* Made the weekly grocery run this morning, Mart of Wal followed by Pruett's (I needed chicken thighs, and Pruett's are vastly better. Also as it turns out I forgot chicken broth and was able to pick it up there). I did not notice any "understocked" stuff of evidence of panic-buying; the wal-mart was about as well-stocked as it ever is.
The only thing I did notice was the "nicer" tp (like Charmin) was low in stock and the cheaper kinds were pretty abundant. I dunno if it was just a random thing - Wal-mart is often bad at restocking - or if people are panic buying at all here. Or if some people somehow think we're headed for a tp-based economy.
* I needed the chicken and broth because I'm making soup for the college-student ministry Tuesday. Yes, I will be stuck in Skype-interview hell, but the church secretary promised she'd plug in the crockpot for me. The thighs are poaching right now; I will chill them overnight and shred them tomorrow. All else that needs to be done towards the soup is sauteing an onion, and then opening the various cans (black beans, corn, Ro-tel, stock) and toss them all together in a big pot along with the seasonings. This soup was MUCH cheaper - about $25 - than the sandwich makings for the same number of kids was a couple months back. Hopefully they like it. (I won't be able to taste it; the only stock I could get at Pruett's contains celery and given how bad my allergies have been I don't want to risk it)
* I have a small steak (not the cheapest cut but not an expensive one) marinating for fajitas for my own dinner tonight. Partly because I think I need a little heme iron right now (have been eating mostly vegetarian of late) and also because maybe fresh meat will become harder to get in the future depending on what happens. (I made the mistake of reading this very short piece of speculative fiction that was linked through Metafilter and am again thinking about "how will I survive the losses, and the being isolated for long stretches without totally losing my faculties or any hope for the future?" Because I expect if the pandemic gets bad, I WILL lose at least one person I care about - a relative, someone at church, I don't know. I do know a lot of the people I care about are over 70 and they are at a greater risk.)
And yeah, I find myself drawing on the most-apocalyptic stuff I know, from reading about what ordinary citizens had to do in Britain in WWII (as regards food: stuff like making rose-hip syrup because citrus were unavailable) and while I DOUBT it will come to that...who knows? I suppose being someone with a lot of general random knowledge like how to make rose-hip syrup (basically: boil them for 20 minutes, strain twice to remove the tiny hairs, and then add an equal amount of sugar and boil five more minutes to thicken) may be useful in a terrible way.
* On a much, much, much happier note - and this is one of those things I am absolutely clinging to as a source of hope, and I really, really want it to keep going well, but - I recently started following Terry Teachout on Twitter. I kind of knew the situation - his beloved wife had a serious lung disease, and the only treatment that would prevent her untimely death was a lung transplant.
Well, this week she got it.
And so far, she's doing well. And I don't know why - I don't know either of the people, and I am not even all THAT familiar with Teachout's writing - but I do know a number of people I also follow on Twitter seem to like him, and it's just....the idea that his beloved went from "she will likely die" to "if things go as we hope, she will get to come home and regain something like a normal life" and I don't know why it has become so important to me to see the continued updates of her good progress....but, yes. It's a reason to hope. (And yes, before you ask: I am signed up to be an organ donor)
Also, yesterday he reprinted a Dickinson poem ("If I can Stop one Heart from Breaking") and it is making me think.
One of my frustrations in my life is how little I feel like I can do - as I said the other day, I can be kind, I can be compassionate. But I cannot fix the fundamental things that are wrong. And that frustrates me. And I don't know, I can't decide if I'm wrong or if Dickinson is here. Maybe I'm despairing too much, and maybe she was right. And maybe in the long run, all we can do is make the suck suck a little less for people.
And part of it, yes: one of the ways I cope with worry/bad times is by DOING stuff. I've opined before that if I were a young woman in 1940s Britain I'd probably be training as an ambulance driver, or managing barrage balloons, or making food and tea for bombed-out people. Because doing stuff helps me - for one thing, it keeps me from thinking about the Bad Thing, but another, feeling useful is very important to me; I dislike feeling not-useful.
I think that's how I got through the two weeks immediately after my dad's death as well as I did: I had a purpose, the purpose was being up there and helping my mom with paperwork and sorting and decision-making, and now that that has mostly ended....well, I feel most loose-endy, at least as far as that is. And so I fall into funks about things.
* And yeah. I know people say "despair is a sin" and yes, that's true. ("And though this world with devils filled, should threaten to undo us"). And I suppose it's very on-brand for me that the primary sin I fall into is the boring and banal sin of looking at the world and despairing, instead of the exciting and titillating one of lust, or the self-aggrandizing one of pride, or even greed, which at least gets you stuff....
I suppose in a way I'm still recovering from....everything....or at least I've convinced myself that I'm not better yet because everything last year was so bad.
* I suppose the answer is to carry on. I was wondering today - in the wake of realizing "crud, everyone's going to scatter for spring break and people may bring this thing back to campus" coupled with "some campuses have told faculty to finish off the semester all online" and was wondering if it was even WORTH trying to get the soil samples, 'cos if the university closes down and sends us all home - well, I am NOT taking all the sampling impedimentia and a microscope with me and I don't even have a good place I could set up that would work as a wet lab. (I could, if I could trust the weather to be okay, probably set up a folding table and chair out in the drive and do it there....oh, wait, no electricity for my microscope.....) but I guess the answer is just act like everything's going to be okay until it isn't? I don't know. My hatred of wasted effort though....though maybe I could run an extension cord from the garage out into the drive....
I hate that I have to even contemplate this.
* I probably need to either start a new sweater, or pull out either the grey cardigan or the vest I was working on and put aside. Maybe working on something like that will help.
* I am really not ready for daylight "saving" time. (Spoiler alert: no daylight is actually saved, and those of us who have to get up early, we will be getting up even EARLIER and will not be seeing any more sun than we did).
* And as I said before: do not be surprised if there's almost no posting from me next week; I am anticipating a couple 12-14 hour workdays, perhaps as many as 3, and the one day I don't have interviews, it's Elders' meeting and Board meeting, and I don't think I can slope off of doing that on the grounds of being "tired" though I may not say much in either meeting.
I'll probably make up for it the following week when I'm stuck here alone and sad because I cancelled my spring break trip.
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