Covid-19 | Life in Lockdown – Texas, USA Revisited

Back in April I reached out to friends around the world for their thoughts on lockdown. Melissa wrote about lockdown life in Texas here.

Six months on, she’s kindly written an update and has a lot to say … so maybe grab a cuppa. 🙂

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What day is it? Oh yeah, it’s Tuesday…I think. Yeah, it must be because Robbie mentioned the Monday Night Football score before we went to bed last night. I just can’t get interested in football this year with all the unrest and division that’s going on. And it’s gotta be hard for the players with no fans in the stands for some games and several thousand in the stands at others. Of course there were some at AT&T Stadium for the Dallas Cowboys game, not all that many compared to the usual full capacity, but still over 20,000 people. For a football game! Isn’t anybody staying home anymore?

Is there anything I must do today? Besides picking up the groceries. We’re really doing much better eating healthy now that we’re in more of a routine. Those first few months of this pandemic were a little crazy, I mean, seriously, did the two of us need an extra-large bag of M&Ms and those Hostess Hohos every week?! We don’t really miss eating out as much as I thought we would, and we’re certainly not going out now even though restaurants have been opened back up since May, especially since several closed again temporarily due to employees testing positive for Covid. Of course, they were only closed a little while and reopened after cleaning and two weeks of quarantining. I understand it’s important for the business, and, of course, there are plenty of people filling up the tables that are now supposedly spaced six feet apart.

So glad I put in our grocery order last night and can just drive up and one of those nice young employees will load everything in the back of the Suburban. Of course, I’ll have to wipe everything down with disinfectant wipes and wash all the fruits and vegetables immediately when I get it home. What was I thinking stocking up on all those canned goods at one time. Hopefully they won’t be out of paper towels again and maybe the shoppers picked out potatoes that are bigger than a lemon this time! I’m glad they have those designated parking spots for pickup because the parking lot is always full these days. Last time Robbie went in it took him 45 minutes, even though he was only getting three items and used the self-checkout. Isn’t anybody staying home anymore?

Do I have to interact with anyone today? No, that’s good. It was so exhausting wearing that mask for an hour to meet with a client yesterday at the scrapbook store, and all those ladies cropping there without masks, what’s up with that, isn’t there a mandate that masks must be worn in retail establishments? Or is that no longer the case now that the governor has opened Texas up more, 75% capacity for most business. Going into Hobby Lobby for the first time in over six months was shocking. I just wanted to pick up those three packs of neutral cardstock and get out, but there were so many people just shopping around, looking at everything, not paying attention to social distancing…at least they had masks on. But seriously, isn’t anybody staying home anymore?

Guess I better get going if we’re gonna get our exercise walk in before 7:30 when the school buses start picking up and teenagers drive off to high school and the morning traffic piles up. Don’t they know there’s still a pandemic going on? I wonder how many of the students here are actually in school and how many chose the virtual learning option. I can’t believe how many days the schools on the coast have been closed already, not due to Covid, but because of the hurricanes! I’m glad we were able to have my family here when Hurricane Laura hit Texas & Louisiana and am so relieved none of the family had any major damage and that the flooding missed our friends when Tropical Storm Beta hit the Texas coast. I wonder how the recovery from Hurricane Sally is coming along in Alabama. And how are the schools and businesses coping out in California with all those forest fires and evacuations and haze from the smoke covering so much of the state.

As if pandemic fatigue isn’t enough, now there’s hurricane fatigue and wildfire fatigue…and I better not even think about the presidential election news or I’ll be exhausted all over again! I wish we could just take a nice long vacation, but of course travel is out of the question. Even if we decided on a nice road trip, we’d have to stop for food and gas and lodging, and who knows what the guidelines are everywhere since each state has its own COVID-19 requirements, even some of the cities and counties have different ones. It’s all definitely enough to keep us staying home some more!

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Thanks so much, Melissa!

Melissa and I met for lunch. 🙂