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Cower in place 18: the new normal

– in which Dorn covers old ground.

I

t’s funny how things have progressed for me and these Cower in Place blog posts. At first I was just stuck at home with more time on my hands to think of things to write about. Then as the pandemic situation got more dire, it was hard to feel anything was important enough to write about except if it related to the coronavirus.

Now the virus and our response, especially the physical distancing and the stay at home order, are ordinary enough that days can go by with no new shock on the news (the news is still awful all over the world, it’s just not as shocking any more), or new experience to internalize. In just a couple of weeks, where we are now has begun to feel normal.

Before I do anything else, let me say a big THANK YOU to those of you who have settled into a different new normal. People like my niece Ysa in the medical profession (as well as your relative working there, and you, maybe), whose old jobs never stopped when a new, exhausting and dangerous job was added on top. And people like my grandson Chris (and maybe yours) in technical professions, who are still out making sure equipment works, air conditioners are still functional, especially in hospitals and places where failures could be deadly, even though the job puts them at risk every day. And those who are helping just by staying at home, even at great cost to their own livelihood. You’re all heroes to me.

*   *   *

As part of the new normal, I took another trip to the store to pick up online-ordered groceries curbside (first trip here). This second curbside pickup felt to me like, well, like just a trip to the grocery store. The weirdness of packing gloves, masks sanitizers for a trip out, and the decontamination protocol upon returning, had already worn off.

This second time, Safeway had gotten much more efficient at the the whole online ordering thing. I got an email notifying me that my order was ready for pickup, and this time it included an inventory of everything I ordered, what they provided, what substitutions they had made, and what items were not available at all.

The parking at the store lot was light again, but not strikingly so. As I sat in the truck waiting for the guy to come out with the bags, I noticed that now about 1/4 of the people there were wearing face coverings of some kind. So that’s progress.

Almost all of the mask-wearers were older people. I don’t think this means that people were only wearing masks to protect themselves. I think older people, being more at risk, are simply more attuned to the epidemic, and more aware of the latest expert guidance coming out about how useful masks are. I fully expect younger or more oblivious shoppers to catch on to the mask fashion trend by the next time I go—peer pressure is a powerful thing!

We stay at home pretty much all the time except for a couple of exercise walks in the neighborhood, with Archie. We picked our walk times to minimize the chance of contact. This neighborhood is usually pretty quiet except on sunny summer days, and even with schools and many businesses being closed, there were still times when no one is about. On our walks lately, we cross paths with about one person per walk on average, and that person is always walking a dog of his or her own.

*   *   *

I don’t know how many people actually read my posts, but clearly Big Brother Zuckerberg and his robot army are reading it. Loyal readers (if any) will recall that I recently wrote (here) about the sub-genre of Norwegian pig jokes (I believe the etymological term for it is “Norcine”). I got an email yesterday from Pinterest, suggesting that if I logged in, I would find all kinds of Norwegian jokes there. I confess I did bite at the click-bait, and sure enough there were a bunch of items there that I will stipulate that someone considered to be Norwegian humor. I didn’t see any actual Norwegian pig jokes, but I did see a Norwegian physical distancing joke of sorts:

*   *   *

    HOARD-O-METER:

         Frozen green beans   green

                       Milk   green

                   Velveeta    green
    
               Toilet paper    green

                     Coffee    green
    
                   Broccoli    green
    
                  Twizzlers    green

              Green peppers    yellow

Well, that’s it! Let’s see if next time, the pandemic is such old news that it doesn’t even make it into the post.

Thanks,
Dorn
4/4/2020

Cower in place: 17: it’s all in the game

– in which good investments are examined.

With all the shifts in the economy all over the world caused by the coronavirus, many companies are struggling, but some must be experiencing a windfall. Kathleen and I were talking about what would have been good investments, if we had made them months ago before we knew the virus was coming. Hand sanitizer manufacturers, obviously, medical face mask makers, toilet paper companies for some reason.

Service industries too have winners and losers. Big winners, that might have been good to invest in, are companies that can provide goods or services (their own or others’) with a minimum of human contact. Instacart, GrubHub and such, restaurants that are set up to deliver, grocery store shopping services.

I thought that the software companies that make the apps that put a pirate eye­patch or a tiara on your face when you video­chat should also be able to make a killing, if they just modify the apps slightly to cater to the new work-at-home crowd—have it automatically blank out all the mess in the room behind you, and make it look like you are wearing a business suit instead of your pajamas, or nothing.

Something else that it would have been smart (in retrospect) to invest in would have been some of the video-entertainment companies, as home-bound people all over the world look for new ways on the internet to entertain themselves, now that they can’t just go to a game, hear a concert, or play board games with friends. The online gaming platform Steam would have been a good investment, I imagine, or Twitch (which, if I understand it right, is a thing that lets you live-stream a video of yourself playing a video­game to other self-isolaters).

*   *   *

Speaking of gaming, a random article popped up today about a really fun board game I played once with my work friend Jon E—, who is a real game aficionado. He brought this game to a business conference years ago, and we all played after-hours. The game is called Pandemic (you can see why someone might write an article about it just now).

The game board is a map of the world. Each player had a specific, movable location, and a different set of resources (medical, logistical, financial, I forget exactly what). The object, as you might have guessed, is to prevent a newly emerging disease from turning into a Pandemic and devastating the world.

Operation! (not Pandemic)

What I really liked about this game, and what made it unique in my experience, was that the players were not playing against each other. All the players worked together to defeat the disease. If the disease was contained or cured before it had spread through the entire world, everybody won. If the disease managed to spread everywhere and wipe out mankind, well, obviously then the disease won, and all the human players lost.

It’s a cooperative concept that I think would be a good framework for all sorts of games, but I’ve never seen another quite like it. (though I’m no game expert).

Although the game was a lot of fun, I don’t think I’d enjoy playing it as much right now, because (a) it was hard! and (b) if any of the players weren’t in top form, the disease usually won. And I worry about that scenario enough in real life that I don’t also need to be experiencing it in my play time as well.

But I thought then that the non­competitive play meshed well with the we’re-all-in-this-together premise of the game, and I think so even more strongly now. We all have to fight the common enemy in order to defeat it, we all have to be top form in whatever our role is, and we can’t be wasting energy sniping at each other. Now that we’re in the middle of an actual pandemic, the message of common cause in the game Pandemic is even more obvious, and more urgent. If the game sounds intriguing, here’s the article I saw:

“No single player can win this board game. It’s called Pandemic.”
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/opinion/pandemic-game-covid.html)

Jon tells me that the makers came out with a followup board game in 2015 called Pandemic: Legacy. He tells me the game added a second unique twist: irreversible changes can happen as the game is played. Institutions or resources that were once available can be lost, and never recovered. Not ever, even if you play the game a second time a year later! Like the cooperative angle, this concept of things never going back to how they were before also seems to predict our current predicament rather spookily.

An article about Pandemic: Legacy, which according is considered by some “the best board game of all time”, is [here].

*   *   *

But back to what I was talking about originally, economic winners and losers in the pandemic. There are a lot of losers—companies that just can’t operate in this lockdown environment, and who might not be able to last long enough to ever open their doors again. Workers who have to choose every day between staying home and keeping themselves and their families safe, or bringing in a salary to keep their families solvent. And workers who don’t even have that choice, who have been laid off or furloughed.

Op-ed pieces sometimes forecast that for many, many people, the economic damage done by the pandemic will far outweigh the medical damage.

Kathleen and I are at higher risk than many from the coronavirus medically, but fortunately we are both retired, and our pensions will come in whether we stay at home or not. When we think of how to help, we usually think of helping with financial hardships people may be having.

Governments have a big role in helping people and businesses, of course, but we who are able can help too. It’s a good investment in your community.

Shop local. Patronize businesses that are still open, if you can. If you have a contract or subscription to a product or service that the virus has stopped, consider letting the company keep your money until they can start again, rather than pulling it back. We’ve told the Washington Post that we don’t want our paper subscription delivered throughout April, but we would like to keep paying our carrier at the same rate as if they were still delivering it.

Remember, there are more ways to be vulnerable to the coronavirus than just being elderly or having medical conditions!

(from https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821580191/unemployment-claims-expected-to-shatter-records)

As always, thanks for listening,
Dorn
4/1/2020

Cower in place 16: extra-vehicular activity

– In which Dorn ventures out of the house again.

faced death! That claim might have had more punch it we weren’t all of us facing death from invisible microbes every day now.

My particular death-defying feat today was to go back to the grocery store. I’m in that high-risk group known as “old”, and Kathleen is immuno-compro­mised to boot, so going out isn’t just risking spread in general, it’s facing bad consequences for us if we don’t do it right.

My curbside grocery pickup yesterday was a success, as I mentioned (here). Yesterday from the safety of my vehicle, with virtually no contact between me and anything in the outside world, I had managed to score almost all of our most vital grocery supplies.

“Almost” is the key word. One thing that Safeway could not supply was frozen green beans, which Archie eats every day as part of a healthy (for him) life­style. Last night we tried giving Archie a different green vegetable for supper as an experiment, but it resulted in serious discomfort to him (and to anyone else in the same room). So green beans it is!

Minimal-risk options for getting some were weighed and discarded as impossible, which left only one real path forward. Giant Food had frozen beans, but their version of curbside delivery had more or less collapsed from all the unpredictable shortages. But, they said, store patronage was pretty light right now, so I could come shop in person if I wanted.

Some rapid risk-assessment/risk-management calculations were in order. Risks varied by the hour: the later in the day I went, the more likely they would run out of beans, and the more people there would likely be in the store.

Waiting longer seemed only to increase the danger: each day the number of local cases of coronavirus went up, and they will probably keep going up (and even accelerating) for longer than our meager bean supplies will last. If I am going to go out in person, I should go out right now!

“I can’t put my arms down!”
(from A Christmas Story)

We did a quick check for other essential items I could get, consistent with the plan to spend as little time in the Red Zone (the store) as possible.

I suited up in layers (so I could strip off the outer layer outdoors when I got home and still be decent), got a hat and a face mask we had saved from a doctor’s office visit a month ago, grabbed my home-made hand sani­tizer, and prac­ticed some dry run germ avoid­ance and field decon­tamination moves. Then I set out for town.

Prince Frederick was different even from what I saw yesterday (not surprising, as yesterday there was no statewide lockdown order and today there is one). The store parking lot, probably filled on the lighter-than-average side yesterday, was definitely emptier today.

I saw maybe a dozen people in the store, and of these, I saw two people in face masks, one staffer and one customer (two customers if you count me). Yesterday, there were no masks. I predict the face mask is a fashion trend that will catch on big here—at least as big as the supply can support, especially as more and more people figure out that those countries with face-mask-wearing cultures are doing much better against the virus:

https://www.maskssavelives.org/static/Adjustments.plist.jpg
(From https://www.maskssavelives.org/)

Our Giant has those hand-held scan guns so you can clock your purchases as you put them in your bag. This always seemed to me at best a minimal time-saver, but today it was the reason I elected to shop at Giant. It allowed me to assure no one at the store had contact with my stuff after I picked it off the aisle.

I got my frozen beans (yay! Still there! I grabbed six bags), then did my quick circumnavigation for the other almost-as-essentials on the list. I mostly avoided the temptation to do any browsing, but I confess I did throw a carton of non-essential ice cream into the bag while I was in the freezer aisle.

I checked out without going near anyone (easy to do at the self-checkout because I was already scanned and bagged), and made my escape. It was pretty nerve-wracking, but I felt I was in as much control as I could be, most of the time. When the need arises, I could see doing this again!

    HOARD-O-METER:

                   Velveeta    green
    
               Toilet paper    green

                     Coffee    green
    
                   Broccoli    green
    
              Green peppers    green
    
                       Milk    green

         Frozen green beans    green

                  Twizzlers    red

Thanks! May your hoard-o-meter be showing all green,
Dorn
3/30/2020

Cower in place 15: first contact

– in which Dorn visits the outside world.

oday is Monday, which means it’s time to go into the big city of Prince Frederick and pick up our curbside delivery of groceries. I’ve got all my Personal Protective Equipment, and a plan in place to avoid all interchange of molecules with store staff, or, well, anyone. The groceries will go in the back of the pickup, loaded by a store loader, while I supervise by phone from the cab with the windows rolled up and the ventilation turned off.

On the drive up, I wondered what I would see in town? Martial law? Smoking ruins? Flying cars and jetpacks? I felt a little like I was channeling Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day: if the streets were bare except for the occasional masked and gloved figure furtively rushing on some unavoidable errand, then six more long weeks of viral winter await. If, on the other hand, the streets were full of clusters of people going about their business without a care in the world, then (I could deduce) we are not practicing our physical distancing or taking other precautions to “flatten the curve”, and the covid tsunami will come fast and hard, and then be over (for the survivors) more quickly. Neither scenario seemed very attractive, but I was hoping for the first one.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcRKgzHjTbveDNoPB4XVMxR4IcBKdP-y4GJEoog_FLOOXIgKb_TU&usqp=CAU

But things looked almost the same as they always look in Prince Frederick. The restaurants and stores that were closed were dark, true, with only one or two cars in the lot, but the open stores—the Walmarts, the Safeways—seemed as busy as they ever are on a Monday mid-morning.

I didn’t see a single person with a mask or gloves on going into or out of the stores, although I also didn’t see any groups of more than two people standing within six feet of each other. If I weren’t watching for it, I don’t think I’d have noticed any difference from a normal Monday.

The normalcy of it all reminded me of one of those shows where the hero spends the whole show in the bomb shelter expecting there to be nothing left of the world outside, then at the end he goes out, and everything is all fine. Surely that was the plot of some Twilight Zone episode!

Once in the Safeway parking lot, surrounded by strolling shoppers in ones and twos, I was surprised to feel suddenly pulled by a strong desire to behave as if this were just an ordinary plague-free Monday. Maybe just pop in the store and pick up the few things I didn’t remember to put into the order, or help the young clerk load my bags into the truck. I didn’t actually think this was a good idea, and didn’t actually do it, but the feeling was still there, strong. That herd instinct’ll sure creep up on you, won’t it.

So I stayed in the car, and the young lady came out an put several bags of groceries in the back, we waved through the window-glass, and I was off. The second I was out of sight of all those shoppers acting like we weren’t in a covid-lockdown, the herd instinct evaporated and I was my old skeert self again.

Recipe Roulette | random recipe finder, what should I cook for dinner?

I was curious to see which groceries I had actually received, and which they were out of, or put limitations on. It felt kind of like having one of those scratch-off cards that promises every one’s a winner, but you don’t know if you’ll just be a normal winner of a 25¢ off coupon, or a big winner of everything your heart desired.

At home, after the required sterilization procedures of myself and my produce, I took stock. I made out pretty good—I got almost all the fresh fruit and veggies on our list. Only a few important items were missing, which we weren’t yet out of. All in all, the hunting expedition seemed a success.

Of course, we won’t really know for five to ten days, when it becomes clear whether I dodged all the virus germs during my time out.

*   *   *

Our pup is celebrating a birthday! Archie turned 14 human years old yesterday, which, depending on how you calculate it, makes him the equivalent of somewhere between 73 and 98 dog-years old. I tried out different dog-year formulas on Archie (here), and decided I liked best the one that makes him 73. That seems about right for his current energy level and attitude about life—he’s starting to get cranky and unwilling to listen to helpful suggestions about what he should do and not do (kind of like me, who is also in that age ballpark). Happy birthday Archie!

    HOARD-O-METER:

                   Velveeta    green
    
               Toilet paper    green

                     Coffee    green
    
                   Broccoli    green
    
              Green peppers    green
    
                       Milk    yellow

                  Chocolate    red

                  Twizzlers    red

Thanks,
Dorn
3/30/2020

Cower in place 14: social distance

– in which Dorn asks, how did we come to this?

Rated P for preachy.

A friend of mine announced today that he was tired of all the political vitriol he was getting every day on Facebook, and was cutting loose those of his FBFs (Face Book Friends) from whom he was getting it. I was glad to hear that I was not one of the to-be-unfriended, even though our political beliefs are pretty much opposite, but still it made me a bit sad.

One of our country’s problems today is this huge rift that’s developed between people who identify as ‘red’, and people who identify as ‘blue’ (there are plenty of other group names that people call themselves, and even more that they call those who don’t agree with them). There’s always been a distance between them, of course, or they wouldn’t have identified into two groups in the first place.

But lately it seems to have gotten so bad that our country’s social, political, and emergency response systems can’t even work right any more. This is partly due, I’m sure, to the stakes involved: whether you think the other side is malevolently playing down the danger of the coronavirus for political gains, or you think they are malevolently playing up its danger for the same reason, the results could still literally be fatal to you or a loved one.

And Facebook can show us at our worst. The phenomenon where people who are normally polite and thoughtful transform into attack dogs when on FB reminds me of nothing so much as road rage, and perhaps stems from the same reasons in human psychology. Here’s a bit of a 1950 Disney short about mild-mannered Mr. Walker, who transforms into a demon when behind the wheel:

The dysfunctional way political discussions play out on Facebook (and don’t even get me started on trolls, bots, info-mongers and foreign interference!) has become so bad that I’ve been tempted several times to drop out of it myself, even though it’s my most effective communication line to far-flung friends and family, as well as being the pretty much the only way I publicize this blog.

Still, I’m sad that my friend is taking his step, because it means that he will lose a means of communication with those of his friends that differ from him politically, and it seems that could widen the rift even further.

Public health announcements have started to replace the phrase “social distancing” with “physical distancing”. That’s more accurate, of course; it’s the physical separation that reduces the risk of coronavirus transfer.

Social distancing is a better description of what’s happening in our country and the world, both in person and online, when we dismiss those who disagree with us as not worthy of our attention and respect.

And this kind of social distancing a Bad Thing, I believe, not just for our country, but for each of us to have those corrosive feelings running rampant inside. So stop it! And if you don’t agree with me, I hate you and you should eat worms and die. (Just a little political extremist humor there to lighten the mood.)

Thanks for listening, I just had to get that off my chest.
Dorn
3/29/2020