What a Strange Week It's Been

It seems like things have sure been changing fast this past week.  It started out reasonably normal. Last Tuesday was "Super Tuesday" for us and we voted in the primary election.  The number of Democratic candidates have finally gone down to a more reasonable number.

We continued into the week with our usual activities.  Tom and I go to the gym twice a week where we take what I call an "Old Person's" exercise class.  Actually, here it is called a Silver Sneakers class for people over 65 and for us there is no charge since our health insurance pays for it.  Of course there was some talk in class of the coronavirus but not that much.  In fact, there were over fifty people attending the class which was about average.  Apparently no one was too worried about the virus despite the fact that we were all in the high risk age group.

Tuesday afternoon we even managed to get the new cell phones we had been shopping for over the past several weeks.  We were beginning to get concerned about getting them since the shipments from overseas had almost stopped completely due to the virus.  Tom just kept called around and finally found them.  Of course now we have to learn how to operate all the new changes in them from our old phones.  Yea, you know how that goes!

Life around here saw a sudden change when in the middle of the week the mayor of Kansas City declared a state of emergency for the city and canceled all public events that involved a large number of people.  Kansas City hosts the Big 12 Basketball Tournament each year and it had just barely begun.  It attracts thousands of people from all over the country and is a big income source for the city besides being a popular and fun activity.  Other popular games and other activites were also canceled.  Comic Con was to be here next weekend but not now.  There's also no St. Patrick's Day Parade next week and they even canceled the Easter Bunny appearances!  The Easter Bunny!  I do know this is all necessary as a safety precaution.  People need to stay home until this virus is under control.  I guess it just hit home with me how serious this is when they canceled everything in a city that NEVER cancels sporting events.

Of course after that the governor declared a state of disaster for the state and then the president for the country.  And that is when the bottom fell out around here.  We thought we should stock up on a few things (not hoard large quantities).  We went to Costco to shop and were shocked to see that in the middle of  week in the middle of the day there was not one roll of any brand of toliet paper!  And of course there were no disinfecting wipes, cleaners or hand sanitizers.  Now I understand people buying those items but why the rush on toliet paper???  From what I hear this seems to be a problem worldwide too.  This is not "that" kind of a virus.

Building a wall of protection maybe?

I will admit all of this is unnerving especially for those people that are at high risk which unfortunately includes those of us over 65.  I think our country is just now starting to deal with the situation and maybe they should have acted a couple of weeks earlier.  Our government has really screwed up in how they have handled getting the tests for this and now they are frantically trying to catch up while we know the number of people infected is much higher than what has been reported.  I think that is the main reason for encouraging people to stay home.  Maybe if more people stay home less will get sick and the hospitals and organizations that take care of things will have time to catch up.  To me the most frightening thing about this is all the unknowns.  We have never seen this particular virus before and we don't fully know what to expect from it.  But we do know it spreads incredibly fast and for some people can be deadly.  We have stocked up on groceries (not toliet paper!) and we plan to stay home except for a couple of doctor's appointments we have.  And for those appointments we plan on calling first to make sure they still want us to come in since so much has changed.  This is not a time for any of us to freak out but we should be sensible and be careful.

I appreciate all of my blog friends so much and I hope everyone stays safe and well!