aurelia, hopefully they will follow the lead of the Seattle Symphony and give folks the choice of putting the tickets on account, exchanging them, donating them or offering a full refund.

At the moment it's "Please await further communication during the next 7-14 days regarding any postponed events. As soon as we receive updates regarding each event, you will be contacted via email regarding next steps." We'll see. Maybe they'll reschedule for sometime in the summer.

Maria, I've been meaning to ask you how your relatives in Italy are doing?

Scared, but mostly fine. The ones that are up north took it seriously from the start, and the ones in the south are all ok. This is one time it pays to be from southern Italy, since the virus doesn't have a foothold there. The government locked down the whole country when it became evident that the southerners who lived in the north were leaving to go back home, so they stopped the literal invasion in its tracks. The hospital and health system south of Rome is in no way, shape, or form capable of dealing with even a 10th of the cases the north is handling. It would be catastrophic.

Everyone I know is following the government mandate to the letter. It's actually making for some amusing FB posts since they have nothing but time on their hands.

local tavern was full

Pretty sure taverns in Wisconsin will not close unless there is an order from the governor.

It's a good thing there are no Packer games.

Speaking of governor, Wisconsin schools are now officially closed until April 6--three weeks of Spring Break for us.

I'm worried the library will eventually shut down. Most of the libraries in our system are only cancelling programming and outreach.

Maria, I'm glad to hear it. I'm not nearly as close with my relatives there, but the one cousin I follow on FB said they are doing well.

One of my students is from Italy, and she was telling me today that she's concerned about her family there. And now I'm concerned about where she's going to go now, since they're closing the dorms and she can't go home. I'm worried about the same thing for a bunch of other international students, too.

Closing the dorms Is such a shit move. I hope something is set up for them.

Yeah, restaurants in the neighborhood were busy, if not Friday night busy, tonight. But some of them were closing early.

The wedding tonight was lovely and went well. The facilities manager told the bride that all events booked there *after* tonight are going to be cancelled because of Covid-19. The bride and groom got SO lucky.

Then when we got home -- Jesus, you guys, I could not make this up if I tried -- one of our besties called to tell us her husband had a brain aneurysm rupture on Wednesday and he had emergency brain surgery yesterday to repair it. WHAT THE FUCK, 2020?!?!?!? WHAT THE FUCK.

The brain surgeon (Jesus Christ, our friend has a BRAIN SURGEON now) said that a significant percentage of people who survive the surgery end up having severe neurological deficits afterward. Our friend, however, is doing totally fine after surgery, as far as all the doctors and therapists can tell at this point (the speech therapist said he's talking fine for this point in his recovery and obviously understands what people are saying, so the part of his brain that processes speech is fine).

I...really can't process this right now. Like, we went from our friends' lovely wedding tonight and got home to find out that one of our best friends had fucking emergency brain surgery. My emotions are all over the goddamn map right now. The important part, absolutely, is that he seems to be doing fine, with no neurological deficits. But holy fucking shitballs. Goddamn brain surgery.

So I'll be awake for a while until the adrenaline leaves my system.

I just can't even with this year, y'all.

Yikes! Glad your bestie has a good brain surgeon.