Life in Lockdown in shiny things

Well, we aren’t really locked down, although our state - NC- is under a 30-day Stay At Home order as of yesterday at 5:00. This means pretty much what we were already doing, although now gatherings are limited to 10 people who have to stay six feet apart. Which kind of seems like a lot of people, but I think before it was 50. Grocery stores and drug stores and other essential stores will stay open. Hardware stores are essential, so our Lowes is open but the garden center will be closed to everyone but professional landscapers. The checkout guy who told me this was not at all sure how it will work. We can go to outdoor areas to walk, but shared spaces like playgrounds and picnic areas are closed. Restaurants are still allowed to be open but only for take out and delivery.

The college is now completely shut down other than approved essential employees- I think there are around 160 students still on campus who had nowhere to go, so they have to have some food services and housekeeping operating. They just announced yesterday that summer school classes will all be online. Summer is when a whole lot of our students do required internships, and there are no internships allowed now, so I really don’t know what will happen. I suppose they’ll do the internships during fall semester, if things are back to normal enough by then, and graduate late. There’s also an enormous quandary about grading this semester. Basically they want to allow students to have the choice of pass/fail instead of regular grades due to the massive disruption, but there’s this whole issue about what to do when minimum grades are required in a course, and are a prerequisite to get into required courses, and for GPA purposes.

I’m on a mailing/discussion list for the group that sets policies and procedures (I am not actually sure why I’m on it, but it does occasionally have helpful info about what’s coming down the pike towards us so I don’t unsubscribe) and all day long I’ve gotten these long, complicated, massively baffling and confusing emails discussing how this will work. They involve P, P+,P-, F, S ,U, I think some more + and - and how they will all translate into actual normal grades for programs with minimum requirements and OMG it is just completely out of control. One person suggested what looked to me like a very simple and straightforward way to do it, and of course they totally disregarded that and continued to pretty much make it as crazily complicated as humanly possible, and why am I even looking at them?!? It has nothing to do with me! Except as an end point, and I do have to understand how it will work but really need to wait till they’ve actually settled on something. Which clearly will not be happening anytime soon.

As Baker B pointed out, the really logical thing would be for someone to see what all the other NC system universities are doing, and maybe, oh, DO THAT.

With Baker B and I, things are actually not that much different than before the Pandemic hit. I love working from home and weirdly I’ve been REALLY busy. I was kind of hoping to have a lot of free time to get some stuff done around the house, but so far I’ve worked all day long, every day, hardly stopping, just like I’m at the office. The only real difference is I’m working in yoga pants and fleecy pullovers, with my cats occasionally assisting by knocking my stuff off the table. And no makeup, unless I have a Zoom meeting, which I’ve already had quite a few of. I have TWO tomorrow! I did go get my office chair and now sit at an actual table which my back appreciates. I go out and take a long walk at some point every day - either as my actual lunch break, or after 5:00.

OH, and nobody can call me, which is fantastic! We have this app thing called Cisco Jabber with our office phone system, and you are supposed to be able to take calls via your computer, but mine does not work despite the tech department spending an hour on the phone - my cell phone - with me trying to figure it out. The chat part works and I can see the phone call coming in but can’t hear, and they can’t hear me. My mic works for everything else so it’s not that. If someone leaves us a voicemail we get an email of the recording, so I just left a message saying telling people to leave their email and I’d email them back. Heaven! I hardly get any phone calls anyway - everyone emails - but I am absolutely not giving out my personal number to students and parents. And we all just text in our office, or chat with Jabber.

So far my nutritional intake has been fantastic, thanks to doing Panic Shopping for the past few weeks with Baker B, who can’t eat sugar but LOOOOVES sugar, so if I have anything sweet in the house, he will 1) devour it, 2) feel ill with chest congestion and probably catch a cold because that happens every single time he has sugar, and 3) blame me for buying it. And I try to really limit sugar consumption myself, but back in those long-ago days when I got to go to the store alone, I could buy myself treats and hide them from him. Oh, and I am normally WAY too dependent on frozen dinners, especially my beloved Amy’s, because I am lazy and usually too tired to cook. But now there is no room in the freezer for frozen dinner boxes, and I am am making actual meals for myself out of actual food that is actually healthy. Go me!

Thanks to Baker B, who is a Stock Up For The Apocalypse kind of shopper in normal times, we have PLENTY of supplies. I was starting to get embarrassed about our Panic Shopping trips by the time he finally agreed we’ll probably be okay now. Especially since the stores ARE still open, and we’ll have to make the occasional trip for perishables. Everything we stocked up on is non-perishable, like the pasta sauce he eats on quinoa every.single.day, and stuff we will absolutely consume, and they had limits on the popular things like peanut butter so we did not wipe out supplies and keep others from getting them. Lots of cat food and cat litter and alcohol, of course!

The worst thing is my poor mother in law, who just turned NINETY NINE on March 7. She’s in a nursing home about an hour from us, and they are totally locked down of course, so she can’t have any visitors. She’s very lonely, and can’t hear well on the phone - if at all - so even though we call her daily as does Baker B’s brother, she often can’t hear us and is sounding really depressed. And there’s not a thing we can do. I’m so glad we were able to take her out on her birthday, at least. She really enjoyed that. I’ll leave with some pictures of more social times:

The Birthday Girl:

Eat your lemons, kids!! Maybe that’s the secret?? With Baker B on the right and Baker B’s brother on the left (who, yes, is literally old enough to be his father), clearly discussing working lemons into their diets.

Me and Baker B, in the rare picture where both of us only look a little weird. Instead of the usual picture where one of us looks fairly normal and the other one looks insane. Although Baker B does have a strangely apprehensive expression, and I’m not sure what is going on with my hair. And YES, that plate of french fries was totally mine, and at that point I’d said, “oh, I’ll never eat all these! I’ve had plenty!” Then I ate the rest. They were like the most perfect french fries on earth, all crispy and perfectly cooked. And I had the worst stomachache EVER that night. They were worth it.