Cowering in place

I. The libraries and schools in our county have been shut down since last week, due to the threat of coronavirus. Today our governor ordered that restaurants, bars, gyms and the like are also to be shut down, at least through the end of the month.

II. Some of my siblings and niblings just returned from a jaunt to our ancestral grounds in Norway. (That trip, and its harrowing escape back to the US as the virus was closing borders all around them like the jaws of a gigantic bear trap, is a hearty adventure tale in itself, that I’m hoping one or more of them will write.) They are all back in the US now, and in accordance with the latest wisdom, they are self-quarantining for 14 days before visiting any old people.

One of those siblings is Lona, and one of the places she’s quarantined out of is her own house, because her husband Gordon, who is fully as old as she is, lives there. Today Lona started sharing her quarantine journal on Facebook.

Kathleen and I haven’t been out of the country lately, or (to our knowledge) in contact with any corona-positives (or “Cee-Pees”), but decided it would be wise to socially-distance ourselves away in our little country cottage, “The Lotus Eatery”.

Lona’s example has inspired us to start our own “Cowering in Place” journal.

Cowering in Place, day 1 (3/16/2020).

Having joined in the fun of panic-buying last week, we are confident of having enough toilet paper to last out several extra days of the zombie apocalypse. We’re stocked with foods fresh, frozen, and imperishable. No milk, but plenty of that kind of canned tuna that we don’t like.

One of the universally acknowledged rules of cowering in place is that you have to eat differently than you would normally. So, we pulled the old Spiralizer off the top shelf, dusted it off, and made lo-o-ong strings of spaghetti out of all the veges we could find: zucchini, carrots, beets, pickles. We weren’t brave enough to process the broccoli in the fridge, and the celery and mushrooms just wouldn’t cooperate.

Mixing this with some lemon juice, feta and oil made a tasty salad, that when cooked became a delicious mirepoix. We learned that the safest (perhaps the only safe) way to eat it was with a snail fork (perhaps a tuning fork could be substituted) in one hand and a pair of kitchen scissors in the other.

The stock market has been spooked by the whole coronavirus thing,  which has sent my IRA teetering. I had calibrated my contributions to it down to the penny, so that I didn’t have to work an hour longer than needed to give me an IRA that lasted exactly as long as I did.

You would think that the fear of an unexpectedly early demise from the Chinese Flu would cancel out the fear of living longer than my IRA, but oddly enough it didn’t. Instead, by some weird calculus of human psychology, the two fears were added together! (Bet you didn’t see that coming!)

So we called our IRA guy and asked him to advise us about the money in the IRA. He came armed with charts, graphs, and future projections. ˆ”See?” he told us, “you’re still on track for meeting your retirement goals, despite this market tumble.”

“But what if one of us gets sick?”  I asked. “Excellent question! Let’s plan for that! How about we have Kathleen go into a nursing home at this point, and then die at this point three years later. Let’s re-do the math, and …. great, you’re still fine!” (He really said that.)

This was very comforting to me, although Kathleen didn’t seem as reassured. “Why am I the one who gets to die?” “It’s only reasonable,” I said, “I’m the one who arranged the videoconference.”

But she still didn’t seem reconciled to our new plan. I didn’t say it aloud, but i think she was letting her cabin fever jitters get in the way of rationally planning what was best for All Concerned. And it’s only day 1!!

Are you keeping a Cowering in Place Journal? If so, it seems like a good topic for a GUEST POST! Let us know!

Thanks,
Dorn
3/16/2020