– Self-isolation journal, day 4 (3/19/2020).
Our daughter and granddaughter have embarked on a quest, Mad-max style (i.e., driving) to bring home their sister/daughter from Michigan State University, where they have closed down classrooms and eateries, and generally disrupted the whole college-student experience. The trip from their home in Wyoming to Lansing, Michigan takes about 20 hours.
I couldn’t convince them to take a mere 100-mile detour while transiting the Nebraska panhandle, in order to visit Carhenge in Alliance, NE. I told them they should see the Toyota Coronas there in honor of the corona virus, but they were having none of it: “Everyone knows that Carhenge is built from 100% AMERICAN cars!!”
Riddle: What rhymes with orange?
Hint:
I’m starting to discover cracks in my hoarding. I’m well stocked up on powdered toilet paper and homeopathic hand sanitizer, but I realize I forgot to get a stash of hearing aid batteries! Now I’m out, except for the ones in my hearing aids right now. And they don’t last as long as they used to, I think because I am listening harder. (You’re familiar with the principle that things wear out faster with harder use, right? Like how the driver side windshield wiper always goes first, because the driver is always looking through that window.)
I’ve ordered some batteries from big-A, but if they don’t deliver soon, I’ll have to set foot outside my door again (yikes)!
During my time set aside each day for worrying, I thought of a new threat—drought! I’ve been practicing my 20-second hand wash, and soon realized that my habit of leaving the water running while I scrub was wasting an extraordinary amount of water. I’m trying to stop that, but old habits are hard to break. What if everyone is doing that?
Bathroom faucets put out about 1.5 gallons per minute. Let’s say people might ought to be washing six times a day. If they forget to turn off the spigot while singing “Happy Birthday” or “All You Need Is Slugs” or the Doxology, they waste on average 3 gallons of water a day. The population of the US is what, 330 million? If we don’t all get our act together, we’re talking a billion extra gallons of potable water literally down the drain every day! At that rate, we could empty Lake Mead less than a decade, and it’s already at historically low levels!
We can’t let it run out! Let’s get with it, Covid-eers!
My sister and Third Age Thoughts co-influencer Lona has also been keeping a quarantine journal on Facebook. If you’re on Facebook (and who isn’t these days among us Third-Agers?), you can access it here.
Thanks,
Dorn
3/19/2020