Red state, blue state, spread state, fugue state

The responses to the corona virus between red states and blues states seems a little…. uneven.  Tennessee has almost 2,000 cases and hasn’t even mandated school closings across the state.  Meanwhile, Pennsylvania has 3,400 cases and has closed everything in sight including The. Liquor. Stores. (So I’m not saying either state is an ideal place to be right now.) I mean c’mon Pennsylvania - are we sure we want to confine people in their houses without sports or liquor.  People will resort to blogging. 

Tennessee has decided that states’ rights are overrated and its really all about counties’ rights.  And I, for one, rest easy knowing the vast epidemiology resources and expertise the city manager in Carroll county has at her disposal in trying to prevent corona from overtaking the only doctor they have in town.

Here we are in day 21 of our quarantine (Rita & McC got a jump start on this quarantining thing), and I can still go to the coffee shop at the end of my street.  Well, I mean, thanks to Tennessee, I can largely GO anywhere.  But that doesn’t mean I can get back into the house afterwards. 

Rather than close anything, Tennessee lawmakers are thinking of just giving you a gun instead.  <= I think I’m kidding about that, but I also haven’t checked the news today.  But here ARE the things the state legislature was up to on their last day in session, which was after Pennsylvania organized the shutdown of their entire state.  You decide who spent their day more productively:

• A representative from Memphis wore a gas mask.  [I find it curious a civilian is more likely to have a gas mask than a hospital mask?] 
• At separate points on Thursday the lights briefly dimmed in the House of Representative and a piece of the ceiling fell on top of a member's desk. [we have a pandemic and the building is basically falling down on top you….when you see “smiting”, do you think you will recognize it?]
• Debated the budget line item for $1 million of testing chronic wasting disease among deer  [I’m trying to summon my pre-pandemic self and even in completely normal times I am not sure why we need the answer the question on why deers have chronic wasting disease (now watch – the cure to Corona probably lies in the waste of a sickly deer and I will earn a great big I told you so.)]  {There is a better joke out there about chronic wasting disease in deers, but it is JUST beyond my reach….}
• Voted to create 21 new specialty license plates that would allocate proceeds to certain organizations.   [Mmmm…..is the CDC one of them???]
• A House member was forced to put on a tie during a floor session [clearly the memo on the COVID dress code hasn’t arrived at the Capitol.  We are more likely to force people to put on pants in my workplace, but I am glad we are sticking to ties while we vote on deers’ chronic wasting disease.]

I think the moral of the story is that neither Tennessee nor PA is where you want to be right now.  As with all things I ask….what are the Canadians doing? 

Life is Like a Box of Chocoloates

You mean all those groceries we stockpiled two weeks ago were supposed to last through the spring??  We still have the broccoli.  The chocolate, however, is gone.  

Rita is flabbergasted that I managed to eat 5 candy bars over the last 10 days, like a lack of self-control is new with this pandemic or something.  (I’m going to stop letting Rita into my little college dorm room in the basement if she’s going to keep inventorying everything in the fridge!  At some stage she’ll realize the beer count is inflated by the empties I put back.)   But it’s her fault anyway.   She bought these healthy (little!) Peruvian chocolate/coffee nib bars that are made with magic shaman cocoa dust and I think of them as pandemic vitamins.  I mean, its at least as effective as hydroxychloroquine. 

Rita said I was supposed to have a square of chocolate each day.  Who does that?  Besides, people are buying toilet paper by the pallet, so underconsumption is clearly not the goal here.  I like to point out that my bingeing is almost certainly creating a job for somebody.  Including the person who is going to make all my bigger clothes when I eventually quit wearing sweatpants again.  Based on my habits to date, I appear interested in creating jobs in the potato chip and pepperoni sectors of our economy.  (Essential is clearly in the eye of the beholder.)

In the interest of delaying my rendezvous with diabetes, I am betting Rita’s next trip to the grocery store fails to yield another ration of chocolate bars.  She is probably still going to bring me home a treat (because after me, her only live interaction will be Tom Hanks’ friend Wilson), but I’m betting said treats will become progressively less “treat-y” until we’re down to a tube of minty toothpaste as the treat du jour.   

Day 8 of the Corona Quarantine

We are starting to turn on each other.

Last night, Rita and I interrupted an otherwise lovely dinner to fiercely debate whether resting your head on your fist constituted “touching your face”.  And I mean fiercely.  It may have ended with one of us rubbing the palm of our hand from our forehead to our chin to settle the debate once and for all on what touching your face really looks like.  Did I mention it is only Day 8? 

I also realized yesterday that the small stack of extra facemasks from Rita’s surgery were missing from the bathroom closet where they have been every day for five years.  

Me:  what happened to the leftover facemasks that were in the closet?

R:  What facemasks?

Me:  Do we own a bunch of different facemasks that I might be referring to?

R:  Oh – those!  We need to save those for an emergency so I put them away.   

Me: What’s your definition of an emergency???  Also, where is this “away” that you are referring to?

R: …

So wait…is there a hidden stash of preparedness?  Is there a facemask class system within this population of two??  WHERE ARE THE RESPIRATORS HIDDEN?

Conversely….Rita has been just as proactive in getting me on a new schedule of supplements.  Rita has always been a fan of naturopathic remedies and prevention and we have the wine room pill closet to prove it.  But el corona has broadened the application to the rest of the household. The cat’s vitamins are a blog post unto themselves (you have no idea how hard it is to get the cat to take his vitamin D nasal spray).  My new regiment includes everything imaginable to boost my immune system.  Or maybe…given the fact that I’m looking at weeks in my basement office…we are on the offensive against scurvy.  (Rita has a way of being ahead of these things.)

At least Rita knows me well enough to have ordered all my vitamins/supplements in the form of gummies and suckers.  Some cadre of toddlers are missing out on their vitamin C allotment so I can have my “immuno-pops”.  But these are hard times.  

So clearly, Rita is conflicted between wanting to save my life and wanting to kill me. 

The corona quarantine….everything about your relationship…only more so.