It’s another Caturday, and time for the Cutetropolis Conversation Club to assemble. And speaking of assembly, reader Muppet2171 is putting together furniture with the “help” of her cat Teller. “He really is kinda squishy, isn’t he?” she notes.
Weekend Open Thread
Oh those hind paws! It’s hard not to reach through the screen to squeeze them.
I want the belly myself. What a cutie!
What would happen if I went in for a belly rub?
Gotta get ready for the dentist…
I’ll cover his eyes…he won’t know the difference. Go for it!
OMG Mike, the new subtitle on the header!!!
Good morning, Cutetropolitans, from the new epicenter of the coronavirus (Europe). This morning I experienced first hand the effects of Hamsterkäufe (hamster-coy-fa) – that is, shopping for items in a crisis like a hamster stuffs food in his cheeks. Bread, pasta, flour, and yes, toilet paper were all sold out at my local supermarket today. I asked the lady at the checkout if they’d be open on Monday. She looked at the line behind me, rolled her eyes, and said, “yep, our Monday hours will be totally normal.” However, non-essential shops will be closed for a week, and cafes, restaurants and bars will only be open til 3:00 pm. School is closed for the next FIVE WEEKS and I am fixin’ to teach remotely. Wheeeee!
Stay healthy, everyone.
Thanks for the heads up on the subtext! I was in such a hurry to see the kitty that I scrolled right past.
Me too! NOMTOM always delivers the laughs. And the qte.
I’m not sure what you’re calling subtext. Can someone point it out and what it says, please?
If you’re on your phone, you may not be able to see it. Under the Cutetropolis banner it used to say something like “where cute animals do the funniest things”. Now it says “you can’t spell quarantine without QTE
Oh, that’s BRILLIANT! I’m going to turn on my desktop soon, so that will be the first thing I check! Phones can be very annoying with all the stuff they just don’t show. And all the ads they do show. ALL the ads.
He’s such a tease!! All that floof and those paws and the beautiful markings! He is just perfect (at least in color, don’t know about his temperament).
Stay healthy N. Fritz. I feel like I’m living in a movie, it’s just gotten so crazy. On the one hand, people are still out doing normal things but then we have the news media blaring out the latest doom and gloom predictions. I know it’s serious and I’m just hoping the worse scenarios don’t come to pass. My university has moved to tele lessons but so far, I’m still going to work on Monday. I was asked yesterday if I have a laptop at home so ….. I’m just waiting for a text or email saying, nope work from home for x amount of weeks.
Since everything I planned on doing this weekend, is cancelled, postponed, suspended, etc. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Still have a few errands to run so may do those then come home. It’s been off and on raining here so can’t really even go for a walk.
Stay safe everyone, and thank goodness for the Qte.
So I work from home, and I’m doing my best not to leave the house. I was supposed to go visit a friend in Costa Rica tomorrow, but that’s off. Haven’t left the house in a few days and probably won’t for a few more at least. God bless all the food/grocery delivery services out there!
Meanwhile, Penny & Teller are pretending I don’t exist…except when I’ve got food, so…
Stay safe guys!
What a helpful (and, yes, squishy) little fella Teller is!
I had planned to visit my 95 year old Dad in his retirement community this weekend but visitors are now prohibited, don’t know for how long.I understand why, of course, but the timing sucks; his wife passed away 3 weeks ago and his older sister died last weekend so he could sure use some company. (He himself his doing remarkably well for 95) I will call him today. The university in my town will be holding classes online only. If the public schools decide to close down, my workplace (a social service nonprofit that includes child care, my gig) will follow suit, which will be a financial blow to the agency and our part-time employees won’t be paid. Interesting times, to put it mildly. Thank goodness for the cute animals on this site!
my dad is 91 and I am so worried he’s going to inadvertently come into contact (since 14 of the 17 cases in Iowa are in Johnson County). Keep safe, AmyLiz!
My work has gone full remote for the next 3 weeks, pretty much every event or entertainment venue has closed, schools are closed. And it snowed for the first time all winter — in mid March. It’s like living in a dystopian sci fi movie.
Which is why I am so grateful for this site and for all our fuzzy friends, for whom the world falling apart is just another day. They will continue to be beautiful, quirky, demanding, and utterly irresistible. Quarantine with my cats is hardly punishment at all.
And Teller is a beautiful kitty. He looks like such a tease!
Quick comment: Teller’s markings are like biting into boring white chocolate and finding dark chocolate ganache inside. He looks so delicious underneath!
I like the way you think, Faye!
Hi all. Teller is a very handsome fellow! I just love Siamese; they have great personalities.
Sounds like everyone is doing what they can to stay safe. My work has gone full remote, too. If there IS any work. My husband is trying not to climb the walls with NO sports to watch and NO therapy visits with Sebastian. He is increasingly grateful that I got him hooked on audiobooks; they help the time pass well. He’s retired, I’m not. I’ve just been knitting some hats & mittens and such for my daughter. It’s a nice change from socks, my usual knitting addiction. There are some really cute hat patterns out there!
Of course, right in the middle of this pandemic I get a jury summons. Normally I would find it interesting, but my husband being in a high-risk group — over 70, overweight, history of lung problems, diabetic — so there is NO WAY I’m going to be trapped in a jury room with a bunch of strangers who could give me the virus that I could bring home to him! I’m trying to decide if I want to get an exemption from my doctor or just call in sick. I have three weeks to decide. Such great timing!
Yoofi is still an idiot. We’re a lot more used to her now, fortunately, so her assorted silliness is highly entertaining. Thank heaven for dog parks! She LOVES to run and wrestle with other dogs, and a tired pup is a happy pup and a sleepy pup!
Everyone take care. Soap and water really is the very best thing to destroy the virus. We’ll all have super-clean hands, which is not such a bad idea!
What I’ve learned from the Covid 19 crisis: toilet paper is the soft, absorbent bedrock upon which civilization is built. Stocks of it were running low at the nearest supermarket this morning but otherwise I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary in York. But I’m totally confused by our government’s u-turn on how to cope with the pandemic – yesterday those of us not in the high-risk groups were practically told to get infected now in order to develop herd immunity to future Covid 19 outbreaks, today we learn that mass gatherings will be banned from next weekend and that school closures are inevitable. It’s almost as though they’re making it up as they go along…
Bingo! And you’re not alone with a government that makes it up as they go along. Thank heaven we have the CDC to tell us Truth!
Imagine how the toilet paper hoarders will explain to the grandkids in 2045 that they are provided with toilet paper for the rest of their lives.
Here it is rice that is unavailable.
Teller is just gorgeous! I keep coming back here just to look at his picture. NYC is not on total lockdown, but the theatres are all closed, and since that’s where my work is centered, there is little to nothing for me to do at the moment except clean up the myriad odds and ends of papers and computer documents that accumulate when I’m too busy to deal with them. That and wash my hands a lot.
So far, despite shelves denuded of disinfectant and paper goods, the only incommoding shortage I’ve encountered personally is canned sardines. But I was able to get canned tuna, which will make a change for a bit.
I’m grateful for sunshine, which does help my mood enormously. In grey skies everything in my brain seems to go dark as well. I hope it stays sunny and warms up a bit today; that will mean I can take a longish walk in the park with Bibi, which will help her as well as me. I think she’s a bit bored. Although she can be persnickety, overall she’s a pretty social creature.
I can also report that Brother Cadfael does not disappoint. Lovely books they are indeed.
I am so grateful for you all. This is true all the time, but it gets even more true in times like the present.
Teller seems to be in need of reassembly himself. Such a handsome boy, and so helpful. When I assembly furniture, my herd always gather around to help me lose and then find the hardware.
Saving the grocery run for early tomorrow morning. I shop at a store that doesn’t get very crowded; if I go first thing, it will be even more depopulated. Hopefully they’ll have toilet paper, because I really miscalculated when I didn’t buy any last weekend. That’s my only excursion for the weekend. I’ll stay in with kitties, books, yarn, and dye pots. I’ve chosen to reread Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book, about a historian time-traveling back to the Black Death during a pandemic in the present. It’s weirdly comforting.
There are many uncertainties at work, which is not fun. Since about 40 people make our products onsite, they can’t work from home. Local schools have closed for two weeks, so employees with kids have to cope. Many of our parts, or the raw materials to make them, come from China. Weavers and spinners will embrace their crafts more than ever, but if we don’t have parts, we can’t build their looms and wheels.
Interesting times.
Stay safe, everyone.
I particularly love Connie Willis’s double story, Blackout and All Clear, about time Travelers stuck in London during the Blitz. It’s SF, but in a way it’s also history, too. Her research had to have been truly stupendous!
It was. As I think you all know, I have a PhD in medieval history. My first job interview was at University of Northern Colorado–here in Greeley, where I now live! Willis’s husband teaches there, and they were friends with the chair of the history department. In the few days of that trip to Greeley, the chair arranged to have me meet her. She was working on her novel about the Titanic. It’s always so cool to meet your heroes! I was really bummed that I didn’t get that job. If I hung out in coffee shops, I would probably bump into her.
Her chaos theory of history has always fascinated me. When I was teaching Philosophy of History (my fave course except for Latin), I’d always talk about it and mention her books.
I didn’t realize DebG that your degree was in medieval history. I went to a medieval dinner party a couple of weeks ago. Rather authentic recipes, although we ate with utensils, not with our hands!
Oh, and does anyone know if NTMTOM tweaked the login? For the first time in months it’s saving my information… yay!
My computer at work stopped remembering me earlier this week (after I changed my windows password and restarted it, though I don’t know why that would cause an issue) and he said he hadn’t changed anything. Don’t know if he’s been playing with it since then… (my home computer and tablet remember me so it must be something with that computer or maybe the network? Not exactly something I can complain about to IT 😉 ).
I love that book! And we have to remind ourselves that as awful as the Covid 19 statistics are – 21 people in Britain have now died – so far they are a tiny fraction of the number of people killed by flu every year. This isn’t the bubonic plague.
I just accidentally stumbled upon a breaking news broadcast with the NYC mayor and Chuck Schumer. NYC had its first death last night. Had to force myself to turn it off. (I just wanted to see if National Geographic had put the new Cosmos up on demand. They haven’t. 🙁 )
One wonderful thing that is happening in my neighborhood is that people are volunteering to run errands for high-risk individuals who may not wish to leave their homes for a while. I see 4 separate offers on NextDoor and it reaffirms my faith in humanity.
That is lovely! Stories of kindness and courage take away some of the bitterness. On one of my news sites, a 30something reader who’d recently had a liver transplant, so a high risk person, mentioned that someone at the store had grabbed hand sanitizer bottles out of his hands, stating that her kids needed it more than he did. That anecdote turned my stomach. Who could live with themselves, after doing that?
I am saddened by the disaster scammers out there too. Taking advantage of the vulnerable and desperate. Couldn’t they be dealt with like looters??
Come here, Teller. I have a fleece blanket and a space heater to share with you.
Bitter Arctic outflow wind here. All the bulb flowers that came up so far are frozed.
There was a story in our newspaper yesterday about a charity auction, where a twelve pack of toilet paper went for $400. A little too close to reality right now.
My sister’s FIL passed away yesterday.
Still waiting to hear about hubby’s workplace situation. I told him yesterday that if he’s off for two weeks, he’s going to help me spring clean. The look on his face was priceless.
Stay safe, everyone. And thank you, Mike, for this site.
Dentist went fine. I decided not to attempt the grocery store. I won’t starve for the next few days, at least. I’d rather go late (or early, but let’s face it, I don’t do well with early) and avoid busy times. Wegmans has a long list on their website of items with limited quantities allowed (four bags of frozen vegetables, two cartons of eggs, etc.). Everything from food staples to diapers to paper products to soap…
Listening to the Ten Percent Happier special podcast episode How to Handle Coronavirus Anxiety
I live near a race track (horses) and they’re closed. Weird to see the empty parking lot on a Friday on my way home.
Gonna try to get some cleaning done.
Disney World closed, which it almost never does, so the wonderful charity Give Kids The World is also closing. Hubby takes Sebastian there monthly, and he was hoping to make an extra visit , but now he has NO therapy visits. Every place they go has stopped visits. Thank heaven for the dog park!
LOL I love this! And yes, Cutetropolis is a refuge! Thank you Mike, and everyone!
Hilarious! Wolves had no idea of what lay in store for them…
Fortunately for cats, they domesticated us.
I absolutely hooted at this. Allein you’ve done it again. Not able to go back to my previous somber mood now…🤪🤣😺…poor wolfies.
Good. 🙂
Hi All,
Teller is just so beautiful! I love a Caturday when he graces us with his image. I’m sorry if you’ve already answered this Muppet2171, is he a rag-doll?
And, I need some context for the “quarantine” please? I saw Alice’s comment yesterday but couldn’t find the point of reference. It’s still giggle worthy out of context anyway. 🙂 Thanks for pointing out the new subtext too! Would have missed that.
I too am on suspension from everything. My full-time job at the library is closed for the next two weeks and the school where I adjunct has extended the spring break for a week while they figure out how we’re supposed to teach art remotely. !? Anyone have any bright ideas? I can always post videos, but how am I supposed to see what they are doing during the process, to be sure they are doing it correctly? I supply a lot of materials during the semester and I’m not sure how to get those to them before they leave campus. Never mind the class sets of tools I bring to class to help save them money. oh boy. Will probably have to rewrite syllabus….
And I’m worried about my family in California. I’m in Pennsylvania. They are so far away… and my 80-year-old father isn’t exactly taking this seriously. sigh. Amyliz – my heart goes out to you and your dad. Sending you both lots of hugs. Can he facetime or skype? To everyone else – wishing you good health!
Teller is an apple-head Siamese.
Oh! wow. He is just gorgeous. Thanks.
My favorite podcast is by a historian whose speciality is the fall of the Roman Empire through the midieval period. This entire period is marked by successive waves of various plagues. His comment on twitter yesterday was to remind people: “Crises, like pandemics, don’t break things in and of themselves; they show you what’s already broken.”
😱
Everything is holding steady here in the PNW epicenter. My office is still open for the time being, the YMCA where I swim is also staying open as they are working with the shut down school districts to provide child care. I’ve got enough food and supplies that I don’t need to make unnecessary trips to the store for a while, so I’m hunkered down this weekend with books and vids and stuff. Lily’s just glad I’m home and is unconcerned with anything else as long as she has warm laundry to burrow into!
It’s the sheep sheets! Hi Lily!
I have about half a gallon of milk left. I opted for tea instead of hot cocoa so I won’t use it up as quickly. I want to at least not have to go shopping on the weekend. I also have a dozen eggs, bread, some rice and frozen veggies (though some might be blocks of ice at this point, so I don’t know how good they’ll be). Several cans of soup. A few apples and some citrus fruits, and a new bag of carrots. And oatmeal and cheerios. Hmm…I wonder how long that chicken’s been in the freezer…how long does chicken last in the freezer, anyway..?
Lily is so beautiful and your picture is so great that I just want to be Lily. She looks like she’s in heaven.
Teller’s such a beautiful kitteh! The curled back paws with the teeny little claws sticking out always get me.
I’m in the PNW too (Hi, Jan B!) and we currently have a couple inches of snow on the ground, so in addition to the Coronapocalypse, we’re now having a mild Snowmageddon as well. Luckily, since we live in an area that loses power frequently, gets a lot of snow, and is near an active volcano (Mt. Rainier…possibility of a lahar, etc), we generally have at least 2-3 weeks of food and supplies on hand. And if worse comes to worst, we have a few trees that came down this winter, and I’m sure I could find a Youtube video on how to make toilet paper (kidding!)
I work in a medical specialty office, so we’re not likely to shut down…although I could definitely use a couple weeks off work at this point. We currently have two pregnant nurses who are no longer allowed to have patient contact, so it’ll be interesting to see how they work that out since we’re now down to two nurses for five providers in two offices.
I’m bummed that I can’t watch my MLS soccer games, but so far they’ve only been postponed, not cancelled, so I’ll have plenty of soccer in the fall. Hopefully. They’ve postponed a concert we were going to go to for hubby’s birthday, but I’m hoping that will be rescheduled, too.
I’ve decided that it’d be much easier to stop touching my face if I didn’t have a cat, since 90% of the time I do it’s because there’s cat hair on it, lol!
Have a good weekend, all, and keep washing your hands!
When I went to the dentist the receptionist asked me if I had been out of the country in the past two weeks (no) or if I or anyone I’ve been in contact with has been sick at all (no, as far as I am aware). The dentist (who is new; she and her husband took over the practice about 6 months ago, but my old dentist was still there at my last appointment; he retired a few weeks later) said she wasn’t doing any handshakes, given the circumstances. I was glad she said it first, because I had no intention of shaking hands. (Though I actually met her on my way out last time.) She’s very nice. I saw the husband through the window when I came in but I didn’t actually meet him. (I actually had a message from the office when I got out of the shower and thought maybe they were cancelling, but turned out they had someone else cancel and were calling to say I could come a little earlier if I wanted to. It was a little too late at that point for me to leave more than a few minutes earlier than I planned. There was no one in the waiting room, though.) They have a new ultrasonic cleaning tool that she would normally have used, but because it uses water and causes bit of spray/mist she wasn’t using it just to be safe. (She also mentioned trying to get her 3-year-old to understand all this extra caution around washing hands and taking their shoes off before coming inside and no school and why they can’t go to the trampoline place. He doesn’t quite get it.)
Just started listening to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me from this morning…there is no audience! Very strange. I listened to the Daily Show Ears Edition in the car and Trevor Noah said starting next week they won’t have an audience. I wonder if Colbert and the other late night shows will be doing the same. Also heard that Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune started taping shows without a studio audience last week (apparently a lot of their audiences are older people and with Alex Trebek’s health issues I’m not surprised they were among the first). Hopefully things will have settled down by the time they air…but then it’ll be extra strange to watch with no studio audience.
Opera and ballet performances with no audience have been livestreamed from several theatres. I think we’ll be seeing more of this.
That’s pretty cool.
The sucky part for Wait Wait is they’re not even at home (normally they do the show in Chicago). They’re in Atlanta, so all the people looking forward to them coming to town are disappointed. 🙁 (There are a handful of people there, I’m guessing either venue or show staff, so you hear a bit of laughter and applause. Otherwise it’s very echoey.)
I’m in the same mini snowpacalypse, just further south. The one benefit of the world turning all topsy turvy is that the kittens FINALLY get their first snowfall. And they LOVED it.
So…there is that.
Happy lockdown, everybody! Most everything in my area is cancelled, but happily my regular monthly meeting of the Loyal Brotherhood of Handshakers and Face Touchers is still going ahead as planned. 😀
Small health scare a couple of days ago — not me, but my rabbit Ani. She refused to eat at lunch time, so I whisked her off to the vet, fearing a serious gastrointestinal problem. Luckily that was not the case, and we were sent home with a fresh bottle of appetite stimulant. I’m pleased to report that Ani is eating like a champ again.
I’m so glad Ani is better! I can manage without handshaking, but I’m finding it absolutely impossible not to touch my face. sigh
I have dry eyes. It’s so hard not to rub them. I’m not so worried while I’m home (where I live alone) and have washed my hands thoroughly. Once I’m out the door, though…
Just saw that my local high school district is closing for the next two weeks. Instead of remote classes or whatever they’re moving spring break to next week then using the three built-in snow days (which they didn’t need to use this winter) to cover most of the second week so they don’t have to make up too much. (Though I can’t help but wonder if two weeks is long enough. So much fear and drama on the news I don’t know what to think.)
Our schools are closed for 6 weeks at this point.
Allein, I actually rescheduled my dentist appt yesterday, because it was for a crown buildup and temporary crown. I’m worried there will be mandatory quarantine and I won’t be able to get the permanent crown, or worse, the temp crown might come off (which has happened to me in the past) and I wouldn’t be able to get in to have it replaced.
Our office is asking the same questions your dentist did, and every single day we’ve had at least one person with a cold, fever, etc come in for their (non-essential) appointment at our office. What part of “Stay home if you’re sick” are people not getting??
I don’t blame you. Mine was just a cleaning/checkup.
Yes and yes. Give Ani hugs from my household. Also can’t stop touching my face. I think about it when I’m making cookies for the office, but that’s the only time.
Glad to know Ani is okay. It’s a scary thing when buns don’t eat or have trouble with pooping. I went through that not too long ago with Pepper (another digestive issue) and started hydrating her immediately and fortunately, she was okay later in the evening.
I love having this website to come and see Qte animals, read NTMTOM’s clever comments/poems and read other fan’s comments, to help me get away from so much gloom and doom going on in this world.
Teller is such a beautiful cat. I’m drawn to siamese cats.
Hope everyone can stay healthy , keep sane and/or recover quickly if you get any kind of illness.
So glad Ani is fine. I didn’t realize bunnies are so delicate gastrointestinal wise.
I just noticed that Teller has fuzzypants and ankle socks.
(Hush, Google, “fuzzypants” is so a word.)
Hey, I almost forgot! Happy Pi Day!
Good news from England: my local fish and chip shop is still open, so we didn’t have to break into the emergency provisions tonight. The local supermarket has ‘think before you buy’ signs all over the place warning against stockpiling goods such as cleaning supplies, hand gel, dried foods and toilet paper – there’s a limit of five such items per transaction. And essential services such as betting shops and tanning salons are as yet unaffected.
This obsession with TP brings back memories of my grandmother, who was unable to resist special offers/coupons for it and had stacks of rolls lurking in the laundry room and colonizing the staircase.
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/touch_face
Those are for a catastrophe. Not necessarily a Pandemic. Someone post a pic of a herd of Pandas here.
Haha!
Allein, Exactly!
I’d love to stock up that way!
Hi All, Late to the game. Worked with my friend’s kid to put a sturdy chair together so I can practice getting up without pushing myself up. So the chair counts as my first piece of exercise equipment for the bigger room. The proposed art studio has become mixed use space as I have to begin exercising at home (non pandemic related) to regain all the strength I lost this year.
I have found a new doctor, a researcher, who knows more about endocrinology than six previous endocrinologists. It turns out after getting blood tests for 20 years that I actually have working parathyroid glands!!! My low blood calcium problem is probably an inability to absorb it gastrointestinally. He is also a gastroenterologist. So I have endocrine and gastroenterology covered with him.
He runs a practice that once you see him he becomes your total practitioner. He thinks differently than any doctor I have met ever. I just deleted 6 mediocre doctors from my contact list.
He works closely with my Psychiatrist as a colleague. So he already knows about my ptsd etc. and the artwork I do for my therapy. I already have a drawing in my head about him. He said he’ll take a signed copy!
Pandemicwise my housemate’s library has been shut down for a week to start. Luckily she gets paid! I’m worried about getting the correct foods for me but I’m stocking up on one of my essentials: PRUNES. Seriously.
I have an upcoming years overdue eye doctor appointment and I need a haircut. Going to my lady barber is probably a total no go. Creeps me out just thinking about it. Little bits of infected hair flying around…
So a long post. I could keep you entertained for the duration. But I’ll leave the big show to NTMTOM who provides the cute when we all need it most.
Listen to Grandma.
I LOVE THIS!
I will say that both my parents, in their late 80s, and my aunt, 90, having lived through the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, and all the wars since, to say nothing of various flus, are handling (so to speak) COVID-19 with far more equanimity than I am.
And I agree that most of the precautions we are being asked to take are basic good hygiene we’ve surely been told to practice before. Anxiety disorders are a bigger problem for me than washing my hands.
I’m just trying to not freak out every time I walk out the door.
I have to force myself to walk out the door. If it weren’t for Bibi I doubt I’d leave home at all. But I do feel better once we’re outside and walking.
I have no conditions, illnesses etc but I am 70, which means my immune system is weakened. After spending days reading all the stories, advice, etc. I decided that I’m not going out unless what I need to eat can’t be ordered in but can be bought within walking distance of my apartment. I will also go to the drugstore around the corner and my doctor(s), all within walking distance.
I keep thinking about the “miasma” theory of disease of times past. Even though I know this isn’t just floating around in the air I still freak out a bit. I open my car door with one finger. I know when I go to the grocery store this week I will worry. I want to look for whatever canvas tote bags I have in the house to use instead of my usual bags (the reusable ones from Wegmans, which are old and kinda icky and I should probably toss, anyway) because I can throw them in the washing machine. A tad worried about what I will (or, more accurately, won’t) find when I do go.
Starting to better understand how people with OCD and agoraphobia must feel (which I sometimes think I have a touch of, anyway, though not at a level that would be diagnosable). I only went out yesterday because I had an appointment. Normally I would have stopped at Starbucks and then at the grocery store and Target on my way home, even though it’d be crowded on a normal Saturday, but now I decided there’s nothing I need that can’t wait a few days. The only other thing I went out for was to take out the trash, which wasn’t until sometime after dark. And I forgot to check the mail so I guess I’ll have to go outside later. Maybe I’ll take a walk around the block if it’s not too cold.
Just saw the county library branches are closed to the public effective yesterday. Book drops will be open so you can still return books, but they’re extending due dates until they open again, which is nice. The book I have out is due Tuesday; don’t know if I’ll finish it by then but I’ll renew it anyway. (But I usually return books through the book drop on my way to work, before they’re open, anyway.)
We had a second death in NJ the other day, at the hospital in my town (the first was up north). A woman in her 50s but that’s all the info they gave. 🙁
Oh, and my dad said he cancelled his Navy ship reunion that was scheduled for June in Boston (he’s president of the reunion association). 🙁 Most of the attendees would be in their 70s or older (the youngest possible person to have served on that ship would be in their mid-60s now, assuming they were 18 and served in the ship’s last year).
My dad and I leave the house so infrequently, and deal with so few people face to face, I can honestly say that the crisis hasn’t made a great deal of difference to our everyday lives. We’ve had our groceries delivered since we got rid of the car five years ago, so apart from food shopping and hospital/doctor appointments we’re more or less recluses.
If you’re looking for something to do with the kids (or by yourself)…
Virtual Field Trips
Includes the San Diego Zoo and some live animal cams. Or you can go to Mars.
Oh wow! This is so cool. Thanks for posting! Am sending to my sister who is a social worker for LA Unified, asap. 🙂
Cincinnati Zoo is closing.
http://cincinnatizoo.org/news-releases/cincinnati-zoo-temporarily-closing-to-the-public-starting-sunday-march-15/
In an effort to keep its loyal members and community connected to their favorite animals while the Zoo is closed, Home Safari Facebook Live sessions will be offered weekdays starting on Monday, March 16 at 3pm. Each session will highlight an animal and provide an activity that you can do at home. The first safari will feature everyone’s favorite hippo, Fiona.
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