closing in

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/2IS532q

of the confirmed cases in my county, one was at the Wegmans I go to, last Wednesday, when they would have been shedding virus. FORTUNATELY, i haven’t been to that Wegmans in two weeks.

Mom and Dad are driving, enroute to my sister in Maryland. That sister wrote to just us sisters on our grouptext, and apologized in advance, saying she and her husband aren’t able to isolate but will do the best they can. (They’re active National Guard and have been called up to respond. Her husband was the soldier depicted in a news story photo she sent to us yesterday. He’s supposed to be in isolation because he just returned from a work trip to Estonia, but apparently this overrode it.)  Middle-Little had volunteered to go to Maryland in their stead, but they had refused. 

I wrote back that our stubborn father, who is 75 and severely asthmatic and would not be talked out of this trip, would certainly, if he wound up dying from this, do so with no regrets, and we all concurred that was true, though we’d all have regrets. He tried to volunteer for a tour in Iraq after the Army’s mandatory age of retirement because he felt he could nobly sacrifice himself, having raised his children. (We have continued to need him extensively since then, that having been 2005?? i think?? –all of his grandchildren have been born since then– but this has not changed his mind in retrospect. Fortunately, while the Army let him stay in, they declined to deploy him.)

Farmsister has not been isolating, because she has been making deliveries and staffing the farmstand so people can pick up. So Mom and Dad are possibly safer in Maryland than they would be here.

I am safer here, if I can manage not to have any contact with my well-intentioned but apparently poorly-educated coworker. 

It feels selfish to just stay here and not go to work and not go to the farm, but I have plenty to do and maybe I’ll just take a couple of days and stay here. Because if my dear, dim coworker gets sick, if I’ve been safely isolated then I can go in and keep the company running, once we disinfect the entire workplace. If I go to the farm, I will not be able to come back.

The governor is now apparently restricting travel within New York State, which I don’t understand– there’s a curfew? From 8pm to 5am? Which I really don’t get, why is that?? what is that going to do?? but it makes me feel like I should just stay home. 

I have already sorted and put away more laundry today than I had in the previous six months, so, maybe for the moment this is for the best…

Comments

[sugarandlime]

ohhh, all the hugs, god.

I will be joining you in staying in and doing house chores, even without an official curfew.

I don't know if I would be more freaked out or not if they were actually testing people here. The nature of the positive tests that have been reported means there have to be quite a few more, they're just . . . not tracing them. for no apparent reason.

[dragonlady7]

Oh yes-- the first three in my county? Each from completely separate sources, moving in entirely separate social circles. So it's safe to say, it is everywhere. And the places those people went, post-infection? Everywhere.

[heartofoshun]

I'm pretty much self-isolating because it would incredibly inconvenience Laura and Alex if I got sick. They are being very cautious. Laura is working from home and we took Alex out of school last Thursday I think? Then the public school finally closed.

[dragonlady7]

Yeah. It's. It's a lot.
I'm worried about my dad but then, I mean, what can you do? There's nowhere he could be guaranteed to be safe. Well, he could stay home, and it's not that my mother and father couldn't occupy themselves extremely thoroughly in their isolated house out in the country. But you KNOW they would not be able to resist seeing at least a grandchild, and then they're exposed to everyone she's exposed to, which is everyone, because her parents can't isolate themselves.
So.
There's just no way for them to be themselves and also avoid infection.

[heartofoshun]

I hope your parents can stay well and happy. No isolation plan will be perfect in any case. They are all a crapshoot. I'm taking the one that my daughter can best cope with because if I get sick she will be stuck with the fallout from that and I am happy to take a shot at being homebound and doing some of what I do every day. So far I have been as happy as anyone could be under the circumstances--still adjusting but thinking I will settle down soon and start getting some writing done.

[szzzt]

*high fives and lots of laundry from Seattle*

2nd week of working from home. My biggest problem so far has been that my legs apparently *hurt* when I don't get enough exercise, and I'm just terrible at like, deliberately doing workout things at home.

[dragonlady7]

Ughhh I feel you.

My dude has a ritual where he goes for a walk once or twice daily, so I went with him yesterday and paradoxically it's more exercise than I've had in weeks, so I should roll with this. I have an exercise bike but I also hate working out because it's such an extravagance of time during which I can't be multitasking...

[szzzt]

I deeply support Walk Dates, the housemate and I need to set up another one. Meanwhile I'm nearly to the point where I might, of my own free will, start going up and down the stairwell in my (21-story) building. It's most certainly harder if not using the handrails.

And/or I might pull out the mandolin and sit in the stairwell and sing. Concrete zigzag has some hella nice acoustics.