1.135 virus, car, shopping

Wednesday, 4/15/2020

The CV2 rate is definitely softening. The worldwide count doubled between 3/22 and 3/29 (7 days), then to 1.4M on 4/6 (8 days), and now after 9 days it is stuck at 2M, not the 2.4M I predicted. The softening of the curve is visible even in a very compressed graph.

I’m looking at [SwissInfo.ch](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng) for an idea of what’s happening in Switzerland, with regard to my booked tour in mid-June (and when Road Scholar will cancel it). It appears they will re-open schools on June 8. But will they allow foreign tourists to gather in a tour group and stay in hotels?

I started with a run, which was fine. Then I had an hour to do the grocery order task, before time to move the car. I go to gather up the grocery order forms that my neighbors should have left on the clipboard in the lounge. Except… there was only one form. I asked a couple of people, “Yeah, I left mine and there were 2-3 there at that time…” Where have my forms gone?!? Then I notice that next to my clipboard in the lounge, is the manila folder for shopping orders for the Channing House shopping system that was recently set up. Staff person James takes orders for pharmacy and such items and shops them once a week. But my order form looks completely, drastically different from his. Still… I go downstairs and find James, who happens to be on the front desk. I persuade him to check his in-box. He goes away and comes back laughing, with four of my filled-out forms. Somebody, probably a cleaning lady, gathered up my forms along with his.

Now I’ve used up a bunch of time but I still manage to assemble my order and put it in via the Edgewood Market online form, requesting delivery, not pick-up as we did before. I just don’t want the exposure of sitting around outside a store, people coming and going, waiting for my order. Even though they do charge $15 for delivery.

Then it’s time to release the Prius! Downstairs and out the door at 10:45. It’s just pure pleasure to drive freely down Middlefield to the gas station. I top up the tank–and completely forget to put on the latex glove I brought for handling the pump nozzle! So I put on the glove before getting back in the car, to protect the steering wheel from my now-contaminated hand. One more errand, stop at the credit union to deposit a couple of checks, and then back to the garage. They make us walk around to the front, the single entry, where I can wash that contaminated hand (and the other one) before going in. I will have this wild and crazy hour of auto freedom every Wednesday from now on.

About 2pm I get a phone call from the desk: my grocery order is here! I look at the phone: two missed calls. Why? I didn’t have the ringer disabled. What up, phone? Anyway, I bring the stuff up, do the now-routine process of wiping everything down with bleach solution and deliver to five neighbors.

The only things not available? Tissues and paper towels. Everything else was included.

In the afternoon I do some coding on the Crafting Interpreters project. Writing code is just the most satisfying hobby of all. I never tire of it.