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cheriepriestWell, here in Seattle we’re (essentially) a month in to this whole quarantine/social distancing thing and things are… strange, but at chez nous, everything is basically okay. It’s taken some juggling and some fiddling to keep it that way, for damn sure, but what can you do? When it rains, it pours.
I’ve left the house four times in as many weeks. Twice for grocery/supply runs, once to pick up my contacts (I wear daily lenses), and once to pick up a routine prescription from Walgreens. Each time I’ve gone anywhere, it’s been exponentially weirder - with fewer and fewer people on the roads, and on the sidewalks.
Fewer people in public, period.
Everywhere I went there were pieces of tape stuck to floors, indicating six feet of distance - and occasionally a store employee keeping an eagle eye on who stands where. There’s a large, hand-written sign on a nearby bar/restaurant that says, “We deliver now! Apparently.” Paper goods (tp, paper towels, napkins, etc.) are sold out almost everywhere - and where there’s any supply available, its sale is closely regulated. One pack (of whatever) per person!
Our dogs are weeks overdue for their “spa day” and they’re kind of starting to stink, but giving them a bath in this house would be… a shit-show, frankly. Alas, grooming services are not considered essential. (Even for big fluffy dogs, it’s too cold to throw a kiddie pool in the back yard and just hose them down.)
In other news, my salon is closed indefinitely. My roots runneth over.
Funny enough, a couple of months ago I ordered some Overtone conditioner, just to give it a try - but hadn’t actually used it when the shelter-in-place orders came down - two days before my hair appointment. I’ve used it a couple of times since. It definitely brightens the color, and does a so-so job of disguising my roots. Any port in a storm, eh? I dyed my own hair at home with a box for years, but I’m trying to avoid doing that to Beth, the nice lady who will be stuck fixing it when the apocalypse winds down.
Anyway, since it’s never Just One Thing At A Time… a week into the semi-formal quarantine, Greyson’s back legs gave out. He couldn’t stand for a few minutes, and then he could only stand very shakily. He was frightened and confused, and so was I, natch. But within half an hour he was fine. I called a friend who’s a veterinarian since the usual vet’s office was closed - and we were trying to decide whether to take him to the doggie ER or not, since he seemed to be swiftly improving. That lovely friend talked me off a ledge just in time for Greyson to start playing chase with Lucy. So… yeah.
Lucky for us, our vet’s office does housecalls. The next day, we had a vet visit and an rx for my sweet old man’s hip dysplasia and arthritis. He is fine. It’s just his age coming home to roost. (He turned eight years old last month, and he’s a fairly big boy.)
He’s doing much better now, and is his usual happy, low-key bouncy self. But did he have to give us a heart attack and a large vet bill (mostly for the diagnostic blood work) in the middle of all this? Oof.
At present, both dogs are stuck outside. They’ve been there all morning - banging relentlessly on the storm door, banished to the back yard… because a few days ago, our furnace gave up the ghost and we are having it replaced right now.
We’ve only been in the house for about 8 months, and in that time the furnace has done this twice - more precisely, it’s blown its fuses and melted its contact points. It turns out that the folks who flipped this house… did so with the worst furnace they could get their hands on. One tech dude (not a sales dude) told us that those things are basically designed to last a year - just long enough to survive a homeowner’s warranty before they crap out. No, we did not have a warranty on the house. It’s a long story. Just call us idiots if you want to; we don’t care and it doesn’t matter now.
So…. hello, unexpected $5000 bill at the end of the world.
Furnace replacement is noisy work up there in the attic and it’ll take half the day, so I’m blogging right now rather than trying to get any fiction writing done. This shit is distracting, y’all.
It’s also cold. Not like, “we’re all gonna die” cold, but the highs have been in the forties/lows in the thirties for the last week. On the upshot, our house has a huge row of east-facing windows on the main living level; we’ve been lucky enough to get a little sun in the mornings to warm the place up to about 70 degrees up here. Downstairs in the basement, where our bedroom is, it’s almost always about 60-65 degrees anyway. Same as usual, no big deal.
But me and my dinky little space heater have been real good pals, let me tell ya.
So… hm. What else?
Well, I’ve probably gained ten pounds this month. There’s just SO MUCH FOOD in the house, and we’re all so goddamn bored. We’re fine for toilet paper; we got a bidet before it was cool, so we don’t go through that much anyway. We’re fine for paper towels and soap and disinfectant because I’m an OCD person in a household where animals outnumber people.
When the weather warms up a bit (maybe later this week or early next) we’re going to start cleaning up the yard. Maybe I’ll risk a trip to Lowe’s by then, and get some new stuff to plant. Or maybe I won’t. I have some gloves (from a nice hair-dye kit), but no masks. It seems insufficient.
Everybody used to have masks around here, but I’m not seeing so many anymore. I think people are just running out, and it’s not like anybody has any to spare. Hell, half my crafty friends are sewing PPE from old sheets and stray fabric scraps. They’re donating them to desperate hospitals, for chrissake. This is what it’s come to.
I am not especially crafty. Not that kind of crafty, at any rate.
But my husband and I are both home (he works remotely now), and we are staying here even when we don’t want to and it’s not very convenient. We’re binge-ing shows, playing video games, surfing the internet, and walking the dogs twice a day like usual.
Our neighborhood is quiet even under ordinary circumstances, and Lucy is very dog-reactive so we’re already accustomed to keeping our distance from others. Yesterday, I had to drag the dogs away from a toddler who was begging to pet them. That was sad for everybody.
But big ups to the kid’s mom, who remained grimly firm re: the whole social distancing thing. Next time, we vowed. Next time, the dogs will get to lick a little kid, and everyone’s day will be made.
So here’s to next time, I suppose. It’s looking like another month of (what amounts to) quarantine for everybody - out here on the west coast, if not everywhere else. The federal response has been an absolute mess, but Gov. Inslee has been a rock. A competent, firm, evidence-based rock who keeps doing news conferences with scientists. Field hospitals have opened in disused sports stadiums out here, though they aren’t in use yet. Better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them, that’s what I say.
Everyone is scrambling for ventilators, everyone wants to get a coronavirus test, everybody wants more PPE gear, and everybody is shit out of luck right now. No matter what our “president” says on TV. (Most major networks won’t even show his press conferences anymore, thank God. Too much misinformation, getting too many people too scared, and too dead.)
Like Mr. Rogers always said, “Look for the helpers.” At present, our helpers are almost entirely at the state and local level, and they are holding together what’s left of reality by the skin of their teeth.
Jokes have been going around on Twitter, about how a hundred years from now, our angry tweets and desperate blog posts will be the equivalent of Civil War letters. Well then, here’s a letter to the future. May it remember us kindly - and note that when left to fend for ourselves, we rallied as best we could, in what ways we were able. Even if that mostly meant staying put and keeping our germs to ourselves.
But. Before that next hundred years arrives. Long before it arrives, I hope.
May we all remember the lesson we’ve learned about the people who are actually essential to a functioning society - especially in times of crisis - and henceforth treat those people with the respect and compensation they deserve, at every level.
I’ve left the house four times in as many weeks. Twice for grocery/supply runs, once to pick up my contacts (I wear daily lenses), and once to pick up a routine prescription from Walgreens. Each time I’ve gone anywhere, it’s been exponentially weirder - with fewer and fewer people on the roads, and on the sidewalks.
Fewer people in public, period.
Everywhere I went there were pieces of tape stuck to floors, indicating six feet of distance - and occasionally a store employee keeping an eagle eye on who stands where. There’s a large, hand-written sign on a nearby bar/restaurant that says, “We deliver now! Apparently.” Paper goods (tp, paper towels, napkins, etc.) are sold out almost everywhere - and where there’s any supply available, its sale is closely regulated. One pack (of whatever) per person!
Our dogs are weeks overdue for their “spa day” and they’re kind of starting to stink, but giving them a bath in this house would be… a shit-show, frankly. Alas, grooming services are not considered essential. (Even for big fluffy dogs, it’s too cold to throw a kiddie pool in the back yard and just hose them down.)
In other news, my salon is closed indefinitely. My roots runneth over.
Funny enough, a couple of months ago I ordered some Overtone conditioner, just to give it a try - but hadn’t actually used it when the shelter-in-place orders came down - two days before my hair appointment. I’ve used it a couple of times since. It definitely brightens the color, and does a so-so job of disguising my roots. Any port in a storm, eh? I dyed my own hair at home with a box for years, but I’m trying to avoid doing that to Beth, the nice lady who will be stuck fixing it when the apocalypse winds down.
Anyway, since it’s never Just One Thing At A Time… a week into the semi-formal quarantine, Greyson’s back legs gave out. He couldn’t stand for a few minutes, and then he could only stand very shakily. He was frightened and confused, and so was I, natch. But within half an hour he was fine. I called a friend who’s a veterinarian since the usual vet’s office was closed - and we were trying to decide whether to take him to the doggie ER or not, since he seemed to be swiftly improving. That lovely friend talked me off a ledge just in time for Greyson to start playing chase with Lucy. So… yeah.
Lucky for us, our vet’s office does housecalls. The next day, we had a vet visit and an rx for my sweet old man’s hip dysplasia and arthritis. He is fine. It’s just his age coming home to roost. (He turned eight years old last month, and he’s a fairly big boy.)
He’s doing much better now, and is his usual happy, low-key bouncy self. But did he have to give us a heart attack and a large vet bill (mostly for the diagnostic blood work) in the middle of all this? Oof.
At present, both dogs are stuck outside. They’ve been there all morning - banging relentlessly on the storm door, banished to the back yard… because a few days ago, our furnace gave up the ghost and we are having it replaced right now.
We’ve only been in the house for about 8 months, and in that time the furnace has done this twice - more precisely, it’s blown its fuses and melted its contact points. It turns out that the folks who flipped this house… did so with the worst furnace they could get their hands on. One tech dude (not a sales dude) told us that those things are basically designed to last a year - just long enough to survive a homeowner’s warranty before they crap out. No, we did not have a warranty on the house. It’s a long story. Just call us idiots if you want to; we don’t care and it doesn’t matter now.
So…. hello, unexpected $5000 bill at the end of the world.
Furnace replacement is noisy work up there in the attic and it’ll take half the day, so I’m blogging right now rather than trying to get any fiction writing done. This shit is distracting, y’all.
It’s also cold. Not like, “we’re all gonna die” cold, but the highs have been in the forties/lows in the thirties for the last week. On the upshot, our house has a huge row of east-facing windows on the main living level; we’ve been lucky enough to get a little sun in the mornings to warm the place up to about 70 degrees up here. Downstairs in the basement, where our bedroom is, it’s almost always about 60-65 degrees anyway. Same as usual, no big deal.
But me and my dinky little space heater have been real good pals, let me tell ya.
So… hm. What else?
Well, I’ve probably gained ten pounds this month. There’s just SO MUCH FOOD in the house, and we’re all so goddamn bored. We’re fine for toilet paper; we got a bidet before it was cool, so we don’t go through that much anyway. We’re fine for paper towels and soap and disinfectant because I’m an OCD person in a household where animals outnumber people.
When the weather warms up a bit (maybe later this week or early next) we’re going to start cleaning up the yard. Maybe I’ll risk a trip to Lowe’s by then, and get some new stuff to plant. Or maybe I won’t. I have some gloves (from a nice hair-dye kit), but no masks. It seems insufficient.
Everybody used to have masks around here, but I’m not seeing so many anymore. I think people are just running out, and it’s not like anybody has any to spare. Hell, half my crafty friends are sewing PPE from old sheets and stray fabric scraps. They’re donating them to desperate hospitals, for chrissake. This is what it’s come to.
I am not especially crafty. Not that kind of crafty, at any rate.
But my husband and I are both home (he works remotely now), and we are staying here even when we don’t want to and it’s not very convenient. We’re binge-ing shows, playing video games, surfing the internet, and walking the dogs twice a day like usual.
Our neighborhood is quiet even under ordinary circumstances, and Lucy is very dog-reactive so we’re already accustomed to keeping our distance from others. Yesterday, I had to drag the dogs away from a toddler who was begging to pet them. That was sad for everybody.
But big ups to the kid’s mom, who remained grimly firm re: the whole social distancing thing. Next time, we vowed. Next time, the dogs will get to lick a little kid, and everyone’s day will be made.
So here’s to next time, I suppose. It’s looking like another month of (what amounts to) quarantine for everybody - out here on the west coast, if not everywhere else. The federal response has been an absolute mess, but Gov. Inslee has been a rock. A competent, firm, evidence-based rock who keeps doing news conferences with scientists. Field hospitals have opened in disused sports stadiums out here, though they aren’t in use yet. Better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them, that’s what I say.
Everyone is scrambling for ventilators, everyone wants to get a coronavirus test, everybody wants more PPE gear, and everybody is shit out of luck right now. No matter what our “president” says on TV. (Most major networks won’t even show his press conferences anymore, thank God. Too much misinformation, getting too many people too scared, and too dead.)
Like Mr. Rogers always said, “Look for the helpers.” At present, our helpers are almost entirely at the state and local level, and they are holding together what’s left of reality by the skin of their teeth.
Jokes have been going around on Twitter, about how a hundred years from now, our angry tweets and desperate blog posts will be the equivalent of Civil War letters. Well then, here’s a letter to the future. May it remember us kindly - and note that when left to fend for ourselves, we rallied as best we could, in what ways we were able. Even if that mostly meant staying put and keeping our germs to ourselves.
But. Before that next hundred years arrives. Long before it arrives, I hope.
May we all remember the lesson we’ve learned about the people who are actually essential to a functioning society - especially in times of crisis - and henceforth treat those people with the respect and compensation they deserve, at every level.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-31 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 07:04 am (UTC)seems all the little shitty things are proportionally blown up because we have to dance around the real world just to keep ours steady.