Apocalypse Dining

So, since I last updated, the Canadian border has been closed to everything except non-essential travel, including visitors from the US and Mexico. This is a historic move.

Playgrounds have been "closed" in KW, which I kind of understand.  You close schools because children are existing in close proximity to each other and can't be relied on to be cleanly, and then in their new-found free time, you take them to a place where they interact in close proximity with even fewer guidelines?

I do kind of find it funny when a place with no barriers or security calls itself "closed". The local walking trail says it is "closed" between 11:00 pm and 6:00 am, but it runs along a residential street, offers no services, employs no security, and states no consequences.  When a location refers to itself as "closed" I just picture something closing or locking something. What's happening with playgrounds now seems more that they are "forbidden" rather than "closed"

My local walking track remains "open", though, so long as I distance myself by two metres from anyone I pass.

Bus fares are free now, and they're only opening the side door unless you need the accessibility ramp. I haven't gone anywhere beyond foot travel in recent times.

This is my fifth day of social distancing. Technically, I should be doing so for another nine days. Last weekend, I heard that my organization was shutting down temporarily. I let it slip that my brother had returned from California, even though he had not had contact with anyone symptomatic. But because he was a traveler, and I was someone who was "in contact with a traveler", even though we never touched, I landed myself in a 14-day self-quarantine.

What is really annoying is that I had scheduled a ten day vacation starting last Friday. I guess it's a mandatory vacation now. But what is really cool is that my work is honouring my paid leave, and is considering all work I do from outside of that as "remote work". Simply put, my financial situation isn't changing right away, despite the apocolypse.

Lee-Anne is sick. She caught it from a 4-year-old in her family during another kid's second birthday. She's got a sore thoat and cough. She maintains it isn't Corona, but it's enough that we can't be together.

My roommate who has a catheter in because of his recent kidney failure, had a surgery booked for the 25th, which has now been canceled until further notice.

In my last post, I described some of my purchasing behaviour as "panic buying". Both "horders" and "panic buyers" have developed a stigma in recent times, and I want to distinguish myself from them.

For example, in my last post, I wrote out a grocery list.

Despite saying I was "panic buying" you might notice I didn't  buy more than two of anything. I don't really consider that panic buying, especially since we were told to stock up for several weeks.

Today I realized that I had everything I needed to make pumpkin tarts except nutmeg (even ground cloves and tart shells) so I adventured out. I made the tarts, but have extra pumpkin puree. I'll probably make pumpkin loaf next.

I'm almost done with my bread, but guess what I do have? I have flour and yeast. That's right, ya boy is going to have fresh baked bread in the apocalypse #katimabread

So far, my dinners have been alternating between fried rice and pasta. The fact that I'm emulating the cooking style of China and Italy, the two locations that have been hit hardest, is not lost on me.

On my trip out today, I managed to score two bags of potatoes, two cans of tuna, two cans of crushed tomatoes, two jugs of vinegar, two boxes of salt, two bags of peanuts, two bags of oats a bag of flour...

Food Basics new restrictions include:

Limit of 1:
-Toilet paper
-Paper towel
-Dish soap
-Tissue
-Each type of cleaning product
-Detergent
-Hand soap
-Water

Limit of 2:
-Milk
-Eggs
-Butter
-Breadbuns
-Pasta
-Each type of canned food
-Oil
-Flour
-Vinegar
-Each type of meat

I have sort of limited myself to two items total, not just per trip.

I still want:
-Sriracha
-Onions
-Sponges
-Rice
-Eggs
-Tofu
-Processed cheese
-Flour
-Apples
-Tart shells