Ages ago my landline number was one digit off from a salon and about once a month I’d get a wrong number. Most of them would tip when I answered with, “Hullo,” instead of, “Continental,” but this one woman must have had list in her hand for she said she needed an appointment for—" and rattled off a whole bunch of stuff.
I understood ‘shampoo’ and ‘haircut’ but the rest of it might as well have been Swahili for all I understood it. When she finally wound down I said, “Okay, but you’re not gonna like the way it comes out.”
" … Isn’t this Continental?"
“No, ma’am but I’ll do my best!”
She laughed and said, “You’re probably right; I’d be disappointed.”
13 April came and went and the people in the apartment one floor beneath me got sprung from quarantine. The sign is off their door and so is the alarm.
However, there is now a sign on the door for the people in the apartment one floor beneath them. The newly quarantined folk will be on lockdown until 26 April.
After Skyping with her doctor about a persistent cough and earache, my daughter is to be tested for the virus. I don’t think she has it (and neither does she), but I’ll be interested in hearing how it goes.
Step one, the health department will contact her and tell her where to go get swabbed.
Mrs. L.A., RN, is a medical foot care nurse. Some of her patients have cancelled their appointments. She’s put off the others, and new patients who are reaching out to her, until next month at least.
::::shudder::::
Someone who is untrained in the use of PPE, perhaps working with a paper surgical mask that reduces (but does not stop) the spread of droplets.
Leaning over a hairstyling client who is NOT wearing a mask (because it would get in the way of the hair cutting process) - i.e. unable to protect anyone.
Stylist and client’s heads no more than 2 to 3 feet apart.
Then doing the same for another client an hour later. (the phrase “lather, rinse, repeat” has never seemed more apropos :D).
Nope, nope, nope. Simply NOT worth the risk on either side.
Before my state had formally announced a shutdown, but after my household had already sequestered itself, I went to our local Chinese restaurant to pick up a takeout order - and saw that the hair salon and nail salon in the same strip mall were both open. Nope, nope, nope.
Before this all happened, I was scheduled for several sessions of post-concussion cognitive rehab. When I arrived for the second session in mid-March (things were already getting scary, but I biked there, and it’s a specialized rehab facility, not a hospital per se), the facility cancelled the remaining sessions on me and asked me to reschedule for April. I told them thanks, but I will wait and see how this all plays out before rescheduling.
Then they called me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I wanted to do the remaining sessions via telehealth. I didn’t think the treatment lent itself to that, so I declined.
Yesterday they called me back and asked if I wanted to reschedule. For JUNE.
Presumably this specialized medical facility doesn’t think Chicago will be open for business before then in any meaningful way. I can’t think of a situation where a speech/language pathologist would be useful for COVID-19 response, and PPE is not normally needed.
I am also wishing I had managed to get my new orthotics made before the lockdown, because long walks are making me really gimpy, and who knows when I will be able to get them done?
I had an appointment with my ophthalmologist for late February. A somewhat important work meeting cropped up for that week, so I rescheduled for mid March - which turned out to be JUST as things were shutting down.
They called me right about then to reschedule, as they were closing the office (presumably for all but emergency cases). That was to be next Tuesday.
They just rescheduled me for June.
Luckily this is just routine followup care, nothing urgent.
I was out today for necessities and things seem to be in good shape. Grocery store and liquor store were both well stocked, although grocery stores are imposing anti-hoarding limits on many items. TP is in ample supply now and there was a huge pallet of one brand just at the entrance that looked like it was on sale.
I was impressed by how well people were conforming to the social-distancing rules, not just in lineups, but actually stopping and waiting for someone to pass by inside stores to avoid coming too close. A lot more people are wearing masks now. No store I have been to yet is routinely accepting cash. The liquor store not at all, grocery stores typically only at the customer service counter. I was also impressed that the liquor store, I presume in collaboration with the banks, upped the maximum amount that can be paid by the contactless chipcard tap method. The limit used to be $100. My purchase today was much more than that, but the cashier said to try the tap, and it worked. It was nice to not have to touch the keypad or anything else except my own card. POS keypads are reputed to have more germs on them than public toilet seats.
My wife actually ended up *not *getting laid off. Apparently the Canadian government is incentivizing companies to keep employees on their payrolls, so she’s still employed. She’s only getting 80% of her paycheck for the duration, but she doesn’t have to anything.
Our family (3 male, 1 female) are all starting to think their hair is going a bit scraggely and would like a cut. None of us trust ourselves with scissors or clippers. My wife did comment, that as zoom calls go on and nobody’s getting to the hairdressers, she’s been surprised at how many ladies of her certain age had been dyeing the gray away, many more than she thought. I had an eye doctor appointment lined up for late March and my prescription adjustment is way overdue (significant acceleration of eyesight issues in the last few years), plus my home monitor isn’t as high quality as my office monitor, so I’m really starting to feel the eyestrain headaches. I should have had the appointment in the fall that’s my own damn fault.
Sure, it’s a hardship to have to lock down for a few weeks or even months. Sure, it sucks not to be up close with family and hug people. (I don’t hug anyone besides my wife, myself.) Yes, the economy is going into a nosedive. But this is nothing compared with the Depression (at least, not yet anyway), or the Black Death of the Middle Ages, or being kidnapped and shipped off to the New World for slavery, or having your ass sliced open by Attila the Hun. Buck up, lads and lassies. This too shall pass.
There’s a great song about the greatness of Watermelon Wine, and I love that song. But I had a watermelon turn alcoholic… and I don’t really like watermelon wine.
I was planning to get my waist-length hair cut in the spring. Of course, that didn’t happen. So knowing that I was not going to let anyone near my face for many months, I watched some You Tube videos and cut it myself last week. I figured that if it looked horrible, well, who would know anyway. But I think it looks great. It falls just below my shoulders and is so much easier to deal with.
So since Dung Beetle was interested, I’m on day 12 of (maybe) Covid, and I finally felt almost human today. TMI:
diarrhealasted eight days along with nausea but no cookie-tossing. After that passed I just felt beat up for the last four days, finally about 60% of normal today. For ‘light’ symptoms, this thing is not fun. I didn’t have more than mild sniffles otherwise, and a couple of days the chest got congested and I used guaifenesin just in case, otherwise just Tylenol. I think I can probably leave the house on Sunday?