I’m consolidating my Corona Diary posts into one post per week. Just cuz.
originally published March 16th, 2020
Well, I’m not sure if I’ll actually follow through with this, but Imma try to write a daily diary of life in the time of Coronavirus. I’ll start with a recap of the last couple of weeks. For the record, today is Monday, March 16th, 2020.
This probably won’t be as entertaining as my usual posts. Now that I think about it, maybe my usual posts aren’t very entertaining. But these will be worse. Assuming, of course, that I actually write them.
A few weeks ago, the Coronavirus was a vague story about a disease in China that I barely paid attention to. Then it was a not-quite-as-vague story about a disease that had spread to Italy, that I paid a little attention to. One of my employees was in Italy with her family when we started hearing about it. By the time she got back to town, Northern Italy was in lockdown. She decided to work from home for a week, just in case. I still wasn’t really worried about any of this, but it was at least on my radar. At that point, I kinda just wanted to get the virus and get it over with - I’m in my forties, with no underlying health conditions that would be a concern (unless severe lactose intolerance is a rarely discussed comorbidity). Despite my cavalier attitude, we decided that she should work from home for another week, because we heard the incubation period might be up to 14 days, but still - I wasn’t worried. It seemed prudent, but overly cautious. Americans had pretty much stopped drinking Corona beer, but almost everything else seemed fine. We started hearing about a few cases, and a few deaths, in the US, mostly in Seattle. Still not worried.
Then, on Wednesday - the NBA shut down their season. And we started reading details of what was happening in Italy. And all of a sudden, shit was real. The governor of Oregon canceled schools til the end of March. I canceled the company ski & snowboard trip we had planned for the coming weekend. March Madness got canceled. I told my whole office that anyone who wanted to work from home could do so. The next day, a whopping two people stayed home. The stock market, which had been dropping like a rock, dropped like a bigger rock. I can’t even remember all the details of what was happening, but the shit was hitting the fan all over the place. The shit was getting realer. The next day (Friday), only about five people showed up in the office. I told everyone they could no longer come into work unless they really needed to. We’re a software company, so almost all of us can do our jobs from home - it has some down sides, but we’re better off than people in lots of other industries. We stocked up on food at my house. And vitamins. And toilet paper. And pet food. And liquor. We filled prescriptions for ourselves and our dog. We were entering apocalypse preparation territory. The world around us was a weird mix of “everything seems normal” and “the supermarkets are super crowded, and no stores have any hand sanitizer or toilet paper.”
Monday, March 16th, 2020
Today was the first day of everybody working from home. I started my day with a daily project meeting, with nine people on a video conference. With everybody’s video-head in a grid, it was like the Brady Bunch. It was weird. But we did ok. My son played video games with his friends, talking on their headsets from their various homes around town - just like the olden days, before the Virus. I worked at home. My wife and son ventured out to the store to get more supplies. We canceled Mom-Day, a weekly Monday event where we have our moms over for dinner, because we’re not letting people in our house. This evening, the governor of Oregon ordered that all restaurants and bars close, starting tomorrow - they can only serve takeout and delivery. Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s day - I’m sure the bars are thrilled. Gatherings of more than 25 people are banned. Shit like this is happening all over the place. Well, not everywhere, but lots of places. My family is pretty much staying away from everybody. Other than a few trips to the grocery store and pharmacy, we haven’t touched anything outside the house in a few days. We’re not letting anyone else in the house. It’s crazy. And we’re waiting for the shit to really hit the fan. Because in Oregon, only a few people are confirmed sick with the Virus - I think I just read it’s 47, and one death. But they’re barely testing anyone - we have no idea how many people already have it. There could be thousands of cases. We just don’t really know. The Dow dropped 3,000 points today - the biggest point drop in history. We’re thinking the schools could be closed for the rest of the school year, and nobody knows what they’ll do about it. We’re talking about having our Passover Seder on video chat, instead of getting together. My sister in New York is organizing family games of charades on Google Hangouts.
So life is really weird. I’ve never seen anything even remotely like this. Nobody I know has ever experienced anything like this. We don’t have a reference point. And nobody I know is sick, at least not yet. What will tomorrow bring? If I remember to keep doing my daily Corona diary, I’ll let you know.
March 17th, 2020
I started my day with two cups of coffee, as usual. I read about the Giants, as usual - it’s the beginning of free agency, so there’s lots of news. I checked on the stock market, which not usual - not usual for me to check the stock market, and not usual behavior for the market itself.
And then I started reading COVID-19 news. I think it’s a good idea to stay informed, but it’s pretty rough emotionally to dive into that world first thing in the morning. I guess it’s not really “that world” - it’s “this world.” Weird.
I walked the dog for a half hour before I started working this morning. The streets were pretty quiet, and us few pedestrians gave each other wide berth. The weirdest part of the wide-berth thing was that it wasn’t really all that weird - we were all on board with it, friendly from a distance. I had a bunch of video meetings for work. My son played video games and made chocolate chip cookies. He discovered that we’re low on flour and sugar, and he loves to bake. Is that stuff important enough to go to the store? It sure could come in handy to bake our own bread in a few weeks…
We scheduled a family video-charades game for tomorrow.
Someone posted on Next Door that the stores are out of flour. I didn’t really want to go to the store anyway, so we ordered a 50 pound bag of flour from Amazon, because regular size bags of flour don’t seem to be available. Also 12 pounds of sugar.
Today is St. Patrick’s Day, which usually means just about nothing to me. I wear whatever color I want, I drink beer-colored beer or no beer at all, and anybody who pinches me is a childish asshole. I don’t strike them with lightning when they eat bread during Passover, I figure they could return the favor by not fucking with me for ignoring a holiday that means nothing to a guy whose ancestors all come from eastern Europe. But this weekend, when the grocery store was all out of chicken, they had a whole lot of corned beef. So we bought one, and today I cooked it on the pellet smoker. My wife made colcannon, and we had ourselves a nice Irish meal, or maybe that’s not an Irish meal - how should I know?. Either way, it was pretty good! I had one of my son’s homemade chocolate cookies for dessert.
My wife and dog and I went for another walk after dinner. We stopped outside a friend’s house, got her attention by jumping and waving outside her front door, and stood halfway across her yard while she stood by the door and talked to us.
The governor of Oregon extended the school closure until the end of April. If we’re not careful, my son’s gonna log thousands of hours of video games by then.
Nobody I know is sick. And as far as I know, nobody I know knows anybody who’s sick. I wonder how many days that will last.
March 18th, 2020
My brother is sick. It could be anything, I think his wife was sick for a couple of days last week with something that wasn’t all that bad. But still…
Yesterday they announced the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Lane County, and also the first death in the county (a different person, who died four days ago, but they just got the test results). They’re reporting 68 confirmed cases in Oregon. But they’ve still barely tested anyone.
People are posting recipes of what they’re eating while they spend so much time at home - my old college roommate posted his recipe for spaghetti tacos. He didn’t make the pasta, he didn’t make the sauce, he just put it all in a taco shell.
I went for a walk with my wife and my dog. A few people were out walking, fewer were out driving. One house in the neighborhood had a box of disposable gloves on their step, with a note that said “take a few.” Pretty much everybody gave each other wide berth, but one little girl asked if she could pet our dog. We said no, and it felt kinda weird.
I have a few video-meetings today, and we’re planning on video-charades with the family at 4:00.
———-
Working from home is kinda boring. When I work in the office, I chat with people several times a day, about work or about whatever. Working from home, not so much. Ugh.
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The rest of the day was not too eventful. I was busy at “work” all afternoon, then we played charades with my mom, sister, and brother-in-law. Except we didn’t play charades, we just video-chatted for an hour. It was fun. We had a nice dinner at home.
My brother is already feeling much better.
My son’s still playing video games with his friends. He said at dinner he thought he’d get bored of video games soon. We’ll see…
March 19th, 2020
I started my day with just one cup of coffee. I figure the second cup is non-essential. I guess the first cup is also non-essential, but I’m not giving that up quite yet. I got my morning dose of Virus news, which is as terrifying as usual, made some oatmeal for breakfast, took some vitamins, and fed our dog and two cats.
My brother appears to be better today.
My wife and I walked the dog, and the streets were quiet. I took a shower, and now I’m in my “office” getting ready for another day of working from home.
———-
It’s been a stressful day so far. There’s something about negotiating contracts in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis that doesn’t quite feel right. And these particular negotiations wouldn’t be the easiest, even in the best of times. I could really use a drink right now.
———-
I had some whiskey.
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After dinner, my wife and I watched Jumanji: The Next Level. It wasn’t great, but it took my mind off things for a while.
California has a mandatory stay-at-home order, starting tonight. It seems like Oregon won’t be far behind. But that’s pretty much how we’ve been living this week anyway. I’m starting to get used to living at home, and I’m starting to get sick of living at home.
March 20th, 2020
(Well, I figured this would happen sooner or later - I forgot to publish this post last night, so it has the wrong date. But in anticipation of exactly this happening, I’ve been putting the date in the post itself. I bet you never would have figured that out on your own.)
One cup of coffee, read the Giants news, read the Coronavirus news, fed two cats and a dog, ate breakfast, went for a walk. Now I’m getting ready for work. This is my morning routine. It’s a beautiful day, and it’s supposed to stay nice for a few days. I’m wondering if I can invite my brother and my friend over to play music in the backyard Sunday, when it’s supposed to be almost 70 degrees.
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My son and I are playing a lot of ping pong. It’s a bit of physical activity, and it’s fun! He’s getting a lot better - he still hasn’t beaten me, but he’s had me scared a couple of times.
———-
It’s a beautiful day today. Sunny and about 60 degrees. My wife and son are out back doing yard work. Some of this stuff still seems so normal, amidst all the stuff that doesn’t feel normal at all.
There’s still pretty much no Coronavirus testing going on around here, as far as I know, although I keep reading reports of companies that are ready to ship test kits that are cheap and give results really quickly. It sure would be nice if this would change quickly.
———-
Had a martini and played remote Jackbox games with my son, my nephew, and my nephew’s girlfriend. It was fun! Hoping to play again soon with even more people.
These posts are not very interesting to write, and I’m sure not very interesting to read. I hope it stays that way.
March 21st, 2020
It’s the weekend! I’ve got big plans: stay home.
Guess what I’m doing right now? Drinking my daily cup of coffee and writing my Corona diary. I already read some Virus news, and it’s freaking scary. I don’t feed the animals on the weekend - my son’s supposed to do that - and I don’t have to “go” to work, but I’ll probably still eat breakfast and go for a walk. Pretty exciting stuff!
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Busy day today - after my morning walk, I trimmed a small tree in the front yard and an enormous old rose in the back, dragged out my chop saw to cut some wood so I can mount a pull-up bar in the house, baked a loaf of bread, hung out in a Google Hangout with a friend in Santa Fe and a friend in Portland, and played remote Jackbox games with a bunch of family. I heard a rumor that my cousin in Colorado is hosting a remote Geeks Who Drink trivia night for the family tomorrow. That sounds fun!
Our 50 pound bag of flour arrived (the mail carrier didn’t look to psyched to be carrying it to our door), and we put it in the quarantine area of our garage. We would have ordered a smaller bag of flour, but there did not appear to be such a thing on Amazon.
Somebody posted on Next Door that a grocery store in my neighborhood has toilet paper. Taken out of context, that’s pretty much exactly the level of ridiculousness I’ve grown to expect from Next Door.
I’m getting ready for bed, so I stopped by r/Coronavirus for an update. Even without a lot of testing, the COVID-19 numbers are ramping up in the US. I’m not sure reading the news before bed is the best idea.
March 22nd, 2020
I didn’t put up the pull-up bar this morning. Not because I didn’t try - I tried. But I’m not gonna lie to you, mistakes were made. Bad decisions had a field day. Once I realized I the magnitude of my errors, some really good alternate decisions - things I could have done differently - started to appear. I thought I had been so clever, but there was a much more obvious approach that, had I taken it from the beginning, would have avoided nearly all the situations that caused me to make all the rest of the bad decisions that led ultimately to the situation were I could not actually, successfully, mount a pull-up bar. Also, I could have measured the bar before I started. You could argue that I probably should have done that. You’d be right. Now there are two totally stripped screws permanently attached to the beams in the room where I play music, and a piece of a fence bracket hanging loosely from one of them. It’s not weird. I’d call one of my friends who builds stuff for a living and have him come over to help me out of this mess, but, you know - Coronavirus.
Of course, what I really needed was more failure, more feelings of discouragement. Maybe I need a drink.
We’re trying to figure out how to play music while keeping our distance. We have a plan to play this afternoon at either my house or my brother’s - we’ll stay outside, we won’t get closer than 8 feet, we’ll each bring everything we need, we’ll pee in the yard. I’m not sure this is a good decision, but it’s also possible I’ve used up all my bad decisions for the day on the not-a-pull-up-bar trick.
Oh yeah, I did my usual morning routine this morning, except I didn’t walk the dog. It’s another beautiful day, sunny and going up to the mid-60s. Tomorrow it’s supposed to start raining again. I wonder how dreary grey skies are going to affect all of our moods.
———-
Alright, we didn’t play music. So instead I went back to the abandoned pull-up bar project. First, I used vice-grip pliers to get the stripped screws out. Then I cut a 2x4 and built the mounting blocks the way I probably should have in the first place. Making only a few mistakes along the way, I managed to get the bar up, but one side of it was mounted to a block that sat at an uncomfortable angle. Digging deep into my bag of tricks, I cut a piece of cardboard I found in the garage and re-did part of the mounting system - now with 70% less wonk!
So there, take that, pull-up bar! Now I just hope someone uses it.
———-
So my cousin in Colorado hosted a trivia night for some of the family on Discord. It was really fun, although Discord had some trouble with the video and especially the audio. My team, made up of my wife, my son and me, came in third place out of five. We actually tied for second place, but then lost the tie-breaker, which was really just a wild guess that we did worse on than the other second-place tie team. But I’m pretty sure we had just as much fun as the first-place team - and all the other teams. I’m pretty sure we’d all like to do it again, and maybe try another platform to see if it works better.
It being Sunday, I guess I have to work in the morning. I’m glad I still have a job. What will tomorrow bring? Rumor has it the governor of Oregon might issue a stay-at-home order tomorrow. It’s probably a good idea, although maybe I think that because it’s what we’ve been doing all week anyway, assuming it’s similar to the one in California.
Good Night! Stay Healthy!