March 23

The last several days have been a shock to the system.  We went to our vacation rental home in Chincoteague for a few days to paint and fix and work.  That little old house is an investment for our old age, it’s not fancy or upscale, just a small cottage that always seems to have something to fix or rebuild at great expense to us.

So my hope is that at the end of the day, we will have put less money into it than we get back when we decide to sell at retirement.  I pray it will not be a loss.  But no matter.

We walked the beach and that was enough of a balm to help us forgot the Coronavirus news.  We came back on the 16^th, I wrote on the 17^th and every day since then I have been busy with personal drama and trauma.

Adam is living with us as he has been for 3 weeks, and this week, my daughter moved home.  She lost her job in the restaurant business, but it was very amicable and they will be paying her Cobra.  But as important, she is now in a secure environment of food, supplies and plenty of room to move around in without exposure.  It’s an awful situation for her and for Adam and frankly for us…but it is what it is and we are all working to make the best of it.

The day she moved in was her birthday.  I made chocolate cupcakes because I thought they would last better than a cake and I found a few candles to put in the cupcakes.

I feel as though I have been cooking non-stop or thinking about food and how I can make the most of the food I have on hand to stretch it way out, so we will all be fed without having to go “Mad-Max” at the grocers.  I am not sure if I will get thin or super fat during this endeavor, we shall see.

Meanwhile, since I last wrote, we are now at 35,211 cases.  I think we were around 6k and that was 7 days ago.

Since I last wrote, New York City has become the epicenter of Corona with one-third of all cases in the United States.

Makes you want to live in the country, don’t it?

My brother lives on a mile square farm in Missouri.  One mile square is his home, not a 400 square foot apartment.  He cans a lot of food, has a cellar.  He has about 100 deer on his property at any one time, any of which he can shoot, dress and cook up to his satisfaction.  

I think about that.  It’s a different lifestyle than my own, and while I have a decent lot in a decent suburb, I am surrounded by people, any number of whom already have that Corono crap and I am not sure right now who to trust. 

Tonight a woman posted on Next Door (a neighborhood kinda Facebook page, very micro local) that the hospital had shut to all visitors.  Her husband is in that hospital and now she is not even allowed to go see him.  My heart hurts for her. 

That’s a crappity, crap-fest, wouldn’t you say?

So, today I did seed starts with a Jiffy Germinator.  Spinach, Swiss Chard, a bucket load of lettuce varieties.  I have Pak Choi and Cauliflower on standby from Home Depot.  Today I planned out my garden, researching companion plants and who gets along with whom…I made an abbreviated turkey (body without wings or legs) and dressing from scratch and more bread. 

Then I sat on the deck for about a half hour, listened to a great Willie’s Roadhouse presentation from the Grand Old Opry where between songs they talked about the effect of not just the Corono, but the recent Tornadoes that swept Nashville, the Dust Bowl, the hard times of their people before them.

I also spoke to my son today, I heard trepidation in his voice and uncertainty.  And that made me feel ill at ease.

My daughter did a bang up job of cleaning my family room, Adam applied for like 20 jobs, I made turkey dinner; it was awesome.  While the bird was cooking my husband complained of chest pains.  I was concerned but he drank a 7-up, I monitored him, asked him about anxiety and had him do “extreme” stretching of his torso and it seemed to go away on its own. I’ll have to ask him about that family history tomorrow, not sure since we have spent over 10 years concentrating on all the colon cancer in the family.

And last night we had a fire pit. I felt like I was camping.  There is something about a fire that mesmerizes you and calms you too.  It was great.  

And today, I sat on my deck in the cold and marveled at the starkness of the trees, the raptors flying about and the Robin near our bush who right now is probably building a nest. And I just thought or didn’t think for a while.  It gave me peace.