Both of my older kids’ colleges have closed. Both schools started out by saying classes would go online but students could either go home or stay on campus, as they chose. Both schools then pivoted within days of that decision, saying all students must leave, and must remove their possessions; both of my kids were home by then, with only some of their stuff, and we had to decide whether to go back for the stuff or abandon it. In one case, we went back: the college was in a lower-risk area, and the stuff left behind was more extensive and important. In the other case, we chose to abandon the stuff: the college is in a big city / higher-risk area, and the kid had come home later on in this process so had brought home everything of real value/importance. If you have a college kid coming home for spring break or for some situation the college says will be temporary, it would not be overdoing it to have them take as much of their stuff home as they can, ideally all of it; if they can’t take home all their stuff (if, for example, they are flying home), they should prioritize bringing home the stuff they can least abandon/replace.
(I hope I don’t sound critical of the way the colleges made these decisions; things changed so fast and it was so hard to know what would be best, and these were decisions with enormous impact and very little precedence. You can’t just impulsively send away tens of thousands of students, many of whom CAN’T “just go home” as easily as Rob and William could. Not to mention the tremendous financial implications for the school, and the impact on the professors, and the even more serious impact on, for example, the food service staff.)
My three younger kids all go to public school. First the school system said they would close for one day, for a thorough cleaning—but then they sent home several online surveys asking about each family’s computer/internet access and dependence on school food. Now they have closed for three weeks, but I think the “three weeks” is about as likely as the “one day.”
The library where I work has not (yet) closed. But Paul had some items holding for him at a library near where he works, and when he went to pick them up, there was a sign on the door saying “Closed until further notice.”
Paul’s office has not closed, but they are making rapid plans for people to work from home if possible. Paul can’t do all of his work from home, but he can do some of it.
We have a decent supply of food, but we also now have seven people at home eating it. Paul and I talked a little yesterday about what the plan is. Normally I would make two packs of ground meat for tacos, but should we make one pack and bulk it up with rice? It’s hard to know what’s going to happen with grocery stores. My assumption is that that the shelves will be replenished and that it will still be possible to go out to acquire food if we’re not sick ourselves, but I don’t want to lean too hard into that assumption—and of course, even if the assumption about replenishment is correct, we may be sick. We’re going to talk with the kids today about the potentially limited nature of things such as milk.
Speaking of maybe being sick ourselves: I have a sore throat and a light cough. In ordinary times, I would take a couple of ibuprofen, put some cough drops in my pocket, and go to work. I don’t need to tell you these are not ordinary times, and there is no way I am bringing whatever this is into a public library. My hope is that my boss will be 100% in agreement with this decision—but my job involves doing the grunt work, and if I don’t do the work other people have to do it and nobody likes to, and already everyone’s workload is much higher with the cleaning of all incoming materials—so it will not be GOOD news to her. I was hoping they’d decide to close before I had to tell her I wasn’t coming in. Now I am hoping they decide to close before I have to tell her I’m not coming in tomorrow either.
We are worried about Edward, who is on immunosuppressant medication for Crohn’s disease, and who gets medication by IV every seven weeks in (1) a hospital in (2) a big city. He is supposed to go in a week and a half. I am going to have to call his doctor’s office and find out what to do, but I am giving them a little time to figure it out, since this is happening fast to everyone, and Edward is not the only one in this situation.
I don’t want to overstate the personal panicky feelings here: looking at almost every aspect, my particular family is particularly well-placed to handle this situation. (Just at the very bare minimum, all our kids are old enough not to need childcare.) But every time Paul and I are discussing how we’re going to handle one thing or another, even a small thing like whether to stretch the taco meat with rice or just assume food supplies will be fine, we keep ending back at societal panicky feelings: wondering what is going to happen to everyone who works in all the businesses currently being closed or about to be closed, and how those people will manage, and there is no way to comprehend it. And of course all the healthcare workers. And soon we will start to hear news of celebrity deaths, which will make it feel both more real and more like a movie/book. And everything continues to change/develop so fast.
We are attempting right now to think about things in smaller, more immediate pieces. We are together. Right now we are okay. We can’t opt out of what is happening or what is about to happen; we are all going to be exposed eventually and the only goal is to slow it down so the health care system can cope; this school semester is going to be a write-off for all the kids but that’s going to have to be something we deal with later; everyone is going to face disappointments and inconveniences and that’s if we’re the lucky ones; so in the meantime let’s put together a puzzle and/or finally sort the bookshelves.
