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it's starting to get surreal around here
Or so the news tells me. I'm not seeing too much of it in my daily life, but then - hey, "social distancing" is my daily life. I'd say that the days in which, aside from purely business transactions with store clerks and such, I don't speak with anyone except B. (and the cats, to whom I talk quite a lot), quite outnumber the days that my conversation is wider. The vast majority of my social interaction is over the internet, and that's been true for well over 20 years.
I'm still doing grocery shopping and a few other errands. All I've seen unusual is that, on Monday in one store, the toilet paper was nearly cleaned out. (I didn't check the hand sanitizer: I dislike using the stuff, and I doubt its efficacy on viruses anyway.) That store had recovered its supplies a bit by Wednesday, and another store looked completely normal.
All the concerts I was going to attend this month have been canceled, one by one. Nothing next month has been hit yet, but I'd be surprised if this doesn't wipe out at least the rest of the concert season, through June. The theaters, as in stage plays, had been resisting longer than the musicians, and had put out announcements about how they would be scrubbing down their premises and encouraging caution by attendees, but that was obviously not enough. The ones I'm on the mailing list for have been putting out closure announcements, pretty much simultaneous with the closure of Broadway.
I don't follow sports, but what concerns me is the closure of libraries. Stanford - which judging from their general attitudes towards outside visitors has probably been salivating for a chance to do this - has closed their libraries to all unaffiliated users. One local town issued a statement that they're closing all city facilities to the public. That should include the library, but there's nothing about it on the library website. My town is not closing the library, but they're canceling all programs.
All this is of concern to me because I'm in the middle of compiling the annual Tolkien Studies bibliography. The first stages of this are done at home, using public web databases. But I should be ready to take my usual round of 3 academic libraries by next week. But the third of them is Stanford, and now I'm not sure if I should even go to the other two, assuming they're still open by then. It's my job, but it's not worth the risk of spending two full days in two more uncertain environments.
What's most grim is knowing that none of this will prevent the virus from spreading. The goal here is to slow down the spread enough so that an eruption of cases won't overwhelm the health system. That's the goal. We'll probably all get it eventually, and - since that will still be long before there's a vaccine - we just have to hope our systems are strong enough to withstand it.
I'm still doing grocery shopping and a few other errands. All I've seen unusual is that, on Monday in one store, the toilet paper was nearly cleaned out. (I didn't check the hand sanitizer: I dislike using the stuff, and I doubt its efficacy on viruses anyway.) That store had recovered its supplies a bit by Wednesday, and another store looked completely normal.
All the concerts I was going to attend this month have been canceled, one by one. Nothing next month has been hit yet, but I'd be surprised if this doesn't wipe out at least the rest of the concert season, through June. The theaters, as in stage plays, had been resisting longer than the musicians, and had put out announcements about how they would be scrubbing down their premises and encouraging caution by attendees, but that was obviously not enough. The ones I'm on the mailing list for have been putting out closure announcements, pretty much simultaneous with the closure of Broadway.
I don't follow sports, but what concerns me is the closure of libraries. Stanford - which judging from their general attitudes towards outside visitors has probably been salivating for a chance to do this - has closed their libraries to all unaffiliated users. One local town issued a statement that they're closing all city facilities to the public. That should include the library, but there's nothing about it on the library website. My town is not closing the library, but they're canceling all programs.
All this is of concern to me because I'm in the middle of compiling the annual Tolkien Studies bibliography. The first stages of this are done at home, using public web databases. But I should be ready to take my usual round of 3 academic libraries by next week. But the third of them is Stanford, and now I'm not sure if I should even go to the other two, assuming they're still open by then. It's my job, but it's not worth the risk of spending two full days in two more uncertain environments.
What's most grim is knowing that none of this will prevent the virus from spreading. The goal here is to slow down the spread enough so that an eruption of cases won't overwhelm the health system. That's the goal. We'll probably all get it eventually, and - since that will still be long before there's a vaccine - we just have to hope our systems are strong enough to withstand it.
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We are self isolating here too; the only errands we'll be running are grocery runs to restock perishables and cat needs. I am holding off scheduling some follow up medical appointments.
I'm waiting to see if/when we end up with no Wiscon this year. I am working on a program item about remote accessibility for conventions; it may turn out to be brainstorming for alternative W44. I don't think we should go on with the con, but the SF3 board has to look at contractual obligations/legalities/possible financial penalties. I understand that, but think we have to take clear action RealSoonNow.
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I don't know what we're going to do at work - people have kids in school who will now be at home.
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Mass is canceled in the Diocese of San Jose. Last Sunday, a letter from the Bishop was read at all Masses absolving all those who are high risk for COVID-19 from attending, and I had decided not to go. At 64, I'm still one of the younger members of the choir. We have a 93-year-old member and many in the 80 range. I did not want to chance being a disease vector as I could have picked something up at work without knowing it. (Thank God my boss did not go home to China this past Christmas. He usually does. Home is 90 km from Wuhan. His parents there are fine.) I'm just around too many people who travel to India and Asia a lot to risk being around people who may be more fragile than I. The Diocese is live streaming Mass tomorrow: 10:00 English, 11:00 Spanish, 12:00 Vietnamese. I subscribe to Magnificat and read all the Mass readings every day any way. I"m not going to stress over missing Mass. I'm assuming this will carry through to Easter. I'm still practicing my music for the Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter vigil), but I don't expect them to happen this year. I have frozen my gym membership, too. I haven't ridden my folding bike since I started using a cane regularly. I hauled it into the trunk of my car and filled up the tires the other day. Yesterday, when it was nice, I went out riding it to the park. Boy, despite riding the exercise bike at the gym regularly, I am out of shape for bike riding. It was worth it though - in the park, there is an open pavilion. There was an erhu class in session. That's the long necked Chinese stringed instrument. The instructor was playing violin, rather than the erhu. He was running them through scales (minor, of course). Some of the students were obvious beginners but some sounded beautiful. I watched them for a little bit.