Stay home and save some folks
As my regular readers know, two weeks ago yesterday we returned from our cruise on Celebrity’s Reflection to Mardi Gras. (Kathleen always reads my stuff before I post and when she read this line she said “It’s been longer than two weeks!”) But it really has been just two weeks. We got off Reflection on Monday, March 2.
So much has happened to us and to you since then. Thought I would write something to let you know how we are doing and ask you how you are doing. Of course I did post about everyone blaming cruise ships for all of this but that was just me on a soap box.
So now the reality. Kathleen and I are basically quarantining ourselves at home. (Before you ask, since we are pretty much together 90% of the time, this is not a big deal for us. We love being together.) I have been out to do some shopping and we had three friends (who we knew were not infected) over for dinner, but that was about it. Since we are in Washington (one of the most seriously affected states) our restrictions are ahead of the curve (trying to flatten the other curve). Our Governor first banned groups of 250, three days later it went down to 50, the next day he closes all schools until April 29 at the earliest. We are doing our best to practice social distancing. Tonight we shared an Aperol Spritz with our next door neighbors, sitting in their driveway, six feet apart. It was wonderful.
Our days have been spent (so far) cancelling client travel, dealing with yearbook advisers who suddenly have no spring sports or activities to cover and binging all the television on our TiVo that accumulated while we were gone. We are all up to date with television now and will start working our way through Netflix and Amazon Prime shows soon. The only really great thing this week has been the amazing weather we have been having. Sunshine and warmth do make things a little easier to handle. I have been able to walk three days out of the last four so that makes me happy. Walking since the quarantine has been different than usual. People make sure to stay far apart but when they do, they actually nod, wave, smile and even greet each other. That doesn’t usually happen.
We also started a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that is all about the Galapagos Islands. We still have high hopes that we will be able to take our cruise there this August. In the meantime, our April Holland America cruise with our friend Seth has been cancelled. Which means we have no travel scheduled until the aforementioned Galapagos trip in late July. That’s crazy strange for us. But the way things are now, we can’t even make plans to go see our grandkids in Olympia. We are being discouraged from any kind of travel. But we do FaceTime regularly with the grandkids
One other thing that is keeping us going is the great friends we have online. We hear from our Martini Mates almost daily, FaceTime with Bob and Judy in Canada, have a constant group text exchange with my brother and his wife Jamie and text, e-mail, Facebook, Cruise Critic and Twitter contact with so many others.
How about you? What’s your daily life like. Hopefully you are staying healthy. I have decided to close every e-mail and every post until this is over with these words—stay safe and STAY HOME.
A pandemic influenza would mean widespread infection essentially throughout every region of the world.—Anthony Fauci (The only person in Washington D.C. with any credibility.)