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We escaped into the wild…!

We are allowed to shop for food occasionally, of course. But we took a very, very roundabout way to get there. Uncle B was worried about the car sitting idle for so long, so we gave it a good run on the way.

Gosh, it was beautiful out. Sunny and warm. The hedges are coming into bloom (hawthorne, mayflower, all in white) and lambs EVERYwhere. It’s an unremarkable cellphone pic through the windshield, but I feel compelled to share it in color.

We had a long debate beforehand:
Farm shop? Nearby. Low risk. Not much more in stock than milk and bread, though.
Supermarket? Far away. High risk, but they’d have all sorts of things we’re running low on.

In the end, we settled for a large local independent market, which fell halfway between the two on all counts. Still a pretty daunting experience.

All the open shops are organized along ‘one comes out, one goes in’ principles. We queue up six feet apart all down the sidewalk. We aren’t both allowed in at the same time. Slathered in disinfectant at the door, hands and the handle of the shopping cart. All cashiers behind plexiglass shields with a hole cut in for the credit card machine (they’ve raised the contactless limits. I hope we aren’t seeing the death of cash).

Today was the first time in fourteen days I’ve put on a pair of shoes.

Comments


Comment from Gromulin
Time: April 6, 2020, 8:21 pm

Shoes are easy. Feet don’t get bigger on lockdown.
It’s the pants. They shrank, apparently.


Comment from DurnedYankee
Time: April 6, 2020, 8:27 pm

Pants, yes, they definitely are shrinking.
This must be an economic thing.

Based on the way we’ve been eating, we should have exported social distancing to all those foreign countries they used to tell us about when we were kids where other kids were starving. Based on our test results here, I can only conclude it causes you to be very well fed.


Comment from The Neon Madman
Time: April 6, 2020, 9:31 pm

“We are allowed to shop for food occasionally, of course.”

There is something about that sentence that really, really grates on me. And much about these restrictions that worries me deep down. Once the government orcs have successfully wielded such power, will they be likely to do so again, for some other reason? Will the people meekly accept it again?


Comment from Drew458
Time: April 6, 2020, 9:56 pm

“I hope we aren’t seeing the death of cash.” One more instance of Bigger Big Gov One World-ism. Let no crisis go to waste.

Over on our side of the pond, the tax man is almost ready to send out all those stimulus checks. It’s only been, what, 2 weeks since this was agreed to? Whatevs. Point is, if the gov already has your bank account info, you’ll be the first to get paid. But if you’ve held onto that small sliver of independence, you won’t see a dime until after May 6, when they get around to printing up and mailing out physical checks. Not-exactly-subtle carrot and stick to submit even further to the almighty gov.


Comment from OldFert
Time: April 6, 2020, 10:25 pm

Thanks for the color picture. I liked it.


Comment from PatAZ
Time: April 7, 2020, 12:01 am

Someone on Next door asked today if everyone was getting three weeks to a gallon of gas on their car.


Comment from tomfrompv
Time: April 7, 2020, 3:31 am

Hoping for an Easter miracle. Praying for a speedy Boris Johnson recovery.


Comment from Tim Carlson
Time: April 7, 2020, 5:23 am

We just had our lockdown extended to April 30th – May 1st will be the first day of freedom.

Me? I haven’t seen anything below our 3rd floor for the past three weeks. I can’t even go outside. I have to experience the outside world through hearsay and from what can be seen from the 4th floor patio.

I’m dying for ice cream, or decent cheese, or bagels.

And now, since we are in a middle of a drought, we are fighting ants for our dwindling food stores. Ugh. I even had to dump a cup of hot cocoa this morning because I didn’t realize the hot pot, when I turned it on, was full of ants looking for water. I really didn’t want to try hot ant-soup cocoa, that’s for sure.

On the death of cash: maybe in more developed countries, but in a 3rd world country like the Philippines, where many people don’t have bank accounts and credit cards, cash will _always_ be king.

And … sad to hear about Boris Johnson. I hope he recovers nicely, and soon. We still don’t know anyone, 1st or 2nd hand, who has the Wuhan Flu – only those we see reported in the news.

I don’t know if I can handle another three weeks of this nonsense. But it’s not like when the lockdown is lifted I will run into the streets. I’m going to give it a week or so to make sure the world doesn’t have a surprise relapse.

Oh, BTW: even our banks are on lockdown. We couldn’t go to the bank and withdraw cash to buy groceries if we wanted to. So, as long as the one account that is ATM linked still has cash, we are okay. But if it runs out ….


Comment from Mark Matis
Time: April 7, 2020, 11:11 pm

You should be able to move money from any of your other accounts, Tim Carlson, online…


Comment from Tim Carlson
Time: April 8, 2020, 8:22 am

Mark Matis: moving money online would be a good idea IF the online banking systems, especially at BDO, weren’t such shite. Our system randomly invalidates our password and we have to physically go to our branch to get it reset. And then it could be a month, a week, or a day before it invalidates that new password and we would have to return to the branch to have it reset again. After the last invalidation, we said the hell with it. And now it’s bit us in the butt.

And there’s a lot of hacking that goes on here, so limiting online and ATM card access to only one account reduces your exposure.

Plus – the account that my SSDI benefits are deposited into _cannot_ be linked to online or an ATM card. If I want to transfer monies from that account to my other daily account, I have to be at the branch, in person, with my passport. They have had plenty of scams here involving US citizens who have money deposited from the US, so they want a physical presence when taking monies out of the account. And they can also confirm you are still alive – that has been a problem, too, where the US citizen dies and the filipino family keeps receiving the benefits / pension.

It’s not as clean and easy here as in the US. But then again, there’s Well Fungoo …


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: April 12, 2020, 4:36 pm

Today was the first time in fourteen days I’ve put on a pair of shoes…

You go out to feed the chickens barefoot? I… wouldn’t go there. For certain physical reasons. IYKWIM, AITYD.

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