Push to Reopen

Pushing for a reopen is currently a theme circulating around the world.  I get that.  Some income is better than no income.  The shock of sudden closure created a lot of panic for people and businesses alike.  However it is widely accepted that it won't be business as usual for a while yet.  For some, the real financial battle may just be beginning.

Business owners in my neck of the woods are starting to come to terms with the reality that a restricted opening with a maximum 50% capacity for what could be 3 to 6 months or longer could spell the real end of their businesses.  Especially when it's been already so difficult for many from just one month of shutdown.  Some were teetering on the edge in a good year.

How many of them will have the liquidity to be able to afford overhead and payroll when income may be halved, depending on the type of business?  Will they be able to scale things to maximize further in this new economy?  Is there enough credit available to make up the difference until the world normalizes?  Not easy but necessary questions.  

Consumers may be anxious to see their favourite restaurants, services, shops open back up without realizing the behind the scenes financial burden for the respective owners.  Many places will have to spend (ongoing) money to buy hospital grade disinfectants, put sanitization stations in place, equip their staff with PPE, just to be able to get back to work.

The Best Buy

Since we've both been home and using our garage workout areas (weight machine, pull up bars, gymnastic rings) we've left both cars outside in the driveway.  Last week, things came to a head.

D has been going crazy and driving me crazy trying to discourage a particular Robin and his bird friends from hanging around and pooping on our cars.  To the point where he is yelling to them and telling to them to go away...

I asked him if he was going to start flapping his arms and chasing them next... And if he was going down that road, to make sure he doesn't fall off the deck or do anything even more silly that would necessitate an ER visit as I wasn't going to drive him.

D then decides to order an owl decoy after learning about its effectiveness.  It didn't work.  No matter where it was mounted or placed.  So one of the cars got moved back into the garage and the other onto the street during the day.

The Robin followed it across the street and the pooping continued, albeit less.  It doesn't seem to like any of the other vehicles in our neighbourhood.  I'm starting to think that the Robin is a reincarnation of one of D's ancesters' enemies.

All the while D is trying to keep the car clean with his hand pressure pump thingy multiple times a day.  What are those birds eating?

After 3 days of his whirling about, I had had enough.  Remembered him mentioning a car cover and did some research and found some for sale.  It gets ordered and was thankfully available for pick it up the same afternoon.

Car got moved back to our driveway and covered.  Birds immediately left it alone.  No poop since.  Something to do with birds not liking to sit on a soft surface.  Amazing.  

One of Those Days

Started the day with a portion of a nanaimo bar after I got update of yet another delivery delay...  Commiserated with a colleague who happened to have sent an email and felt better afterwards.

Then it was off to try and remove some malware off my computer that is affecting the sign in on a credit card account site.  Actually it was D who was dealing with it and him telling me to please give him space while he figures it out...  : )   The credit card site is now down, so maybe it wasn't me. 

Finally received completion photos (looks good!) from some needed plumbing work at our condo out west.  It has taken consistent follow up since Feb with the plumbing company, the only one that the mountain community relies on, as the person who manages the emails admits to forgetting a lot... (pandemic and early resort closure aside) 

The kitchen and bathroom sink taps and lines needed to be upgraded as I think we had been using the originals which would have been decades old.  The plumber also checked out the toilet and recommended the stack be replaced as well, so we gave him the green light.

Dripping started from the kitchen hot water tap on the day we were due to fly home!  Thank goodness it was noticed before we left.  I don't want to imagine the consequences. 

I got on the phone and managed to reach someone from the company who came over within 1/2 hr to assess and a plan was promised.  By that time D was able to get to the water shut off taps.  We stuck a plastic bucket under the sink just in case. 

Won the bet on how much the estimate would be.  D's pricing was out of the 80s.  

Rest Day

Yesterday was one of those rest days for me.  Ate a carnivore breakfast, first one in a over 2 weeks as I've cut my meat consumption significantly the past year or so.  But was craving animal protein -- Eggs and bacon.

Rounded the plate off with potatoes and a slice of toasted sour dough bread with peanut butter instead of my usual butter.  So good!  I normally start my day with a vegan protein shake so a huge difference.  Plus I rarely eat gluten nowadays so the toast was a treat.

After reading an article of the extreme difficulties facing hospitals and women's shelters in Quebec (the worst area in Canada for Covid right now) who are running really low in funds to purchase PPE and continue to provide additional meals respectively, we made a couple of donations.

My office has been on pause since Mar 17th.  Since my hours are so part time now, it made sense to refer to colleagues at larger locations who can provide emergency coverage for me for the time being.  There are many of us who have also enlisted/volunteered and are awaiting mobilization to help in high needs areas.

Meanwhile, I've spent an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to source out enough PPE with an eye on the need moving forward as it may take many months before "normal" returns.  Have you noticed how much hand sanitizer costs?!  Judging by how slammed the supply and delivery companies are, I'm not the only one thinking this way.

Currently have 5 more orders (out of 17 attempts) to come after a number of them got cancelled or lost.  Which has necessitated ordering items twice from different manufacturers in hopes one of them will come through.  I'm beginning to think it would be easier and less costly if I just wait it out but that could be months and I cannot stay away that long.

Tracking and following up has become a part time job.  And to be clear, an order for me typically will only contain 2 items as stock is so low and prices high.  It is certainly not cases of things.  The majority of things are taking 4 - 6 weeks.  I have supplies supposed to be coming from either ends of Canada, the US, China (unintentional, thought I was ordering direct from the US).

Everything is understandably prioritized to hospitals first right now.  There are shortages at so many locales.  Any supplies I have found, I've matched in donation, in terms of supplies or money.  We are in this together.

Day to Day

Noticed a number of bloggers have taken to posting more often since sheltering at home has become the norm for so many of us.

Found reading the day to day posts to be grounding and a source of comfort, inspiring me to want to contribute in the same spirit.  Brings me back to how blogging once was and a reminder of how much I missed that.

Admittedly I haven't found the extra time at home to be too much of a burden.  Little did I know the timing of my increased introversion and desire to settle at home would coincide with social distancing measures.

Found purpose with my Spanish lessons and the first of a number of 30 day fitness challenges i.e. 100 kettlebell swings a day, 100 skips a day etc.  It's going well and I have had to learn to take rest days after experiencing some really painful culmulative muscle tension.  I miss my massage therapist!

Am proud to report that we have yet to buy any toilet paper or extra wipes or flour or yeast.  The latter because we don't bake from scratch.  The former because a bale from Costco lasts a long time when it is just 2 people.  We'll deal with it when the time is near, just like any other time.

Either D's timing was bad or the increased shopping tendancies have gotten worse, but after 2 aborted attempts to regular shop at Costco, we decided to pause the in person experience and place our first online delivery order.

Couldn't buy everything we were looking for but got the most important items -- Almonds, walnuts, oats, beet root crackers, peanuts, CoQ10.   And will pay a slightly higher price to get other items like frozen avocado (shakes) at a supermarket instead.

It's going to take a while before it arrives, but I've noticed that regular supermarket pick up times are about 1.5 to 2 weeks out as well.  Changes your appoach to shopping.  We kinda like it and intend to continue to shop less frequently once we move out of this pandemic.