![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Life During Virus-Time
Mar. 16th, 2020 10:55 pmAs usual, five things make a post. I cannot hope to capture everything going on with the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are just five things.
1. Today the boy toy and I had our last lunch special from Hunan Treasure, the local Chinese restaurant that we prefer. Completely unrelated to the coronavirus -- the owners had announced several weeks ago that they would be closing the place on March 21 because the shopping center owner was raising the rent too high on the next proposed lease. It's a shame because the restaurant has been there for at least 25 years. Boy toy and I were planning to go *sometime* this week, but when we heard the Maryland governor's announcement that restaurants must switch to takeout-only as of 5 p.m., he and I looked each other and instantly decided to make this day our day to get our Hunan Treasure fix, just in case the big shutdown makes the owners say "screw this" and close up a few days early. I gave them a $5 tip and wished them a good future.
2. The reason why I think some people don't take the pandemic seriously is that it doesn't LOOK like an impending disaster. We have no wind or rain, no dark clouds, no reddish skies, no live embers blowing through the trees. Even on that beautiful clear day dated 9/11/01, unless you lived right near Ground Zero, the skies were gorgeous, even though the TV kept replaying the frightful scenes. We don't even have frightful scenes. Yet.
3. Yesterday I spent three hours in virtual gatherings that would have been in person any other weekend before now. The video-conferenced Sunday church service was surprisingly moving, even though it was obvious that the Zoom software is optimized for the frequency range of the human voice, not of a high-quality grand piano.
4. One tiny side benefit of not going to SCA dance practice tonight: at least I got to watch Cosmos: Possible Worlds. I could listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson read the phone book and still be enthralled.
5. Hope in the time of pandemic: At Sunday's service our director of religious education announced that she and her boyfriend got married on Friday the 13th. And the minister's husband announced that the two of them are expecting their first grandchild (after 45 years of marriage and three grown sons).
1. Today the boy toy and I had our last lunch special from Hunan Treasure, the local Chinese restaurant that we prefer. Completely unrelated to the coronavirus -- the owners had announced several weeks ago that they would be closing the place on March 21 because the shopping center owner was raising the rent too high on the next proposed lease. It's a shame because the restaurant has been there for at least 25 years. Boy toy and I were planning to go *sometime* this week, but when we heard the Maryland governor's announcement that restaurants must switch to takeout-only as of 5 p.m., he and I looked each other and instantly decided to make this day our day to get our Hunan Treasure fix, just in case the big shutdown makes the owners say "screw this" and close up a few days early. I gave them a $5 tip and wished them a good future.
2. The reason why I think some people don't take the pandemic seriously is that it doesn't LOOK like an impending disaster. We have no wind or rain, no dark clouds, no reddish skies, no live embers blowing through the trees. Even on that beautiful clear day dated 9/11/01, unless you lived right near Ground Zero, the skies were gorgeous, even though the TV kept replaying the frightful scenes. We don't even have frightful scenes. Yet.
3. Yesterday I spent three hours in virtual gatherings that would have been in person any other weekend before now. The video-conferenced Sunday church service was surprisingly moving, even though it was obvious that the Zoom software is optimized for the frequency range of the human voice, not of a high-quality grand piano.
4. One tiny side benefit of not going to SCA dance practice tonight: at least I got to watch Cosmos: Possible Worlds. I could listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson read the phone book and still be enthralled.
5. Hope in the time of pandemic: At Sunday's service our director of religious education announced that she and her boyfriend got married on Friday the 13th. And the minister's husband announced that the two of them are expecting their first grandchild (after 45 years of marriage and three grown sons).
