Day 50 – A Cast of Characters

Washing Buddies

Saturdays I sleep in and sometimes do the laundry unless I push it off to Sunday. The laundry room in our building has a revolving door of a cast of characters. Even though we’ve lived in our building for over a decade we don’t know that many people in the building. So my only contact with individuals is when I’m washing out clothes.

Thanks to a Nursing Home

The individuals I encounter are made even odder because of the various ways people wear their masks. I’m a part of that oddness. I still wear a mask in the form of a scarf because we still haven’t gotten the masks that we ordered nor have we received in the mail the masks from my wife’s father who in turn got a supply from a friend who runs a nursing home.

Considering a Change

The most surprising thing about the laundry folks is that they do not keep a social distance. In fact, they are as pushy as ever if you get in their way. It’s as though they feel they are magically protected from actually getting sick. Last week two women in masks almost knocked me over in order to get to their respective washers. Maybe I should change the day and time I wash our clothes.

Day 39: We are All in this Together

Too Early for a So-called Solution

Housebound for 39 days. No walks outside. Nothing/ Just four walls and a dream that one day this will be over. It does not sound realistic what this administration is trying to do which is somehow get people back to work in locations other than their home.

Death is on their Hands

New York seems to be thought of as the city that is getting hit the hardest because of such a dense population. Less than 2 months ago we were told that there was a very small chance of catching the Coronavirus. We felt mislead, because within a few days after that the amount of cases increased at an incredible rate and shortly after that people started dying. New York City has had over a 100,000 cases and over 9,000 individuals dying. That’s a long ways more than we were told which was a small chance of catching it. And tell the families of the 9,000-plus of those dead that they caught a disease for which there was a small chance of catching.

We will Not be Fooled Twice

So now we’re back to where we started in a sense which is that we are being told by this administration that they have a plan to safely get New Yorkers out of their homes. Excuse us that the majority of us don’t believe in the plan. We have learned from our last experience not to trust our so-called leaders and it feels like we are being sold the same old nonsense. Clearly the aspect that has not been figured out about this next “plan” is that even if the at-risk population stays in their homes they could still easily catch it through a younger person being a carrier. We’re not going to let this administration kill more of us. Why? Because Manhattan-ites are all in this together.

Day 6 Education Remotely

Classrooms on the Internet

Classwork done with students in their homes all using their laptops to connect with their teacher during the regular school day is remote education and it’s getting more and more frequent in the wake of Covid-19. In fact, from my home office I can hear it in motion. My 11 year old daughter is in the other room talking with friends and typing in information regarding school assignments as the teachers teach.

The New Norm?

We are told that this one day experiment is not being done because the school is going to be closing its physical location, though, one wonders. Other educational institutions ranging from kindergarten to college are shutting their doors. Meanwhile, online education is not looking so poor after all. Is this quickly becoming the new norm?

Home Office Via WFI

I am typing this taking a break from my work which today consists of developing solutions for businesses as we face the Coronavirus. It’s still all a little surreal.

Day 1 A Crazy Mode We Have Stepped Into

New Yorkers Put to the Test

There’s a certain resilience that New Yorkers have had historically, but this is a crazy mode we’ve stepped into. I know my experience of it has been chilling. For example, my daughter’s middle school is just blocks from where a case was uncovered. Thankfully, the word is that kids are less likely to contract the Coronoavirus, but that doesn’t lessen the impact it’s had on our lives here in Manhattan. There are those who like Dick Van Dyke sang in “Bye Bye Birdie,” are doing their best to “Put on a happy face.” But it does little to soften the very real danger that exists for many of us here in the Big Apple.

It’s a Movie

We decided to start this blog today as a way to chronicle what it’s like to live in a big city in the middle of  crisis like this one. And hopefully along the way we can be a resource for those seeking more information on the monster that is more frightening than any horror movie.