April 30, 2020, Pandemic in Northern Ontario, Canada

Hello Fellow Social Isolators,

How is everyone today, April 30th, 2020?

Here in Northern Ontario, we are having crazy rains.  In the past day and a half we've gotten more rain than we normally get in a month.

Some of the rivers still have ice so this has caused flooding; two of our area rivers so far have caused washouts, closing down highway 556 in both directions to the North, and covering Bar River Road to the East.  Crazy times.

We are still in lock down here in Ontario, although Michigan and Alberta are easing up starting in May.  We still have a lot of new cases and deaths from Covid 19, so our Premier, Doug Ford has asked people from other provinces to please not visit Ontario for now, but that they will be welcome when things are better.

Yesterday I spent 5 hours helping my 80 year old Dad and 70 year old Mom order groceries online or by phone.  

Our first order, from Food Basics, arrived this morning already, which was great as we were running out of things. 

I've been telling my parents since February that we need to stock up on items...not hoard, but stock up to make sure we have enough because I was worried about food shortages.  They said I was crazy, but unfortunately I was right, and now meat prices have skyrocketed because two beef processing plants and a chicken plant had to close due to covid.  It's been impossible to get yeast since this all started, but thankfully I was able to get a LOT of flour and cornmeal last time I shopped online.

My parents are very frugal and so I had to check all of the local online flyers, then try to find the items they wanted at the lowest prices, while taking delivery costs into account.

The last time we ordered, only National Grocers Cash and Carry had open slots for curbside pickup, but this time I was lucky enough to get slots at Walmart (May 3rd pickup) and Romes Independent Grocers (May 10th pickup).  

I also had to order cow manure and garden fertilizer twice, from the farm store. Once for my Dad, which we picked up last week, and now again for my uncle, which we'll probably have to pick up this weekend or early next week. 

My Dad had some veggie seeds from last year in the basement, and I was able to get him more at the farm store. I also ordered some online.

I'm really glad that my new pressure canner arrived, but wow, it's huge, lol.

I'll be able to put up food from the garden.  I have some canning jars but suspect I will need more. 

I was able to go for my first two bike rides of the year earlier in the week, and it was great to get out.  I rode down quiet side streets and then down back roads in the country and it was great.  I was careful to not ride close to anyone and kept my distance, but unfortunately two cyclists passed me by so close they almost hit me, which made me angry.  I have severe chronic asthma and will be hit hard if I get the virus.

My cousin Ann Marie, who lives in California, has been giving online exercise workouts which my Mom has been following.  I've been working out with my Oculus Quest; mostly using Beat Saber, as it's a great workout, but now that I can get out on my bike that will be my main exercise.

We're allowed to go for daily walks or bike rides as long as we maintain social distance, and I feel a lot safer on my bike as I can get away from people who aren't careful a lot faster than I can on foot. 

I sewed several masks, for myself, my family, friends, and neighbor, but I will post about that in a separate post. 

I hope everyone reading this is safe and healthy.  Take care :-)

7D2D NAVEZGANE/EP 17/A new Bicycle!

Raccoon Lagoon/EP 6/Building a Woodworking Shop

Minecraft /Witchcraft & Wizardry 1/Privet Drive & the Knight Bus

Eastshade/EP 2/Meeting the townspeople

Garden Paws/EP 2/Adorable animals come to shop

Sims 2/EP 5/Let's Go Camping!

7D2D/NAVEZGANE/EP 16/Wandering Horde

Eastshade/EP 1/ Shipwrecked in Paradise

Raccoon Lagoon/EP 5/Oculus QUEST

Garden Paws/EP 1

7D2D Navezgane/EP 15/Horde Night Horror

Raccoon Lagoon/EP 4/Oculus QUEST

Raccoon Lagoon/EP 3/Oculus Quest

Retro Sims 2/EP 3/Exploring the Town

Color Space/Oculus QUEST/Coloring in Virtual Reality

Happy Easter! Tilt Brush/Oculus Quest

7D2D NAVEZGANE/ EP 14//Big House full of Zombies

7D2D Navezgame/ EP 13/Beautiful Morning

Grocery Shopping During a Pandemic

Hi friends,

I hope you're all safe, and that your families are safe.

What is it like where you live?  Is it hard to get the groceries?

Here in Northern Ontario Canada, everything except grocery stores and pharmacies is closed.  Banks are open but only online or by phone.  Canadian Tire is also only open online or by phone.

I have severe chronic asthma and my parents are elderly. I had a heck of a time getting them to agree to stop going to stores but I think I finally go through to them (maybe).

It's hard to shop here, because of social distancing. I understand the need, and accept it.  I think it's smart, but it's hard because they can only let a so many people in the store at a time. There are lines drawn on the floor to help people keep their distance (6 feet apart).  Some stores have put up Plexiglas shields.  Staff are wearing gloves. Some staff are wearing masks. Shoppers are wearing just about anything, from garbage bags to snorkeling gear. 

There are long line ups outside all of the stores. Some stores have online ordering and curbside pickup or delivery, but most of those are fully booked for the next month. 

I finally found a store that only had a 3 day wait for a time slot for curbside pickup. It's called Cash and Carry and I'd never shopped there before. It's a warehouse that normally sells to restaurants and convenience stores.

So I ordered online...everything from sugar and flour and yeast to apples and oranges and toilet paper and soap and lots of other things.

Today my order was finally ready and a lot of it was unavailable. My oranges, peas, toilet paper, paper towels, popcorn, hand soap, flour, baking soda, yeast, and cheese were unavailable.  But the rest of the order was ready to go.

I'd ordered a 50 Ib bag of potatoes and wasn't sure how big that would be so I asked my Dad to drive his truck rather than my small car.  He's 80 so I made him wait in the truck while I ran in to show my order number and pick up my order. A staff member met me (from 6 feet away) and asked if anything was missing from my order and I told him flour.  He told me some new flour had just come in and said he'd get it for me if I still wanted it.  I said OK.  I waited and he came back and put the HUGE bag of flour on an equally HUGE, and I mean huge, industrial sized shopping cart. Nothing like the carts in normal grocery stores.  I asked why he put it there and asked where my cart was, and he said that was my cart.

I just about died.

Now it's totally my fault, which I learned as I wheeled the gigantic cart out to the truck and almost gave my Dad a heart attack from the shock.

I had ordered the 50 Ib bag of potatoes first, when I did the online ordering. After that, I just assumed everything was in Ibs.  It wasn't; every single other thing I ordered was measured in KILOGRAMS.

So, I thought I ordered 20 Ibs of flour, and 20 Ibs of sugar. But I actually ordered 20 KG of flour, 20 KG of sugar.  20 KG is 44.09 Ibs.  More than double.  I had ordered more than double what I thought I ordered.  And OMG, 44 Ibs of sugar is heavy.  I'd also ordered a big huge bag of cornmeal, which was double the size I thought I'd ordered, but which thankfully wasn't nearly as big as the flour or sugar.

My tin of hot chocolate was the biggest tin I've ever seen in my entire life.
My jam, which was on sale for half price, came in a box and ended up being filled with loads of those little tiny jam containers that you get when you order toast in a restaurant.

The popcorn I ordered wasn't in, which may have been a blessing because I thought I was getting the dollar store size bags so I ordered 8 and who knows how big they would have been? My Mom and I eat popcorn every night.

So I have accidentally become a hoarder.

It's OK though, as my best friend's Mom lives next door. She's 80 and lives alone I can now supply her with all of the flour, sugar, and potatoes she can ever want.  Same with my 89 year old uncle.  So that's 3 households taken care of for the foreseeable future.

I plan to learn how to make sourdough bread.  My Dad wants to plant some of the potatoes.
My Mom screamed herself hoarse because I bought so much stuff, but she finally calmed down and went to sleep.

My friend works at the bakery section of the grocery store and is going to see if he can bring me some of the food grade buckets to store my flour in rather than throw them out. Which will help a lot.

I'm looking forward to lots of freshly baked goods in the near future, lol.

Life in Covid 19Times

I wrote this 2 weeks ago but for some reason it didn't go through. I'm publishing it late; oops.

My Dad is singing in the bathtub.  He's 80 years old and has COPD.  He worked at the Algoma Steel Plant all of his life, in horrible conditions.  He was born in a small town in Austria during WW2 and remembers his family's struggle to keep food on the table.  His older sisters had to hide in the attic so they wouldn't be raped by German soldiers.

My 75 year old Mom is downstairs, watching the news.  She was born in Canada, after the war, but her family also struggled with money. She remembers having only one doll as a child, but she didn't have it long as an older, jealous cousin speared it with a hot poker from the fireplace.  Later, as a teen, she had one roller skate, and said she loved that roller skate so much. Mom is a 2 time cancer survivor.  She is tough.

I am 55, and have had severe chronic asthma since I was a baby.  I've had pneumonia so many times.  I used to be a teacher, but could no longer teach after being assaulted by a teenaged special needs student, who almost broke my neck.  It took me 3 months of recovery to be well enough to go to physical therapy, 6 months of physio to be able to turn my head side to side, or raise my arm, and another 6 months to get back to almost normal.  I still have pain in my neck and limited mobility when I try to turn my head to the left, years later.

We've all dealt with our issues and carried on, but now it seems we are all at risk due to the new corona virus, Covid 19.

I took it seriously from the start and have been self isolating.  My parents only started taking things more seriously this week, after Ontario shut down everything except for essential services.  They still think it's OK to go to the grocery store or pharmacy every day.  My Mom likes to go for a walk in the mall every day, but now that almost everything is closed she is walking outside, which for now we are told is still OK.

Yesterday I went for a walk in my neighborhood.  There were only a few other people out and we all gave eachother a wild berth, not walking closely to one another.  Except for one young guy on a bike who was weaving his bike all around the road and onto both sidewalks, coughing away.  I think he thought it was funny.  It wasn't.

I live in my family home.  Every time I see my parents, I wonder how much longer they'll be with me.  I wonder if I'll remember that my Dad likes to sing in the tub, and while he vacuums. That he likes to cook.

I'm trying to hoarde memories, in case I need them.

I am worried. I hope I'm overreacting, but I've read so many dystopian novels and watched so many post apocalyptic movies that I am having a very hard time seeing how things can get better.

I am also a writer, with a vivid imagination. If I were writing this, in future chapters things would get worse.  Health care workers would contact the disease and be unable to work.  People would start dying from things that they would normally have survived because the health care system is broken.  The workers who package and deliver our foods would get sick and there would be riots over food and medicine.  I am glad I'm not writing this and I hope with all my heart that I am wrong.

That people will be peaceful and cooperate and things will get better.

But I don't see that happening.

I hope that if anyone is reading this, that you are safe, and healthy, and that your family is safe and healthy too.

I'm writing this mostly for me, to document my feelings right now.