Thursday just before lunch

[cimorene]

• My sister's husband who has asthma WAS working from home for a few days, but had to go in to work "because their VPN was down" 😒, only to get sent home a few hours later because the confirmed cases in Baton Rouge are climbing and an entire government building nearby was being shut down and quarantined. Maybe they got the message though?



• My mom and dad seem to be doing well. My mom spent the day in the garden and planted... she says... seven dozen basil plants. In case this seems excessive to you, it's by no means certain that that would be enough basil by the summer to make and freeze enough pesto to last both my mom and my sister all winter.



• It's beautifully sunny today. The back edge of our property goes up a short tree-and-brush-y hill favored by dog walkers and then to the parking lot and the local hobby/interest course school, which usually sees activity on and off both days and nights as they do everything from languages to yoga to handicrafts. So there haven't been any cars there the last few days - which means no chance of high beams suddenly blinding me through the window but is a bit boring. And surprisingly, I haven't seen any dog walkers either. People are obviously still walking their dogs, but maybe they're just taking shorter walks. When we were out Monday in the car we saw a ton of people walking with dogs and baby carriages.



• Wax has tomorrow off and works Saturday and Sunday. Presumably they start arranging her work from home Monday or later. (She still gets 8 days on in a row, but they're mostly doing constant email questions about cancellations etc now instead of panicked phonecalls.)
  
  Anyway, we're gonna have to do some laundry again, as we're still without water and electrical hookups that could make a washing machine go anywhere in our house (as we have been... SINCE LAST JUNE). The laundromat has never been a crowded place, but it is a public one, so maybe I'll be sacrificing my disposable plastic gloves that are normally reserved for working with ink and fountain pens. We could go much longer than usual without laundry except that the BB is now incontinent and keeps peeing in the bed. If we didn't have way more sheets than we (used to) need, we'd be running there several times a week.
  
  Even ten years ago I would never have believed that a time would come when the [somewhat possible by human intervention] thing I wanted most would be a washing machine. I feel like crying about not having a washing machine about once a week, and I don't, but if I let myself think about it I probably would.