions that would make it worse, so that’s a good thing.  And given that our life style is such that we are not out and about much regularly and don’t interact with many people often that’s also a good thing.  So at least initially, being told to shelter in place isn’t a big problem.

We do have a trip to Europe scheduled for May.  A couple of weeks ago we decided that we’ll make a decision about going on April 1.  Given what’s happened since then, it now looks like the likelihood of being able to go or wanting to go in May is about zero.  Maybe reschedule for September?  We’ll see.

My last foray out of the house was Friday when I went to the grocery store.  I hadn’t given much thought to what the store would be like until I arrived and found the parking lot was full and there were more people wanting to shop than I’d ever seen before.  The environment was insane.  People rushing around grabbing this and that, disconcerted, in a panic mode.  I managed to buy most of what I wanted, and I was sobered by what I’d just encountered.  Made what’s going on very real.

To be continued . . .