Pandemic Update!

[tkingfisher]

Hi, everybody! Just wanted to drop by and tell you all that I'm fine, Kevin and the teenager and I are sheltering in place and not going out for anything but absolute essentials. Our buddy Shepherd is here too, which is nice because she can do a lot of scratch cooking. (Me, I'm working in the garden a lot.)

Everything's pretty messed up out there, but we're all healthy so far and trying to our part to flatten the curve. Schools are closed and the governor just ordered all bars and restaurants to shut down for anything but takeout. I'm worried for all my local business friends, but it's gotta be done. I'm doing daily check-in Twitter threads for people, so if you're out that way and don't follow me yet, I'm ursulav over there.

World got a lot stranger this year. Take care of yourselves.

Comments

[graydon]

It snowed last night, so not even raking leaves off the front lawn here yet. (It then rained on the snow, but we're not out of the below-freezing-in-daytime yet, never mind at night.)

Traffic's down; busses still running. I am the sort of person who has two old-school alcohol indicator thermometers in the water purification kit because what if I drop one? Probably didn't need the extra order of weird grain mixes, but it was here in February. The (unrelated) order of tea came in in February, too; I had no idea how big a 500 gramme bag of mint tea was.

Just held my breath for a timed fifteen seconds so presumptively OK for the nonce. Hoping enough people have some sense.

[rabid_bookwyrm]

According to a quick google, holding your breath is not a useful metric. Symptoms come on slowly and you can be contagious for days before they show up, if they do at all. If you assume that you have it and behave appropriately, especially towards people outside your house, you'll be doing the best anybody can right now.

[graydon]

It's a pretty good "should I call the hotline?" rule; if you can't do it, you probably want a medical type with expertise in lungs to opine.

It's in no way a rule about "I can go outside"; unless your dwelling is on fire/you have some suitably isolated outside/duty compels, no of course you can't go outside.

[rabid_bookwyrm]

Fair enough! I accept these criteria for "should lung expert be involved in my life [y/n]" :D

[kathmandu]

Gosh, yes -- took me three reads before I processed "500 gramme bag of mint tea". Dehydrated herbs weigh hardly anything.

I'm a mint tea fan, too.

[graydon]

I was a bit doubtful of the price on the order screen, but hey, Canadian seller, everything is very organic, I'd just read an article on microplastics in tea bags; why not try, I'm sure it's very nice, and it at least ought to last me through the time of reduced shopping.

So far -- I have only opened the 35 gramme jar, which is the size of a large coffee -- it is indeed very nice. Hadn't expected aluminized mylar packets that'd make plausible decorative throw pillows.

[silverflight8]

I've bought 50 grams of mint tea before and was shocked at how much that was (I have still not finished the packet). 500 grams is a LOT.

[graydon]

I was at least fairly startled!

The bags are resealable, and I have some conveniently sized airtight containers, so I think I'll manage to get through it without it all going sad and stale on me. And any worries about running out of tea are now greatly diminished!