Thoughts on the Coronavirus, Quarantines, and Preparedness in General

Because I work with the medical community, I get frequent updates about the Covid-19 and other health challenges. There's an interactive map where you can look up globally or locally the instances of everything from chicken pox to Ebola. It's big in the news right now, and while I agree with taking precautions, I also want to point out that the regular seasonal flu poses a great health risk too that rarely gets news coverage. But the Coronavirus is still somewhat of an unknown quantity, so people are leery about it. One of the things that makes it scarier than, say, SARS, is that sometimes the infected person doesn't get symptoms, and they can be a carrier and transmit the virus to others without knowing they've even got it. If something makes you instantly or violently sick, you know to stay in bed and keep it to yourself. But if you only have a light case of it or no symptoms at all, you continue with your daily routine and aren't aware you're spreading it around.

The Canadian government is encouraging people to stock up on food and other supplies in case of supply disruption or unexpected quarantine. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have to chuckle a little, because we store a year's supply all the time, even in times of plenty (perhaps especially in times of plenty, because you know they don't last). And in addition to the flu, of course, we're also feeling effects of native blockades on transportation in this area. You never know when the local stores will be empty. So this week I've taken a bit of an inventory to make sure we're stocked up and prepared.

If we want to live on pasta and tomatoes, we're set. There's a lot of bottled fruit and grape juice, the where-with-all to make bread and homemade pasta, and some frozen vegetables, though not as much as I'd like, since we're late into winter at this point. Lots of garlic. Several weeks' supply of toilet paper. Got my cough medicine. Water filter in case I have to melt snow. The only thing I don't have is a back-up generator in case the power goes out, which really should be at the top of every Canadian's list, if you think about it. But I have a gas fireplace that will turn on without electricity, and somehow I can't picture the power and the natural gas going off at the same time. Though I suppose it's possible. I also am able to remotely connect to work, in case the city shuts down and I can't go in to the office.

Beyond the toilet paper and the bottled peaches, though, there's the mental preparedness. Could I handle two weeks of mandatory quarantine in the house without going crazy? I have my books, my musical instruments, a bunch of good DVDs and CDs, my dog, and my loom. I like the people I'm sharing my house with. Yep, I'm totally fine with not budging for 14 days. Sounds rather enticing, in fact. Could we maybe do a test run...?

The most important thing, I think, is to have an attitude of "We can handle anything." I have my faith, a lot of experience having to be tough in the face of adversity, a loving family, and the strength of my pioneer ancestors behind me. I would like to think I also have enough humility to know when to ask for help when I need it. I believe strongly in prayer as well as preparation. So whatever life is going to bring me, I hope to be able to just hang onto my hat and enjoy the ride.

Great company while I'm sick

I'm still on the couch with a bad cold and cough, but I've been kept great company by Susanna Kearsley and Robin Pilcher. Reading my third book in two days... There is a silver lining to being sick.

I am so grateful for good writers! My life would be so much less without them.

Sniffles

Down for the count with a bad cold. No desire to do anything but curl up on the couch and watch back-to-back episodes of Picard. I'll write again when I re-emerge...

Little Notebooks of Quotes

For many years, I have made it a habit to carry a little chubby notebook with me everywhere, and whenever I hear a good quote or run across a name I like or learn of a book or website to check out, I jot it down. I have distilled some of these into books I've written, and I've referred to them to find book recommendations. But I've now got a box full of these little books, and it really isn't very efficient to page through them all to find specific things or when I'm looking for writing inspiration.

I have started copying these books into an Excel spreadsheet, categorizing the entries by "Life Thoughts," "Reading Recommendations," "Writing Ideas," "Recipes," "Poetry," "Meditations," etc. So far I'm up to about a thousand entries, and I still have several notebooks to enter. But as I'm typing it all up, I'm rediscovering some great tidbits and thought-provoking sayings. It's been enormous fun to go through them all again.

Some of the highlights:

• "Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them." - Lemony Snicket
• "They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde
• "Simplicity undertaken to bring the life you lead into alignment with your deepest values is a spiritual practice." - Alan Morinis
• "A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach." - Rabbi Salanter
• "You cannot entirely despair with your mouth full of bread." - Anne Michaels
• “Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.” - Donald Horban
• "Gardeners can suffer from a chronic inability to be in the present moment. That's because, like Joan of Arc, we're afflicted with future visions…a real and present delight is bartered for an imaginary future." - Des Kennedy
• “Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something.” - Elizabeth Gaskell
• "The implication is that when mothers work, families, like chickens, go free-range and slightly feral." - Susan Maushart
• "…the solace of emerging from the ruins to find that at least you no longer had any hair left to catch fire…" - Anne Michaels

Cleaning out the freezer and other exciting pastimes, and some thoughts about interdependency

In anticipation of spring and gardening, hubby and I went downstairs and took inventory of our big chest freezer. We still have carrots, squash, kale, beet greens, rhubarb, and a lot of green beans left from last year's harvest. We're running low on strawberries (you would have thought 45 pounds would be enough, but I guess not) and we're out of asparagus. And of course I still have quite a lot of bottled stuff left (apples, pears, peaches, grape juice, jams and jellies). Maybe 25 heads of garlic left. If we pace ourselves correctly, all this should be running out just as the new harvest is coming in.

I always have arguments with myself about how much I can realistically do versus what I want to do. I know I don't need to grow all my own food or make my own soap or weave my own fabric...but it's fun to do and it's confidence-building to know I can. There's also something deeply appealing about the idea of living the hard-work-and-exhausting-but-creative life of our great-grandmothers. With that kind of life, you can see at the end of every day what you have accomplished and what your hands have made.

Someone I know on Facebook was complaining about the time it took to make a certain dish from scratch (I think it was an hour and a half). I couldn't help responding and telling them about our homemade lasagna that takes about three days to make (homemade sauce from the garden produce, homemade pasta, homemade ricotta, homemade sausage) and ten minutes to eat. And then it occurred to me--it actually takes much longer. Someday I will write a cookbook that starts each recipe with "First plough a field, plant wheat, and start some tomato seedlings indoors..." Or maybe it should start earlier with "mine and smelt the ore to form a ploughshare and then raise a horse..."

And then I'll follow it up with "First grow an acre of cotton, harvest and spin it, build a loom, and weave a tablecloth... Dig some clay and cast some pottery plates... Plant a tree and wait twenty years until it's big enough to make a table..."

Everything we do, something as simple as lasagna, really depends so much on what others have done before us to make it possible.

The first seed catalogs have arrived...

The perfect way to spend a snowy winter day---curled by the fire with glossy photos of vegetables and flowers! What new thing shall I try this year? Or shall I stick with the tried and true? I'm travelling a lot this summer, so should I only plant early spring stuff and late autumn stuff? Can I live a summer without green beans? So many lovely decisions! I think about the fifty heads of garlic snuggled in my garden under the snow, waiting for summer, and I am very happy. Gardening gives you just a little taste of what God must feel like, creating worlds.

Yay, Mitt Romney!

The only Republican in the Senate with principles. Whether or not you agree with his stand, you have to admire his courage and integrity. You've done us proud today, cousin.