Monday, Santa Clara County (along with the rest of the Bay Area) announced that everyone would be under a “shelter-in-place” order for the next three weeks. I decided I’d keep a little journal of what we do, and don’t do, and where better to keep it than in public – so here I am. I wish my Google AdWords account was working….but oh, well.
We got the quarantine off to a great start by sleeping late, though I didn’t sleep soundly; perhaps spending the last hour before bed on Twitter wasn’t a good idea!
After a leisurely breakfast, we went out for a walk (specifically allowed by the order) to Lunardi’s to see if we could pick up a few necessities. We mostly walk through our residential area, and traffic is always pretty light – but it was noticably lighter; I think we saw two or three cars on our 1.5-mile walk to the store. There were quite a few people (including families with children) out walking – we gave them plenty of distance.
Lunardi’s was doing a reasonably brisk business, but it wasn’t at all crazy. We didn’t use a cart (next time, I’ll bring two shopping bags) and picked up most of what we wanted – chicken, coffee, yogurt, jelly, and bread – nothing we wouldn’t have bought normally. They didn’t have any red or orange peppers, but there were plenty of other vegetables and fruits available.
Much to my surprise, the beauty supply shop in the same shopping center was open – I would not have thought they qualified as an essential business. I didn’t go in (as usual).
We walked home and settled in for the rest of the day. Lunch was leftover chicken, salad, and some very old whole wheat pasta (“Best Before Feb 2016”, and it wasn’t that great then!). I did some work for Toastmasters (I’m mentoring a corporate club which is trying to figure out how to handle everyone working from home) and finally got around to entering my notes from the last three speeches I gave so I could clean up the area around my computer. I also set up a Kanopy account.
We spent a lot of time in front of the TV or computer – more than usual (I didn’t even get my 12 “active” hours on my watch). We started by watching Monday’s Colbert Late Show with the monologue from the bathtub and then rewatched the Jim Carrey interview. After that, we watched most of the Dropkick Murphys livestream from Boston in honor of St. Patrick’s Day; I’m sure I wouldn’t have done that without the quarantine, but I’m glad I did – it was upbeat music! Both Diane and I made a point of wearing green, though I doubt we had to worry about being pinched if we hadn’t.
Dinner was seared tuna with sesame seeds, an idea I’d gotten last month (was it only last month?) at Azahar Panama in Panama City. It was excellent and easy, if I do say so myself.
Tuesday is usually trivia night at Khartoum, but it would have been cancelled anyway for St. Patrick’s Day; I still missed it.
After dinner, we listened to the CD we’d bought on the cruise last month – the ship musician, Sergey Yurchenko gave a classical piano concert and sold his CD afterwards; we bought a copy but, as usual with such things, hadn’t played it…until yesterday. It brought back good memories. When we bought the CD, Sergey didn’t have change in dollars so he gave us a 5 Euro note instead – it may be a while before we can spend it!
We also watched a DVD we’d been given a while ago but hadn’t opened (there’s a theme here) – Jeff Dunham’s Spark of Insanity. I’d never heard of Jeff Dunham before, but he’s a good ventriloquist. It did seem strange to see such a large crowd gathered! We left half the DVD for later, though it doesn’t seem we’re going to run out of things to watch.
It’s amazing that you are home! Was this a planned trip???
Yes, we’d planned to be home from mid-February until the first week in April. We got it half-right!