Well What Do You Know

Summary: I'm buying everything I can think of wanting. Seattle is shutting down, some things will be shut for good when this is all over. I'm lucky on so many fronts, and I worry about everybody who isn't.

Monday, March 9th

I'm sleep deprived, running on a few hours.

Worked from home today. We're both doing video conferences and our desks face away from each other so sometimes I would sneak off to not be in the camera. He's so handsome and I'm so close to him and how am I supposed to work in these conditions! It's nice, though.

All of Italy now under lock down, but the things I hear about the lock down don't suggest it's all that strict. But I hear the hospital situation over there is getting ugly.

Because I'm working from home, I caught Fitz farting in the litter box and managed to get a fecal sample to bring in to the vet without locking him up with a litter box in a room. Which meant I got excited hearing a cat fart, which I guess is the kind of small joys I have to look forward to in this brave new world.

Another trip to CostCo. The emptiest I've ever seen it. Get birdseed, so I can watch birds at the feeder. Get crackers, get almond butter cookies, get fruit leathers, get two things of gum. Get Miralax for Sugar, who has chronic constipation. Get some more shampoo and conditioner because I realize I don't know how much is left in our current bottles. None of the things I'm getting are low, I don't feel bad or like I'm hoarding unfairly, and I don't get ridiculous amounts of any one thing. Though I do see somebody with hand sanitizer in their cart, I swear I did, and then spent almost 20 minutes trying to find out where it might be to no avail. I never cared about hand sanitizer before, it's just that now I think about how many things I touch when I'm out of the house, and it's so many, and I can't wash my hands much while I'm out there, and I'm so bad at not touching my face. I have a tiny amount of hand sanitizer, one of those nice travel bottles picked up in the past. I got more loungewear because I'll probably be using more pajamas than normal.

Life Center got enough to test what seems to be the remaining residents. 31/35 came back positive. They still haven't been testing all those employees showing signs of the illness, though.

There are stories of people stealing masks and sanitizer from hospital waiting rooms.

Message from the President:

So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!

Tuesday, March 10th

Stayed up way too late again just trying to keep up with news.

Drop Sugar off at the vet for her teeth cleaning, pick her up after, everything gone well for her. On my way home from dropping her off, I go into Bartell's (local drug store) and pick up a box of Mucinex because husband gets congested all the time and if we don't have it around his tiny sinuses make him miserable.

Washington Department of Health confirms 265 COVID-19 cases, including 24 deaths.

Seattle Utilities won't shut off anybody's utilities for nonpayment during this crisis, I hear.

I hear food banks are having a hard time doing their work because so many volunteers are seniors at high risk and can't do it now. I feel like I should help but I don't know how to really start and my local food bank wasn't listed in the call.

RIP one of my favorite local restaurants, Local 360, I guess.

I call my mom, I warn her to make sure she's ready.

I get us Taco Time for dinner, because I should stop doing that, which seems counterintuitive and a little embarrassing. We've been eating out a bunch it seems just in case soon we can't anymore.

Manage to cry while talking politics with my housemates, which is a bit embarrassing and I'm pretty sure just from not getting enough sleep. I'm glad they were both very supportive to me about it though.

Wednesday, March 11th

I got a bit more sleep last night. Maybe tonight I'll manage a full one. I need to start taking care of myself and get ready for the long haul. You'd think I'd have plenty of time since not commuting gives me back almost two hours a day, but I guess I just go into fugue states reading everything.

The WHO officially declares a pandemic.

Conference this morning with Jay Inslee and other governmental company. Seattle bans events above 250 people. As of tomorrow, public schools won't meet for two weeks. The cascade of notices happens all throughout the day: the zoo is shutting down, Pacific Science Center, MoPop, the Aquarium. Restaurants are shutting down permanently or temporarily, people are getting laid off. NBA suspends their season.

Mom reports from Vegas that she couldn't find hand sanitizer down there. But she does have stuff to use. Still worried about her catching it or my at-risk sister that lives with her catching it, because she's often driving my niblings to school. I know it's in Vegas. It has to be. Big tourist destination, international airport, lots and lots of crowds, yesterday there was a convention with over 100k people.

Proofed a big 1 pound block of yeast we have that was best by 11/2018 and it apparently was still alive and bubbling vigorously. We got it because husband liked the idea of having it but then he found that specialized bread machine yeast was better for his bread machine and also the idea of dealing with opening up the vacuum packed block intimidated us and so we never opened it.

Washed the five gallon buckets, so I can start rotating the 50 pound bag of flour through the freezer into them and my husband can start experimenting with making whole wheat breads.

Trump is banning...flights from Europe but not the UK? Ugh, it's such a pointless measure. Tough sounding and useless. The new cases are here already, they self generate, there is not enough testing to let us catch and contain. MAYBE blocking/screening travelers from affected countries would have worked, had we ALSO had robust testing infrastructure and made sure to support people in quarantine so they would be willing to do it.

Saw a tweet pointing out that in a ten minutes speech various agencies had to issue three separate corrections, like how US citizens aren't restricted from coming back, which of course makes the whole idea extra preposterous because all those people are no more nor less likely to come back with the sickness than anybody else, or how no, we're not stopping ALL TRADE either geez mateez, and how no there is no deal for coronavirus coverage from insurance companies. I guess one thing he really wants to do is payroll tax cuts, at least until November, which sucks for Social Security and won't do jack to actually help the situation--the people most in need aren't even going to have paychecks to have taxes taken out of to begin with.

Even here testing, of course, costs money. Too much money for the more vulnerable parts of our population to make worth it. Pretty sure you'd have to go through a doctor through which a lot of people don't have. I technically have a doctor, but I haven't been back since my last primary checkup a couple years back for, well, reasons involving just knowing I'm not living

Realized my grandma was a smoker in her youth and call her up and make sure to warn her to BE CAREFUL. I'm pretty sure I don't explain it well. Also message my aunt on Facebook after the phone number I try to call her at doesn't seem to work, because she's been posting stuff there implying that the flu is more dangerous and just wash your hands duh. But she's a school nurse, and she's going to be in contact with any kids that come down with it, and . She's probably in danger too, honestly, having been a cancer survivor. But trying to warn her for her own sake feels like I'm infantilizing her, I guess, after all she's a health professional and I'm just a computer toucher. But she's also not here, where everything is going down fast.

Realized we could make home made sanitizer with Isopropyl 91%, which we have multiple forgotten bottles of because of that sale at Bartell's one time combined with my husband's need of it for cleaning certain equipment, and glycerin, which I got trying. This is great because I only have two tiny little impulse purchase bottles.

My roommate has a scratchy throat. I don't think he has coronavirus, but it's a stark reminder that we should be staying inside because one of us may already have caught it. We talk about what to do because he did want to get some groceries. (In all my food prep, I've been keeping an eye out for which parts of it he can eat, because he has dietary restrictions and it's gotta be share time because we are all in this together.) I offered to go out for him, then suggested Amazon Fresh. But there's no delivery slots for Amazon Fresh anytime soon. Offer to pick it up at their location in SoDo. He ends up finding out Prime Now will do it and that does work.

Order a bunch more cat food online to supplement ANOTHER order I made a few days ago to supplement mouse supplies and cat food. It's not that we don't have vast stores of cat food already, we do, but my cranky old man cat is so finicky these days and won't eat a lot of it or demands something other than what I've been feeding him recently and I need to make sure I have enough stuff for him around to eat even if we have trouble getting access to it anymore. He's on steroids and it feels like they send me more than I actually manage to give him so I have a fair amount to go still. And I still have a couple of inhalers for Fitz, who has asthma.

The cats have been pretty happy at having us home so much. Fitz is practically living in the carrier that I haven't put away from the vet trips and I'm considering leaving it out for him for good.

Email my kettlebell gym asking if there's a way to give instructors credit for the classes I would have taken. I don't mind paying my monthly subscription to them but I think instructors there get paid by the class and I don't want my personal holing up to negatively affect that.

Send off an email to the mortgage broker we used last time because rates have plunged. It's unknown if we can improve the rates for the mortgage we took out 3 years ago because everybody and their dog is also trying to refinance, but it might be possible, and I might as well try. It might save a couple hundred a month.

Trying to keep up with the news and just starting to fail. I guess it's not going to be possible to feel like I really know things without tearing myself apart and I need to stop doing this to myself and start sleeping. And I can't quality source the amount I'm taking in, either, because everybody is talking about everything and not all of it is good. I want to try and source the things I'm writing about here but that's so much time, too. I export my 800 browser tabs into OneTab and just export a list of them.

Things I should do:

* Start a regular cleaning routine. Going to make a bleach solution spray bottle to preserve disinfection wipes for things like phones and the wood table, and use the bleach solution on counters and light switches and door knobs. And more vacuuming because the cats make everything so filthy so fast and now I'm here all the time unable to ignore that.
* Make an accounting of all the foodstuff we have, and a plan for when to eat it, so as little as possible goes bad and we make it last as long as possible.
* Reconcile the budget.
* I still owe the tax guy the last remaining paperwork but I've been running around doing so much prep work OR READING THE INTERNET that I haven't sealed the deal.
* So many things that pop into my head at every moment.
* Start using the kettlebells we have at home and bodyweight movements to exercise routinely so I won't lose all my sweet sweet muscles that I worked so hard for.
* Maybe go donate blood? I mean, they really need it. I never have before but I'm young and healthy.
* Start gardening a little because it's so nice out
* Make a list of things to accomplish around the house

I didn't leave the house today. But I wanted to. I wanted to get more panko bread crumbs, and husband wants ice cream. I shouldn't leave. We have enough, really, more than enough, we are so fortunate, but it's like an itch, "you want this thing and if you just do it now you can have it because later you might not be able to."

Good night, everyone.