Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 365

One year.

For me, the pandemic began on March 13, 2020, when my son had his first day out of school.  We didn't know then that he wouldn't be going back until August and that he'd have to finish the school year online. 

We didn't know that my husband wouldn't be going to the office for about two months, and that he'd end up taking over my office four days a week.

We didn't know that March 8th, 2020 would be the last time our church would meet together until November. 

We didn't know that masks would become a fashion statement or that people would judge others by whether they did or did not wear one. 

So many things we did not know. 

I began journaling the pandemic here on March 13, 2020, thinking that I would write every day and bring a healthy dose of snark to everyone's pandemic coping skills. How wrong I was. I can't remember when I stopped writing a daily pandemic journal. Snark is a good way to cope, depending on the target of your snark . . . but you can only be snarky for so long. 

My good intentions to spend more time on writing and house cleaning were eventually sabotaged by, well, just pandemic weariness. 

It's been a long 365 days, and like just about everyone, I'm weary. 

In the beginning, there was a pulling together, an attitude of, "We're all in this together." But that faded as we realized just how long and how serious this pandemic would be. 

Now, Zoom meetings and online church are the norm, social distancing is expected, a "drive-by" refers to a type of celebration rather than a shooting, and when you extend a fist to someone, it is not an assault but a greeting.

Throw in the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor (who died one year ago today) and George Floyd -- along with others -- and a very contentious presidential election, and you have a recipe for both angst and exhaustion.

Right now, I lean more towards the exhaustion end of the spectrum.

One thing that helps is remembering that no one on earth is unaffected by COVID. If you haven't had it, you know someone who has; if you don't know anyone who has had COVID, you still have dealt with empty shelves, standing six feet apart in a public place, businesses closed, businesses requiring masks . . .

Monday, my husband and I become eligible for the COVID vaccine. It's the one time in my life I look forward to getting two shots. 

Right now, I just confess to weariness. 

TEOTWAWKI, for those wondering, is an acronym in prepper circles that means "The End Of The World As We Know It." (And you thought it was just a title of an R.E.M. song.)

To be honest, this past year? 

It has been TEOTWAWKI.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 10

This can not only be Day 10.  It seems like longer.  I was expecting to see a Day 20, 30, etc. 

We did our first official "online for I don't know how long" church service today. 

Annnd, so did everyone else.  Which is probably why our platform crashed and we were redirected to YouTube. 

Don, our preacher, first went to Luke 13, and talked about the woman Jesus healed in the synagogue on the Sabbath.  (How dare He!)  He pointed out something subtle in what Jesus called her, "a daughter of Abraham."

Then he went to Genesis 15, where God promised Abraham  (then Abram) that Abraham's offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

Don then focused on four words:  "Abram believed the Lord."

Abram believed the Lord.  He believed that God would do what he promised, even though Isaac had not made his appearance yet. 

Abram, in Genesis 15, did remind God that "I remain childless, so a servant in my household will be my heir."  Uhh, you know, Lord, I'm an old man and Sarah can't have children. 

Don talked about a concept called "implicit bias", and I'm pulling this out of the top of my head because I have no notes in front of me.  Implicit bias is the way circumstances have wired us to think.  In Abraham's case, he didn't have a child and he had a barren wife.  So what could God give him? 

One of Don's points was that the way implicit bias is changed is through an intervention, which is what God gave Abraham.  He said, "Here, let me show you something."  Then He took Abraham outside and showed him the stars.  I don't know if you have ever seen the stars, the real stars, out in the middle of nowhere.  I've seen stars like that twice, once, on my 18th birthday while coming home from college and looking out the window of my sister's car while driving down US 19.  The other time was in Minnesota, where I pulled off of a road and turned my headlights off just so I could see the stars.  They are beautiful.

Abraham probably got to see the Milky Way, along with Orion and the Big Dipper and however many other constellations there are.  And he got to hear God say, "So shall your offspring be." 

God intervened.  And so Abraham believed Him, and God rewarded his faith. 

My question for myself is, Do I believe God?  I don't have a specific, deliberate promise like Abraham did; I don't have the promise of, "You will have a son in your old age."   

But what did He promise?  To be with me, to not leave me, to meet all my needs, to give me the Holy Spirit, to forgive my sins and give me eternal life with Him? 

I'm one of those who has a hard time believing.  I'm rather cynical when it comes to religion and sometimes I'm skeptical when it comes to modern-day Christianity, i.e. the religion we have made it. 

But when it comes down to God, and Jesus, and can He be trusted? 

That part, I believe. 

Even though I am currently using this as my snarky theme song: 

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it

And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina’s TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 9

This is Saturday, Saturday is supposed to be an errand day, a “get it done” day, so what did I do?

A few loads of laundry and some dishes, and I did make dinner.

And Frank and I went to Walmart to look for washcloths (of which we needed more.). We left with washcloths and a few more grocery supplies.

And now we are watching Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.

And I have little more to add to the chronicle of the Great American Lockdown.

Except the theme song:

It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjust for inflation.

Tina’s TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 8

Today my husband and I went out together.  I wish I could say that we went out to dinner, but unfortunately, I had to get a blood draw and he needed to have an abscess on his back looked at.

But before that, I had my first experience with teletherapy.

I have a twice a month counseling session with a psychologist.  She, along with so many others, has moved to teleworking.  Today we had our first session with a screen separating us.  It went pretty well.  I had a little trouble getting into the session at first but was able to, eventually.  I was surprised, as I talked to her, at 1) how well I may actually be coping and 2) how normal so many of my feelings are.  My frustrations with the men in my household aren’t because they’re being nasty, it’s because life as we know it has been upended and we don’t know how long it’s going to go on.  There’s this undercurrent of uncertainty that’s underneath everything.  I don’t like it.  No one does.  But I realize that there’s an undercurrent.  There are reasons for my feelings.  In fact, there are very sound reasons for my feelings.

I did tell my counselor that if I had shown up dressed in a HAZMAT outfit with a mask, then she’d have reason to worry.  :-).

My husband and I went down to Dekalb Medical (now Emory Dekalb) to get our stuff done.  I have an endocrinologist appointment next week, God and COVID-19 willing, and I have a feeling that he’s not going to accept my rationalization of ‘stress eating’ as a reason as to why I have gained back weight I’ve lost.  (He is not a bad doctor.  It’s just that his bedside manner can be rather lacking at times.).   The woman who took my blood was dressed almost as if she were caring for an Ebola patient.  Well, maybe not quite THAT extreme, but she did wear a surgical mask and was wearing a disposable paper gown over her clothes.

The women in the office were also wearing surgical masks, almost all of them.

But here’s what was weird:  The parking lot was practically empty.  I’m used to having a lot of trouble finding a parking place outside of the building I go to and this time, I didn’t have a problem.  Elective procedures have been canceled.

The waiting room in the doc’s office was practically empty as well.

And the one thing I thought would happen with my husband ... didn’t happen.

You see, what I wanted to do was drop him at urgent care.  He thought it would be more efficient to go to the ER.  I thought, okay, if that’s the way you want to do it, but don’t be shocked if I have to pick you up the next morning.

The total time for both of us together to have our stuff taken care of?

Around two hours.  If that long.

My husband ended up having a cyst on his back.  What had worried me was that the area around the cyst was red.  I thought it might be infected and I didn’t want that infection to get into his bloodstream and turn septic.  So the docs in the ER drained it and fixed him up, and sent him home with antibiotics.  (He told me that the docs had called it a “classic drain”.  I sort of felt like he was a participant in an episode of Dr. Pimple Popper.)

While waiting on my husband, I went down to Joann’s Fabrics and got a mini muffin tin, on the reasoning that “if I’m going to be stuck at home, I’m going to do something productive!”

Then I drove down to a small park and took a few minutes just to walk around.

It’s spring in Atlanta, spring that brings the foul-smelling Bradford pears but the forsythia and the daffodils, the cherry blossoms and the redbuds . . . And the pollen.  Spring will always follow winter, and in Atlanta, the arrival of spring is not only heralded by the trumpeting of daffodils and the flowering of forsythia, it is also heralded by the sprinkling of pollen over every car, every driveway, every front porch, and every deck in the area.

But this is a weird spring, this spring of illness, this spring that will come marked with the acronym of COVID-19, that will be marked by canceled proms and canceled graduations.

I couldn’t put my finger on it while I was walking around the park, but things just felt odd.  Maybe it’s because I was carrying around in my mind the undercurrent of what was going on in our world.  There was a sign up at the park saying, playground closed until further notice, and I wondered if this was what the people who survived the 1919 flu pandemic experienced.

What I think it is, why I think it feels odd, is that we’re in the “falling into” phase of this event.  Every day is bringing more bad news; the market dropping more points, yet another prominent person testing positive for COVID-19, more governments, more municipalities enacting emergency orders, more places closing or severely restricting their hours.  We’re still falling down the hole and we have not hit bottom yet.  The fall, in this case, is a little bit like that awful autumn of 2008, where every day brought another drop in the market and another firm closing its doors.

When JFK was shot, or 9/11 happened, or the Challenger exploded, you had the “falling into” phase; where things were happening, one after the other after the other, rapidly and there was no way to stop them or make sense of them.  I guess someone’s terminal illness is a bit like that as well.  Outside you see the normal rhythms of life, of people going to work, running errands, shopping at the grocery store . . . And your rhythm has been totally upended.

I listened to a Paul Harvey news broadcast the day after JFK’s funeral.  The impression I got was that of a nation trying desperately to get its feet back under it after two men and four shots had knocked the feet out from under it and knocked the wind totally out of it.  People were jumpy, edgy, trying to navigate a new normal, trying to use the initials LBJ, not JFK; trying to say “President Johnson” and not “President Kennedy.”

We’re not there yet.  We’re still seeing the exponential growth of this illness, still hearing of people testing positive, still hearing of protective measures being taken.  My own husband is a federal employee and he has yet to learn whether or not he will be going back to work on Monday.   (He called in sick Monday, felt better Wednesday, and then went in that Wednesday only to be sent home with orders not to go back until Monday.).

We’re still in this odd, weird, “falling into” phrase where we have not adapted to what is “normal”.

Someday we’ll hit bottom.  Someday our feet will get back underneath us and we’ll learn to navigate again.

In the meantime, I will reload my weapon of humor daily with the ammunition of snark.

So, all together now:

It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it 
And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 7

Was it really a week ago that people mobbed the stores, determined to get what they could?  Because we were afraid that this virus was going to keep us from getting what we needed when we needed it?

Just a week ago that my son came home from school for the last time until the end of March, and maybe longer? 

My friend Laura writes a column for her local paper.  The column coming out on Sunday will be about "the new abnormal", as she calls it, and it's a perfect phrase. 

I already know that I can count on getting very little done in the mornings, because mornings are when my son gets his digital learning assignments and I will be his main resource as to how to do them. 

I also know that I will need to keep working because there is still plenty of proofing work to do. 

It's very odd, this new world that we have entered, where its history will not necessarily be recorded in textbooks but in Facebook memes and Twitter posts.  Where suddenly, social media and streaming services are a necessity to keep working and to fight boredom.  Where Netflix and the European Union are talking about dropping HD programming for the moment because so many people are doing online streaming. 

Today a Filipino Christian commented that a baptism he'd planned had been canceled due to the COVID-19 virus.  They are being ordered to stay one meter apart, they cannot go past a police checkpoint, and violating the law will lead to a fine and/or imprisonment.  Many Filipino Christians are living hand to mouth and they literally cannot afford to break the law. 

I saw at least one person say, "Baptize the person anyway!  What if they die?"

Several comments also followed, where the Filipino Christian explained about the fines and someone asked, don't you have a congregation that could take up a collection?  (My comment:  Don't suggest to these people that they break the law unless you are going to help them with the consequences, legal, monetary, and other.) 

My suggestion?  Maybe the person wanting to get baptized can give the confession to someone standing a meter away, then dunk themselves in water?  Or, perhaps they can live stream their baptism? 

This is a situation I had not thought about that could result from this virus:  how do you baptize when you are not allowed to be around people in public?  Or when being near people is a literal health hazard?   

We are going to have to get very creative in the days and weeks that follow if we really want to help people turn to Christ in this midst of this pandemic.  One person who commented on my wall said that we in Churches of Christ have not done a very good job of thinking through what to do when one could not be baptized (not when one is unwilling to do so, but when they are unable to do so.) 

I do strongly believe in the importance of baptism.  I don't want to get into a theological discussion here, but if you take a look at the book of Acts and if you look at conversions described in detail, they all talk about baptism. 

I also believe that God is a God of grace, and that he knows and understands the heart of someone who desires to follow Him.  Surely there are ways He will make for those who want to do so. 

Okay, everyone, here we go again:

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 6

I heard a radio person refer to this time as "the Great American Lockdown".  After only a few days, I now understand why there was a period of time when the occupants of the Secret Annexe didn't speak to each other.

In a biography of Anne Frank, the writer noted that there were a few weeks where some of the occupants didn't communicate except by writing notes.  Anne, herself, noted that two of the men hadn't spoken to each other in about ten days.

After being homebound with husband and child for only a few days, I now have a little better understanding as to why they weren't talking.

When you are in close quarters for a length of time, people end up getting on each others' nerves.  Everything they do bugs you.  I read once, about two people trapped in Antarctica for about seven months, was that the biggest thing was not the ice and the fear and the solitude, but it was that one of the men made the same sound brushing his teeth every night.

Now, throw in the fact that you cannot get away from each other, that you can't go outside, that you can't make noise during the day; that you cannot run water, you cannot flush a toilet . . . and put together eight people, with different habits, different temperaments, different ages . . . and there is a recipe for possible disaster.

I have it much better than Anne Frank and her family.  Today I went up the street to look for English muffins.  They were not available, because bread is at a premium.  But I did find bananas, frozen peas and carrots, four bags of potato chips, and four packages of hot dogs!  (Score!)

I can get out of the house, get fresh air; I have Internet to connect me to the world and the TV/radio to give me necessary information.

Unlike the members of the Secret Annexe, I can get a break.

So, let's join in together with our theme song:

It's the end of the world as we know itIt's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 5

One thing that has been made very clear in this crisis is that I have a moral, Constitutional, civic, fiduciary, and above all, Christian duty to give all the support and help I can to my fellow man. 

This evening, I accomplished all of the above in one fell swoop.

I ordered dinner for the family through Chick-Fil-A.

Why not?  After all, this is "God's chicken" we're talking about.  And I went to my nearest restaurant, which is a locally owned franchise.  And, since Chick-Fil-A, along with many other restaurants, have closed down their inside seating, they need to know that we support them.  

Besides, I like their food.  

So I made my moral, Christian, Constitutional, civic, and fiduciary contribution to the lifeblood of my community, and then I went home and helped eat it.  

Not long after I got back, groceries that I ordered arrived, delivered by a very friendly delivery person spending his first day on the job.  I wouldn't be surprised if he got hired because a lot of people are going to grocery delivery.  He'd texted me beforehand asking if certain substitutions were all right; I said yes, and when he told me he'd gotten what he could, I said, thank you, I know it's hard right now. 

One way we're being encouraged to support people is by supporting local businesses and delivery people.  So while I'm being tongue-in-cheeky about my duty to Chick-Fil-A, I do want to be serious about finding ways to support people. 

In the meantime, remember our theme song: 

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it

And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina’s TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 4

For those curious, “TEOTWAKI” is prepper-speak for “The End Of The World As We Know It”.  It’s usually used in referring to maybe a nuclear war or other sort of disaster which is going to end the world as we know it.

I’m trying to think of what life was like a month ago, when I’d gotten donuts for Matthew’s 21st birthday and when I’d gone the next day for a doctor’s appointment.  I’d heard in the news about this virus in China but wasn’t worried.

But in this last month, it’s been like a small storm cloud forming, maybe one you don’t really pay attention to, sort of like a new tropical wave forming in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa.

You might hear about it if you watch The Weather Channel but you don’t really think about it too much, and you go about your business.  You go to work, or to school, pick up the kids, go home, grocery shop, make dinner, etc.

Over the next few days you may hear about how that tropical wave has organized into a tropical depression and it’s heading west.

Hmmm, tropical depression now.  You wonder if it’s going to get any stronger, or if it’ll peter out, but basically you keep doing what you’re doing, living life as usually.

On the morning news a few days later, the weatherman may say, we have a new tropical storm.  It now has a name.

That may be when your ears start perking up, and when you start noticing that there’s a storm out there in the Atlantic, it’s summer, the Atlantic is warm, and that storm is picking up energy.

But you think that maybe it won’t head your way.  After all, tropical storms are unpredictable.  I mean, there’s a reason why, on The Weather Channel, the meteorologists refer to the “spaghetti model” when they are trying to track a storm.

So you keep going, going on about your life.

Until the words “hurricane warning” come over your radio and the hurricane warning flags raised in the harbor — the black squares framed by red squares — have absolutely nothing to do with the Miami Hurricanes football team.

That’s when you turn on the Weather Channel and see the torrential rain, the palm fronds being tossed around by the wind, the shingles from roofs and the shutters from windows being torn off and flung across driveways and parking lots.

That hurricane, which just a few short weeks ago was a simple tropical wave off the coast of Africa, now has a sustained wind speed of over 200 miles.  It’s a Cat 5, and that spaghetti model has the vast majority of those spaghetti noodles right over your home town.

The eye of the storm is headed straight in your direction, and the only safe place to go is to whatever and wherever your hurricane shelter is.

That’s what this last month has been like for me, in a sense.  I grew up in Florida.  I remember Agnes in 1972; although all I really remember is that one of our croton bushes in the front yard got bent at a weird angle and that Agnes wound up not just in Florida, but all the way up to New York.

I rode out Tropical Storm Kate in a college dormitory in 1985.
I rode out Hurricane Floyd in 1987 in a house in Miami, Florida.
And I rode out the big one, Hurricane Andrew, in 1992 in an apartment in Miami Lakes, Florida.

The arrival of TEOTWAWKI may come with the name of Andrew, or Katrina, or Harvey.

In this case, it has come with the name of COVID-19.
It’s also come with a roller coaster, crashing stock market, with government incompetence, with panic buying, and now with suggested guidelines from the CDC and executive orders from local and state officials, which all add up to:  Go home and stay home!

Just about a month ago, that little tropical wave was over in China and just barely making its effect known here in the US.

Now, it is Hurricane COVID-19, or maybe Hurricane Corona, at Category 5.

What do we do now that the hurricane is here, now that the metaphorical 200 mph winds are howling outside?

I’m lucky enough that I am able to work from home.  My husband still has to go into an office.  My son can do digital learning, and as of this evening, it looks like he’ll have to do it at least until the end of March.

I see reports on Facebook and Twitter about parents attempting to homeschool for the first time and realizing that it’s not as easy as it may look!

The dominoes are continuing to fall.  Now it’s the TV industry shutting down production of TV shows, including Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, and Saturday Night Live.  The Chicago franchise series has also shut down production.

Is the hurricane going to end anytime soon?  Or will the winds keep howling outside and will more and more roof shingles fly off or shutters skitter across parking lots?

Right now, I am facing the storm armed with, among other weapons, the belief that God will take care of us, because he cares for the birds and we are worth more than many of them . . . and still also armed with a snarky sense of humor.

So, one more time on the chorus:

It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 3

Today was not the first time I'd ever done online church.  I've tuned in before to the Facebook Live stream when I've been ill.

But today?  It was a bit odd, gathering around my dining room table with homemade communion bread, with a six-pack of Welch's Grape Juice on the table, my phone propped up and streaming our worship leader and four members of our praise team singing.

I made communion bread for the first time ever.  My son commented on how "oily" it was, and he was right.

He made lunch (well, it was frozen fish fillets and french fries, but he still put it in the oven!)

I listened to my preacher's sermon, which focused on the story of Jairus' daughter and the woman with the issue of blood, found in Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8.  Our preacher talked about detours.  Jesus ended up taking a "detour" of sorts, because he was on his way to heal the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue leader, when a woman who'd had bleeding for 12 years came up behind Jesus and touched his clothes, hoping to be healed.

I think she'd just hoped for a crumb from under the table.  Instead, Jesus stopped everything and wanted to know, who touched me?

That was the "detour".  Jairus probably wringing his hands, the disciples wondering, how in the world could you know that someone touched you, with all these people around you; the woman, probably scared to death of being scolded . . . and who left with Jesus' "go in peace" benediction.

So how do we respond when we have this sort of "detour"?

For me, I don't know yet.  I know to look around me and see where the needs are.  I know to pray.  I know that since God cares for the sparrows and we are more valuable than they are, He will care for us.

Online, I see many Christians arguing about whether or not it was a lack of faith not to meet together as a congregation.  "Don't you trust God to protect you?"  (I'm reminded of a saying that might be a good response:  "Trust God, but keep your powder dry.")  How many of us meet together because we feel like we have to?  It's one of the "five acts of worship" that we must complete on Sunday, and only on Sunday, in order to stay saved?

I think, in these extraordinary circumstances, God understands.  He is a God full of grace and slow to anger, and those that quote "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together", in my opinion, take "forsake" to mean "missing the occasional service" rather than "deserting" or "turning your back on" gathering together.  Most people, when citing the reason they have stayed home from service or canceled their worship gathering, cite their desire to protect infecting high-risk populations such as the elderly or those with chronic illness.

I do plan to get out of the house for at least 30 minutes a day, if for no other reason than to get some fresh air and to keep from going stir crazy.  And I may re-read The Long Winter.  Unlike Laura Ingalls, though, I have plenty of food and don't have to grind my wheat in a coffee mill to make bread.

Tomorrow I will make a list and a possible schedule of things to do.

In the meantime, in keeping with the theme of this entry . . .

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 2

I see already what my major enemy is going to be.  It's going to be boredom, alleviated by too much attention to electronics and social media.

I know, in my head, what the answer to this is:  write down a schedule, write down a list of things to do, and stick to it.

DOING it is the hard part.  There's such an attraction to social media for me, probably because I'm an introvert and it's an easy way for me to fulfill my need for connection without actually connecting. 

I have put stuff away in the pantry, taken out and finished folding laundry, and gotten my husband and son to at least put their laundry in their rooms. 

Me?  I have two baskets of my own clothes staring at me, needing to be put away. 

Once I get going, I do okay. 

But while I am writing this, I'm listening to an old episode of "Suspense", an old-time radio show that aired from 1942 to 1962, and playing with a couple of iPad games, and checking in on Facebook. 

This reminds me of what I did during a week where I was snowed in, along with family.  I imagined getting a lot of stuff done . . . and ended up in front of a computer screen, being BORED!

This is what is called cabin fever.

Which could be just as dangerous, if not more so, than COVID-19.

So, all together now on the chorus, today's theme song: 

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Tina's TEOTWAWKI Journal, Day 1

In the state of Georgia, the dominoes began to fall not long after 2 p.m., when Governor Kemp gave his news conference encouraging (not ordering) school systems and day cares to close if at all possible.

By early evening, at least four major school systems in metro Atlanta announced that they would be halting classes starting Monday.  My county, Gwinnett, will be doing digital learning for at least the next week.

The Georgia State University System had shut down for at least two weeks.
The NCAA Final Four, which would have been in Atlanta, had been canceled.
The Dow had suffered its worst loss since October, 1987, when the market crashed.
The NBA and NHL had canceled the rest of their season.
Major League Baseball had pushed back their opening day.
Disneyland, soon followed by Disney World, announced that they were closing their gates.

For us, the final domino crashed when my preacher put up a video on Facebook saying that we would not be meeting at the building Sunday.

I posted on Facebook, I can't decide whether I need to dig a bunker, buy up the rest of the toilet paper in my county, or grab yarn and needles and do some crafting while binging on Hitchcock.

Yesterday I did some grocery shopping and was able to grab a cart as I went in because someone was bringing the carts back.

Today, I took Matthew to get a haircut and I also got a haircut, because I decided I was going to do some self-care.

Then we plunged into the madness that, until yesterday, was known as grocery shopping.
Matthew and I went to Kroger, where I was looking for matzo crackers and grape juice for communion.  I also went, alone, to another Kroger and to Food Depot.  Aisles were crowded and checkout lines were long.

And shelves had gaps.

I grabbed two of the last four large jars of Kroger peanut butter.
When Matthew and I went looking for fish fillets, we saw that ALL of the hash browns were GONE.
At Food Depot, ALL of the bottled water was gone. 
I didn't see people fighting over toilet paper, nor were people being nasty to each other.  It was more like, well, here we go, let's get our stuff because we don't know when we'll have the chance again. 
Matthew saluted -- literally -- a couple of county firefighters/EMS that were picking up supplies.  I told them to hang in there.

I did not find my matzo crackers.

However, I did haul home peanut butter, canned fruit, cans of evaporated milk, two bags of egg noodles, and -- to show you that I absolutely have my priorities straight -- also hauled home six bags of chocolate chips, two bags of Reese's Minis, one bag of mocha latte coffee, two bags of popcorn, and four bags of chips.

My son will be doing digital learning next week.

I, next week, will work from home, along with the hundreds of thousands that have suddenly been thrust into the world of telecommuting.  Hey, I've been doing this for three years.  Step one:  Find a quiet area in your house, preferably with a closed door, and place a "Do Not Disturb Under Penalty of Extermination" sign on said door, along with a picture of a very large Dalek from Doctor Who.

My husband will still be reporting to work, but I'm suspecting the day will come when nonessential employees will be sent home.  And then I will put husband to work around the house.

I would like to think that, as a Christian, my role in this crisis will be to bring hope to the hurting and use my hands and feet to serve.  Yes, I'm looking for ways to help and ways to use my resources.  And I am also praying that I keep my head and not panic. 

But, honestly?  I really think my major role in this crisis will be the dissemination of snarky humor.

So, in that vein, everybody join with me on the chorus:

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.