I like to look on the bright side of things. Gasoline is $1.08/gal and I just ordered a tankful of #2 fuel oil to heat my house. The bill will be about half of what it was 7 weeks ago for the same quantity.
I’m so sorry. Your poor mom. 
You realize, I’m sure, that this wasn’t about the rice, right? How old is she, BTW? I’m guessing (depending on her age) this shopping experience has brought back memories of deprivation or memories of *stories *of deprivation told her by her elders. I get panic attacks (though not about food-- about other stuff-- I’ve been in the grip of one most of today ), and even when you know at the time that it’s irrational, you can’t talk yourself out of it. A panic attack is beyond the reach of logic and reason. I am so sorry. Just hug her and tell her you won’t let her starve.
Yes, it would be nice if grocers delivered for food stamps cards. My phone gave me 8 Gbs for April and have decided to listen to music that way. I am old fashioned and Do like paper books and a friend dropped me off some today. I’m considering not going to church as I am the only member who isn’t related. I still love the walks around the apartment but they’ve removed the TV from the lobby. Ohio is starting to open up, slowly, and I do have a mask and gloves so when I get hired, I will be safer. Masks aren’t mandatory the governor backed off on that, but if customers aren’t wearing them, I’m not shopping there.
ThelmaLou, she’s 66. She grew up in very good circumstances, but her mother grew up dirt poor (one story I remember hearing was that my great-grandmother had to sell eggs at the side of the road to earn enough money so my near-malnourished grandmother could afford to buy a little extra food at school). I know it’s not the rice; a lot of it is that routines have been disrupted…when you’re craving the fresh veggies you’ve been eating several times per week for months, the canned stuff in the pantry doesn’t seem very appetizing.
Hugs have been passed along!
Awww… I’m glad. You’re sweet. She’s lucky to have you with her. Give her a hug from me. 
I teach and we are officially not returning to campus this semester, so four more weeks of online learning to go until summer break. A few of our students have had COVID-19 and have recovered. Some have lost elderly family members. Our graduation has been postponed until mid-July, and whether it will actually occur then depends on what the county and state health guidelines are at the time. I usually attend and help out but I’ll probably decline this time, regrettably. Prom is also postponed and may be cancelled, depending on how many students still want to do it.
I have friends and family members who are unemployed because of this. I feel very fortunate to have a job, and to have pretty high job security in general. School budgets are already set for the next school year, so the current economic downturn shouldn’t result in teacher layoffs yet. The following year is when things could turn bad as loss in tax revenue occurring now (and presumably for some time to come) would then ‘catch up’ to the school district budgets. I have a pretty good reputation and record, I’m highly qualified, I teach advanced STEM courses, and have been in this district for a long time, so I think I’ll be safe. Not looking forward to 40 kids per class, though, if it comes to that.
Eight workers at our local grocery store (the one I go to. It’s small by most standards, you could put 4 of them in a Walmart) have been confirmed to be infected. There are only 3 grocery stores in the entire county.
Eight. How many people did they interact with each day. Oh boy. Population of county is 30,000.
Not sure if the store is still open as this was discovered yesterday.
We are fairly well set on food, but may need to make other shopping arrangements.
I am working from home, but can go into work if necessary. We have to fill out a form with info about when we were there, who (if) we saw. Good idea for possible contact tracing.
Weak, dizzy, body hurts, a bit of a temperature, sinus headache and living on the toilet. Will let you know if I have been personally affected by the coronavirus after I see a doctor.
Have tests become more readily available?
Not that I know of. I’m on Oregon Public Health, so I hope that I have enough symptoms to qualify for one.
“I hope I have enough symptoms” sounds weird, doesn’t it?
Friends (a family) around here in PA had every symptom originally described, along with a few that only recently have been recognized, yet still did not get a test. They kept asking and kept getting turned down. Finally, the family was tested and were all negative, because “they should have been tested earlier”.
A friend of mine here in San Antonio got a drive-up one at Wal-Mart. (It was negative-- yay!) She’s 70-ish and lives in a retirement community, so apparently that was enough to qualify her. She didn’t have any symptoms. She said there was a boatload of health professionals standing ready to test people, but no line (of cars) and virtually no customers.
Not “us”, per se, but last night we wanted to order from our favorite Chinese restaurant; I’d been talking about it for several weeks and the last time we did takeout was a couple days before our state issued a stay-at-home order - around 3/20 or thereabouts.
And when we called to place the order, we got a message, dated 3/31, saying “we’re closing temporarily”.
I would like to believe that they simply had a larger drop-off in business than anticipated, rather than “Oooh Chinese food’ll give me the Chinese Virus” (no, it won’t, you’ve already caught a terminal case of Teh Stoopid).
This is the place we’ve been eating at regularly for over 30 years. We stumbled across it when we put a contract on a townhouse, and decided to explore the area to find a real grocery store, as we’d been living in a dump in DC while learning the area, and grocery stores were basically nonexistent). The family has been running the place for close to 40 years. Their granddaughter went to high school with our daughter. We always took our Chinese summer students there to experience American “Chinese” food, and the staff got a kick out of talking to the kids - one even got scolded for drinking too much soda and not eating her food :D. I really, really, really hope they are able to reopen. 
Related, though it doesn’t affect us: That grocery store location closed 2 years back (which was sad for us; we knew a LOT of people from Scouts and the kids’ schools who worked there; it was a real community place) - they had opened up a larger location not that far away, 20 years earlier, and decided after 20 years they didn’t want to have the duplication any more.
It sat empty for over a year, before a fitness center took up the lease. They opened up… in late March. Now that’s perfect timing.
closing on a refinance will be done in a parking lot. 
My aunt died, too. My uncle died a while eariler. Both from covid.
Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry.
Oh my - I’m so sorry to hear that.
We’ve gotten word indirectly from someone else with connections to the nursing home that they’re evacuating the nursing home: patients that test positive will go to the local hospital, and patients that test negative will be moved to other facilities. (No idea where there’s that much excess capacity in nursing homes, but I guess we’ll find out.)
The nursing home called my wife Thursday and said they were testing everyone, with results in a day or two. So I guess we’ll hear today whether grandma’s got the virus, and where she’s being moved to.
I ordered a package of masks from Walmart and I now seem to be in exactly the same situation, since they appear to be coming from China via a local third-party reseller. Got a shipment confirmation within just a few hours, but the estimated arrival date is between May 28 and June 1. Is it too much to ask that a local supplier have some inventory on hand? Isn’t that what a “store” is? To be fair, the ETA of June 1 was mentioned on the site.
Also ordered hand sanitizer, the same brand I already have which is good stuff, but larger bottles. The order went through OK but today the website says “not available”. The order status says “processing”. Supposed to arrive May 12, but “in these difficult times” I don’t have a lot of confidence that I’ll ever see any of these things. One is on a slow boat from China, the other is probably out of stock.
I am newly affected by pronouncing “Covid-19” as sung in “Come On Eileen”.