Month: March 2020

  • Coronavirus: Day 11 At Home

    It has been so much harder getting a routine started at home with all of us on top of each other. My wife has been doing the heavy lifting with the kid; making sure our daughter gets her online school lessons in, and has creative time, and as well as baking projects. I have still been trying to find my balance with the new job; when I can work, and when I need to help out at home. Half of my day is spent on a video conference call, so making sure I am not in the way, and vice versa, has been challenging. But, we are making it work, and having a little fun as well.

    For us the adults in this house, we are both battling fears and anxieties of the outside world. What if we get sick? What if we have to go to the hospital? What if they lock down the City? What if we have to leave the City? Where would we go?

    I know this is clearly coming from our experience with the California wildfires, and that feeling of being totally underprepared for what happened to us. It’s like we want to get ahead of the virus, but being at home makes us feel helpless.

    We have to take turns boosting the other. Monday, I had a really bad day. Yesterday, my wife was having a bad one. We are trying to find ways to support each other through this, while also, not trying to freak the kid out.

    I guess this is our new normal.

  • Thoughts on Today‘s Coronavirus

    I have walked to the grocery store, and I am waiting in line. We are all spaced about six feet apart though some are more bold with ten to twenty feet. Cautious; yes. But they are causing anxiety in the line; making it needlessly longer. Who cares about safety, I need triple ginger snap cookies!

    Walking over, cutting into the north part of the Upper West Side, it seems like a rather average number of people are out. Out with masks, but out. I guess this is what the new normal looks like. Or is this a part of the City that doesn’t give a shit?

    Personally, I still don’t know how to gage what is happening. One day it feels like this isn’t so bad, then yesterday, I was having a hard time figuring out what would happen if we lose our jobs. I know I’m not alone in that thought.

    I guess making fun of grocery lines is how I’m trying to cope.

  • Coronavirus: Still At Home

    It has been a tough four days getting used to being home all the time. We don’t have a big apartment, and we are making the best that we can with our day. We do have a schedule that we are trying to stick to, and also trying to make time for both of us to work, watch the kid, and also, we are trying to find some personal alone time to decompress. Walks are helping, but we are all feeling the strain of this new normal.

    I have to limit my access to the news, as it does bring me down, and make me feel rather hopeless. I was in a good mood this morning, then I had a computer issue that affected my ability to work, and that started me down a spiral of thought that we are in an un-survivable situation; That nothing will work or help.

    And then I took a deep breath, and played “store” with my daughter, and I felt a little better. I talked it over with my wife, who is also being brave but is filled with anxiety as well, and both of us admitting that we are nervous did take the pressure off. We are in this together.

    The best I can equate this to, is like the Great Depression. When the people’s lives, across just about every spectrum, were affected in such a titanic manner. My grandparents got through that, and even were able to joke about it. So, I know it can be done.

  • Coronavirus in NYC: Kids, Self-Quarantine, and Work

    We had planned on having to shelter at home as early as Friday, and we started making preparations. We shopped for a week and half’s worth of food. Knowing that the odds were that NYC schools would be closed on Monday, we went to our storage unit, which has been holding all of our things from the California move, and pulled out some of our books, DVDs, and all of the kid’s stuff. We don’t want to be the people who watch tv non-stop for a month.

    And we thought we had it all under control.

    But Monday did catch us off guard, a little. Such as, we talked about a plan, but we didn’t write it down. The City didn’t suspend alt-side parking, so the wife, kid, and dog had to go move the car and find a new parking space, which took time. (I don’t know why parking wasn’t suspended, but that really is a New Yorker complaint.) I was out doing laundry, and I did all of our laundry to be safe, and that also took longer than I thought. By lunchtime, we were running behind schedule.

    By early afternoon, I had my first day of work, and I am very thankful that I was able to do my four hours of training through video conferencing. I know that I am very lucky to be hired during a pandemic, and I am even more lucky that I am working for a company that is letting me start this job by remoting in. But that did mean that I was working at the desk, and couldn’t help with the kid, so my wife was solo parenting for half the day.

    After we put our daughter to bed, we sat down and planned out today. We made sure we both worked in time for the other to be alone for a bit, (writing for me, yoga for her) but most importantly, we planned out activities for our daughter; to keep learning, being creative, and having some limited outdoor time. I know that we will get through this, all of us, but we have to figure out a way to just get through the day.

  • Coronavirus in NYC: Trader Joe’s Edition

    Again, 24 hours later and things have changed yet again in New York.

    I wouldn’t say there are a great number of people out in gloves and masks, but they are now clearly present wherever you go in the City.

    When I took the kid to school this morning, it was clearly noticeable that other students were absent, as parents were keeping their kids home. Also, the school was eerily quiet. It was a very rainy and cold morning, but even still, that school usually is boiling over with exuberance and energy in the mornings

    The wife and I both feel that it is only a matter of time before NYC will close all of the schools. As such, we might need to hunker down in the apartment for a couple of days. Which meant, we had to go grocery shopping to stock up.

    We are taking this seriously, but not THAT seriously. Not panic shopping over here.

    We headed down to the Trader Joe’s on West 93rd, but before we went over there, we ran some other errands, and walked around that part of the City, as we are rarely over there. Either way, by the time we got to the Trader Joe’s, there was a line out the door, that did wrap around the block. This wasn’t our first “end of the world, let’s go to Trader Joe’s” shopping experience. We dealt with Superstorm Sandy, and the Kincade Fire in California.

    So, we got in line, and it did move rather quickly. (Trader Joe’s does know how to handle a large crowd.) When we were in the final stretch of the line so we could get in, the wife and I noticed that people were taking pictures of the line. Clearly to prove to the rest of the world what happens on the UWS when shit gets real. So, being the mature and stoic people that we are, we attempted to make the most revolting faces that we could when we saw someone taking a picture.

    You’re welcome interwebs…

    It took about an hour and a half to grocery shop, which normally it takes us an hour, (See; Trader Joe’s knows how to handle a crowd.) and the people in there were all behaving normally for New Yorkers. To me that says, people are being cautious about all of this, and not panicking.

    Now, every day this week, things have changed, and not for the better. Sadly, I’m not hopeful for things getting better. I mean, it will get better and we’ll all get through this, but we haven’t hit that turning point just yet.