Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

I was planning mt everest as my quarantine location :(

Speaking of which, just because we'll be stuck together for a while, more or less, we did some meal planning last night and absolutely no one in my household was the least bit helpful.

Me: Since who knows what's up and when it won't be, we should probably think of some practical staples we need.
Family member one: we should get the cereal with red berries.
FM#2: Ugh, I hate that one, get the one with green berries.
FM#3: Why don't you get one of each?
Me: OK. Will you eat either of those?
FM#3: No, get me the one with blueberries.

And so on across all categories.

I dunno, sounds like they have their priorities in order to me. Whereas I failed to get any berry-adorned cereal whatsoever.

Since I'm back downtown again today anyway, I'm thinking: fuckit, another Target trip wouldn't hurt. When I finally batten down the hatches, I'm just planning to not leave my building at all for the foreseeable future (except for going to vote, which is probably when the bug will likely strike me down).

I still had some stuff left over from the no-deal Brexit prepping so the biggest immediate expense has been loading up on cat food / cat litter.

I went to the doctor this morning to get my asthma prescriptions refilled so I will be set for the year and he also prescribed me a flu shot ( so I can jump the queue) because I guess they are going to make an announcement on Monday that tit's mandatory (chile)? I don't know how they make it mandatory. But my spanish is also trash. ( I feel kind of bad about this but I think this will be the first flu shot I have gotten in ??? I don't recall my last primary physician ever giving me the flu shot, unless she snuck it in. I am sorry).

I have not left the house since Tuesday for any reason other than going to work or the grocery store or pharmacy. I stocked up on staples, and paid out-of-pocket for a prescription refill my insurer would not cover, so that I can avoid the stores for the next couple of weeks -- as I see it, the risk is only going to increase as the infection spreads, while the reward decreases with the many predictable out-of-stock goods.

I am also a single man, living alone, with some money in the bank, no dependents, and a job I can do remotely. I don't expect everyone to do what I am doing; I do it because I'm one of the ones who can.

The hardest part is going to be missing the 3 or 4 AA meetings per week I usually go to. But my sponsor has been able to stay sober for the past 10 years despite being partially paralyzed and unable to attend meetings, so I have a good example to follow.

I am also a single man, living alone, with some money in the bank, no dependents, and a job I can do remotely. I don't expect everyone to do what I am doing; I do it because I'm one of the ones who can.

Yup this is gonna be me in a week or two I suspect, depending on how fast it ends up spreading here in Toronto. I'm not ruling out some very limited (4-5 person) hangouts just to break up the isolation / ward off insanity, though.

Xposts to rusho

This is what enraged me so much about de blasios statement earlier this week that HIS scientists have found it only persists on surfaces for minutes.

my spouse's university sent out an email that they have 5 liter cans of alcohol gel that faculty can buy. I told him to find people to split it with because there are only so many places you can put that.

my friend tried to ask me if I was busy and wanted to hang out last night and I made up an excuse because I just was feeling too miserable to hang out. i told him maybe on the weekend.

i'm in a similar place of privilege and tbh now that pretty much any concerts I had tickets for are cancelled, I was only going to leave the house to go to the movies anyway, and tehre's plenty of that I can watch at home.

Has anyone grappled with how much to walk the dog/whether to let the dog play with other dogs

NB he is a puppy but big (6 months 55 lbs) and while he could probably ‘remember’ how to pee inside on pads, it’d be hard from a sheer volume perspective

Went ahead w/ meeting a friend I hadn't seen for a long time yesterday, and am still having dinner out tonight w/ my bro. But after that I don't have a lot of one-on-one's planned, and the bigger meetings (some book presentations etc) will be cancelled anyway.

jon not jon where are you? I remember walking my dog during Katrina for what ended up being 10 times because I stayed up all night to make sure there was no flooding and any break in the wind/rain I ran him outside because I was so worried we would be cooped up (he was 75lbs).

I would totally not let my dog (if he was still around) socialize with other dogs right now. Because that means you will also be socializing.

ugh, I meant Hurricane Sandy in ny.

I still had some stuff left over from the no-deal Brexit prepping so the biggest immediate expense has been loading up on cat food / cat litter.

Cat food and cat litter is a worry as it's so damn bulky/heavy and there isn't really room to stockpile much of it.

The other half told me off for Brexit prepping and is still in "everything will be fine" mode so we just have a couple of extra kgs of rice and cereal (not actually sure how long those would last if they were the only food left) and a lot of extra soap. Will try to sneak some tinned goods home if there are any left - beans, soup, some tinned milk wouldn't go amiss for the cereal. Local shop is already empty of loo roll so not sure if there'll be tins left.

We have a small fridge/freezer which is permanently almost full despite having basically nothing useful in, so not much use stockpiling anything not canned or dry.

Sent a message to my dad to see how they're doing and if they curtailed their travel plans, and he responded "Mea culpa...we're in Israel". Coming back today I think.

Still having to go into work, but on the upside, traffic is great??

Seat to yourself on the bus *thumbs up*

saw a guy at Trader Joe's buying
* four boxes of cereal
* four boxes of frozen rice
* ~ 50 protein bars

I am going to lose my mind with this social distancing business. After class yesterday I realized just how much I enjoy being around people! Aggghhhhhh

hope all my erstwhile pen pals are ready for a revival of correspondence :)

I went into my dark classroom at my closed school to empty out my little mini refrigerator. I ran into one of my students, who was cleaning his locker. We stood ten feet apart from each other and said “be good!” and it rang really hollow. The biggest source of my happiness is my students, and... I can’t do anything for/about them right now. Feels super helpless.

sweet innocent phone SMS dictionary that still knows not the word "coronavirus"

TS: coughing into your sleeve vs opening door handles with your sleeve

I feel it's unwise to do both

Need sleeve's opinion on this obv

maybe door handle will have an opinion too

I told my spouse there is no way i am doing the cheek kiss or hug or dancing with anyone other than him at this wedding we have to go to on saturday. He was like "what will you do if they try." I told him I would give them the shaka in front of their face and then do the ps4 spiderman off the wall attack.

yes, agree soda!!
i haven't been feeling despair -- in fact, I feel like my pandemic personality is weirdly lighthearted and my sense of humor seems alive and well. if I can make people lol my existence isn't entirely pointless. I'm anticipating at least a few bouts of loneliness though.

my partner already works from home so nothing has changed for him; I'm sure I will annoy him more than once.

LOL so I have on-off problems with insomnia during normal times anyway but I am now running on about > 3 hours of sleep in as many days. I haven't been up all night spinning doomsday scenarios in my head, it's more just like my body/mind is just on general High Alert. Of course I end up thinking about how lack of sleep depresses your immune system, and the spiral continues...ugh. Just glad I can work from home.

Xpost to yerac
Williamsburg Brooklyn

oh yeah, i was in williamsburg near graham during sandy. I think everyone will be staying away from each other though. Some people are just bad dog owners and will totally invade your space even if you have no desire to talk to them or their dog and are slowly backing away the entire time. Dogs can catch covid supposedly, so I would be careful.

i would probably even wear a mask while walking the dog just to signal to stay away.

so has anyone spoken to Purell or their parent company to find out exactly wtf is the deal with the shortage? I get that there was a run on these products for a week or so but do they have any idea when they're going to be able to stock back up?

Dogs can catch covid supposedly

― Yerac, Friday, March 13, 2020 8:08 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i thought the who just confirmed the other day that they can't

! did they disprove it? I am looking again and still only see reports of a dog with a "low level infection" from someone who had it.

i have no idea what is true here, all i saw is some meme going around. gist was 'WHO let the dogs out'

Ok I see the WHO thing from a couple of days ago, but I mean I would assume dogs could get the virus (like in the case that was reported in multiple places) but won't be "sick". But it's more that when you walk your dog people want to come over because their dog wants to "say hi." and just...no.

LOL so I have on-off problems with insomnia during normal times anyway but I am now running on about > 3 hours of sleep in as many days. I haven't been up all night spinning doomsday scenarios in my head, it's more just like my body/mind is just on general High Alert. Of course I end up thinking about how lack of sleep depresses your immune system, and the spiral continues...ugh. Just glad I can work from home.

― may the force leave us alone (zchyrs), Friday, March 13, 2020 3:04 PM (seventeen minutes ago)

hi, are you me? because this is also me lately... I'm really looking forward to resuming my practice of tai chi and meditation once there is nothing else to do.

this would probably the best about using sound judgement with pets based upon what they know.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/quarantine-cat-disinfect-dog-latest-advice-about-coronavirus-and-your-pets

besides going to work i barely leave the house or have interactions with other people anyway but just idly toted up how much of my home time is usually spent watching sports and.......probably time to find a hobby or start duolingo or something

here is my grocery report: i'm off today so i decided to torture myself unnecessarily. i have enough food in my house to survive for a while but i just got salt fat acid heat and i want to make a bunch of the recipes this weekend and next week. i didn't realize it was quite this bad but things just accelerated yesterday. i want ground lamb and a whole chicken.

store 1: i figured i would just go to wegmans first thing in the morning and assumed they would have restocked overnight. i was very wrong. there was almost no meat. i got 2 packages of chicken/turkey sausage because it was the only thing left. i wasn't expecting ground lamb to be something people buy in emergencies but people apparently wanted everything last night. there were full stocks of pretty random produce. i was able to get a good cabbage, cilantro and parsley, a bag of apples, and limes. there were no jalapeños and all the big bags of onions were gone. the small bags were there. there was no yogurt (there was some yogurt but i wanted the 2 pack of plain nonfat greek yogurt) but adequate milk and eggs. i got a gallon of milk to make my own yogurt. i got an extra 18 eggs for the future.

store 1.1: i wanted to try costco so i could get coffee and test the yogurt supply but it was too early and they weren't open yet.

store 2: whole foods is on the way home from wegmans. google indicated "more busy than usual" or whatever. it was kind of bad and weird. greek yogurt is obv more expensive there but i got 2 qts of store brand plus a fage for recipes. plus coffee. few remaining jalapeños were very sad-looking.

store 3: indian/halal store. incredible success! only two other customers in the store, normal for that store. fully stocked of every imaginable legume and rice. i got 2 big bags of chick peas, a bag of lentils, and 4 lbs of basmati. i have never bought meat there but i got 2 lbs of ground lamb and a small very fresh-looking whole chicken from the butcher. plus fresh green chiles and more cilantro.

The World Health Organization has announced that dogs cannot contract Covid-19. Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released. To be clear, WHO let the dogs out.

— Liam Hackett (@DiageoLiam) March 12, 2020

Just got back from a store (we had to get a few things, regardless; I've got two tiny girls, but I feel for parents of multiple hungry boys), and things weren't that bad. Plenty of everything, people working, restocking, and so on. A few people clearly stocking up on a few things, and by that I mean a few very select things. I passed one guy with a cart full of water, pasta and giant cans of Ragu. I mean, if that's your favorite food ...

Our cat has responded to the crisis by going to sleep for the day.

Hope the dogs do a better job of running the world than we did.

Per that article, who the fuck is testing their pet for Covid, and why would you do that? Like, of all the vectors, why would you waste the time on that unless you're, like, Barbra Streisand.

Pro tip for others in Williamsburg or bushwick etc
Go to the supermarkets in Spanish neighborhoods
The Associated which caters more Spanish is exactly one block further from me than the key food which caters yuppie and they have plentiful toilet paper, plentiful everything except bottled water and disinfectant

You know, one of those "I was feeling a bit down, running a low fever, I assume I caught it from the dog" situations that we hear about every year.

i haven't told my cat yet what's going on out there

In a year everyone is going to be overweight and nursing newborns. And Hostess is going to buy Amazon.

If we don't tell our pets the truth, who will?

oh yeah also 90% of the frozen section was bare. you could still get a big bag of frozen chicken nuggets.