I work for a company that sells livestock and pet products. We consider ourselves “essential” to our communities and are remaining open in areas where other retail has been instructed to close.
How do you do such and social distancing simultaneously. I have a lunch engagement next week. I’d like to go ahead with it but not expecting social distancing.
There is a local app that many neighborhoods have called Next Door. I see a few people posting offering help to those in need to taking care of children while they work to cooking meals to those in need (students that would get meals at school) etc
Others have jumped on to help. All seem to be young women.
Just back from Northern NJ, where we spent 10 days helping our daughter. She had her 3rd child on March 4th; has 2 others, ages 4 and 2. Her baby was 2 weeks early (and is doing beautifully). We’re so grateful she isn’t going to be in a hospital giving birth this week.
We did many errands, and until March 12th noticed no real crowds or shortages, though hand sanitizer was gone. We wanted to leave her well stocked, so went grocery shopping early Thursday. TP was still available, as was bottled water. We didn’t buy those, since she has enough. The store was very crowded, yet quiet. People were serious but patient (mostly).
Two of my daughters have young children in day care. The one with the new baby is on leave for 14 weeks, and her husband works from home, but it will be a big challenge to handle two pre-schoolers if their daycare closes. Another daughter has a 10 month old. She and her husband can work from home, but babies that age require a lot of attention, so one of them may need to take time off just to do childcare.
Their daycares are very pricey. They’re hoping they won’t be on the hook for the full cost if the daycares must close. The one who is a lawyer thinks they could be, though. They’re reluctant to have 65 year old me travel to help out, though I think it’s possible to do that safely. We’ll see what next week brings.
It is interesting to read back on this thread and see how rapidly this situation has changed in the past week. A week ago my only concern was that Costco had stopped giving out food samples and now…
I just hope these last few days that people are stocking uo5, maybe out of fear but hope that things will slowdown a bit and be more normalized.
So as I mentioned it’s my wife’s birthday and we are having 2 couples over for dinner. Maybe I will put extra leaves in the dining room table to give us more spacing?
The panic shopping finally arrived up here in northern New England two days ago. Even tiny towns where I don’t think too many Boston people have summer homes are out of tp.
Maybe ten teens showed up for the SAT this morning at the school where my kid is testing.
We got take-out last night. We usually eat out on Fri, so didn’t want to totally change our routine. The restaurants we passed were hurting for sit-down customers.
DH and I are involved in activities/exercise class through our community center which has now suspended all those til April 20. We weren’t going to attend anyway just to be safe. DH still uses our apt building’s gym, but promises that he’s wiping all equipment before and after he uses it.
S1 & DIL have 2 kids in daycare. I haven’t talked to them in a couple of days, but if daycare closes, S said he and his wife will work from home (DIL already does) and spend half of each day doing their job and half doing childcare.
Houston, TX: I grocery shopped on Wednesday with no problem. However, I wanted to pick up a couple more things so I went yesterday morning. The parking lot hinted at what the inside of the store would look like - crowded. Inside the store I saw more people than I’ve ever seen and I live where hurricane warnings happen fairly regularly. Shelves were empty. The change from Wednesday to Friday amazes me.
Need a bidet? https://hellotushy.com/pages/how-does-a-bidet-work
No more shopping for toliet paper… Lol
Igloo, I will wash my hands frequently, disinfect surfaces, avoid any physical contact, and maintain a distance of 6 feet (not sit next to each other at our dining table). Not perfect, but should minimize risk fairly well if both of us are feeling well, don’t have known exposures, and are keeping it to just the two of us.
Larger gatherings are out for us for a while. We just sent regrets for a nephews first birthday party. Even though it
the gathering is local to us in Maryland there will be more than 20 people there, some of whom live in hard hit areas in New York
My kiddo usually donated her unused meals for the week to the homeless, meals don’t roll over, use it or lose it each week. Now with in person school closing, she is really bummed. But the first thing came to her mind was how to donate the flex dollars (she has about $400 left) and her meal plan to the homeless remotely. She couldn’t care less about how to get her stuff and clothes from the dorm back.
Unfortunately I don’t know to donate remotely either, I am sure you will figure it out how kiddo.
Our area Nextdoor app is also filled with people offering free help, supplies etc. Mostly young men.
I get sick more easily than most and in a normal winter, I don’t go out when I don’t have to and avoid stores at peak times, etc. I am feeling it isn’t safe for me to be in crowds at all and will be at home when I can. I dislike doing the social distance thing in the winter but am used to it after some years now of doing it. This feels worse as it feels like I won’t get the break from it that I’m used to having once spring comes and I get much more social and do more things with others. I don’t think the virus is going to die down in the warmer weather and think it looks like it make peak from May through September, esp June, July, and August. Dislike that idea.
.One week ago today, I woke up to the news that Stanford, where my younger child is a grad student, was changing to online classes. Thus began a week, for all of us, that I hope never happens again.
Today, I woke up and felt a huge amount of guilt, for the trauma and sacrifices that people, mostly young, mostly healthy, mostly financially insecure, are suffering or incurring because of the lack of foresight of mostly older, powerful, privileged people. I don’t know if there is anything we can ever do to make up for what so many people will lose because of this epidemic. Obviously, we can’t bring the dead back to life. If anyone has some suggestions for getting through this existential crisis, I’m all eyes!
Thank you.
Are you all setting up rules for your high schoolers and college kids who are now home? We can’t possibly keep them inside all of the time or away from their friends. What do you think about small gatherings at other people’s homes? Going to Starbucks? Going through drive throughs?
So far, we have not set any rules. We are in the Chicago area and reported cases aren’t high right now although I get that many people could already have it or be carriers. Our D21 was at a friend’s house last night, just the two of them watching a movie, doing karaoke. S19 was also at a friend’s house with six other kids who just got back from colleges all over the US. They know to wash their hands before they eat and don’t touch their faces but (1) I’m guessing they aren’t perfect at this and (2) I know they weren’t six feet away from their friends.
S19 went for a long bike ride with a friend yesterday. I thought that was a good idea. And D21 and S19 went together to get coffee and then sat outside with their laptops and got some work done. Also seems ok to do that.
I just don’t know if I should be more serious about the friend get togethers. This isn’t as easy as it would be for little kids where you can just flat out tell them they can’t see friends. I worry about our teenagers mental health with college being called off and then telling them they can’t socialize at all.
The terror you have clearly been experiencing since the virus first appeared in conversations here at CC seems to be seriously interfering with your ability to live your life normally. My BIL is a psychologist and he said he will be looking into doing video counseling. I wonder if that would be of help to you. Crippling anxiety can be just as debilitating as a physical illness.
Wishing you and your family good health. Washing your hands, and most importantly, keeping your hands off your face will go a long long way for you.
@rosered55 you just summed up the entire reasoning behind “Ok, boomer.”
Younger people have been pushing for mandatory paid leave, telecommuting options, and other reasonable accommodations that the rest of the wealthy world has for basically the entirety of our adult lives. We’ve been told over and over that it can’t happen because x, y, and z and when we point out a, b, and c to address those concerns, we’re dismissed at best and usually mocked.
Well. This crisis seems to have turned the tide on mandatory paid leave and telecommuting pretty darn quickly. I’ll admit that sometimes it’s hard to bite our tongues and not say “told ya so.”
Either way I hope this is a wake up call and some of these practices don’t go away once the virus is gone. Shame that it’s going to take at least thousands of deaths to get there though.
@romanigypsyeyes, I agree with you. But I’ve always been aware; now my preexisting guilt and feelings of responsibility for everything are at about 200%, if that’s possible. So, any practical suggestions for responding? Thanks.