The Enemy Has Arrived

My county now has its first confirmed case of Covid-19. Before it seemed surreal and like going through the motions. Now it is imperative to take precautions seriously. I have been trying to do that, but sometimes unexpected things crop up. Like finding out Tuesday when I went grocery shopping that one of the stores no longer had wipes available to disinfect the cart. I will take my own wipe in a baggie now when I go to stores since I can't depend on them to offer help.

 There are maybe two dozen tests in our county where the results are not yet known so there could be more ill people. Hopefully they have been following the stay-home mandate and not spreading the virus widely. It is only realistic to expect there will be more positives in the coming days and weeks.

I just listened to a press conference by our governor who says they are looking at the state's situation each day, and that if the mandate must be lengthened, we will know several days before the expiration date arrives. That target date to end stay-home was April 7th.  But of course as a person in the high-risk group, I will be attempting to stay home anyway.

Open Your Eyes

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.
— J. R. R. Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring

I saw this quote on Emily Gibson's blog today and felt like sharing it. I kept it in mind as I set out for my walk this afternoon.

The sun was shining, the sky blue, the birds were singing, a man was sharing his new puppy with his neighbors (he stood a distance but the dog approached to be petted), green sprouts were emerging, and trees budding. My next-door neighbor whose wife died in July and who had back and hip surgery in February was standing on his porch. I chatted with him a few minutes. These are all things to be cherished and appreciated even (maybe especially) during the pandemic. 

There was a whole row of tulip plants in front of the skilled nursing building. This one was in front of a hot-air vent; with the extra warmth it is already blooming. 

I bought some exercise "equipment" (already had the green band) at Meijer. I will try to follow along with a video that has a routine similar to the one I was doing at the Y.

Later this afternoon or evening, I will start knitting a dishcloth.

Though my pot of daffodils is fading away, I took the last 2 blossoms and put in a vase.

The pink tulips are starting to open. Look for ways to brighten your time at home. There is much that is fair.

Shutting Down

The governor of Indiana has mandated that all non-essential businesses in the entire state will close as of 11:59 p.m. March 24th (today) and stay shut through April 6th. This includes barbers and hair salons. 

The residents not working at an essential business are to stay home, only going out for groceries/food, medical needs, or to help someone whose care they are responsible for. 

I went to Meijer this morning during their "senior hour". I arrived at 7:10 a.m. The first thing I headed for was hand sanitizer, but there was none on the shelves. After picking up a few more things on that side of the store, I headed for groceries.

 My sister-in-law had asked me to buy a few things for her including a package of toilet paper. Not a single roll of tp was on the shelf. In fact, that aisle had one package of Sparkle paper towels and about 6 packages of napkins along one side. Imagine how much empty shelf space that is. There were no cold-cuts for sandwiches either. They did have a good selection of cereal. I found a box of my brand and also her two brands. Frozen vegetables and pizzas wiped out. I really went to get fresh produce, and I had no trouble finding an ample supply of what I wanted in that department. I dropped in at 3 other stores looking for tp, but none was to be found. I gave my sister-in-law one of our mega rolls; with what she already had, she will be OK for 3-4 weeks now. 

I will probably go pick up some produce and maybe eggs and a few other things in 10 days. Otherwise I am staying out of stores. My husband and I plan to order from a restaurant on Sunday for pick-up. Tomorrow will be mid-50s and sunny so I will go for an afternoon walk around my neighborhood. I bought a little pot of pink tulips. 

Staying In (Mostly)

I had to go to 3 different grocery stores today to find what I wanted.
The first two stores had no frozen vegetables except weird things like okra. (The canned vegies also gone). The third store had plenty of frozen vegetables. All 3 stores were out of pancake mix, rice, chicken breasts (including the frozen ones). There were swaths of empty shelves. At Meijer they were vigorously trying to restock tuna, soup, other things. At Owens there was nobody trying to restock the shelves. They are limiting customers to 3 milk items, 3 bread items, 3 cereal. They are closing early (8 p.m.?) each evening; that is when they will try to restock. 

Martin's had no chicken breasts, but I bought quarters. They had a full case of eggs, however, while the other 2 stores only had "odd" eggs like brown or organic. Owens had pizzas, Meijer almost none. There was a grim feeling as people shopped. I don't think we expected people to do binge buying since we have no virus cases in our county. A sad indication of our current situation was that Sandy the mechanical horse in Meijer which costs one penny to ride was gone. (Too germy I guess) The sign said that Sandy is resting in her stable. Just what I am going to be doing soon, too. 

I am stocked up now for 2 and if variety isn't an issue for possibly 3 weeks. One of the baggers commented to the older couple in front of me that the store wasn't busy today like over the weekend. She said maybe people ran out of money. That is going to be too true soon.

Our governor has shut down restaurants except for pick-up or delivery. I see Doordash now has 8 or 9 local restaurants included that were not part of that before. No diners=no need for waitresses and waiters and busboys. I did go to church Sunday and out to a favorite Mexican restaurant. Now with the new 50-person restriction, our church won't meet. Our pastor's daughter has a wedding scheduled for April 25th. She is in a hard place of uncertainty. Indiana did have its first Covid-19 death yesterday. Still only around 25 infected, but since we started out with only 100 tests for the entire state, it's anybody's guess who truly has the novel corona virus.

The public library announced on Facebook last night that they are closed until April 14th. No advance warning. Usually, I could go to Grace Village's library to find books, but they are not letting Robin Hood (condo) residents past the lobby. I stopped in at Goodwill this morning. The fiction selection can be hit or miss, but I did find 4 books that interested me. If I get cabin fever, I will go again next Tuesday when they have the senior half-off day and look at the hardbound books more closely. I do have about a dozen books on my ipad. I have never tried downloading from the public library digital resources. I may give that a try.

My regular weekly activities have shut down. The Y is open, but no group exercise classes are taking place. Grace Village shut its community center down through April so no Literary Club meetings. My ladies Bible study has over 50 people, plus its host church is closed. Grace Village also discontinued group activities so the vocal choir with which I would be practicing and "performing" is not meeting. 

I bought some cotton yarn at Meijer and will knit some dishcloths. I have photos from trips two years ago that need to go in an album. We have lots of jigsaw puzzles. This week I am working on my income taxes. We will settle into a new routine. Grace Village sent an email out to the residents saying to let them know if we need groceries or meds or errands run. The staff will help us with no fee.
Our church also said to let them know if we have needs. So we will get along OK. 

How fast everything changed! But God has not changed. He still loves and cares for us.

Stocking Up

Today when I did my regular grocery shopping, I added many things to my cart for future use. I am stocking up in case I need to socially distance myself. When we were gone for 2 weeks, I had a bottle of sealed ultra-pasteurized milk in the fridge for when we returned. The expiration date was in June. Today I bought 3 more. We eat a lot of cereal; this way, we will have a milk supply even if we don't go out of our home for several weeks. I did not stock up on toilet paper, other than the package I bought because I had a coupon, but I saw people with multiple large packages. I don't get that need to stock up on tp. If things get really bad, I guess we can use the pick-up service of local stores rather than go inside. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. 

 Grace Village is requiring "outsiders" to report to the front desk to minimize exposure to sick people. They are cancelling some group activities. We only received a sketchy memo so don't really know what is going on. One of the grocery stores had cashiers and baggers wearing gloves. Now we hear that Grace College has a student being tested for Corona virus. If that student has it, it will be the first known case in our county. 

I have hard decisions to make. I am still going to my Y class; we always wipe down the equipment with disinfectant wipes. I push the handicap door button with my elbow to enter and use my butt to push the bar on the door to exit. All of the Y employees have been tested for Covid-19 and tested negative. They are to self-monitor by taking their temps at home and not come to work if they have a fever. 

But I go to a ladies Bible study with more than 60 people and to the literary club with a couple dozen. Should I stop going to those? I have asthma and am older so supposedly I am at greater risk. Right now, I intend to go to those activities next week. I also intend to do my weekly grocery shopping. How will I know when to stop being involved? It will be a judgment call. I don't want to over react, but I need to protect myself. Difficult times right now mostly because of uncertainty. 

Are you modifying your behavior? Do you feel anxious? Any suggestions of ways to prepare?

Outings From Oceanside

Our first outing outside of Oceanside was south to Torrey Pines State Park. We did some hiking, but I had gastroenteritis two days before and still didn't feel very strong. The Torrey pine trees grow here and on a channel island further north, but no place else in the world. 

We went on a short trail with a view of the Razor's Edge. Off of that nature trail was a hike of 180 plus stone steps. After a steep descent of a dozen steps, I said there was no way I would be able to climb back up if we went the whole way so we turned around. A lady with walking poles starting on that trail said she thought the hike to Razor's Edge was easier. Well, it didn't have the steps but it was still a climb.

From the Razor's Edge were several trails far out to look over the Pacific Ocean including one to go down steps to the beach below. I wimped out. It was cloudy most of the time so not good view of the ocean and any migrating whales anyway.

We went to a café in La Jolla for lunch. We sat inside next to the glass window wall rather than outside on the deck. We could see Scripps pier and several surfers.

Next stop was La Jolla Cove. As soon as my husband exited the car, he said "It stinks here." Ah, yes, sea lions and seals below the cliff.

The sun came out and we sat for awhile on one of the park benches. I couldn't believe all of the people walking around on a weekday.

Our last stop was the Birch Aquarium (run by Scripps Institute). I was glad we got 50% off of the $16 adult entrance fee. The aquarium was geared mostly for children.

Another day, we rode the Coaster train to Old Town San Diego, the historical area from the mid-1800s? when Mexican and gringo settlers lived there. My stomach had recovered well and I was ready for Mexican food. The Fiesta de Rey plaza with a very nice restaurant and shops was a short walk from the train terminal.

Some of the historic buildings had been made into shops, but a few were educational such as a museum of wagon and stage travel with artifacts and a black smith shop.

On Saturday the 22nd we drove to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. We ascended from 2643 feet to 8516 feet in 10 minutes. Our Indiana coats came in handy at the top. There were a few patches of snow, but more on Mount San Jacinto. This is the gateway to 50 miles of hiking trails. They were remodeling the restaurant and museum so we didn't stay long. The tram car rotates as it ascends and descends. I was standing on the outside perimeter so I could take photos but every time we passed over a tower the car would swing a bit and I was always having to change the position of my hand holding the railing as the railing went sliding by me. On the way down, I stood near the center which was more stable.

Since the aerial station restaurant was shut, we headed for Palm Springs Air Museum to eat lunch and look at the planes.
There had been a special celebration and dinner the night before, and some of the activities carried over to Saturday with a few planes flying.

I thought we might drive over to the glitzy part of Palm Springs like Rodeo Drive, but it started raining. As it turned out, it took us 3 rather than 2 hours to get "home", as near Oceanside a tour bus flipped off of Interstate 15 killing 3 people and injuring 18 as we saw on the news that evening. The freeway was reduced to one lane for quite awhile.

We drove to my sister's house in Whittier the 23rd. She hosted us for lunch and invited two of my cousins. My poor husband was getting weary of driving so Monday was laundry day and lounging around the pool.

 I had been watching the weather reports for Borrego Springs as I wanted to visit the desert in hope of seeing wildflowers. Wednesday was a relatively mild day for Anza-Borrego state park. The unfortunate part of driving from the coast to the desert is that you have to climb and cross over the mountains that block the rain that make the desert what it is. We drove mostly on Highway 78 reaching the town of Julian (population 1500) at 5000 feet in the Laguna Mountains. We had lots of twists and curves. We stopped at a bakery for a cinnamon roll and a break from driving. We were buffeted by a Santa Ana wind blowing from the desert westward except at the higher altitude of Julian it was cold not a hot wind. The descent to the desert also was full of twisty curves.

We drove to a slot canyon which we thought we might hike, but the parking lot was a long way from the descent point. When we saw people down below we realized it would take hours to get down there and back up. We were carrying bottles of water, but it was almost noon.

We had lunch in Borrego Springs. The lady at one of the shops said that the cacti were starting to bloom in Yaqui Pass. We also asked for another way to get back to Oceanside without going through Julian. We started down Yaqui Pass but at a pull-off I could see that we would be descending, descending, descending and the sensible way to go home would have required us to return to Julian rather than drive up the pass again to Borrego Springs. I agreed with my husband to turn around back to Borrego Springs. We drove another very curvy mountain road which thankfully was shorter than the Julian one and eventually took us across the San Felipe Hills to Oceanside. We saw parts of California I never saw in all of my years growing up there.

The bright blue in the distance is Salton Sea. The town is Borrego Springs.

I did see a few blooms as we drove across the Laguna Mountains.

When we rode the Coaster to Old Town we saw on the seats a flyer saying in celebration of 25 years of operation, all rides would be free on the 27th. We rode to the Santa Fe Depot in San Diego and walked about 3 blocks to the embarcadero (harbor area) where we took a narrated excursion on a boat. Mostly saw naval ships in dry dock. I learned that in order to get federal funding for the bridge to Coronado Island, the city purposely curved the bridge so it would meet the two-mile minimum required for funding.

 We had toured the USS Midway museum ship in past years.

 The convention center.

 Hospital ship Mercy.

 Ships being worked on. A few were nuclear-powered; one was aluminum rather than steel to avoid torpedos finding it.

Seaport Village, a tourist attraction, which we were told is going to be torn down within two years.

At the end of the cruise, we walked past the Midway to a seafood restaurant, The Fish Market. I had skewered swordfish (with peppers, pineapple, a special sauce) and my husband had a calamari steak which didn't look anything like I expected. It was all good. Our waiter accommodated our train schedule nicely, too.
As we walked back to the train depot, next to the restaurant was a tribute to Bob Hope.

We saw California in its diversity and escaped a big snow storm in Winona Lake while we were gone.