We had to pick up meds for James this morning, and there was so much flurry on the news about the coronavirus, including the school shutdowns next week, Italy being on lockdown, people stuck on cruise ships, Disney and Broadway theatres closing, etc. that I didn't know if there would be a mob there milling about thinking they were sick, or if it would be very empty, so we went early to Kaiser. It was the latter; only about fifteen-twenty cars there and very quiet. It was only about ten minutes.

Now, yesterday we had done our usual shopping at Publix. getting BOGOs and other things on our list like Dawn dishwashing liquid. There were already signs that the crazies had been through, as there was not a disinfecting wipe to be found or paper towels—the most bizarre result of all this is that toilet paper is gone, which is very strange, as the virus does not cause diarrhea. One of the BOGOs was Ocean Spray juice—all juice is expensive today, but James needs the cranberry or cranberry mixes to help with keeping his kidneys and bladder clear. We'd only gotten 4 bottles, and when it runs out, we have to use the inexpensive watered-down stuff from Lidl.

So, thoroughly expecting crowds, we went back for 4 more bottles and also the tater tots we'd forgotten. Wow. Boy, were there crowds; it looked like Walmart on Christmas Eve, except more registers were open. I wanted to pick up more alcohol, but couldn't find it (or even the empty space where it should have been). We got one of the last of three rolls of paper towels, there was no toilet paper at all, almost no Kleenex, no wipes of course, no Gatorade, just big gaps in one section, none in others. Still plenty of vegetables, but bottled water gone. Lots of Banquet/Hungry Man/Lean Cuisine, almost no pizzas.

Well, I remembered seeing some alcohol at Lidl. And we could get bread. And, as much as I love the store, there's never a big crowd at Lidl, even on Fridays (and this worries me that the existing stores will close). Oh, but they found Lidl today. There were more cars in the parking lot than I've ever seen except when they opened and were offering free groceries. Almost all bottled water was gone (I noticed this at Publix, too—do these people's homes not have water faucets?), but we managed to snag one last extra purified water for the C-PAP machine. No alcohol, no liquid cleaning products at all, no peroxide, no milk, dammit, no eggs, no oranges, vegetables and fruit stripped, no packaged bread whatsover (and, bizarrely, a woman bemoaning on her cell phone that there was "no bread" when the bakery was stocked full of bread!

The one sane part of the day was having our usual Friday lunch, today at The BBQ Place with Alice, Ken, and Aubrey Spivey, and that was a nice downtime of blazing normalcy.

Tomorrow James is still planning to go to his meeting and to lunch, and I hope that goes well. It's just very unsettling.

Labels: events, friends, health, shopping, sickness

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:06:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment