Business as Newsual

Things must be under control on the testing front, because they are testing the animals at the Bronx zoo for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, I'm begging baby wipes off hoarders on Facebook, and the government is setting up obstacle courses to monetary handouts. Many of us are starting to wonder-- couldn't you have just let us make our own money in the first place?
Some businesses in Alaska have shown that they can stay open and safe during a pandemic. The special tools they rely on to build their obstacle courses are poster board and Sharpees. This store is keeping their shelves stocked by shaming hoarders, rather than shaming people for coming to the store.
This is a game changer. Stay open. Stay stocked. Tell customers to stay away from the other people in the store. Keep providing the community with great services like gas, liquor, groceries and amazing baked goods.
Grab a Sharpee and make a sign. Someone might need it.
'Smile and breathe-- just not on me'. 
'You DON'T need to wear a mask in the privacy of your own vehicle'.
'You DO need to wear a mask while you watch "Tiger King."'

Safeway stops COVID19, for a reasonable fee

Is everyone baking? That's one of the questions I have when I go to the store. There may not be an interruption in the supply chain, but when you're at the end of it in Homer, Alaska, it takes a while for the stores to recover from being stripped clean for the Great American Bake-Off.
Homer has also struggled for a long time with the questions of re-usable bags. We banned plastic bags at our stores in 2012, then repealed the ban in 2013, then in 2019 we banned plastic bags again. Now the corona virus shows up and CARRS Safeway thinks it's a perfect time to rub salt into this hotly debated issue... and make a few extra bucks.
In an effort to "stop the spread of corona virus", they are allowing customers to bring reusable bags into the store, but the bags cannot touch the checkout counter-- ostensibly because the bags are full of corona virus. The person who carried the virus-ridden bag into the store may touch the counter, and they obviously touch all the groceries in their cart. Then the checker touches all the groceries in their cart to check them out, then touches the groceries of every other customer in their line, but, under no circumstances, will they touch that virus-ridden reusable bag.
Customers that bring reusable bags must bag their own groceries on the floor in the dirty pathway at the end of the check out counters, or in a communally used cart. Customers that don't want the coronavirus and would like to purchase a plastic bag for 25 cents each can collect it from a communal shelf and the checker will bag their groceries for them.
And, wa-lah! all the virus germs are stopped. Easy as that. Now that your problems are solved, get back to baking!

Take Cover!

'Shelter In Place' means "seek safety within the building one already occupies." It is an order traditionally used for a situation with an active shooter,  or a tornado, or a radioactive hazard, or similar danger. It is an order that is, in practice, effective immediately. 

Today, at 5pm, Alaska is going to "shelter in place." This was announced yesterday. So it's actually a 'shelter wherever you want to go' order. Standard US coronavirus policy.

Telling people that in 24 hours they are going to be told to lock themselves up for an undetermined amount of time is a great way to get them out and about. It's like ordering the state to rush out RIGHT NOW. Folks are packed together at the grocery stores swapping germs more effectively today than anytime in the past weeks. 

Wouldn't it be interesting if we had data to track spikes in infection after announcement like this.... wait, we do. This video was viral in chastising Florida spring breakers, but no one published the same details for every college that closed and sent every student to their hometowns-- or every traveler across the globe this winter, whether a business trip or snow bird migration or I-have-to-get-out-of-Alaska-right-now-and-see-the-sun hiatus. This virus was moved by us. The traveling public. All of us either oblivious to what was going on in the world, or thinking that the chances of it effecting us was very small. Well, here we are, told in advance that we are going to have to lie in the bed that we have made, and we should go out and buy some bananas before the deadline.

Americans (and many nationalities) are asking their federal governments to spend already over-taxed resources to rescue them from their vacations-- The coronavirus has been world news since early January, but the ethnocentric USA was only talking about the upcoming presidential election until the second week of March. Now people out traveling want to get home (exactly what caused this problem), but ignorance should not be a defense. 

A true "Shelter in Place" is theoretically an effective way to stop this virus. But people will not and cannot shelter under their desks for the duration. People will travel and shop and work and all of us will be pros at manipulating "social distancing" and "essential" to serve our wants and needs.

The governments of the world are failing with their rules. But we, the voting public, could try a different tack. It's similar to "shelter in place" but I call it: "Stop being ignorant jerks." Instead of being selfish, why not be kind? Consider where you are, right now, your home, for a time. Shop-- when you need to, for what you need.  Spend time being present with those you are with. Stop spreading rumors verbally, or on social media. Call those you love. Wash your hands and cover your cough. Be ready to serve if asked. And give people some space, or as an Alaskan put it to me long ago in a 'welcome to the neighborhood' speech: "If your neighbor needs help, help him. If he doesn't--leave him alone!" 

This too shall pass. When it does, let me know. I'll be sheltering under my desk with my bananas.

Pandemic, or Personality Test?: Confessions of a Cat Lady

I have a really great litter box I have been saving since my cat died in 2009. My husband found it
yesterday in a corona virus-inspired spring cleaning. He says we are getting rid of it. He sites the fact that I haven't had a cat since he's known me... But it's a really great litter box.

With all the time stuck at home for spring cleaning, we are revealing more about ourselves through our stuff, and the stuff that we buy. We are also revealing to our family and friends how we behave in a crisis. Holding onto a litter box for 11 years seems like the behavior of a hoarder, but thanks to the current pandemic, I can most assuredly say that I am not a hoarder. My friends and family are stocking toilet paper, flour, rice, multitools, chickens-- and plywood to board up the windows and protect it all. I can't even make a good "Quarantini" because I wasn't in a rush to buy Emergen-C.

I may seem ill-prepared, but Alaska is so far behind the rest of the US in corona cases that we seem to actually be getting jealous. Yesterday, Alaska claimed its first death due to corona virus. The victim was not in Alaska when they got sick, never came here, and passed away in Washington. But their driver's license said Alaska, so they're ours.  This seems like a weird, big-government desire to get on the charts. Then last night, my little town of Homer claimed its first case of corona virus. Again, the person is in Anchorage, has been traveling, and has not been back to Homer. But Homer wants to get on the books. Why are we rushing to be included in this deadly pandemic? Shouldn't we be striving to be virus-free? Human nature is to jump off a bridge if all your friends are doing it... Or jump into a pandemic? In the absence of sports, people are following the infection and death rates, along with the stock market, like they would be following the Final Four, and Alaska does not want to be left off of people's brackets.

I can't even follow the bracket system on a normal year. Maybe because I spend my time on the lookout for a cat deserving of the amazing litter box I have in storage. For years, I have considered myself a sports fan, but the corona virus is revealing that I'm really a cat lady-- or at least that if a cat wants to break into my garage and steal my litter box, I am not going to put up much of a defense. 

Hunkered Down in Alaska

In the state of Alaska, we have been given an official order to "hunker down".  A lot of people might think that 'hunker' does not sound very official, but I am from Minnesota, and anything that rhymes with 'lunker' is serious.
The world is crippled by the effects of COVID-19, SARS-COV-2, or, more affectionately, the corona virus. Infection rates are growing exponentially... at least we think so, but in the USA we are only testing the dead, the almost dead, or the very rich.  Unemployment is reaching all-time highs, the government is telling everyone to self-isolate, and my brother just bought 3 kegs of beer because he is worried that liquor stores may be named "non-essential."
These are wild times. I shift between panic and calm a couple times a day, not always without grinding the clutch. My husband and I operate small tourism businesses-- probably going to close. I have parents in the highest risk demographic who can't stop going out to dinner or miss a single bridge game to save their lives.
People are not supposed to be within 6-feet of other people, because science doesn't know a lot about this virus, but they say it has long arms. Our grocery store has maps drawn to help you accomplish this distance and navigate the hoarder-ravaged aisles. The maps are displayed at the checkout counter, so you can check to see if you screwed up and caught the virus while you were shopping.
Restaurants are open for take out, and we have a local place that makes great food, but even when things are normal, you have to show up an hour before you are hungry to allow the cook time. They are now offering Eggs Benedict at the drive-thru. I'm learning that when the world is ending, there's really no rush, so I have 45 minutes to hunker in my car for some eggs.

Feliz Reyes! Happy Birthday, Hope!

Shocking our own parents, our little family survived our first year of parenthood: just one fractured skull and one crushed hand to show for it-- hardly any scarring. This is obviously cause for celebration, so I made some sangria, we borrowed a grill, and invited over everyone we know within strolling distance.
We celebrated Hope's first birthday on Reyes (or Three Kings Day) which is a big deal in Mexico. It is the equivalent of Christmas Day in the States. Kids wake up early and rush to see what presents the Kings have brought them. Everyone eats a ring-shaped cake called a Rosca de Reyes that has a small baby statue cooked inside it. If you get the piece with the baby, you have to buy tamales for the next party. If you are a new
one-year-old, you try to avoid the baby piece because you don't have any money to buy tamales and because it is a choking hazard.
The fear-mongering US state department has just listed the Mexican state of Guerrero, where kids are eating cake and opening presents, as one of the world's most dangerous destinations. My mom says we should exercise caution. She doesn't realize that we are horrible at caution. We hurt ourselves riding bikes and boats on a regular basis. But even the state Mexico named "warrior" has less gun violence than most US cities, so we will try to keep her grandchild alive for another year. Maybe the Reyes will give her a helmet.

Festival of the Virgin de Guadalupe

 Since the 3rd of December, there have been fireworks in the street every night, and sometimes during the day. Hope doesn't wake up for them anymore.After the first night, our baby figured it wasn't really worth the ruckus because we don't let her go to the party. Mexican parents let their kids stay up until the fiesta ends, but we are mean American parents and she is in bed by eight.
The folks in the street are celebrating the Virgin de Guadalupe. This is a big deal in Mexico and it starts the Christmas season, so they take a full 9 days to celebrate. There are parades of icons to the two local Catholic churches and festivals at the churches with food, games and religious services.
The virgin is said to have appeared to a peasant in the Guadalupe suburb of Mexico City in 1531. The location and description are quiet close to an Aztec goddess who was widely worshipped before the Spanish conquered the Aztec empire only a decade earlier. The virgin healed some folks and left an image of herself on the peasant's cloak. This image is venerated and piligrimmaged in Mexico City, but locals build icons throughout the countryto honor and celebrate the VdG every December.
This iconography and saint worship is similar to the veneration of Santa Claus (or Saint Nicholas) in our own culture. Mexicans make requests of the VdG and she is an important part of the Christmas season.
Our favorite correlation was, just like St. Nick, families and children get their photos taken with the Virgin de Guadalupe. Instead of elves, the scene includes horses, bunnies, and ducklings-- all of which probably hate the fireworks.
Now the fireworks have ended for a time, as the virgin's feast day has past, but the Christmas season has begun.