Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

And that is not nothing these days. I’m proud of you.

The VDOT NoVa account pointed out it has been a month this morning, and my first thought was “no, day 1 was March 13 and today is… oh shit, yeah, it has been a month”. Time is weird.

In some good news, the 4/8 update of the Covid19 Health Data site says Virginia will peak on 4/20 (insert weed joke here) – but even the absolute max beds is under our capacity, so it seems all this staying in may be working.

So, in this last month, I’ve developed some weird habits. Well, maybe not weird now, but if you’d asked me 2 months ago – I’d say they were weird. What I’m wondering now is how hard it’s going to be to shake some of these down the road or if some of these are going to be permanent dings to my mental state.

– Changing clothes to go to the market. Can’t wait to be able to ditch that one. Inside/outside clothes is just not for me. I’m doing way too much laundry these days. (Though if there was ever a time to have a broken water meter that won’t be replaced until the after times and billing based on prior use, this is it.)

– Treating every incoming package as a potential biohazard. I’ve been opening things outside and ditching the packaging immediately in the outside trash, and/or things go sit in the dining room with a towel plopped over it and they get added to my “decontamination time” Evernote list with dates of safe to mess with. Not sure how easy it’s going to be to stop that without getting itchy. (As it is, my brother brought a package in yesterday and put it in my spot on the couch. We did not come to blows or anything, but I was a bit “ACK! NO!” He graciously took the couch blanket to the laundry, LOL.) I’ve never wished more for a mudroom or garage. Or been happier that I’ve continued the “couch blanket for dog hair” even years after having a dog.

– Making my own coffee. I’ve gotten quite good at it, but the second my Starbucks is back open, I WILL BE THERE. It’s become a very nice way to get my day started over the years and I really miss my Starbucks folks and enjoyed seeing everyone and saying good morning every day.

– The moment I open a container of whatever in the kitchen, adding it to the grocery list so I always have an unopened backup of basically everything. That one is going to be a LOT harder to shake, I can tell already. That 3/13 trip to the market where everything was just WIPED OUT left has been a bigger whack to my psyche than anything else so far. I mean, we’re not talking hoarding levels or anything that extreme, but like last week when I made meatloaf and realized I didn’t have a unopened bottle of 57 sauce ready when the one in the fridge was finished, I got a little twitchy until I was able to make sure one was sitting in the pantry.

– Keeping track of where I’ve been & when. I started doing this at the beginning of March. I’m not totally sure what made me decide to do it, but I guess I thought we’d actually be doing contact tracing (HA!) and thought it would be good to be able to know where I’d been and when. It takes up all of maybe a minute of my day, and I don’t see myself stopping that one for quite a while.

– Crowded places. Yeah, that may take a while. I didn’t really love crowded places to start with, and now when I see people too close together on TV shows, I am very “HEY, SOCIAL DISTANCE!!” At least when I go to my little bar, it’s very late, and very not wall to wall people.

So yeah, there is a lot bouncing around my head this morning.

I’ve got my Coconut Crunch coffee, I’m vaguely awake, and we’re gonna call that a win right out of the gate.

Hey – if you have student loans with Nelnet – check your account – they’ve pushed back the due dates on qualifying loans and automatically put them into “Forbearance Virus Pandemic” status. They’re still trying to get the rates to 0%, but that was a pleasant surprise this morning. (I’m still annoyed on the delay on 0%, because I feel that should not be a hard programming task, but I suspect my devs would disagree.)

I wasn’t having any issues paying my student loans – hell, I was putting extra to them every payday, but I’m not gonna lie, being able to throw some extra money to savings right now is definitely good for my mental health.

Between that and the enhanced unemployment, if I get shitcanned because of this virus, I’ll be OK for a while, and that’s not nothing.

Welp, time to go try and work so I *don’t* get shitcanned.

62 days, 15 hours, 19 minutes.

Please do not confuse any of this as replacing my constant incandescent rage at this administration and its handling of this pandemic and utter sadness at how many people will needlessly lose their lives in this time. I can multitask.

– Trying to do math in the morning. I have special beach coffee. I’ve been using it for cold brew and I have those ratios memorized – 1/4 c beans + 1 c water. But I have no cold brew this morning, so hot brew it is. Googled “beans to grounds” ratio, finally found rule of thumb, 3T beans = 2T ground = 1 coffee scoop = 8 oz coffee. Easy. Somehow I decided 6 coffee scoops of beans would equal 2 cups of coffee and well – at least I realized my mistake before I had sludge and added the right amount of water, but I have a LOT of brewed coffee this morning.

– Inside/outside clothes. Yep, that’s gotten in my head, and I’m doing it. But before leaving the house, I’m having to stop and think, “Do I want to ditch what I’m wearing *now* when I come back? Will I be sad when I realize I have to toss these super soft jeans?” and then changing *before* I leave and again when I get back.

– Masking up. I’m actually OK with it and have acquired a delightful collection of bandanas to supplement the two I had (thank you REI) – but just, fuuuuuuck.  I never saw myself deconstructing furnace filters for mask inserts, but here we are.

– Everything is just harder. Marketing. Working. Keeping my brain positively occupied. Oddly enough, sleep has been fairly easy, probably because I’m perpetually exhausted because everything is harder.

– My fuckin’ grocery bill. All the bucks I’ve saved on Starbucks and bar tabs seem to have just transferred to Giant food.

– My hands are a mess. I was washing my hands before, I swear!! But my lord, there isn’t enough hand lotion in the world it seems these days. When we’re on the backside of this, I’m gonna go to Red Door and order up a facial and tell them, “just do all that on my hands, please.”

And now I’m off to Michael’s curbside pickup to get pipe cleaners for masks, because that’s the weird fucking world we’re living in right now.  (And OK, some craft supplies, because I might as well make the trip worth it.)  Honestly, I have no idea how they are able to still be open, but I appreciate the fact that they are.

Hang tough, my friends.

Day 23. (I don’t know why I am counting the days, but it seems the thing to do.)

Ran up to the halal market on the off chance they had yeast (they ran out a couple days ago) and then I felt bad for treating them as a last resort, cause it’s a nice little market.

And that’s why we have a container of baklava on the counter. (It’s delicious!)

Also a good opportunity to do a no-sew mask test run. Conclusions:

– The top band of knee high pantyhose works nicely in place of hair elastics for the over the ear piece. (I will be trying my regular hair elastics, but I suspect they could be painful after a short period of time.)

– Going to try a second elastic to gather up the sides, we’ll see how that works.

– Ironing in the creases was a good idea. And an oddly soothing exercise.

– Need pipe cleaners along the top/bottom crease for fitting them a little better.

– Glasses are a problem…they fog up. I am hoping the pipe cleaners may help a bit.

Granted, given the conflicting advice we’re seeing on masks worldwide and within the country, it feels a bit like plague theatre, BUT – I’ll go along with it.

I hopped on Amazon to look for pipe cleaners – no delivery until mid to late April, which is completely understandable. But, Michael’s has curbside pickup and pipe cleaners in stock, so…

I’m just waiting to get the “come and get it” notification. I may have also tossed in some aida fabric and an assortment pack of embroidery floss – fuck, if I’m going out, might as well make it worthwhile.

WHOA – UNEXPECTED SUCCESS MID WRITING OF THIS – the local bakery posted on FB that they have flour for sale, so I called and they’re also selling YEAST! A pound block of live yeast for $6. I also got a loaf of cheddar garlic bread because I felt a little bad to go in going “Hey, can I just get ingredients to make what you sell??” It’s also just excellent bread.

So, this pandemic, we’re gonna learn how to use live yeast instead of dry. I suspect the googles will have advice.

I’m looking forward to not having to treat the world as a giant biohazard.

Day 22. And I realize Fridays are totally meaningless for a lot of folks right now. But here, it still has some meaning, and not gonna lie, I’m pretty fuckin’ tired and need the weekend more than I did a month ago, that’s for sure.

One thing I have discovered through all this – and I kinda knew it before – I am not one of those people that stress cleans. Don’t get me wrong, we are doing a bang up job of staying on top of the dishes, but yeah, the rest of the place looks like a tornado hit.

The weather looks to be nice today, so hopefully I’ll get my ass out for a walk at lunch/after work. However, that will require pants, so…

Welp, onwards and upwards and indoors.

67 days, 15 hours, 29 minutes.