Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Journal of the Plague Year 3-16-2020

I didn’t go out at all today. My son refused to visit for breakfast, as he fears he is a carrier of COVID19 because of his public-facing job. He doesn’t want to infect the old folks. I am touched by his concern, but also feel that we could have monitored his health status had he been willing to show up. He is single and has no one to look after him. 

I hope he is doing what we are doing—watching TV and movies. Today we watched Irma LaDouce, a 1963 Billy Wilder film. Starring a young Shirley MacLaine and a not-so-young Jack Lemon, it was cute, but too long. Maybe tomorrow we will watch Jack in How to Murder Your Wife. 

Hubby (aka OLGS, or Oldest Living Graduate Student), did venture out briefly to work on his woodpile and thence to CVS to pick up some meds. When I suggested that we could have them delivered, he demurred, saying he wanted to take a walk. When he returned, he told me that he had not interacted with anyone and had used the self-checkout to pay. I usually hate self-checkout but may learn to tolerate it in the current crisis. Trying to avoid human contact is not only social distancing, it’s isolating. We will see how long we can keep it up. 

Today’s other activity was decluttering, something that we have been doing sporadically for a while. Today, we got rid of some papers, including a 1983 British road atlas, some old financial reports, and a letter informing OLGS of his paltry 2017 raise from the University of Wisconsin system.

Not a huge haul, but if we do a little bit every day, we might have a smaller footprint in a few months. Maybe this enforced seclusion is a good thing. Without it, I would certainly find an excuse to do something more interesting.


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