Are our habits now altered forever?

It's been hard to catch this up during the past week. Today is Sunday and I have a little time.

I did mention that it would be awesome if both our new printer and my new sewing machine would arrive on the same day. They did! Early afternoon last Monday saw the arrival of my beautiful new sewing machine, and later that evening our new printer arrived. Both are miraculously functioning without flaw -- as they should, of course.

I spent a half hour searching for the spare nibs that came with the smart stylus for my phone. I recalled having them in my hand just last week. You know how you start organizing and you put something in a safe place, and then you can't find it? Yeah.

I did find it eventually and it's all good now.

I finished half a batch of masks for postal workers. I've lined up a big batch of masks, all cut out and waiting, for DAR distribution, since it's their fabric (sailboat print).

And I finished my writing assignment about connection to place and posted that yesterday. No feedback last time I checked, but it hasn't been all that long.

Yesterday in our neighborhood someone had what appeared to be a drive-by graduation or birthday party, looked like 20 or 30 cars lined up and upon arriving at the home of our neighbors across the street, yelling, honking and someone leaning out the window (at the end of the driveway) and holding up a sign or banner or whatever.

That was more encouraging than what I have been seeing in our neighborhood the past few weeks, which is groups of people walking or groups of children playing in the street, none of whom are wearing masks or practicing social distancing. It has prevented me from continuing to walk around the neighborhood. Too stressful, and too difficult to avoid walking into close quarters with someone who may be a neighbor, but not someone I know anything else about.

Read a report about an epidemiological model that suggests if states continue to re-open prematurely, an additional 200,000+ people will die as a result in the USA. With Maryland and Delmarva continuing to see a growth of confirmed cases (and I don't care whether that increase is due to increased testing or more people getting sick) I do not want Maryland to re-open anytime soon.

That's unlike, apparently, a small group of people who came to Salisbury from elsewhere in Maryland (not clear where, but not the Eastern Shore) to protest the governor's continued stay-at-home orders and business closures. The "drive-through" rally was originally planning to congregate in the Centre at Salisbury Mall parking lot (the mall remains shuttered for the time being) but apparently mall management objected, so police asked the relatively small group to move elsewhere (around 40-42 cars, apparently). They did, but they moved to the Kohl's parking lot, without permission, eventually exiting their vehicles without masks or social distancing and listening to our very own Rep. Andy Harris encouraging them to continue protesting and gathering. Harris is a physician and has no business telling people to ignore or push back against orders to stay home and avoid contact with others without maintaining social distancing or precautionary measures like masks. While some did have masks on, according to news reports, photos made it clear many or most did not wear masks, including the doctor who is representing us in Congress. A few counterprotesters wore masks or remained in their vehicles, or both, but made their displeasure known about the whole event.

"People will die because you are here," read a sign attached to the back of an SUV.

At least it was a small crowd, not particularly noteworthy except as an example of the strange times we are living in.

It has now been a month or six weeks (losing track of time) since we ate anywhere but at home. We've had takeout two times, from Greek Pita Place and Taylor's BBQ. Mostly getting groceries delivered, but occasionally one of us will venture out to a grocery store. In my experience, Food Lion felt much safer (based on people distancing and employees monitoring behavior) than Acme (where I could barely navigate the store without getting closer to strangers than I care to do during a pandemic). Rite Aid has felt very safe the few times I've been in there. Michaels was almost deserted the one time I entered that store, to pick up a custom framing order placed well before any of the stay-at-home or other restrictions. Many more stores doing curbside pickups but even those get backlogged.

Target gets the best review from me, though. Not only is it clean, spacious with plenty of room to avoid close contact, lots of signage reminding people to keep separated and customers who appear to be compliant, when you enter an employee is stationed at the carts wiping down parts of the cart that you might touch before handing it to the next person in line. I'm told Aldi is a good place to enter, but have not done that yet.

I keep making plans to structure my time among my various projects, but it's hard. I get a lot done with no one home, but that rarely happens.