Getting in the Rhythm of This

[hrj]

 Ok, so I'm only joking that I was tempted to break quarantine to seek out a co-worker and strangle them. It's much more frustrating to have someone decline to get the point of what you're saying when they can just sit there and ignore you. The other WFH frustration was that my internet started going in and out in mid-afternoon. I started thinking of my previous days long outages with dread. But after an hour Skype meeting on my iPhone (and rebooting the router) it was back. Can we have truly reliable internet infrastructure as an essential utility please?

While I will never give up my morning coffee, even before WFH I'd started getting in the habit of moving to tea after the first cup. I've been enjoying getting some use out of my lovely Portmeirion teapot. And then today, after seeing a comment from Ursula Vernon on twitter about "crafty folks, it's time to break out the Good Supplies" I got in the spirit by getting out one of the LaForge silver teapots.

One of the things I've noticed with WFH is that I'm generally eating less. But last night when I woke in the middle of the night with my stomach grumbling it occurred to me that this was mostly due to anxiety and not necessarily getting in touch with better eating habits. Yesterday I finished off the plum-braised chuck roast with brown rice. Not sure what I'm going to have for dinner tonight. I'm pondering the risks of ordering delivery. On the one hand: yay for supporting local businesses. On the other hand: there's still some contact risk from the people doing the prep and the people doing the delivery. Since I don't *have* to order in, perhaps better not?

In a similar abundance of caution, Denise and I have agreed to do our Wednesday evening thing electronically tomorrow, given that she was off gallivanting around the country this past weekend. It's not so much that I'm in an older age bracket and therefore higher risk, but that it's the accumulation of lots of people thinking "this once won't hurt" that can undermine The Plan.

On my lunchtime bike ride, I noticed a couple of construction jobs going on, so people are clearly doing their own calculations about "essential work." I'm going to let the tree guy make the call on our job. It can be done with essentially no close contact between us, and I can sanitize the heck before writing the check.

And now I'm going to move on to my other daily routines and get in some yard work, then do a chapter in Female Masculinity, and finish with desk organization. Still figuring out where to fit the writing session into the schedule. Normally pre-work was writing time, but that would mean setting alarm #1 (the 5:30 alarm) rather than alarm #2 (the 6:30 alarm).

Comments

[hrj]

SDD7: temperature 98.0. Lunchtime bike ride on the canal trail, no close proximity, no physical contact, no other excursions off the property.

Food risks

[ng_moonmoth]

Also in your shelter-in-place zone. I would say the risks from people doing the prep are close enough to the risks from people who put fresh meat and produce out in the grocery store that they more or less balance out. So I wouldn't base a decision on that. As far as delivery goes, I would say the best thing one can do there is to make sure you can't get it from your delivery person by going and getting it yourself. That's an Essential Activity per the order, and therefore allowed.

We have decided that it is worthwhile to try and direct our spending to those places who will need it the most. In the food realm, that will be farmers' markets and family restaurants. We hit a favorite one tonight, and will probably do another one later in the week. Meanwhile, stuff from the freezer goes together with stuff from the local Indian grocery for dinner tomorrow.

Re: Food risks

[hrj]

The food prep versus grocery personnel question isn't exactly equivalent because I have enough supplies that I don't *need* to go to the grocery store. What's likely to send me out is running out of cream for my coffee and milk to make yogurt, since those are things I can't stock up on too much. But yes, if I'm there, I'll get more fresh produce. (I have a meat freezer, so as long as I find interesting things to do with the remaining beef and lamb cuts I could probably last a couple of months.)