urgently demanding that boomer PSA
30 Mar 2020 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneNot comforting that my parents and sister live in Alabama and Louisiana, two of the states with the worst official responses so far. Louisiana held Mardi Gras in March, among other things, and New Orleans, which is extremely poor, is now the epicenter of their problems. My sister lives in the Baton Rouge area, but it's had its fair share of deaths as well now. My parents live in Alabama, which made international news recently when the idiot governor responded to a journalist's question that they aren't adopting shelter in place "because [they] aren't California". The 'essential' stuff that's open include garages (considering all the deliveries going right now that makes sense) and... gun shops.
At least they are all able to work from home and hence self-isolation is doable, if voluntary, which is fortunate given their riskier surroundings and my dad and BIL being in risk groups.
My sister and I thought we had made a good impression on our parents, who are now practicing isolation except for grocery trips and the daily arrivals of my dad's home help assistants and the RNs who come to do medical stuff for him. That is, we thought when we convinced them that dad shouldn't leave the house and they should both minimize trips and contacts and they agreed not to meet their friends and to only make essential purchase trips that they had understood the whole concept/argument.
Except then when we were in a family video call the day before yesterday they happily informed us that the nice young handyman who has been helping my mom fix up the old bus they're turning into an RV was supposed to come over and work on it with her later in the day. "But they're going to be outside (except when they're inside the bus)" and "But she's not going anywhere, he's coming here" and "But she was really good this week and didn't go anywhere, except inside the bank, and that was because she had to to sign the paper, but she stayed more than 6' away and didn't touch anyone" were among the arguments advanced. It was upsetting because I was just contemplating starting over from the beginning of explaining isolation and germ theory and asymptomatic carriers and medical infrastructure and dad being in a risk group to them, but finally they agreed to our argument (sullenly on my mom's part) and said it was a moot point anyway because he failed to show up. I'm gonna have an aneurysm. Were they just nodding along before to be polite?!
At least they are all able to work from home and hence self-isolation is doable, if voluntary, which is fortunate given their riskier surroundings and my dad and BIL being in risk groups.
My sister and I thought we had made a good impression on our parents, who are now practicing isolation except for grocery trips and the daily arrivals of my dad's home help assistants and the RNs who come to do medical stuff for him. That is, we thought when we convinced them that dad shouldn't leave the house and they should both minimize trips and contacts and they agreed not to meet their friends and to only make essential purchase trips that they had understood the whole concept/argument.
Except then when we were in a family video call the day before yesterday they happily informed us that the nice young handyman who has been helping my mom fix up the old bus they're turning into an RV was supposed to come over and work on it with her later in the day. "But they're going to be outside (except when they're inside the bus)" and "But she's not going anywhere, he's coming here" and "But she was really good this week and didn't go anywhere, except inside the bank, and that was because she had to to sign the paper, but she stayed more than 6' away and didn't touch anyone" were among the arguments advanced. It was upsetting because I was just contemplating starting over from the beginning of explaining isolation and germ theory and asymptomatic carriers and medical infrastructure and dad being in a risk group to them, but finally they agreed to our argument (sullenly on my mom's part) and said it was a moot point anyway because he failed to show up. I'm gonna have an aneurysm. Were they just nodding along before to be polite?!
(no subject)
Date: 30 Mar 2020 04:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30 Mar 2020 05:10 pm (UTC)