Kurt mentioned books down there, and I’ve been using Libby (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/...) for quite a while now. A free program that gives you access to the library on your electronic device. I’m reading “Old Man and the Sea” and listening to “Bad Blood” (about the Theranos debacle). All free.
Yeah, I just got amazon prime because I'm starting to get more stuff from them. Unfortunately, Patty is a book person. She's tried the kindle thing and it just doesn't work for her. She wants the tactile experience of turning the pages, looking ahead to see how many more pages are left before a chapter is done and she can put it down and go to sleep. Things like that. She can do 2 to 4 books a week when she gets going. I'm ripping and she's reading. It goes together very nicely. We are both absorbed with self indulgent activities at the same time that compliment each other. She reads so much that getting books any other way is prohibitively expensive.
One thing that is getting harder to do is keep track of what day it is any more.
Kurt mentioned books down there, and Iâve been using Libby (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/...) for quite a while now. A free program that gives you access to the library on your electronic device. Iâm reading âOld Man and the Seaâ and listening to âBad Bloodâ (about the Theranos debacle). All free.
Rather well at this point in time, having overcome a lot to get this far. I now work no days a week rather than two or the occasional three. The most challenging thing right now is Patty's grieving of her daughter. Their are no rules for grieving. It is different for everyone. I have my albums to distract me for now. And having to keep the balls in the air. It'll hit me later. The Goodwill is closed and she is cut off from her book supply which is her usual source of comfort. Otherwise we have been living the "shelter in place" life for many years already. Making do with what we have the best we can. Not much else has changed. We can keep the balls in the air for 2 or 3 months before we hit critical mass.
I'm more thinking of what comes next when we get on the other side of the worst of this assuming that we get there. And I'm not planning on us not making it through. My job has forever changed and I have to think real hard if I want to go back and play frogger with this thing and work forehead to forehead with the public anymore. I was worried about that for several years after my transplant but got over it. This be different, lot's different. Due to circumstances beyond our control I will have to keep working forever to bring in more than we get from SS to make it work. Or inherit something. So more than anything, I'm watching the progress of treatments and progress towards a vaccine. My job used to be the perfect job to fade away on. Nothing physical, no heavy lifting, etc. Now, doing it puts me right directly into harms way.
As far as passing time, I'm doing exactly what I began planning to do in earnest back about 5 years ago. I've got no one to pass my collection on to. The plan was to get everything sorted out, learn how to properly digitize my collection in high rez and sell it off. The perfect thing for someone to do in their retirement when killing time gets challenging and you have limited means. All the big bucks are done being spent acquiring the tools, equipment, material, and software. That and the knowledge has been put together. The only thing missing was the time to do it. In keeping with the state motto of my place of birth ... Eureka !!
I ordered 4 N95 masks on February 26. According to the tracking site, they shipped on February 27. Expected arrival date in April 8. I'm not holding my breath.
I work remotely from home for a large company, so that's nothing new for me. My wife is now also working from home. I have a permanent office setup for my work, she is working in the 2nd bedroom/office. My dogs and cat are used to me being part of the pack, so now they mostly hang out with my wife. We've been sheltered in place in a gradually more stringent way for going on 3 weeks. We take the dogs for walks in the neighborhood. I try to limit going to the grocery store to once a week now, but I hadn't heard about shipt so I may try that. I get prescriptions from the drive up at Walgreens. On nice days we spend some time on our front and/or back patio after work, wave at the neighbors. Early on I had been ordering pickup food from restaurants but pretty much just cook now. We've been getting Green Chef paleo and keto meals for quite awhile, so 3 meals are delivered each Monday. When I couldn't find toilet paper anywhere a couple of weeks ago, a colleague on one of my teams in San Antonio FedEx'd 18 rolls of Charmin to me, pretty nice of her. Binge-watching some series in the evenings. Reading Ray Wylie Hubbard's autobiography & "Testimony" by Robbie Robertson. I've also noticed about a week ago that I'm calmer, that it feels like life has slowed down, not in such a rush to do anything. No traffic outside & we're in an urban Denver neighborhood that can be a little noisy. Emotionally, I've been coping well. Of course I'm concerned, saddened by the suffering and loss of life, angry with our inept federal government taking no responsibility while criticizing the states, but I can't control any of that so I'm taking things one day at a time, doing the next right thing, keeping my TM meditation up, keeping in touch with my higher power & spiritual sources, the Bhagavad Gita, various poets and inspirational writers. And as always, RP is playing at my desk via Alexa pretty much all day.
Avoid all anecdotal reports, for your own mental health. Once we get some good controlled studies under our belt, that'll be worth knowing about.
The feeling that we need to know, every 15 minutes, about every minuscule piece of information about this - that's making the nation anxious and insane. The news is there to gather eyeballs, and they're reporting every little inconsequential thing like it's important, and trying to keep track of it (Azithromycin? Ozone? Ibuprofen? N95?) isn't something people really need to do.
Maybe get a summary once a day in the evening, and otherwise go plant your spring garden, or learn to whittle, or crank up ALL of Tales From Topographic Oceans...but move away from this for most of the day, because it's a marathon...
If you're doing OK, then take advantage of this open space on your calendar, and not be immersed in the doom culture more than a little bit. Imagine later when you look back on this period and your closet is still full of crap that you really did have time to clean out, and it turns out that you didn't do anything during this period other than collate other peoples' postings.
I started working at home on March 19, P's employer sent her home the following week. We've subscribed to shipt for grocery delivery, and that's going reasonably well. The state liquor commission has relaxed rules to permit deliveries during the crisis, so a guy on a bike brings us booze now an then. I have occupied the dining room table with my work rig, and P is set up in the guest/multipurpose second bedroom. The cats took a week or so to settle into us being in their house so much, but have now - like us - established a routine. We take at least one, sometimes two walks per day around the neighborhood. So far, so good.
