I'm not worried about Covid 19 as such - I have always assumed that in the event of a pandemic I will die earlyish and not have a lot of work to do - I just feel like my passing "is that a fever or a hot flash?","is this a cough I should be concerned about or my normal cough?" [symptom of something I could do something about] vs [body falling about because of age and poor maintenance] etc thoughts are going to be harder to beat into submission.

People who say GIF is supposed to be a soft g aren't really serious, are they? They're all just trolls.

I called my neurologist's office this morning to ask whether my CIDP is one of the underlying health conditions that could make a coronavirus infection worse. Good news, it isn't.

But I still think it's vaguely creepy, that I feel good that it would be relatively easy for me to self-isolate.

Also, any Buffistas involved in public health areas, does the following thinking make sense? Isolation practices may or may not ultimately reduce the number of infections. However, even if it doesn't reduce the number of infections in the long run, it may spread the infections out and reduce the burden on medical resources because there won't be as many patients needing care at any one time. It makes sense to me, but I also know that I know little to nothing about the field.

Oh, no -- GIF is a hard G forever and ever and I will die on this hill.

Word. The "I WILL FACE JOD AND WALK BACKWARDS INTO HELL" Tumblr post is me on this topic.

Ha! YES.

Meara, the hard G is a plosive.

English plosives have three articulatory positions:

bilabial: p,b - pat, bat

alveolar: t,d - ten, den

velar: k,g - cap, gap

No one at work has mentioned coronavirus at all. I do hope the higher-ups are considering the implications. Shutting down public gatherings would be a Problem for us.

I've always made a habit of washing hands as soon as possible after getting off public transit so I'm not really changing anything there. I could probably pick up a few more shelf-stable food items but my storage space is somewhat limited.

Oh, that would be a Problem, aurelia!

We're seeing the effects in our supply chain but there's been no talk of how our actual offices and warehouses might react. Which is both comforting and worrying? Like, maybe I shouldn't worry if they aren't worried? But also, probably someone should be worried. But still probably not me. Well, we have our emergency notification in place and we know it works from last years' fires, so we've got that going for us, at least.

My company has a lot of remote workers, so in that sense is fine—they've shut down several of our offices for varying time periods (just added our Italy office to that list) but we also send people to hospitals and doctors offices (my old job) so that part is already getting a bit dicey in some places. But we are also probably working on vaccines right now too! (I don't know that for sure but fingers crossed—my old company did flu vaccine work yearly)

My Congressman is actually being very informative on FB, which is nice. I feel good about voting for him!

Now that would be worrying! I forget where he's in college, but if it's a less densely populated area than where you live, he's probably safer there.

Sadly, it's not. He's at UMass Lowell, in a six-man suite, in a big dorm. We're in a free-standing, single-family house, in a 25K-ish sized town, north of Boston, on the commuter rail line. If we were more isolated, I'd probably make him come home.

That is fascinating, meara. I think "sh" is probably the softest sound and "k" is the hardest.

I think so, too.

Oh, no -- GIF is a hard G forever and ever and I will die on this hill.

Word. The "I WILL FACE JOD AND WALK BACKWARDS INTO HELL" Tumblr post is me on this topic.

Oh, we are as one then, Tep and shrift. ("JOD" made me laugh out loud).

People who say GIF is supposed to be a soft g aren't really serious, are they? They're all just trolls.

The guy who created it says it's said "Jif" but since it's Graphic Interchange Format, not Juraffic Interchange Format, he's the biggest troll of them all.

I'm going to have to stock up over the weekend - the grocery workers' union in looking at striking starting next Wednesday, unless the big grocery chains can work out an agreement. I have limited space, but I think some non-unionized stores might stay open. And I usually try to get my fresh fruit and veggies from the Sunday farmers' market.

I've had the pneumonia vaccine twice ... and got sick (fever, feeling lousy, etc.) both times. Last time, the doctor nagged me into having it - never again.

On the lighter side, meet Eleanor the Echidna. And taste tests by Maya the Samoyed.