Covid Support Thread
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Whew… I am back safely in the desert. Had to do a quick overnight to my LA apartment so I deal with paying rent and bills, etc. I also need my 1099s for unemployment filing, etc. So yes, sadly, this was very much an essential trip!! Really. No way around it.
Oh, and yes. Of course I did grab some much needed clothes! No more doing laundry every three or four days. Yippee!
LA felt strange. As strange as the empty freeway. I have never driven 75 miles an hour without slowing one for two hours straight. Decidedly eerie… though, admittedly, nice.
Speaking of eerie — I walked into my apartment where all my Bequinox (LA Burning Man Event) stuff was still waiting, packed up neatly, ready to go to the festival that never happened. My old inflatable camping mattress was still very much inflated and lost precious little air. So that test passed.
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My just arrived passport sat on the desk ready to go for the april and may trips now scrapped.
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It was… depressing. Profoundly. As was all the shuttered businesses of usually hip and trendy Los Feliz. Though why was my dry cleaners open? Is that… essential?
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My plants looked great. My apartment looked great. But suddenly, I am Just not very keen on sharing a front door with fifty other apartments! Just… yikes.And so, I stayed in. All day. All night. I couldn’t even order take out. Just seemed… dicey. So I ate stale bread — toasted! Neat trick! Cooked frozen broccoli. Oh, and made a can Cream of Mushroom soup. Am I the first person to eat that in decades and not make green bean casserole?! ?
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I then ZOOMED way too many cocktails and woke up with a headache thinking I had Corona instead of a hangover. Aspirin and water cleared that up real quick.
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Anyway, happy to be back in the desert. Very. I brought some Retro Kenner Star Wars Action figures with me. You know. In case I get bored. (And yes, I just happened to have plenty of those on hand. Why do you ask?)Stay safe, everybody. Stay home.
BGM that was a very evocative post. It felt almost sort of post modern apocalyptic? Like a diary from the future.
Anyway my self isolation should technically be over today but I still don’t feel 100%. I need medication though so I’ll have to see what our chemists are up to in that department. We’ve now cut our social gathering sizes down to 2 so I think we’re pretty close to level 3 lockdown.
I know nooooobody cares about looking nice, but here’s a fantastic video that celeb hairstylist Jen Atkin just made about cutting her husband’s hair at home.
I’ll be doing this soon.
I did a virtual (standup comedy) open mic tonight. I had zero makeup on and dry shampoo in my hair. It was surreal. I’m usually completely done up for every open mic and it’s a ton of fun being with the other comics, being at a bar and making a night of it. We were done in half an hour; only 5 comics showed up.
BGM, I agree…very evocative. I have a friend who lives in LA also who is growing his own vegetables.
Here in Florida we are bracing for the influx of patients. There are cases in the community, likely because a few people didn’t self-isolate after being exposed at a conference. But no one knows where the infected were in the weeks between exposure and positive tests, so everyone is waiting for the shoe to drop. The Governor is not doing anything, leaving it up to the local towns and counties to determine what are essential businesses and what restrictions should be in place. He had absolutely no plan and didn’t take action when people who tested positive flew down, exposing entire airplanes of people – they just walked off the plane and were told to self-isolate. But not the people with whom they were staying. Now he’s asking troopers to keep a look out for people from Louisiana. Riiiiight.
My mom is very glad that circumstances have trapped me here instead of NYC. At least while I’m here I can go for a walk on the golf course (closed to golfers) and pass maybe 5-6 people tops. I don’t know if I’d even leave my apartment if I were in NYC.
In the meantime, the local grocery store will not let their workers wear gloves, which in a weird way I understand. They will still touch their face with the gloves as they get used to them, and it won’t actually stop the spread of anything. They said it will be two weeks before they company installs sneeze guards on their registers. But, they keep everyone stocked with hand sanitizer and make wipes available for the carts.
That’s strange. I live in Florida and in both Publix and Winn-Dixie (the top stores here I know of, except maybe Sedanos or Navarro, which I’m too self-conscious to go into by myself), and everybody is wearing gloves.
@Kate I’ll definitely be cutting my boyfriend’s hair soon, so thanks for sharing. My dog is some kind of poodle-ish mix looking mutt, and I trimmed his face over the weekend, but not his body… now his head looks too small for his body. Heh. But, he looks tidier. I might have to attempt a full groom on him soon.
My friend’s uncle is in Naples, Florida, tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to the hospital over the weekend. He’s early 70s. Never met him, but was very sad to hear and hoping for the best.
My dad’s side of the family has a big group text and I have some family members who are Trump supporters who keep comparing it to the common cold or seasonal flu. It’s so infuriating. I guess some people won’t take it seriously until it’s widespread in their communities.
My pregnant friend lives in a 4-story condo in Logan Square. Saturday night, she was so, so angry. Her doorbell rang so she answered thinking it was her husband and that he had forgot his keys while taking the dog for a walk. WRONG. It was people going to a dinner party at their upstairs neighbor and they had rung the wrong house number. A DINNER PARTY?!? In Chicago. Umm. NO!!!!
Her upstairs neighbors are most certainly not Trump supporters. I’ve met them. People from both sides aren’t taking this seriously. It’s infuriating.
@ktfran My sister has been sheltering in place with her faux-beau, who lives in Skokie in a smaller building, but she had to run home quickly on Saturday night for something. She lives in Lincoln Park, in one of those vintage midrise buildings that used to be a hotel, and said it was obvious several of her neighbors were having parties. I haven’t seen that myself yet, but I’ve been at my boyfriend’s and his neighborhood is decidedly quieter than my sister’s and mine… and his neighbors aren’t assholes.
@Allornone – this was a Publix – so not sure what the hell they are doing. I’d be handing out every box of gloves used for sandwich making to my staff.
@ktfran – they are still holding infection parties in places. Facebook won’t take down bad medical advice.Meanwhile this morning, my aunt and my mom have arranged for us to have Passover dinner together. They will come over, not come through the house. We’ll set up two separate tables outside and eat in the back yard six feet apart. The Haggadahs won’t be touched for another year so I’m not worried about those. We can set up all of the food in separate dishes without issue while wearing gloves. I’ll wear gloves to clear the table and wash the dishes.
While I’m not happy about this because I don’t want anyone getting sick, we’re also not inviting my other aunt and uncle who are significantly more fragile health-wise who only live a block away. For them my mom calls every other day and then every so often we walk over and stand outside to say hello.
Ultimately we’ll do our best and if someone gets sick – well we’re Jewish so guilt comes very naturally.
I love getting a snapshot of your new normal. Thanks for sharing your experiences. I’m enjoying the community in this time of seclusion.
