Virus is Worsening

First of all - happy birthday to Patty. We love you and wish we could be together to celebrate. Please try to make it a special day, even with the restrictions placed on everybody from the war against the Coronavirus.

We are pretty much locked-in here at the house except for occasional trips to the grocery store which are made only when absolutely necessary. We have everything we need and are both feeling well. Josie talked to her shop owner yesterday and it appears that the store will remain closed at least through April. For that reason, we filed for Unemployment benefits for her. She may not be approved for those, but it is worth a try.

The stimulus package for most Americans has passed and we look forward to being able to participate in that benefit. As far as I know, we qualify for that package.

Stay safe and healthy....

Coronavirus Update From Our House

It is an unbelievable situation that the world is facing with the Coronavirus Pandemic. It is also unbelievable how our country is handling it and how we, locally, are following recommendations that have been issued by our government. We are all staying home from most all activities except for necessary shopping for essentials. I went to our local Fry's yesterday for some of these essentials and, of course, the shelves were mostly empty. I spoke with a store clerk who suggested shopping at 6 AM in the morning when the store opened - with their new hours - after all the shelves have been restocked during the night. I took his advice and went to the store at 5:45 AM this morning. Here is a shot of the situation outside the store 15 minutes before opening:

A manager came out about 10 minutes before opening to announce that they were going to let about 10 people in a time to keep control of the flow. Of course, the picture above was taken of the line I was standing in which was one of two at the store. By the time the store opened, the lines were double.

Let me just say that I was able to get the most important essentials - toilet paper and water - but the shelves were still mostly empty of other items I was after. I guess it will be this way for as long as the crisis is with us. At least we now have a sufficient supply of the most important essentials.

Today, I plan to file unemployment for Josie who is basically out of work as her shop has closed temporarily. We are all hoping that the package being worked by our government to issue checks to most citizens goes through the approval process quickly. We should be in pretty good shape no matter what happens as long as we can remain healthy.

We hope all of you are taking care of yourselves and get through this crisis without any serious problems....

Coronavirus Madness

Yes, the Coronavirus threat is real and everybody, and I mean everybody, is caught up in the actions to protect themselves and their families. We were hoping to have Patty and Brandon as guests this week but, after a phone call on Thursday night, agreed to reschedule the trip at a later date when it would be much safer for everybody. The uncertainty of actions planned by the boys' schools have also created a situation where they can best respond from their home. With all of the cancellations of events - including Spring Training Games - it would have resulted in a wasted week of just sitting around.

The next several weeks, and maybe the next several months, are filled with unknowns. The only certainty that we can predict is that we are going nowhere. With our creeping old age, this pandemic is to be taken seriously. It seems like the rest of our community and the surrounding towns have also planned to remain self-quarantined. We were shocked yesterday when we went to two local grocery stores to pick up some items - not even our weekly, regular shopping trip - to find so many people and so many empty shelves. There were two stores where we stopped and I have these shots of the checkout lines at each store.

This is at the first stop at our regular store, the Fry's in Sun City West:

and then at the Safeway up the street:

The lines at each location were all filled with at least a dozen baskets waiting to check out. There was no toilet paper, paper towels, water or cleaning supplies at either location. Also, there were other staples that were not available. Our understanding is that the stores will be limiting all of these items to one per person and will be expanding store hours to accommodate the additional demand.

We hope everybody deals with this crisis in their own, successful way. The cancellation of all sporting activities and holiday events for the next two months takes us into May before we can expect to see any relief. That probably means that the next "real" holiday will be Cinco De Mayo when we can all sit around and perhaps enjoy a …..Corona!

Take care everybody....

Juicing

We have now cleared out the fruit from this year - almost. Most of the fruit has been picked except for some lemons and a few oranges left on one tree that we will use for fresh fruit as we need them. We also have some oranges in the refrigerator that we will use on an as needed basis. The bulk of the time spent over the last two days was spent juicing the lemons and oranges and "bottling" the juice.

Here are a couple of shots of our efforts:

The bottles were then placed in our spare freezer and in order to make room for those, we had to rearrange the main freezer in our kitchen. Needless to say, we are on overload for our freezers. It was a job that we were finally pushed into completing as the fruit flies were beginning to multiply at a rapid rate outside. They only liked the damaged fruit, but we felt it was necessary to finally get rid of all of the fruit that was left.

We have lots of new growth and buds on our trees for the crop that we will harvest next season. We expect a great one as our landscaper did a fabulous job trimming and fertilizing the trees. It will really hurt to have to buy lemons and oranges again at the store sometime next Fall....

End of Visit

Yesterday was our farewell to Patty for two weeks. She returns on March 13 for another week with Brandon for his Spring Break. Jordan goes to Lake Havasu with friends for his Spring Break which, I believe is the week before Brandon's. I do know that Brandon will spend some time in Jordan's room (taking up the bed of Jordan's departed roommate) the weekend they arrive from Chicago. We look forward to another great week.

We took Josie to work in the AM so she was not here for Patty's departure. Patty and I went to lunch at Tokyo Joe's before leaving for the airport at 1 PM. There was construction on I-10, so we went to the airport via Grand Avenue - not the best way to go. She made it in plenty of time and arrived safely back in Chicago last evening.

That about wraps it up for the week...