If you don’t know what “kvetch” means, google it.
I am about to complain about things my sons call–accurately–“first world problems.” First world problems, for those who may not have heard the phrase, are problems people would be grateful to have in other parts of the world–or for that matter, less fortunate precincts of the United States. I should be ashamed to complain about them while others are facing job losses, illness or death–and especially when people on the “front lines” are risking their health and possibly their lives stocking grocery shelves, delivering much-needed goods, and caring for the sick.
So please know that I am ashamed to kvetch. But I’m going to do it, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.
It isn’t just my hair, which has taken on a life of its own. (I’m considering cutting it myself; the only thing that keeps my hands from the scissors is picturing Haley–she who actually knows how to cut hair and who usually cuts mine every three weeks–looking horrified and disapproving when salons reopen.)
It isn’t just the fact that the skin on my hands is raw from constant washing.
It isn’t just that the only person other than my husband that I’ve actually talked to face-to-face was the plumber who came (in mask and gloves) to fix a VERY inconvenient and VERY expensive leak that caused part of the basement ceiling to collapse.
It isn’t just the jeans and old sweatshirts that I wear every single day. Actually, there’s something comforting about not wearing out my nicer clothes (or putting them on and noticing that they’ve become considerably tighter…).
It isn’t just that I can’t hug my grandchildren–but that is a really, really big part of it. Three of our four perfect grandchildren live close by; the two youngest (16 and 18) are only four blocks away and are used to coming over frequently–to raid the pantry, to play pool in Grandpa’s “man cave,” or to do homework away from annoying parents…Now, when the weather is nice, they may walk over (usually accompanied by those same annoying parents), but they stand ten or twelve yards away and wave…no hugs. No kisses.
Drives me nuts.
Before the order to stay in our homes, I’d given notice that I planned to retire. IU has something called “phased retirement,” and I planned–and still plan–to work half-time for the next two years, then say “sayonara.” I’d been regaling my husband with all the things I’d do then–clean all the closets, dust and rearrange all the books in the library, clean out all the kitchen cabinets…. I was going to have an immaculate home environment. When I retired.
I was also going to read for pleasure, not just to keep up academically .
Um…I’ve done all that during this enforced “staycation.” I’ve cleaned everything that doesn’t move. I’ve read at least ten forgettable books. I’ve even finished lingering research projects.
I don’t know what I’ll do when I retire…..
I miss human contact. I miss hugging my children and grandchildren. I miss meeting friends for brunch or drinks. I miss talking to my students face-to-face rather than online. I even miss grocery shopping.
Maybe I’m projecting, but I’ve noticed that the comments to my daily blogs are getting longer. I think you guys are bored too…..
I’ll quit kvetching about what I know is an important and necessary measure to flatten the curve and keep us safe–or at least safer. And I will count my “first world” blessings–a home in which to quarantine, a job that continues to pay me, a supportive spouse who ignores my hair-that-devoured-Cleveland and obediently tells me that, yes, that closet I just cleaned looks great….and blog readers who (mostly) make me feel valued.
Tomorrow, I’ll stop kvetching and return this blog to its proper focus: America’s abysmal federal governance.
Sorry for the detour, but I feel better now……
I will share yours and add some of my own, Shiela. Dogs that smell like dogs because their fur has gone the same direction as my hair – except I can wash my hair.
Amazon book and dog food deliveries that take weeks rather than days now.
Dreams of being alone and running from attacking bugs.
And acknowledging my privilege each time I kevetch!
Eileen; you might resolve one of your problems by bathing your dog yourself in your bathtub. The last dinner with my son and daughter-in-law who have 4 dogs was a relaxed affair about 3 months ago and Anne decided to bathe their overweight Corgi before taking me home. My son and I sat and “talked”; being deaf, I talked and he wrote notes, he was periodically cracking up laughing. He finally explained that Tyrion, their Corgi, doesn’t like being bathed and he was hearing them both thundering around overhead as Anne tried to catch him. She finally gave up and came back to the table to rest and have coffee with us.
I am getting Facebook posts from grandchildren and great-grandchildren who must have happened to see my posts, telling me of this great love for me and how deeply missed I am. It has been at least a year since seeing most of them so maybe this isolation has brought me back to their attention, however briefly…and publicly.
Now for a serious kvetch. A news item about Chancellor Angela Merkle of Germany giving a first time public speech on TV caught my eye. She began with “Es ist ernst”, translation, “This is serious”. She went on to say “Not since Germany’s unification – no, since the end of World War II – no challenge to our nation has ever demanded such a gauge of common and united action.” She was of course referring to the Covid-19 Pandemic. Her words should be heeded by the world but we live in a nation whose leader lies while speaking out of both sides of his mouth and we are now facing Mayors of cities within states whose Governors are ordering life threatening reopenings which the Mayors and many citizens are against. Are those Mayors kvetching or can they back up their words of disagreement with their own Governors by defying them…and the appointed president of this country? Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch!
This is not intended to criticize Sheila, but rather the snowflakes carrying guns at demonstrations to complain that their freedom is being terminated because they might help spread a contagious disease if they were able to spend their hours, as usual, in a bar.
One of my Aunts grew up in London. She was an adult during WWII, and went through the Blitz, when everyone slept in air raid shelters or subway stations for the 76 consecutive nights the Germans bombed the city. Seventy Six consecutive nights, camping out on a cement floor. For some reason, no one complained about the need for being inconvenienced that way. Lives were at stake – theirs and others.
Well, lives are at stake here, now. And, unfortunately, our “dear leader” doesn’t care about that; he is concerned about the prospects for his re-election, and his need for adulation takes precedence over the thought that people will die unnecessarily if the “lockdown” is ended prematurely. So he gets on Twitter every chance he gets (too many, for sure) and incites insurrection in states whose governors haven’t kissed his ring.
This is a hell of a way to run a railroad, at any time, much less during a health emergency.
I thought you were going to kvetch about oil suppliers paying you to buy their oil because they have no place to store it or why that hasn’t translated to .50 gas prices. 😉
I chose to do social work for a reason, so converting to the teleconference model and watching parents interact with their children through a computer or phone is disheartening.
I miss the three-hour drive with clients, both young and old, and meeting up with friends who struggle living life on life’s terms.
For some, social isolation is a death sentence. It’s a prescription to live the way they used to when they were intentionally withdrawing from society. Thank god for Zoom and other video conferencing applications, but the lack of human interaction means we are devoid of our spiritual connection to each other.
I believe this is why people are kvetching. We are both independent and dependent on each other. Some of us have even been prophesizing about what the ‘new normal’ will look like because we’ve shifted into a new realm of existence. The profit over people society has been grossly exposed for all to witness whose heads aren’t buried deeply into the sand.
Kvetch away…
I usually get my kvetching done on FaceBook, where I do a weekly post that includes a pet peeve, but I’ll do one here. I hate that I have to use emojis to label satire as humor. I know I’m no Jonathan Swift, but please, people! Since, according to Polonius, brevity is the soul of wit, that’s all I’ll say.
Enjoyed the comments today. Kvetch away!
Yes Sheila! You expressed the feelings many of us are experiencing. However, what is different is that you and I, and most folks on this blog, aren’t out and about protesting our inconveniences, endangering others’ lives with our selfishness…carrying our AR 15 rifles no less. And, we are all aware that SOCIAL DISTANCING IS A PRIVILEGE.
Over 50 years ago, off the coast of Vietnam, when I saw the hell we were raining down on those people, I vowed that I would never complain about my lot in life, unless something equally horrific happened to me. Being stuck in a lovely home, zooming with the grandkids living in a neighborhood where I can go for a nice long walk, etc., etc., doesn’t rise to that level. However, I miss the things that I used to be able to do. I think it’s not so much how much we have now, but what we have lost that gets us irritated. So, keeping it in perspective, I miss what we all had in January. I miss walking straight to the airplane, as was normal before D. B. Cooper. I miss going to Canada without a passport, as was normal before 9/11. I even miss my gas-guzzling 66 Plymouth Fury. However, I have adjusted to all ofo these things. Our new normal will not be what we had in 2019. We are all humbled by facing up to the limits of our control over things. It looks like we have all been caught unaware and unprepared again. We will adjust. So let’s all have our kvetch and reset. Life will be worth living again.
I am beyond the kvetching stage. I am down right angry, anxious, sad and ashamed at the bad fortune I find myself wishing upon certain people or groups of people. I cannot look at or listen to the man who calls himself president. I get infuriated when I see crowds of people with their big guns, Trump 2020 banners, Confederate and Nazi flags harassing, yelling and threatening nurses with their vehicles. I can’t wait to get home from grocery shopping cloaked in my mask and gloves to disinfect everything I just brought home, including myself. I cry along with the nurses who weep openly when they cannot save the life of another patient they cared for. The bruises on their faces from the masks they have to wear pain me. I cannot bear to watch another loved one expressing their grief at the loss of their spouse, their Mom or Dad, their son or daughter, their Grandma or Grandpa or that guy down the street who everyone loved. All of this makes me sad. Most of all, I have trouble accepting the fact that I find myself confessing to my closest friends that I wish ill will on those who dismiss the seriousness of this disease or those who think that their way of life is more valuable than the life of another human being. Yes, I am beyond kvetching and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Sheila,
?????
These weeks of being not more than two rooms away from my companion of 66 years have been…delightful. Last night she read to me. We listen to music during supper. We talk. We even danced a few steps (she loves dancing…I’m a failure at it). The virus which is destroying and disrupting so many lives has caused our lives to blossom (anew).
I encourage you to read “Grim Reapers” in the May issue of The New Tepublic, “How Trump and Xi set the stage for the coronavirus pandemic.” Laurie Garrett reveals the mendacity of both leaders. Xi matches Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’ with ‘the Italian virus’ or the ‘Japanese virus,’ and of course ‘the American virus.’ Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian suggested the virus came out of an American laboratory. He tweeted that U.S. Army representatives brought the virus to Wuhan in October 2019.
Meanwhile our various governments flounder, without a synchronized response to keep us safe.
Your hair? Come on. Just let it grow. Part it down the middle and put on a nice, leather headband to hold it in place. Pull out those old tie-dyed shirts and faded jeans and wear them with joy. Let your inner, suppressed hippy eat. This will be your last chance to do that without anyone laughing at you.
Go eat some chocolate. Let a grocery shopping service buy and deliver your groceries. Make a chocolate cake. Make your own chocolate ice cream in that old crank ice cream maker you have stashed in your attic or basement. See a pattern here? Comfort food. Not to worry, though. Warm weather is upon almost all of us, so put on your paisley designed mask and walk for a while making sure you cross the street when you see some equally liberated person coming the other way. Get your exercise.
It’s great that the electronics of today allow us to communicate. But pick up the damned phone and call somebody. HEAR their laugh rather than just see an emoji. It works every time.
Now, about those books you throw away after discovering that they are crap that publishers think will sell 10,000 copies right away and turn a profit for them…. Don’t buy them anymore. Write one instead. Don’t worry. If you have a vapid romance, dumb mystery or horrible sci-fi story in you, write it. That’s what’s selling and getting published. Just ask any literary agent. The more vapid the romance or dumb the mystery the better. That is what America is reading. Next time you go to your local bookstore, look at the heaps of garbage that fills the discount book bins. And while you’re trying to find an agent, be sure to sympathize with these highly-educated and credentialed literary people who have to ferret out the 1% of their queries that will sell those 10,000 copies in order to keep their lights on. For every book you read half way and throw in the trash, there are literally thousands of good, engaging and well-written manuscripts that never see the light of day. That’s my kvetch after having over 1,400 queries for my seven books ignored without a single manuscript read. Persistence, hard work and good stories don’t matter. It’s what sells, and what sells is 90% crap. Don’t believe me? Just look at the bookshelves sometime the next visit to Wal-Mart, Target or even your local grocery store.
So, the damned fools demonstrating for the purpose of getting infected by the most contagious disease in our lifetimes will continue to demonstrate. They will show the world how really stupid we can be. They buy the bad books in volume. They will be reading them until the doctors pull the ventilator tube out of their croaking throats. So, take these people as a clue to buy stock in the companies that make body bags, because you are witnessing a sure thing in the making.
Okay. Tomorrow we once again return to the matters at hand: What will we do with all those abandoned rebel flags, misspelled posters and discarded face masks? Tomorrow we can once again begin to mourn those children of the fools on the capitol lawns, for they will be victims in about 11-14 days of a killing virus. What will the goobers yell when the second wave of this pandemic washes over their homes, places of work and schools that were opened early? Who will they blame all those deaths on? Probably Obama. And OH THOSE HILLARY E-MAILS.
Comment to Beverly re: “Most of all, I have trouble accepting the fact that I find myself confessing to my closest friends that I wish ill will on those who dismiss the seriousness of this disease or those who think that their way of life is more valuable than the life of another human being.”
Thank you for admitting this… I was feeling like the only one and was ashamed. Deep down, I don’t want anyone to die… but I do have a certain feeling of “See? You should have listened!” For me, I know this is tied to my own history of being dismissed so often in my family of origin…and now I see it played out on a much bigger scale. It’s a shame that it’s come to this… but I’m glad I’m not the only one trying to grapple with these feelings.
Love your comments every day ! You make my day, in fact !
My kvetch prayer, that somehow (God only knows how) people may begin to get a feel for what unimaginable chaos in the world might be like if we don’t do long-term strategic planning and, most importantly, major investment and life changes to deal with climate change. Of course, it won’t be them who suffer, just their grandkids…
I have seen brief shots suggesting that these protestors (Trump shills) have threatened nurses and others caring for coronavirus victims. Does anyone know if this is true? I would hope not, but the presence of confederate flags and assault rifles at these rallies is disturbing. But if so, our situation is more dire than we might imagine. In any event, these people are all candidates for the 2020 Darwin Awards.
We all need to ocassionally vent some steam…or take a deep breath. Its healthy.
Thank you for the kvetching! I, too, miss my grandchildren. They were already growing up too fast, and now I’m grieving over missing more time with them. By the time this is over, the eldest will have passed into her teens, and the baby won’t be a baby anymore. How I miss those hugs! I feel blessed to have a warm, safe, comfortable home, good food to eat, and a kind husband who humors my whims and supports the “projects” that I come up with. But, I think we are in it for the long haul, given this administration’s failure of leadership in testing/containment. We are making the best of it, and praying for those who can’t.
It is amazing how many Nazi Symbols, and Confederate flags are flying along with shouting spittle about “Freedom” are at these gatherings of the Trumpets. How odd in a way that a Nazi Flag or Confederate Flag or other symbols of repression are being carried all the while the Trumpter’s are screaming about “Freedom”. These symbols of course are the exact opposite of “Freedom”.
Can you imagine the 24/7 outrage Fox News and the other Right Wing Reactionaries would have had if a Bernie rally would have had people carrying the Red Flags or the Hammer and Sickle of the old Soviet Union.
I started a personal Journal on March 13th. For a while, I was recoding “new” things daily. I am not up to making an entry about once a week.
Today was so exciting that I actually had three meetings on my calendar, all virtual, but hey, I get to see or hear other people occasionally.
I am retired and most of my volunteer activities (Boy Scouts, Neighborhood Association, etc…) have been yanked out from under me, so I will have to tell you:
Don’t retire during a pandemic!
Otherwise, I think you will find some place to direct your energy, and at a level that keeps you occupied, and fulfilled.
So sorry to hear about all the terrible damage to your basement ceiling, Sheila. I am lucky because my beautician works out of her house and so far, both of us have no COVID symptoms.
I am so glad it was warm and sunny yesterday and today looks sunny as well.
I miss hugging my friends. I miss going out to eat. I even miss window shopping.
I have talked with my neighbors more and told grocery workers how much I appreciate them.
Since I have social security and a pension, I am thinking that when the government check comes ( or deposit) that I will probably give some of it to Planned Parenthood, Equality Now, Amy McGrath. I might as well use it to try and rebut the current occupant of the White House.
I think when we get past COVID we should have street dances and hug fests and lots of pot lucks or if you prefer, pitch ins. Every nurse, health care worker, mail carrier, trash guy and all the folks who support our infrastructure should get lots of hugs. Part of what keeps me going is having something to look forward to.
And as a nurse, I have to say it’s about time we got some applause. I have news for you, my fellow citizens, nurses put their lives on the line often. Some of us are in the military service. Many of us work with patients who have life threatening infectious diseases ie multi drug resistant TB. We are on the front line during natural disasters. And some of use work in communities with high levels of gun violence. Yes, it’s about time we got some applause. Nurses week is the first week of May.
I don’t miss human contact; I’ve gotten used to its absence; in terms of the “human” part of human contact, it’s mostly been gone on its own for seventy years. People I interact with are rarely more than 1% human, 90% animal and 9% an unknown entity that appears dumber than most animals.
I don’t miss adult hugging, either. I wish it had never been invented. Adults hugging is about as fake as Hollywood air kisses. Yeah, I get that hugging is one of the big social strokes, but I ranted about coveting social strokes, yesterday; I see it as a different and very harmful kind of greed.
Larry,
You need to eat more chocolate, breath deeper and go write your damned book. As Hemingway used to say, “I write when I’m drunk and edit sober.” Try it. It’ll make you feel more…well, human.
I do miss meeting the two or three people I know, who are a level above acquaintance, for lunch or coffee. But I’m finding that I enjoy written conversations with them far more.
I don’t have to look at their nose hair.
I don’t have to see their nervous knee bouncing around my peripheral vision.
I don’t have to ignore the food stuck to their face or concoct some way of telling them to wipe it off.
I don’t keep wondering how much they eat in a day and do they have to drop by the local livestock auction to be weighed before they meet their doctor for a check on vitals.
The only drawback to written correspondence with them is that text doesn’t avoid their poor English, which I find annoys the eye as much as the ear.
Larry, you need to smoke a joint or blunt and mellow out.
Grocery shopping? I don’t miss it, because I still shop for groceries; who doesn’t? The only thing I miss about grocery shopping are the items I need seem to be missing.
And there are those quality weirdos you still see in the stores, but I’m not seeing the quantity that I used to notice; that I regret.
Oh, yes, I miss something important in top end groceries–their abundance of beautiful women. Yeah, I visit top end groceries, but I don’t actually buy anything–my bank won’t loan me the money.
I won’t miss stuff like the twenty-something young man in line in front of me to get into the Trader Joe’s wearing huge earphones, no face mask, standing 3 feet behind the person in front and vaping madly…all about HIM. Grim reminder of the challenge of our future.
I am essential and so my routine is the same. I am a tad worried as my local SB was closed for the week. Rumor is that someone is sick and awaiting results, but I drove to the other SB and got a freebie. Wearing scrubs is a double-edge sword–free coffee and free margarita when I got take out from a restaurant where would go to every weekend while my dtr took her Irish dance classes or going into Target in scrubs and people are avoiding you like the plague itself.
I did tell my 11 year old dtr that I am worried about her blood pressure and it would be nice to see her stand as oppose to seeing her in a lying or sitting position. 🙂 I am curious how next year they are going to provide make up for the last half of the year being a bust (her school was also hit by a tornadoe and quarantining came early)
I go grocery shopping but I am wearing a mask, gloves and I carry a mister full of 99.%5 of grain alcohol. I have trained my 11 year old the proper way of removing gloves to not recontaminate. I noticed the faces of an older couple not wearing masks or gloves looking somewhat perplexed while I was reminding her how to do these techniques in front of a trash bin. I figure they were Hannity and Fox viewers.
FYI- I no longer feel bad thinking that some of these idiots out in the street saying they would rather get Covid than lose their freedom. Have at it, just don’t spread it. I just wished they could sign off on a disclaimer that they won’t seek medical care. I loved seeing the nurses blocking these idiots in Denver. I thought it would have been better and more playing to the crowd if they were holding AR-15s. I think the crowd would have been more respectful if they were toting AR-15s and carrying a rope of rounds like Rambo.
Languorous,
“Larry, you need to smoke a joint or blunt and mellow out.”
Please, suggest a healthier and more intelligent way to show the world I give up; I quit; nothing’s important; it’s all about me and my comfort. Although, I’m not ready to give up, the suggestions might be entertaining.
I feel like I’ve taken my vows with the Nonjudgmental Sisters of Perpetual Comfort. Our habits involve black t-shirts, so we all look like the ghost of Steve Jobs.
Gotcha!
Vernon,
“You need to eat more chocolate, breath deeper and go write your damned book. As Hemingway used to say, “I write when I’m drunk and edit sober.” Try it. It’ll make you feel more…well, human.”
Wrong. Hemingway was lying. Look at his manuscripts–way too clean to have been written by a drunk. By a hangover, I might buy.
But you’re right, I feel better when I’m writing, possibly feel more human–minus the stroke-feeble, stroke-revolting, stroke-needy part, mistakenly regarded by many (even psychiatrists and social scientists) as human.
Fact is, I use the writing of these posts as warm-up exercises, then go write my books. For certain kinds of novel writing–like my political novels–it helps to be pissed off. Same is true for painting my political paintings.
Speech 203, Pan American University, Texas, 1959: one assignment was to give a talk on a subject that makes you angry. The professor advised preparing for the presentation by pushing your anger until you feel it in your fingertips, then let it roll during your talk. Wow! Those were the best speeches we ever gave. Like watching a class full of George Karlins take turns on stage.
Y’all feeling used, yet.
I am fortunate to have a dog, a cat, and a wife to coexist with. The dog walks me daily and waits patiently for me while I kvetch with each of my neighbors who are reacting to signs of Spring and boredom and are out now for walks and socially distant kvetches.
The cat who’s young and frisky rules the indoors like the little terrorist that both she and Hobbs (Calvin’s alter ego) are. I’m constantly being stalked and pounced on from nowhere as her endless imagination directs her life.
All in all it’s a little like I fondly remember my childhood summers to be. Aimless.
Nights are long and lonely though. I wish my mind was more aimless then but it refuses to be. It keeps returning to the mess that we inadvertently left for our grandchildren and theirs to clean up.
Sorry kids. That certainly wasn’t my intention. I had hoped to leave behind what was left behind for me way back when.
You have admitted to being human, nothing to be ashamed of. A little diversion from our day-to-day realities is good for the soul.
You always know just how to express what I would like to express, but just do not have the writing/speaking skills to say. Thank you so much, Sheila. I look forward to your blog every day.
Hurrah for social distancing.
I don’t miss the engineer buddy I used to have coffee with, who every day contradicted his professional engineering standards–attention to detail is important, data and analysis will save the project.
“Hey, it’s simple,” he raves, “everybody needs to be responsible for themselves; no government safety nets is the answer. Simple. You don’t need to analyze a bunch of data.”
“…my hair-that-devoured-Cleveland” ? Thank you, Sheila, that made my day!
Larry, tell your “friend” everyone is responsible for themselves in ways that they can be. Most have times though when they can’t be. Because of that social order is like insurance because what we can be when we can be is invested in taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves and the best life possible would be a whole life requiring no reciprocity. That’d be like never having an insurance claim.
Pete,
This engineer dude doesn’t buy insurance either; I mean literally doesn’t buy insurance. Four years ago, he owned a 1979 collector Firebird in mint condition. He totaled it and had to eat the loss. He still blames everyone but himself.
Now, ask him how a CONTINUOUSLY VARIABLE TRANSMISSION works, and he can dissemble concepts and re-dissemble the parts until the cows come home, insisting that “you gotta understand all the little ideas before you can start to understand the workings of the whole thing.”
I have told him–and almost every engineer I’ve ever met–that I’m disappointed in him. I expect that one whose devotion to detail is second-nature when it comes to issues of things would have the gumption to examine even more important issues with the same respect for detail. Typical of Trumpsters, he reloads with a straw man argument: “More important! There you go again disrespecting General Motors; the things GM makes probably saved this country more often than the Army.”
Anyway, he’s just one of the reasons that I’m a lot more upset by “normal” than I am about this shutdown. If you want to read kvetching examples, wait until we return to “normal”.
Thank God it’s spring with forsythia, magnolias, daffodils, and now red buds and other flowering trees coming on. When the cabin fever gets to me, I get in the car to see blooming things nearby. I’m getting about 4 weeks to the gallon of gas.
I do miss the human contact. My neighbor and I finally visited while in lawn chairs on opposite sides of her driveway. Every other neighbor – including those we’d never met – stopped their car on the street to lower their window and converse from afar.
After reading a Washington state story of 45 people in a 120 member church choir being infected with coronavirus, I grieve the loss of singing with so many soulmates in our 100 member choir. Our church has nearly daily communication on-line with less frequent contacts by snail mail, phone calls, and Facebook shares. That’s all good and very welcome, but I still miss everyone.
My daughter son-in-law, and grandkids are 5 minutes away. We are leaving food for each other on the front step and calling and emailing. It’s a poor substitute for human contact.
I went to the 24 drug store at 1 a.m. to avoid other customers. It worked. I was the only customer in the store which made me the object of frequent, annoying attention from the overnight officer. But then again, I WAS wearing a bandana face mask along with disposable gloves.
This is not going away any time soon for prudent individuals, employers, offices, retail outlets, small businesses, churches, schools, and more. It’s gonna be a year or so before vaccines are on the market and people get vaccinated. In the meantime, we’ll be more at risk when the economy opens again because we won’t know where everyone has been, who they’ve been exposed to, and who should be in quarantine because they would test positive IF they could get tested. Bah, humbug.
JoAnn Green,
The German chancellor’s name is Angela Merkel.