I can't stop thinking about Matilda drawing a card for her grandfather and writing a sweet note on the back of it, and not knowing whether he will ever see it, and how I nagged her about FaceTiming him after he got back from his last ill-fated trip but didn't force her to do it, and now it's gnawing at me.

{spilling buckets of love and ~ma all around}

JZ, I am so sorry. Continued ~ma to your house. Calli, I am so sorry. Amy, I am also enraged on your behalf. I hope that Sara is doing well. ~ma to Katie Bee and Hil, too.

(I skimmed more than a bit. So love goes to all of you, these are just the ones I saw).

My sister tested negative for flu and there are no COVID tests available so she's presumed positive. She's self-quarantined for two weeks, with a husband, teen twins and three dogs. That's going to go poorly or just not really quarantined.

Oh man. Hoping for the best for all of them!

JZ, most of what anyone can "do" right now is fret. You want to be taking care of your daughter and your father and right now you - even more than most of us - can not.

I'm sorry you're stranded and unable to be with the people who need you. You always have been, however, so you are. Your heart is with your father and he knows it. He knows your daughter is with him too. Years of love don't dissipate because you're not in the room recharging them. It's an aggregate, not individual opportunities missed or unfulfilled.

My sister tested negative for flu and there are no COVID tests available so she's presumed positive. She's self-quarantined for two weeks, with a husband, teen twins and three dogs. That's going to go poorly or just not really quarantined.

I suppose I have to just believe you that those children are teenagers.

All my love, pwetty.

As Florida starts to get more focus and attention I am somewhat encouraged by our large hospital systems. When I saw my RN aunt a month ago (seems like a year) at a family birthday party we talked about distancing and her hospital's prep. At that time she hadn't seen any real issue with patients arriving, but said they had been discussing prep in meetings and had already locked up PPE and so forth. I saw her hospital's ER manager on television discussing the tent triage facilities they had in the empty parking lots set up because of restricted visitation. This morning I saw one of the Jackson administrators talking about them preparing in January, discussing prep with Wuhan officials at that time. He said over the past couple months they have cleared all elective treatment and are at a record low occupancy at this time. He said they did expect to have critical shortages of equipment and beds, but they have been working for several months to be as prepared as possible.

tl;dr I'm grateful that despite the idiot Governor of our state we do have awesome professionals in the medical environment, and city and county offices.

Speaking of idiots, of course religious services are "essential" and don't have to shut down. Although the counties and cities have been trying to put an end to that crap. Shake hands everyone; God will protect you.

eta: For geographic purposes my aunt is in Hollywood, which is just south of Fort Lauderdale. Jackson is humongous hospital system in Miami.

I did not get the contract/fulltime/contract to fulltime/who the hell knows job. Boohoo.

I know you need work, but you mighta dodged a bullet there, Dana.

My thought was the same as Consuela on that one. There was not a great feeling of excitement. Keeping digits crossed for your DH and his lengthy interview yesterday. (was it yesterday, man the days, time is odd right now)

Sometimes it's better to believe real hard that a bullet was dodged, even if you don't know for sure.

At work we got an extensive briefing on what our next step up on Captain Trumps will be. What to do if a resident thinks they are sick, what we'll do if a resident has a mild case and stays here.