Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

There’s part of me that is more than a little concerned this is going to turn me into a fucked up hoarder, and I don’t want that. But seriously, the only moment of true fear I’ve felt in all this was walking into the market last Friday night and seeing it cleared and just thinking “how can I feed my family if there is no food?”

Sure, my family is just me, my brother & Lily – but I never want to feel that again, even if it was momentary and I was able to pull myself together and get most of what we needed. So, I see some weird buying in my future for a little bit. (No buying out all stock or anything, just…you know what I mean.)

On a positive note, my brother says my vanilla lattes rival Starbucks! Go me!

On the whole, I feel pretty useless. I have no pandemic skills, and working doesn’t leave time to really help others. I’m throwing money at food banks and my folks in the service industry, but it feels weak, when it seems like so many regular people are REALLY helping. Work is especially weird since we’re just going about our business like any other day.

Once this is over, assuming I’m still employed – I’ll be redoubling my efforts to move. There’s just no real sense of community here for me – hasn’t been for a while, and this is highlighting it. (People aren’t being horrible, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s just weird and everyone is very disconnected from each other here.) But on the whole, looking out at the rest of the world, people are really good and I am very grateful to see that.

Speaking of employment – *that* is what has me worried right now. Not just for myself, but for everyone I know. And don’t know, for that matter.

I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY?!

And yes, I had to hit the market…again. Fight me. Folks can fuck off with the grocery shopping shaming.

There are uncountable reasons that a person wouldn’t have 2 weeks to a month worth of food just sitting around, and most of those reasons are Mind Your Own Damn Business.

Add to it that after the gangs of marauding Karens cleared the stores on Friday, just doing REGULAR shopping for normal shit can take multiple trips.

Me? I usually only buy what’s needed for the next couple days. I know there is a lot of privilege in being able to do that, but I have found that when I try to “stock up” – things just get wasted, and that’s no good. And suddenly I’m trying to think farther ahead and finding that I’m not great at it. (See Fucking. Butter. yesterday.)

So, yes, I was at the market again this morning. Very few people, all of us doing the 6 foot dance, and apologizing when we discover we’re accidentally blocking someone on an aisle. But now we have butter (we’re going through it freakishly fast), green chiles because I see chicken chili stew in the future, a jar of minced garlic, a packet of diced ham for ham & cheese scrambled eggs, and a jar of parmesan cheese. (Cheese toast is seeing a resurgence here.) And Coke. Oh, and some funnels – trying to get the ground coffee in the narrow filter tube for the cold brew pitcher is…challenging.

I *think* I should be good for a while.

Paper products are still wiped out. Not sure if they’re just having problems restocking due to overall demand, or they’re just disappearing the moment they hit the shelves. Lots of produce. Some empty spots on the shelves, but not much totally sold out – though Great Northern Beans are more popular than I would have imagined. Mayonnaise is totally sold out, and I don’t know why that made me laugh, but it did. Bakery & deli are up and running – and yes, I got brookies (brownie on the bottom, blondie on the top) – come on, they have come in and baked these, I can’t let them be disappointed with unsold ones at the end of the day. (And they’re delicious.)

I want to do something for the folks at the store – not sure what, but something – but I don’t know how many people actually work there. And they’ve shut down the email inquiries due to volume. Should have asked while I was in this morning. Next time.

Here’s a Lily:

She knows nothing. What a lucky cat.

I look at my market list and look around the kitchen to try and make sure I know what we need so I am not going to the market every freaking day in the middle of a pandemic.

And yet, I still always miss SOMETHING.

Fucking. Butter.

Ran up to the market (fully prepared to do a 180 if too crowded, but it was not) and have come to the realization that I am not really sure I can visualize how far away 6 feet is without two yardsticks.

But now we have a large container of milk (boy howdy are we going through it faster than we usually do) and refried beans (taco night on the horizon) and a coffee scoop. (I would have sworn up, down & sideways that we had one, but it would seem I was wrong.)

Market looking good overall. Produce well stocked, dairy well stocked. Some empty spots on the shelves, but not like panic Friday. Meat case has taken another hit, but I am sure they’ll be restocked shortly. Paper goods – non-existent and cleaning supplies also kinda empty. But overall, pretty darn good.

Also found out the folks working there are going to be getting hazard pay for the next month and a half, and let me tell you, that has been well damn earned.

Day 8.

The instructions on the french press are A LIE. Coarse grind and 4 minute steep in barely boiling water, my ass. Regular grind + 15 minutes + full boil gets you a decent cup of coffee. And I made my brother a latte this morning and he said it tasted just like Starbucks.

The purchase of the proper cold brew pitcher seemed a bit silly at the time, but has already proven a good buy as I enjoy my coconut crunch cold brew this morning.

I swear, there is always *something* I need from the market, which is annoying. They’re things that can certainly wait a bit, but ugh, not really being able to go RIGHT NOW is kinda annoying. (I go when the volume is low and I suspect that is not the case on a Saturday morning after a week of homeschooling.) Maybe tonight after 9 or something.

On a potentially positive note, Virginia’s testing has been expanding rapidly, but I am not seeing an associated increase in positives as a percentage of the total tests. I realize it may be far too early, but perhaps trying to stay away from each other is having *some* impact. I mean, I’m not running out and licking anyone’s face, but it’s a small glimmer of hope that I am going to hold on to for the moment.

Our schools closed last Friday at the direction of state government. I still think he did it because my county was dragging their feet on it – they’re very big and I think the Governor was hoping they would close and others would follow. I have heard that my county’s plan was to close *yesterday* – can you imagine an extra week of little kids being carriers?

I think I watched more press briefings from the Governor in the last week than I have in my lifetime. I literally have an alarm set of my phone so I can turn on the 11 AM daily briefing. I am furious that the states are just being left on their own, but glad to see Governors step up and do what they can.

I am still utterly useless. The zombies are here and my big skill is software testing. So I’m throwing money at the service workers in my life and food banks. I don’t know what else I can do.

Day 7 and Starbucks is closed.

I actually have zero problem with this, and frankly, I’ve been waiting for it. Doesn’t hurt that my cold brew pitcher and beach coffee arrived this week – already got a pitcher going for the morning.

And tomorrow we’ll see if you can really make espresso strength in a french press and how well the milk heater/frother I got works. We may have lattes!

In other news, that Friday night beer hits a bit different when you’re in the middle of a pandemic and market crash. Damn, it tastes extra good tonight.

In other news, we had a department wide meeting today to discuss the whole pandemic thing, and let me tell you, it was kinda surreal. A very large chunk of the department already works remotely, and now we all are, and there was a lot of back-patting over getting that done so quickly. (We’re a tech company, I would hope we could do it quickly.)

It was a weird mix of very nice and totally tone deaf. We’re all in this together, this too shall pass… But honestly, I just kept thinking, “Spoken like someone with a fat bank balance who has apparently not looked at his 401K balance recently.” Folks are scared of the pandemic. They’re even more scared of the pandemic and the very real prospect of being jobless & homeless all at the same damn time.

Virginia is not on full lockdown – just no more than 10 people anywhere… Just shut down the bars/restaurants – they’ve already given them an instant on/off license for beer & wine to supplement carryout, let’s just go ahead and do it.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that – as I suspected – I am fucking useless in the apocalypse. No green thumb, can’t really sew, can sort of cook, but that’s about it. Other than making sure we have food in the house, courtesy of the badasses at Giant food – I got nothing. I get up and test software all day.

And I just watched Rachel Maddow break down on air over the loss of a colleague. A death that most likely could have been prevented had this administration actually looked past polling numbers.

Be kind to each other.

It seems we’re numbering the days now, and I’m considering plague panic Friday to be day 1.

I don’t know what happened today, but something did and my stress and anxiety have just kinda…left. Some little voice in my head pointed out I’ve taken worse mental health hits than this, I’ll get through this one.

Still really fucking angry at the administration and every damn member of the GOP. But there isn’t a damn thing I can do about that except hope that they somehow manage to actually help people while trying to save their own portfolios. (I hope Burr goes to jail for those stock sales.)

Ain’t shit I can do to make test kits show up faster. I can’t stop famous people from magically getting tested when they have no symptoms. I can’t get Elon Musk to shut up and actually make ventilators like he claims he wants to.

I know everyone is getting stir crazy. But shit, unless you’re under proper quarantine, you’re allowed to go the fuck outside.  Take a walk, sit on a balcony – you don’t have to hide in an interior room to do social distancing. Hell, you can even go to the market, just give everyone proper space and wash your fucking hands.

Mind you, if you are under proper quarantine and/or isolation, I genuinely feel for you, and that must suck if you can’t even get outside for a bit. I hope you can get outside soon.

I’ve hit fuck it, stay calm, be smart mode.

We now have 2 cases, both in Northern Virginia, and I’m smack in between them. OK – we have two known cases – I have no doubt there are more out there, but with testing being what it is, we just don’t know.

Officials aren’t saying where these folks have been in the community, and that is kinda pissing me off.

I feel like I should be doing more than just washing my hands constantly, but the health department says just keep doing that and avoiding really crowded places. (Easy for me, cause I don’t like crowded places.) It feels…inadequate.

Dow futures are indicating a 900 point drop at the open. So, I guess it’s time to get ready for a recession on top of everything else.

Overall, I’m kind of uneasy, but really, REALLY pissed off at the administration for fucking this all up so badly. The denial is getting people killed.