Covid Isolation Day 2002, or who knows?

Really. it seems like forever. Even when my logical brain is telling me that it's only been about five weeks. I gave eight months of my life up to cancer treatments. This should be a piece of cake, right? Right? Anyone, right?

Yeah, well that's how it feels. The reality is something different. The only real correlation is the time of year that it's all happened. There is just something eerie about the timing of plagues coming just as spring arrives. I hope that this one won't last eight long months, that there will be a return to a more normal way of life as the summer months find us. Hopefulness is good, right?

An argument for social distancing

Back in the day, the days when I lived in Georgia and had three Walmarts on my way home from work, I used to stop at one or the other at least three days out of five. Usually it was picking up something that I wanted for dinner. But sometimes, shamefully, I was out of clean socks or underwear and didn't want to wash clothes until the weekend. Yes, Shameful. I know it. My sister doesn't like Walmart very much. Neither do I really. And there are alternative s here. What we called Kroger in Georgia is Fred Meyer on this side of the country and they actually do a good job at giving Walmart a run for their money. There were five Krogers on my way home. If any had been a Fred Meyer, I may never have stepped into a Walmart. It used to be a game with me to try to not go into Walmart for a whole week. I failed much more than I was successful. I realized to day that I haven't been into Walmart since the beginning of February. That has got to be some kind of record for my adult life. Sad as it is, if I'd been forced to social distance from Walmart back then, I might be a bit richer now. But that is a hindsight sort of thing isn't it?

I did break the stay at home order a bit today. Karen came in and asked me to take a ride with her to Enumclaw. It was supposed to be just a stay in the car, site seeing kind of trip. For the most part it was. The weather is just so nice. It's a pity that we can't go anywhere. So we drove there and the weather was beautiful, the mountain was wonderful and the air was fresh. We got to the town only to find out that the pie shop that my sister has been obsessed with for the past month is closed due to the virus. It's a good thing, really. I'm sure that if they were doing curbside pick up, we'd have ordered a pie from her phone and waited for it to be done. I tried to get her to tell me what kind of pie that she is wanting. I'm actually pretty good with pies. I think what she really wants is a pie from a fancy shop. Kind of like I just want to sit and have tea and a fancy pastry at a tea shop. Not happening right now.

On the way home I got her to stop at Safeway. I thought she might tell me what kind of pie she wanted if she knew she could have it. We call the one here in Auburn, Slow way. They have closed one of the entrance and exit doors. I'm not sure how that helps social distancing, but it's their door and their decision. The other door had taped off distancing marks and a sign at the door saying they were limiting the amount of people in the store. There was no line and no one at the door to enforce a limit. Karen and I walked right in. The store was packed. And sadly enough most people had no masks or gloves. Many of them were clueless about keeping distance. The items that we "needed" were no emergency. They were things that we could have done without. But while we were there...you know. I did stock up on quite a bit of meat to put in the freezer. I also got some french bread and mushrooms for tonight's dinner.

Going into the store was a mistake. It was frightening. Really frightening. I get that everyone is over this and just wants a trip to the grocery store to be normal. It's not something that we can accomplish right now. If you aren't concerned about getting someone sick, you should be concerned that they can get you sick. The line to check out was long at all the registers. The self check line was chaotic. It seemed like they didn't know how to form one. I never use them anyway. I just don't like them. There was only one line open with a cashier. Another opened while we waited, but both were 20 or so people deep. The person in front of me was a homeless woman who had a couple of sandwiches from the deli, a bottle of water and some chips. In front of her was a woman who had a packed out cart. I know she had looked back and seen the homeless woman. If it would have been me, I would have let her in front of me in a hot minute. But not this woman. She stayed in line while her partner went back and forth across the store to pick up even more items to add to the cart. After we checked out we went outside to find the packed cart woman and her partner standing, waiting on their ride. Karen and I walked down past the closed door to see a taxi with the window open. The driver was saying loudly "I'm here, but I don't see you anywhere." Neither Karen, nor I stopped to help. If the couple had been a little more charitable to the homeless woman, I think I may have. But Karma is a known bitch.

There isn't much point to the blog today. Sorry for the ramble. Hope you are fairing well.