Social Distancing

The novelty of living "Little House on the Prairie", where only Pa goes to town, is beginning to fade. Like so many people, I have already worked through all the DIY pioneer tasks: I made bread, pickled vegetables, started plugs of herb seeds to plant in warm weather. My ill-fated attempt at making cheese from a gallon of whole milk produced a wizened tennis ball that tasted like wallpaper paste. I'm itchy to travel but no country will admit me.  I'd settle for neighboring states but Wisconsin has already warned us away--their health care system won't accomodate an influx of city people.   Now that Minnesota has established adequate testing capacity, there's talk of contract tracing by the state to prevent flare ups.  Some people are rattled by the perceived loss of privacy, but not me.  For more than 8 years, my mobile phone has auto recorded my location 24/7.  This works as an automated diary, which fills the gaps as my memory erodes. What was the name of...

I was scheduled to report for jury duty in Dakota County tomorrow, but the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that there will be no jury trials until June 1.  Those of us called for May dates will remain on call until the trials resume. Shouldn't be surprised; I can't think how we could keep physical distance in a jury box, or sitting around waiting, which is much of the time. Frankly, I'm disappointed that it is delayed. I was looking forward to the diversion, being able to leave the house for a legitimate reason.

Baptisms, graduations, weddings and funerals are the ties that keep our family links strong. Our nephew is a high school senior this year and we're mourning all the 'lasts' that he will miss during quarantine: the graduation open house, senior prom, athletic team events. Another milestone is the upcoming christening of our first grandchild, which will be limited to two parents, two godparents and four grandparents.  Our family's hand-sewn christening gown has been worn by generations of infants, but never for such a small gathering. Today we carefully unpacked the slip and gown, fastened all the tiny buttons and snaps. It fits.  The traditional gathering of family and friends will be held at some unspecified time --when it is again safe to pass babies from lap to lap and hug friends.

Most of us in strict isolation have reached our tolerance for solitude by now and we're actively reaching out to friends and family. Today my siblings had a Zoom gathering with 13 people in three states.  Everyone was eager to join in and find out what's happening with our clan of about 40 cousins, including children and grandchildren. My younger siblings say their workday is nothing but Zoom meetings--with clients, students, coworkers.   A gathering like this wouldn't happen in our normal life.  We get together when siblings are in the Twin Cities and we keep in touch, but the constraints of speaking one at a time became obvious very quickly. Like most big families, we talk in strands of conversation that weave around and overlap with lots of laughter and side comments. Zoom gathering with small groups of friends are now on our schedule.  Given our quiet lives, we have to save up enough news for a weekly meeting.  CoronaVirus Rhapsody

Here's a lifetime experience: an empty Mall of America. No cars in the ramps; echoing, empty space overlooking a few American Red Cross volunteers who manage the blood donors in the mall's north lobby. When we scheduled our donations, we were instructed to wear masks or we would be issued masks.  Volunteers guided me through the process:  show us your RapidPass reservation. Clean your hands. Now show us your donor card.  Oops, you touched your phone, time to sanitize hands again. The staff were vigilant; they sanitized anything that touched me--the blood pressure cuff, the table that I leaned on, the chair I sat on.  And honestly?  I valued the opportunity to get out of the house on a legitimate, sanctioned trip and would happily go donate weekly if that was an option.

Just two outings permitted to me--and the best is seeing our baby granddaughter. I prepare with a mask, gloves, frequent handwashing and I avoid touching her hands or face.  Her parents are working so she has a certain amount of exposure but she's not going to get Coronavirus from me. I'm also expanding my Citizen Pruner activities to solo trips.  Mud Lake Park is just a few blocks from here and it's suffering from buckthorn invasion and aggressive grapevine pulling down the tops of the viable trees.  Plus, trash and deadwood to pull out.  The Boy Scouts built a path several years ago but it's getting overgrown, and the park layout is rustic and heavily wooded.  Since I can't go to the gym, this serves as my exercise and an opportunity for some planning.  If I rip out the buckthorn roots and all, we're done. But disturbing that much soil makes a playground for buckthorn seeds and other invasives.  So I'm cutting low to the ground and repeating...

Well, we're out of yeast. When I considered all the marketplace changes that might be caused by the pandemic, yeast wasn't on the list at all.  Who is buying all of it?  I hadn't purchased a single packet in 30 years, but the enforced confinement at home made me think it was time to learn to bake bread. None at Cub.  I concluded that my local Cub store was populated by survivalists who had already cleared out all the toilet paper and probably had it all stacked on the shelf in their underground safe room. With the canned soup, which was also gone.  So I planned to go to Byerlys or Lunds and get a good supply.  No, Jim was also running low and he had already searched those stores.  Repeatedly. Well, Amazon will bring me some!  Nope, none to be had, and no bread flour, either. My impulse was to methodically search stores, but that is just what we want to avoid when we're socially isolating.  I make my brief visits to the grocery now with mas...

So it was my brother-in-law's birthday last Friday. We decided to celebrate by getting together - but being mindful of 6 feet separation. So we went to the St. Kate's parking lot and parked our cars 6 feet apart and opened windows and passenger went to backseat behind driver. And then we chatted - had a cupcake - and it worked quite well.  The only thing is that it's not conducive to wine or other alcohol beverage.  And you need to bring your own food. Anyway - just an alternative to the virtual chat.

I'm trying recipes for an activity during the long, isolated days. Today I thought no-knead bread would be a good place to start learning about baking bread.  I watched two youtube videos. Both went on about using just a teeny amount of yeast--1/4 tsp--and 1 1/2 cups of hot water.  Too cold and the yeast will go dormant. You guessed it, my concept of hot water was not the same as the presenters.  I think I killed the yeast.  Also the dough was not the consistency of those in the video--much thicker.  Which means my 3 cups of flour are not the same as theirs. So I set it to rise and started another batch.  Jim says with flour, the cup is an inadequate measure.  Needs to be weighed and that means grams of flour.  I have a scale but I had to work carefully through weighing the flour, weighing the flour container, multiply by 2 because I weighed flour in batches. Why didn't we go metric in the 60s? I baked the first.  Didn't really rise a...

Monday, March 16  Today was our first official day of mindfully staying isolated at home and it was very boring until 7 pm when Jack came over to "shop" from our pantry. The grocery stores were cleaned out, he said. Empty shelves.  No milk.  No meat except prime steak. "So sad," I said. "Help yourself; we have plenty." "And now that they're closing the liquor stores..."  "!! The liquor stores!  Why would they do that?!"  Don't know, he said, just look it up online, message from the governor, starting tomorrow. I didn't look it up, jumped in the car and made like a bat out of hell for Total Wine.  We were running low in several categories and I'd been meaning to go.  The store certainly looked like the last day.  Parking lot was packed, lots of people pushing full carts holding grimly to the cart handle with antibacterial tissues.  One guy was talking on his phone, coordinating with his wife at Costco to pick ...