Just curious--what is everyone doing?

Chez Nina has been in remote mode for a week now. My place of employment is shut down, so we're all working remotely, more or less. Since my department is one of the few that's deemed "essential," I will have to go in to work once every 10 days or so as we're all taking shifts to maintain coverage. We can only have a maximum of 4 people in the office, though, so that's been fun.

Mr. Nina is unable to cross back into Canada without undergoing a 14-day mandatory self-isolation, so he's staying here. We've gotten very good at Skype, Zoom and Google hangouts.

Other than walks and the (very) occasional run to the grocery store, we're staying put.

Last Thursday was the last time I worked at the local volunteer tax prep site. Since then, I’ve only been in public to buy food in some form, either grocery stores or take out.

I have avoided the most crowded stores and the most crowded times, and I’ve been surprised how low contact some of the take-out experiences have been. I was in a burger place the other day and during the time I placed my order, it was cooked, and I left I was the only customer in there. (It helps that I generally don’t eat at traditional meal times).

Other than that the main difference , as I’ve mentioned in another thread, is that I’ve spent a bit more time on the phone talking to people I don’t see frequently.

No other big changes. As one of my friends mentioned to me yesterday, I was a social distancing early adopter…

We are isolating.
We take turns walking the dog. Bob's house is on an oval. There is no through traffic. It is very quiet.
May go to for groceries during the early hours when it is geezers only time. We are well stocked for now.

We started a month ago, in part because there were two cases in our community and up to a hundred people were self-quarantining because they had some connection to the couple who had the virus. I did the shopping and was very careful about hand washing and wiping stuff down.

I stocked up on a bunch of stuff over about three weeks, in anticipation of what I thought was likely to come.

I go out for a walk with my friend once a day and I take Maggie for a walk, too. Minimal shopping, maybe once a week. Mr wtg has two more weekly treatments so that will entail a couple of drives downtown, but I'm assuming it will be as empty was it was this past Tuesday when we went.

Easy for us, though, because we're retired and not social butterflies to begin with.


Oh, and Mr wtg had an appointment with his barber for Saturday and cancelled it this morning on the advice of his doctor. He really needs to limit his exposure to people as much as possible because of his medical treatments.

Today I ordered a set of Norelco hair clippers from Costco. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm hoping that hilarity does not ensue.

quote:

As one of my friends mentioned to me yesterday, I was a social distancing early adopter…

That's us!

What we are doing is more"social distancing" than quarantine. We live in a converted to condos / old 8 floor office building just south of the downtown area of Chicago. Before all of this, we decided it would be healthier to walk the stairs down the 8 floors, but we still ride the elevator up almost all the time - hardly ever have to share a ride. I bought a bunch of thin cotton gloves that we use whenever we leave the apartment and then drop in the laundry when we return. Our laundry room and one bathroom are right by the door, so we can wash up right away, as well as wipe down anything purchased.

The stores and the other shoppers have been good about trying to keep the 6'-10'apart, but being inside activates my 'danger/protection mode'. Still, I still shop fairly often...

We've been trying to get out and walk a couple of times a day and haven't met face-to-face with friends since the weekend. We might try to arrange outside walks, keeping our distance in the future... Most people kindof make eye contact and shift away on the walking paths and sidewalks.

We are doing our best to support local restaurants, but now that home tunings have pretty much ended, we will be cooking more. I'll still get out to some of the churches that are live streaming, as well as spend some time at the U to work on some projects deeper than just tuning. Apparently, they are going to try to have video senior music recitals for the students still in the area, so I'll want to keep the performance space piano in good shape.

Trying to stay separated. No tests done locally, no one is saying we yet have a case. I don't believe it. We just don't have tests here yet. Food shopped over a week ago. Off hours.

Had to order Flovent. Went 7 am. Damn deductible had kicked in so didn't have 400 needed cash. Pulled out newly taken over bank MC. Couldn't remember the new password. I thought I had changed given to my old password. Nope. Bank was not open. So had to leave and didn't wake up early enuf today. Grrrr. One more days puffs. So tomorrow first thing to avoid people.

Had purchased a whole chicken last week.
Unfroze it but went to turn on oven and ran out of propane. Grrrr..

Took them 4 days but he came yesterday. Came in with gloves on and we distant ourselves, but I did forgot to wash turn on switches when he left. Was just so excited to have gas again (stop laughing), I turned on 2 units.

I have a suggestion.

BAke chicken. A couple of meals.
Take off almost all left chicken. Freeze of use as such:
Big pot of fresh water on stove and simmer the chicken with garlic/herbs for a couple hours for soup stock. Cool. Put in plastic bags in freezer.

Make soup for a couple days later. Carrots, chicken pieces.

Make chicken pot pie...easypeasy gravy with whatever and chicken pieces.

Again, a couple more meals for now or freezer.

Also "social distancing" but going out very little and then only for necessities.

I do have to look at a job in LA this afternoon and have packed my travel bag with the necessary wipes and such.

At least traffic will be light.

My last “people” day was Friday, so almost one week ago. I taught, was in two different meetings and also saw lots of people on campus, visited the campus library etc. Then on Saturday, we went shopping (one store, just a regular trip), didn’t see many people and also only used self-check out. Then we did our “stock up” shopping trip yesterday, two stores and there were more people but we tried to keep our distance. Used self-check out at Walmart and regular check out at the other store. We plan on no shopping now for hopefully the next two weeks. (Although I need to pick up a prescription at Walgreens, hopefully we can use the drive thru window).

I have been working from home, and will continue to do that at least through April 5th, though realistically probably through the end of the semester and into summer.

Mr. SK is the best human to quarantine/social distance with. Hopefully he will still say the same about me even after a few weeks.

Office was closed yesterday. I stayed long enough to clean out the staff fridge, clean and turn off the lights.

The house was cleaned on Tuesday and she was the last person allowed in to the house. We have two grocery stores near by. Going midday is less busy. Trying to keep up with things I worry will be in short supply later, like milk.

My neighbor and I walk together most days to get out of the house.

Otherwise, just hunkering down and chatting with my 90 year old Mom who is at my sister's house and bored out of her mind.

Working from home.

Mr. Sphinx is going in to his office, but he is the only one, so that works.

I do an early-morning outdoor boot camp. The instructor sets out cones that are 2 parking spaces apart, and you have to use that as your guide for spacing. We filled most of a middle school parking lot on Wednesday.

I haven't tried to play tennis. There are outdoor courts, but I imagine they are impossible to get on because of demand with the indoor courts all closed.

I normally take a private lesson every other Friday, but I didn't set one up this week. Part of me feels bad for the pro, whose entire income will be from individual private lessons on public courts, provided he can find an open court.

But, well. I can't justify tennis lessons when there are no matches being played anyway and when heaven only knows how bad the recession will be. Can I spare the money? Who knows?

Tennis courts etc are closed here

We are totally socially isolated for now. We've stocked up, and if we buy more, we buy online, we bring the boxes into the garage, and we quarantine them for 3-4 days (the amount of time the virus will survive on a surface). Then we wash anything that touched the box on its way in.

We will continue to pay some money to our house cleaner and our dance studio, because they need it and it's the right thing to do, even though we are not getting our house cleaned or taking lessons right now. Those people need money, and are hurting far more badly than we are. It's the right thing to do.

Man. I'm not washing anything. Took the Costco purchases straight into the house and put them away.

Cindy -- who didn't even wash the cherry tomatoes she bought before popping them into her mouth

I'm paying my cleaning lady even though she's 'working from home' - ha. Moved the kids Spanish tutor to FaceTime (she's a teacher, but single mom and needs the money). Paused my piano lesson but may move that to FT at some point.


I pulled the boy from school even before they closed them, Rachel quit going into the city over 2 weeks ago. It's now been 15 days since she got back for LA and no symptoms, so that's cool.

We're done with stores, last visit was early Saturday. Everything delivered from here on out.