The Dust Settles

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Since early January I have been watching the current pandemic rise, experiencing internal stress as I attempted to prepare for its arrival in Canada. I spent a lot of time thinking things through, trying to prepare for isolation, and still I missed things. I missed that bleach expires, and so we have no effective bleach to use for disinfecting, and it cannot be purchased, the stores are all sold out. That was a big mistake on my part. But what has worried me most all these months, is that Attila would have to work, and would be exposed to infection, and that he and I might not fare well in such a case. All of my focus was on resolving that issue, trying to take steps to keep Attila safe, and myself safe as a result. Our fates are tied together at this point. When two of the managers returned to work after travel abroad, I reached a breaking point. Attila began to use his vacation time to stay out of harms way. Suddenly, on March 25th, Attila was laid off. What a blessing. Fear of poverty is a lot more bearable than fear of death, at least that is … Continue reading →

Temporary Reprieve

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Although I have been self-isolating since the beginning of March, Attila has had to go to work, and out to buy groceries. When he ventured out for food he wore clothes that were removed and washed immediately, wore gloves, and a face mask. But at work, these precautions were not possible. Working cheek by jowl at the plant where he worked felt dangerous. It was dangerous. When a cold/flu (everyone thought it was a cold/flu) spread quickly through the plant, Attila caught it. That was early in March, he was off one day without pay, to sleep and recuperate. One of his work mates eneded up in hospital. So we knew that if the virus arrived at the plant, the chances of getting it were very high. Then two managers returned from out-of-country flights, and came to work. Horrifying and negligent in my opinion. All of these things have made the month of March a time of extreme worry, and desperate strategizing. Then, the week before last, they laid people with less seniority (younger people) off. They did not accept the requests of those more senior employees that wanted to be chosen for layoff, so that they could self-isolate and … Continue reading →

Nesting

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We have been disappointed with Netflix for some time now. Most of the new programming is too violent, full of intrique, or melodramatic for us. They do have some good programming, but we haven’t been able to find anything we like for months now. AND now that so many people are self-isolating, we couldn’t get it to work at all. Today I closed our Netflix account. We shall see if we miss it. I doubt we will. It feels good to begin cutting our expenses, because our financial future doesn’t look good. We aren’t young enough to have time to recover, to start again, so eliminating an expense makes me feel better. Since Attila is using his vacation time this week, we are enjoying our iso-cation time to the fullest. Attila is working slowly on the wiring. He can only do a small amount of it in a day, because he has to work overhead, and it hurts his neck. It is more complicated now because the quarantined groceries are in the way, and won’t be moved into the kitchen until next week. There are significant challenges when living in a space this small, and they become more pronounced when … Continue reading →

Mail-On-Hold-Box

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We don’t have enough sanitizer to deal with all the items that come in from the outside world. It is no longer available for sale anywhere. So, we are exploring ways to reduce the amount of sanitizer needed, to make what little we do have last longer. Paper items, the mail, are particularly demanding, they have relatively large surfaces to be covered on two sides. Also paper gets soggy when sprayed with liquid sanitizers. We know the the virus will not live forever on surfaces. It lives longer at cooler temperatures, and at room temperature about 3 to 4 days. So I proposed a system of a series of containers for our mail. And this is what Attila came up with as a result. He built us a Mail-On-Hold-Box, out of cardboard and packing tape. It will sit in the locked garage, the daily mail will go into a designated slot, and stay there for 7 days, not touching anything else, then it will be removed and brought indoors when the next week’s mail deliveries begin, to be replaced by the new weekday mail. This will give all mail items 7 days of self-isolation, before they are brought into the … Continue reading →

Carrying On

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Well here I am. I began self-isolation at the beginning March, three weeks ago. So far so good. Where Attila works they laid off 600 people on Friday. They decided to do it by seniority, rather than ask people if they were willing to be laid off. That meant that the high-risk-for-complications older segment of the work force has to keep working, while the younger, much lower-risk-for-complications segment of their workforce are out of a job. It make no sense. There were older workers who wanted to self-isolate, but cannot, and younger workers who wanted to keep working, but could not. Attila was very upset by it, he would have volunteered to self-isolate, with a much lower standard of living with some support from the government. But he can’t do it, he has to go in there, and risk our lives. My opinion of the company is that they are evil. So much for protecting the vulnerable, and the disabled in our country, there are far too many systemic holes to fall through. What a bunch of heartless jerks. So for now Attila has to go to work, in a place where people are almost shoulder to shoulder as they … Continue reading →