More notes and thoughts…

We walked into the cul-de-sac today, joining our neighbors singing happy birthday to a neighbor boy turning 18. Later, we took some family portraits as a photographer drove past people’s houses taking “porch portraits” for donations.

This weekend (Saturday) was Max’s birthday. He got a decent haul of gifts that he enjoyed. We sang happy birthday via videoconference on zoom between grandparents and cousins. His local cousins drove by and did a dance-a-thon in the street. At his request we made spaghetti and cookie-dough balls for dessert.

Stores are still experiencing shortages, but it’s targeted and somewhat random. Some days the entire cheese section is bare. Some days there’s no eggs. But there’s never been a day without some sort of decent food. You may have to settle for different brands or skip something you can’t find. But food isn’t a problem if you’re flexible.

I took our van through a drive through car wash today. We did this for the photo, which I’ll post when we get it. For some reason it was only $5 when it’s normally $20. I took Violet and the dogs as a treat to get out of the house. Somehow I managed to put it in drive when I thought I had it in neutral and took my foot off the brake. The car lurched and the guys started hollering. I fixed it right away of course, but I felt like an idiot and felt very jittery after that. I suppose it’s just general distraction.

My careful eating and workout schedule has gone right out the window. I really need to get that under control. I came into this pandemic in the best shape of my life, and that seems like a pretty good thing. But I find it hard to maintain a Keto diet when the stores are inconsistent. And my regimen of going to the gym every other day is right out the door. I have some weights at home, but they can’t make up for the loss of the barbell equipment at the gym.

We’re pretty well stocked for food, but I don’t want to be complacent about it. I’m frankly worried this pandemic is going to hit the US harder than it hit Italy. Scratch that. I believe it will, and by the numbers that’s what is happening so far. I don’t want to let our food dwindle down only to find that we’re low when stores become really bare or both Jill and I get sick.

I’m not sure when this pandemic will hit its peak in the US or locally here in Central Texas. It’s hard to know, because we can hardly trust the numbers we have, given the lack of testing capability. I’m sure the number of actual infected people in the US is multiples of the 146k or so confirmed cases that are reported. But I expect it to get much, much worse over the next few weeks.

I started writing this post over a week ago, but never finished. I’m going to post it as-is to keep track of what was going on at the time.

The world feels very surreal right now.

In less than a week we went from being excited about our spring break trip to Disney World to being locked in self-quarantine along with the rest of the world.

That’s how quickly things have changed. We were excited about our trip, then we were wondering whether we should cancel, then Disney World canceled, then we considered what to do instead, then we learned more about “social distancing” and the need to limit our interactions with others for the good of everyone, and then our city basically shut down for non-essential travel.

School is canceled for the next several months and we are limiting our trips and interactions with others as much as possible. We go to the store to get food or staples and that’s about it. And the stores have serious shortages. It’s impossible to get disinfectant of course, but there are also regular runs on bread, rice, pasta, cheese, etc.

Jill and I feel like we’re walking through a daze. We’re watching a lot of TV and movies, playing a lot of games, watching the news, and drinking more than our fair share of beer and wine.