Couch 212: The French Vanilla couch

I feel like where somebody gets their dog is a lot like how somebody gets their child: absolutely none of my business.

I think PC needs to move with the times and add an “elbow bump” button.

Stopdog might even use it.

i THINK people GET that they already ARE VIRTUAL hugs!!! VIRTUAL POKE

Eta - REAL SMILE

I think that when people ask about my dog - they really want to tell me about theirs. And my dogs like meeting new people and dogs -so I don't really mind. I would rather us talk about our dogs than almost anything else with people I don't know.

I wouldn't do that even before the virus. I have always believed in a 6-10ft distance from others.

You were socially distancing long before it was cool.

Caesar should have done it 2064 years ago.

I spend vast quantities of time deliberately isolated and alone. I never get lonely. Its so weird that the whole country is now isolating. For once I'm not the weird one.

I am ahead of the curve.

Ever the trendsetter, SD.

My school have cancelled all upcoming exams- (which had previously been delayed for a week) .

Woke up 10-15 minutes ago hyperventilating from a nightmare

That sounds like an awful dream, atat. Hopefully people reach out for help if needed in this time.

Work is closed for today, which I’m thankful for in retrospect because I haven’t slept much.

This is a big worry for me going into this isolation. I'm basically stuck in the house all day with my H and my father. Ugh.

I emailed T1 at 4am this morning asking for him to call me sometime today. I'm sure he knows why I need to talk and glad he's willing to between sessions.

I’m trying to be as cool as the ICU nurses who are totally aware of the situation, taking proper precautions, being totally professional and collegial, but not panicking. They told me I could join their “cool club”

My university's president sent around an audio clip this morning to encourage us. It's just him yelling "Stay frosty!"

ICU and ED nurses are bad-@$$es. I'm going back to work today (been off for a few days) and I'll be following their lead as well!

Well, they just ordered bars, restaurants, and gyms in my state to shut down starting at 5 pm tonight. Still allowed to do carryout or delivery, but that's it. I understand why they're doing it, but also worry about all the people whose incomes and jobs will be affected by this, especially at places where we're regulars. And worry about my own sanity (and that of my D and H), but that's a whole other thing... Hm, maybe we can get carryout from someplace and eat in our backyard--it will be sort of like eating outside at a restaurant (which my D loves doing)?

A suggestion going around on Twitter is buy gift cards or certificates if the business offers them. You can use them after and the business can use the income now.

ETA: Those into opera, the Met has you covered during self-isolation.

Yes, I saw that suggestion and am going to try to do that with a few places.

ETA: And that could be something to do at yoga studios or small independent stores as well.

Lots of discussion about COVID-19 today at the board meeting at work. If we do get quarantined we don't get paid. ARGH. I guess I can't complain too much because I live with my parents and I know they always have plenty of food and stuff so I won't starve. I do worry about being able to pay my bills but my Dad would probably loan me some money or I could pull some out of investments which I hate to do. So far we aren't talking about being quarantined, only if the government makes us or if someone gets the virus in our workplace. If someone is sick they have to go home though. No if's, and's or but's. I'm worried about my sister and brother-in-law though and their five children. My sister's work shut down for at least two weeks, and she gets no pay and my brother-in-law is only working part time. They have to move in about a month and it's going to show on their income thing that they didn't have the income for a period of time. They might end up being homeless. They could come stay with us but their jobs are five hours away from us. My parents have an RV so they could stay in that for a while but five children and two adults in a smallish RV sounds horrible to me.

I took Esther, my diabetic cat, to the vet on Saturday. Good news is the diabetes is being controlled by the insulin shots. Bad news is, she probably has cancer. She has tumor's in her stomach that are attached to the wall of the stomach. The vet can't say with certainty that her tumor's are cancerous without doing surgery and a biopsy but she is 15!!!! I don't know that I want to put her through that. The other thing we could do is go to a specialist and have them do an MRI. Very very very sad weekend for me. For right now we are just going to monitor her eating, eliminating, and behavior. If she starts acting odd or not doing one of the other things we have to take her to the vet ASAP. She's my baby. I'm not sure what I will do without her.

I haven't heard anything yet about bars and restaurants closing in my area. The 24 hour grocery stores have cut back on their hours though, they're mostly closing at 11pm now. We did our normal weekend shopping yesterday and there were many empty aisles. No TP, hardly any cleaning supplies, no eggs, they've put a limit on how much milk you can buy, the meat section was almost wiped out.


On the work front, we're back to 60+ hour weeks for the foreseeable future. There's no limit to how much additional overtime people work if we want to work more than the mandatory amount. Today my team alone has more than 3,000 emails from members that we have to respond to... I don't even want to know how many calls are in queue in the call center. We got an email this morning that if anyone comes down with the virus and has to call out sick that it won't count against them if they do. Hopefully that will help keep the call center from getting wiped out if sick people stay home instead of making themselves come in for fear of losing their job if they call out, which happens a LOT.

I wrote a guided meditation that I'm going to record along with drumming to share with my friends. It's as much for me as it is for others... I'm barely keeping a lid on my own anxiety...


Wishing peace and calm for everyone. We're all in this together, we are, our world, and together we will get through this.

Hugs, Kit, I'm sorry about your cat. I can understand not wanting to put her through the testing or potential cancer treatment. I hope you're able to keep working at your job.

Well...I guess it’s good my dreams of Idris Elba visiting me at night didn’t come to pass.

Oh Kit I'm so sorry to hear about Esther. I can understand too not wanting to put her through testing and treatment. And the work thing is so stressful on top of that. I hope that bill or whatever that just passed over the weekend will help with people getting paid if they can't go to work because of the virus.