It’s been a very quiet week. That’s understandable since many things in Maryland are still closed. I’m riding a couple of days a week. The rest of the time it’s been rainy. There’s plenty of water in the rivers, and more rain in the forecast. My goal is to have at least an hour of good physical activity every day. But with all this rain, my indoor projects are drying up. I might have to get inventive soon, because doing jumping jacks in front of the TV is definitely not my thing.
Wearing masks at the grocery store went from being recommended to mandatory a while ago. In spite of the increased demand that created, the supply of face masks seems to be opening up. That’s good because the masks I made from T-shirts definitely have their limitations. Danita found some disposable masks that will be in this week, and some reusable masks that should be in within the month.
Neighborhood activities are dramatically reduced. There are no neighborhood parties or gatherings. Condo meetings are held over the internet. The clubhouse is totally locked down. Residents aren’t allowed to even enter, much less get a cup of coffee. Lots of people are walking. You see small groups standing and talking, carefully separated by 6 feet. I think I pulled a coup of sorts. The office ladies had problems with very slow computers. I told them that if my clubhouse card worked, I would go over early in the morning and look at it. I’m pretty sure they made my card a “staff” card so I can enter any time. Woo-hoo!
We traditionally eat breakfast out on Sunday and dinner out on Thursday. Restaurants are all closed, but most are still doing carry out service. We are substituting carry out for dining in. It’s not as good. We don’t get out of the house, the food isn’t as hot, and it just isn’t the same experience. But we’re learning which restaurants do carry out best. Which foods heat up well. It helps us anchor the days of the week.
People are getting antsy about being on lock down. Everybody wants to know when things will start opening up. We don’t normally watch TV news, but we watched Governor Hogan’s press conference to present Maryland’s plan. There were no surprises. It more or less follows the federal guidelines. The key to get to phase 1 is a downward trend in ICU admissions and deaths. These numbers are clearly displayed on Maryland’s COVID web page. After the Governor repeated this 3 or 4 times, reporters stopped asking when phase 1 will begin and started asking what “downward trend” means. Finally, one reporter tried to indirectly ask if we could remove nursing home patients from the numbers. (We’ve had several nursing homes that had a huge percentage of residents get COVID. These people understandably have a high incidence of ICU placements and deaths.) The Governor wisely side-stepped the question and talked about the recent regulations for personal protection equipment and other practices to reduce nursing home infections. There’s no doubt in my mind. Our president is a lot smarter than some of our news reporters.
With a little luck, phase one might start next month. For Danita and me, phase 1 means no changes. We’re over 65 and aren’t employed. But we need phase 1 so we can get to phase 2.
I hope this finds everybody doing well.