You’ve done the dance, too, right? The dance for: I’m about to walk down the same grocery store aisle as you, but we will shuffle about, trying to accurately gauge six feet, being way to polite until one of us goes, all the while thinking, “This sucker better not be heading for the last bottle of ketchup!” Yes, ketchup. The first week people bought up all the ketchup at my local Fred Meyer’s, along with the hand sanitizer, hand soap and toilet paper. What is the protocol for passing someone in the aisle? My MO is hold breathe, pass quick and hoping they’re not breathing either while not making any eye contact? That works right, just willing this shit away?

The “sun is always shining” good news items from this week:

1. Had to go somewhere for work a couple of days out of this week and the freeways are f’ing fantastic!

2. The house is clean, so very clean… Maybe I’ll tackle the garage next week.

3. Sun was out and the neighbors were too (at comfortable distances). Kids riding bikes and scooters. Felt good. Like summer vacation. Think I said more to some neighbors this past week than I have in the five years we’ve lived here.

4. Got a crap ton of reading in.

5. The new Pearl Jam record came out.

And, then, right on que, gray wet weather of the PNW shows up again and leads right to the not so good news items for this week:

1. Watching way too much news, and none of it’s good. None of it…

2. I was not made to work from home and home school a nine year old at the same time. Mainly because of “new math”. Everything I thought I knew, out the window. New math is like New Coke, nobody asked for it and it’s worse, so it really makes no sense. Yeah, I’m just old, but getting an “are you nuts” look as I try to carry the one is not cool.

3. Trying to find things to do because we’ve already watched the Tiger King and are not going through that again. That was a lot to take in. Big cat people are nuts.

4. Stores are still out of TP. WTF, are we shitting that many collective bricks out there?

5. Having to build a routine for just getting out of the car:

   Use only my left hand to touch anything. (or, was it the right?)

   Oh, crap, my nose itches! What do I do?

   Get back to the car, wipe hands with alcohol wipes, then use hand sanitizer, then wash hands thoroughly as soon as I get home.

   Walk in the house, strip naked and spray down everything with Lysol. Keep spraying because that stuff says it’s only 99.9% effective.

6. Wiping down your grocery packages as soon as you get home. What fresh hell is this?

Well, you take the good, you take the bad, and there you have, the Covid 19. Actually, it’s all bad.

Stay in.

Stay well.

Stay Sane.

See you soon.

Wash your hands! Play more games…