Tag: Grocery Shopping

  • Coronavirus: Day 17, Laundry Run

    Balance still seems to be our issue. We are trying to make sure that we keep some sort of routine during the week including doing the online classes for the kid’s school, while I’m trying to work my job, and then there is the wife who is trying to hold the family structure together, and still looking for a job, though even she will admit that it feels like a fool’s errand at this point.

    To keep that normalcy feeling, I did laundry today, which meant that I had to go out to the local laundromat. I was not excited about doing this, but just like grocery shopping, even the most mundane tasks now are sprinkled with the possibility of infection and disaster.

    Our local laundry place did have signs up saying that only people doing laundry were allowed in, and to please not bring extra people. They even suggested washing/sanitizing your hands upon entering and leaving. And most importantly, don’t hang out while your clothes and washing/drying. I went first thing in the morning, right after they had cleaned the place, and by following their rules, it did feel like it was a clean and relative safe activity. Oh, I did wash the hell out of my hands when I got home each time. I’m still trying to be safe.

    But what I did notice, and have noticed for the past few days on the streets of NYC, is that there is an undercurrent of aggression. The people who ask me for money aren’t taking no for an answer. I even had a guy ask me for a lighter, which I didn’t have, then he accused me of lying which spurting out obscenities at me. Even in line for groceries, it’s like people are looking for a problem to have with you.

    I think I am beginning to see to toll that this is having on the psychology of the City.

  • 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.