TCC, Day 26: Are we still doing this?

I now find myself several times a day being caught off guard. "Wait. Are we still doing this?"

There are currently 116 positive cases in Brazos County, 80 of those are still active, and there have been 9 deaths. I'm watching less news these days, but I'm hearing that in New York things are bad. I heard a report that New York now has more cases than most other countries. I didn't verify that or anything, but it doesn't seem good.

Today was a school holiday, so I told myself I was going to treat it as such. That doesn't mean I didn't work at all - I responded to emails and took care of a few small things - but for the most part it was a day off. I cleaned the living room floors, did grad school work, watched some Criminal Minds.

I haven't really been out in public (out of my car, at least) since last weekend. I think we're now supposed to wear masks. That seems so strange to me, but if it's what we have to do to keep our community healthy I suppose I'll wear one. I never could have predicted that in my lifetime I would wear a mask to HEB.

It's Good Friday. We've been talking about our plans for Easter. We'll all watch church together, and I've been trying to pin the boys down on something I can order for a nice lunch. After I gave them the 500th option, Tucker finally said, "Can we just have French toast?" Of course we can. I was trying to get fancy, and they just want Trey to make them French toast. It was a good reminder that simpler is better most of the time.

I had two boxes of books from Keaton's room clean out sitting in my living room. This morning I put them out on the sidewalk with a note that they were free and had been Lysol-ed. I had put one of the boxes out a week or so ago, but it started to look like rain that day so I brought them in soon after. This evening, however, I went to bring the leftover ones back in before it got dark and found them all gone. I'm so happy about that!  Someone is enjoying some great books this evening!

Our currently shelter in place lasts three more weeks. Will we really be able to go back to normal on May 4th? What is normal now anyway?  Our economy needs us to get out of our houses, but our collective health may not be ready. My current prediction is that things start to reopen gradually beginning May 4th. There probably won't be a big "Corona's Over!" announcement, but rather a gradual release of us all back into the world. But I guess no one really knows.

I'm also hearing that we should never go back to shaking hands.  I appreciate a good handshake, and as a professional woman I've always found it important to look a person in the eye and provide a hearty handshake when I meet him or her in a work capacity. If that goes away, what will take it's place? I wonder if my grandkids will think it's weird if they see someone putting out their hand for handshake.

The end.