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

I was DJing last night, and observed that bumping elbows instead of shaking hands is now a thing.

Imagining this taking place in a very cramped, sweaty club and chuckling

one by one the food delivery service websites are conking out

My Publix was still pretty well stocked but the foot traffic is definitely much higher.

There was TP!

Went record shopping this afternoon, one guy was flipping through the bins with his sleeves pulled over his hands. Was about as dextrous as a seal trying to fold a newspaper

I'm flying back to Miami. I dread Publix.

I'm flying back to Miami. I dread Publix.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

winn-dixie happy to have a break from florida's grocery store locus of dread

25 new cases in FL.

The sharp increases begin

Ohio just doubled (from 13 to 26). They're ramping up testing.

can we plz keep actual news to the other thread?

I didn't want to interrupt Aimless's concerns about his brother but felt this was news.

Honestly having these two threads is a pain. There's no reason we can't all coexist in the other one now.

Yeah, I understand anxiety, but numbers are apolitical and relevant. Unless the other thread can be just for stats and facts and news, and this one for personal anecdotes?

I thought that was the idea tbh

My son woke me up at 4:30 this morning so I thought, hey, maybe I'll go to a 24-hour grocery store when it's unlikely to be mobbed.

It was a trifle unnerving. No milk, bread, chicken, or beef. Almost no pasta. There were some eggs. Very few staff, and what staff there was was clearly harried and shell-shocked from spending all night with a frantic panic-buying populace. My heart goes out to them.

From what I have read, there's plenty of food, but the distribution channels are overwhelmed and the stores are understaffed.

We have enough wine and rice and noodles and stuff. That's not so much the problem. Milk and bread, eggs and butter? I worried that supply chain issues (plus panic hoarding) could make those difficult to find.

Later in the day I bicycled to 7-11 and the liquor store; things seemed less bleak. Most pepple were quietly going aboout what business they had.

I know we're very fortunate not to be genuinely worried about actual hunger/malnutrition. But it will be a challenge for my children, who have not experienced poverty or scarcity. They will have to abandon some fussy preferences (I like ONLY A CERTAIN SHAPE of pretzel, DAAAAD). Particularly my special needsy son, who can't necessarily understand why his preferred cereal isn't there, and will almost certainly melt down over it. Sigh.

Went for a walk in the park today and just the thought of previous summers there really hit me. God knows what it's going to be like by the time it's normally warm enough to lounge around in there.

My manager sure picked a hell of a time for a Florida road trip with the fam.

(He left a few days ago, RIGHT, before things got real serious in terms of restrictions.)

there was a dude in the grocery store with a facemask on, and I couldn't tell if it was because he was stupid and thought it would keep disease out, or if he was sick and I should run the other way.

eitehr way I kept a distance.

a FB friend of mine said she was accused of "hoarding" water when she bought two containers and she barked back IT'S FOR MY FISH TANK, ASSHOLE

I mean I really have no idea how widespread it is in Florida right now. probably much more than we know.

the theme parks are still open through today and people are still going. :/

i keep pulling out the ukulele and playing songs on it. i might master this thing by the time this is over

Been baking bread with what bread flour I have left and cutting it with cornmeal. Historians are already calling it the cornbread spring.

I thought this was just the thread where I’m not allowed to accuse any posters of having reactionary sympathies

i thought this was the "relatively apolitical fears and experiences" thread where people talk about themselves and their situations
if there was a more complicated implication, it was lost on me.

speaking of me, i am trying to grasp the degree to which i will lose my shit cooped up at home for 2 weeks or more. hopefully minimally but today is not a great example of me making the most of this.

yeah I am very concerned about going stir-crazy, I'm already too socially isolated

xpost Butter freezes well too (you may already know this). Also, I am not a hoarder but since it's hard to get things here sometimes we just kind of buy a lot of some stuff when we see it go on sale which is why I have like 8 blocks of kerrygold in the freezer.

if anyone wants some tips on how to survive being at home for months on end without really talking to anyone irl, hit me up. i did it for a couple years recently, in preparation for coronavirus. the trick is to be high all of the time and be totally fine with getting really depressed

Surprised to see my local diner (which is a pretty small space) doing brisk business this morning, as was the neighborhood bar last night.

I’ve continued to patronise my local cafe, where the staff have been wearing masks for a couple of weeks now and where they have a hand sanitiser station with a sign saying “clean your hands before you eat”, so my isolation is not total

Yerac I already know all of that because I am a hoarder :D

the trick is to be high all of the time and be totally fine with getting really depressed

:( i am not ok with getting really depressed. again. it's why i am aware that this will be a challenge for me. i at least need to talk with people on the phone or something.

Just realising this is why the AIM chatz thread got revived

well, looks like my office is now remote until at least march 30

went out with friends last night, taking some precautions. it was the first time they’ve had a babysitter in months, and the number of recorded cases in our metro area is still zero but... I still feel a little guilty. but it’s not like I’m going anywhere any time soon. might be ordering takeout from a few favorite restaurants to make sure they get some
business

a friend posted on facebook about how her daughter has symptoms that seem similar to what’s been published, and even though it’s unlikely she called the local county info number. the operator referred her to the department of health, and the person that took that call referred her back to the first number. yikes

xp

sorry LL, my post was tongue in cheek. (but not funny either!). i'm worried about it too - getting a job helped my depression chiefly because it got me out of the house! my house is like a warm inviting trap. it always seems comfortable and i'm drawn to it all the time, but the mood subtly shifts after a few days of isolation

I’m starting to wonder if I’m a weirdo because I never buy milk, eggs, or butter unless I’m making something in particular

it’s all rice, vegetables, meat, and broth/stock

hmmm maybe we should start a covid picture thread soon. I may need to straighten up my pantry so it's visually appealing.

i never buy miljk and only recently started buying butter because of one pasta recipe. I am obsessed with eggs. xpost

I require soft butter to be available at all times for spreading on toast, so I keep a stick in the cupboard.

I'm sorry to folks who are less okay right now. I was already enjoying unemployment and I do well staying at home with books and coffee and gardening. If it goes on long enough I might even get back to sewing, which I used to do a lot more of.

oh yeah, i have one block out for current use. I am not a monster eating frozen butter for thrills.

lol that does sound like something you would do

I don't buy milk or eggs often but that's mostly because I am too rarely able to cook to be able to use them up before they go bad

(obviously, that has changed a bit for now)

After I posted, I was considering if there would be something to it xpost

Last week I did just eat some eggs that had been in the freezer for two months.

my friend's new business has now just posted what I feared, asking for people to buy e-gift cards because traffic is slowing and may be non-existent soon. as I mentioned earlier, it only opened in November, and very quickly got fucked by a city construction project that took away all of the parking on its street AND blocked one of the two entrances. It was becoming a popular hang, but they barely got off the ground to begin with. I gave them a $1,000 loan to get across the finish line.

It's been his wife's dream, and the entire family works there, and I will be devastated for him if it goes under. His family owns another business, an organic food delivery service, but after the Great Recession, they lost so much volume that they almost went bankrupt.

the social network for this place is great so I'm a little more confident that if a fundraising campaign was run, it'd do well. but well enough? I don't know.

I bought a six pack of Victory Golden Monkey and might start posting drunken ukulele videos to FB

sounds like it’s time to finally add neanderthal on fb

I recorded "Rodeo Song" yesterday...but wasn't drunk

conversation i had with my elderly neighbour this morning:

- wow sally, i didn't know you had a dog!
- oh i'm just looking after him for my daughter's friend, he's a bit of a nuisance because he's not properly house-trained yet
- haaa, sounds like you've got your work cut out there!
- [neighbour nods and smiles]
- look, um i er... i just wanted to say - what with everything going on at the moment, please do just knock on our door if there's anything you need over the next few weeks, anything at all!
- oh don't worry, he's going back tomorrow
- um ok nevermind

Been baking bread with what bread flour I have left and cutting it with cornmeal. Historians are already calling it the cornbread spring.

― whistling (brownie)

historians should be spending less time coming up with pithy nicknames for a crisis that hasn't even fucking happened yet and more time hanging out on pornhub, imo

the brother i was worried about is actually doing ok employment-wise, he's back into social work and out of the restaurant biz, which means more income security. main issue is, as alluded to upthread, people not being able to get to their aa meetings. i'm feeling like a lot of people are gonna be relapsing these next few weeks :(

La lechera - can you do group Skype or FaceTime with some friends? Go for a walk with your dogs and FaceTime with a friend?

I’m like you, IO, I do quite well when left to potter around at home alone. If I was forbidden from leaving my house for a month I’d be pretty stoked.

historians should be spending less time coming up with pithy nicknames for a crisis that hasn't even fucking happened yet and more time hanging out on pornhub, imo

p sure that was a joke, hold ur fire on the fictional historians