((((Susan and family))))

I'm so sorry Susan. Be gentle with yourself during this and whatever you feel is valid and what you feel.

I am so tired and so sore. I thought I turns on the washing machine last night and didn't and so now I'm quick washing my clothes and hoping they dry. I want to wear the jeans and the bandana I've been using for a face mask is in there.

Dad sent me these sun baklavas ...like a ski mask but for sun protection to use...and while they will be good for errands it won't work as well for work since it covers the whole head and pulling it down for just the face seems like it would be uncomfortable for a whole day.

I have been trying to wear a mask properly but I'll admit by the end of the work day when I'm so hot and tired I've just not done what I should do. I'm hoping once there is less physical labor involved and different type of mask it will be easier.

More people wore masks yesterday but it was still had to physical distance and after lunch about half the people forgot their masks.

I realize if we hadn't opened and don't generate more sales there would probably be lay offs. There probably will be lay offs at some point. Our whole economy is just...fucked up...and that was before the coronavirus.

I'm grateful that I'm working for a company that is at least trying to balance health/safety and operational needs.

I am in an all day SharePoint training and I had SharePoint at my last job, so......

Also all the training logins were FUBAR'd and none of us can actually practice, so this is now just a watch training, which honestly could be a recorded thing with breaks every so often for a live trainer to answer questions. THAT WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE EFFICIENT.

Susan, I'm so sorry. What an awful thing.

I've been taking Spanish classes via Skype and tonight we started talking about fruit and my teacher was saying she really wants to try apples when she visits here. Because they basically get red delicious and Granny Smiths and she heard we have other/better kinds. She was also flabbergasted at some of the many tropical fruits we really don't get.

Where does she live?

I ran out to pick up something for breakfast and the person at the register had her mask under her nose. And she was wearing gloves, but she was on the phone, taking an order, and her gloved hand holding the phone was resting against her bare face. The same hand which she used, without changing gloves, to hand my bag of takeout breakfast to me.

I figured she'd been there for a couple of hours at least. Since they're only doing takeout there's a lot of phone answering going on. What are you going to do, change your gloves after every call? But, yeah, I did some careful opening and cleaning procedures at home. To the extent that I could. Biscuits and washing are non-mixy things.

People who are wearing gloves, I think, are only doing it as a reminder to self, or do not understand cross-contamination.

I personally think gloves outside of medical situations are a waste because you have to change them so often it just produces a ridic amount of trash.

IMO, the masks become more comfortable/unnoticable the more you wear them. I am almost to the point of just leaving it on at my desk when I go to work. (reminder - I need to wash my mask today).

It does become easier to wear masks the more routinely it's done. I started wearing an n95 like 8 years ago for the severity of my allergies & asthma, and I have at times forgotten I was wearing it. A big psrt of that, though, is determining the correct fit for the contours of your face and airway, which takea repetition to learn like any other skill.

It is morning. I am awake. Reality is (probably) happening.

I washed my mask yesterday while at my dad's house, but then LEFT it there, and I'm scheduled today to make an incredibly rare trip in to the office (most outside vendors and referring MDs know what's up, but not everyone does, so apparently the mailrooms are a nightmare of teetering boxes full of everything from office supplies to pipettes to FedEx packages full of patient records to surgical loupes to phone and database service bills to who even knows what).

So, what I guess I'm doing this morning is making a mask. Having all the materials (including enough close-weave mask-approved cotton for two layers) but lacking a machine, I'm scanning the interpipes for the easiest sew-by-hand patterns out there.

She's from Colombia, Zen. So they have all sorts of delicious tropical fruits dirt cheap, but terrible apples apparently!