Monday, April 13, 2020
Mad World
With the chain supermarkets still jammed and mostly empty (There's no social distancing when you're elbow to elbow fighting over that last box of pasta or 6 pack of soda!), and lines waiting for hours to get inside to the few chains (like Target and Costco) that are stocked and restricting, we've (Well, my son and husband - I haven't been out since my last doctor's appointment) been doing all our grocery shopping at a little grocery store (belonging to a chain of 5 stores in the NYC area) within walking distance. They have some fresh produce, but not much - nothing green and leafy in veggies, nothing juicy in fruit; usually stocked with their usual supply of what few frozen veggies they did carry - if you want peas & carrots, peas or carrots, they got you covered; but like all other stores around here, nothing in the line of paper products, sanitizer/wipes, or even soap.
Now they don't even have frozen veggies. They carried 3 brands - Krasdale, Bird's Eye, and Goya - but just a handful of each. Each time my guys shop they buy out half their stock. The other day when my son and husband went, they had none, not one bag of frozen anything vegetable. I assume they sold out of it all for people needing to put something on the table for Easter dinner and their distributor didn't send them any new stock last week.
Thank goodness for all the dehydrated stuff I have from Harmony House. I check what they have in stock every day (FRUIT! They have fruit ready for delivery!!) and have been getting deliveries at least weekly since all this began. Those sliced potatoes arrived over the weekend, after taking almost 2 weeks to get here thanks to post office delays, and they should have my blueberries in the mail any day now.
In other news, thanks to all those beans I purchased, we've been having beans made this way frequently, either over rice, cornbread, and even over (GASP!) potatoes (Yep, hubby managed to nab 4 last week). That's my new favorite way to eat beans.
And my sewing adventures - very frustrating. My reliable old Kenmore machine is dead, probably from neglect all these years. I tried taking it apart, cleaning and oiling, but the mechanicals are still partially frozen. With no sewing machine sales or repair place within 50 miles, even if they were open, it's as good as gone to me. My mini machine, the one I taught my son to sew on when he was 6 years old 30 years ago, needed a bit of TLC to get it going again, and it's so weak it can't sew through more than a few layers of thin cotton fabric, but if I use the right mask pattern it can muddle its way through, especially if I use my serger for the bulk of the sewing. I now have 3 masks made. Hopefully this week I can get through a few more, now that masks are mandatory just about everywhere outside our apartment. My son will need one a day to get to then work through his shifts, even though they moved him and his team to the night shift and there will be less than 20 people in the entire Target store, nobody within 20 feet or more of each other. With his asthma, he finds breathing through a mask to be very hard and makes is job that much harder. I'm afraid he's going to start running into more trouble breathing with a mask than he'll ever encounter without one if he got sick. In just the few seconds I wear one to make sure the ties are the right length and it covers everything it's supposed to cover, I'm panting. And that's without the added filter layer! My masks have pockets for them and I have a few different things that can be used as filter material. I can't imagine going 1o hours in one of them, at least 8 doing heavy labor and a half hour or more walking to and from the train stations, even without the filter.
Mad world!
Now they don't even have frozen veggies. They carried 3 brands - Krasdale, Bird's Eye, and Goya - but just a handful of each. Each time my guys shop they buy out half their stock. The other day when my son and husband went, they had none, not one bag of frozen anything vegetable. I assume they sold out of it all for people needing to put something on the table for Easter dinner and their distributor didn't send them any new stock last week.
Thank goodness for all the dehydrated stuff I have from Harmony House. I check what they have in stock every day (FRUIT! They have fruit ready for delivery!!) and have been getting deliveries at least weekly since all this began. Those sliced potatoes arrived over the weekend, after taking almost 2 weeks to get here thanks to post office delays, and they should have my blueberries in the mail any day now.
In other news, thanks to all those beans I purchased, we've been having beans made this way frequently, either over rice, cornbread, and even over (GASP!) potatoes (Yep, hubby managed to nab 4 last week). That's my new favorite way to eat beans.
And my sewing adventures - very frustrating. My reliable old Kenmore machine is dead, probably from neglect all these years. I tried taking it apart, cleaning and oiling, but the mechanicals are still partially frozen. With no sewing machine sales or repair place within 50 miles, even if they were open, it's as good as gone to me. My mini machine, the one I taught my son to sew on when he was 6 years old 30 years ago, needed a bit of TLC to get it going again, and it's so weak it can't sew through more than a few layers of thin cotton fabric, but if I use the right mask pattern it can muddle its way through, especially if I use my serger for the bulk of the sewing. I now have 3 masks made. Hopefully this week I can get through a few more, now that masks are mandatory just about everywhere outside our apartment. My son will need one a day to get to then work through his shifts, even though they moved him and his team to the night shift and there will be less than 20 people in the entire Target store, nobody within 20 feet or more of each other. With his asthma, he finds breathing through a mask to be very hard and makes is job that much harder. I'm afraid he's going to start running into more trouble breathing with a mask than he'll ever encounter without one if he got sick. In just the few seconds I wear one to make sure the ties are the right length and it covers everything it's supposed to cover, I'm panting. And that's without the added filter layer! My masks have pockets for them and I have a few different things that can be used as filter material. I can't imagine going 1o hours in one of them, at least 8 doing heavy labor and a half hour or more walking to and from the train stations, even without the filter.
Mad world!
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Hope My Hands Hold Out
A few years ago I had to stop making stuff using my sewing machines because hunching over hurt my already arthritic neck. The few things I had to sew I tried make do with a needle and thread and did it by hand. Then I got those stiff, slightly deformed and swollen fingers from rheumatoid arthritis and barely did any sewing at all. Fabric glue and double sided tape became my friends for mending jobs.
But now, I feel a real need to get sewing again. The first things I'm going to make are a few masks using this video for inspiration:
I've seen dozens of mask-making videos the past few days but this one is not only the easiest one but safest because of that pocket for inserting a filter. As many have suggested in the replies, I'll be sewing in a strip of wire at the top before folding up and sewing the pockets so the mask can be shaped to block out more air. I know I have various wires in this house - my son's an engineer and used a lot of it during some of his college courses, especially while getting his MS in electrical engineering. Some also suggested using those twist ties from bread or produce bags but I think they would be a bit too flimsy and break easily, especially if these masks get washed as often as they should be.
But first, I have to find my machines.
Oh, geographically, I know exactly where they are in the living room. But you know how people joke around about their treadmills are used more as clothing racks than for exercise? Well, my sewing machine table has been the dropping point for "stuff" ever since I covered up the machines a few years ago to keep them (Yes, more than one) dust-free. Computer components, extra keyboards, magazines waiting to be gone through and recycled, and I may have even seen a bag or 2 of beans on it, for some reason. Underneath the table it's even worse, with Nintendo Wii boxes, unused fans awaiting warm weather again, is that a grocery bag filled with my son's pasta sauce I see? I know he grabbed a few extra jars when we first started stocking up and I told him to find a place to store them out of the way, but why under my sewing table?? The chair I used to use has been shoved into a corner and is now holding boxes of books, a bag full of cables, wires, and extension cords.
So it'll take me a few days to clear that corner of the living room out and find homes for all the stuff on and under it. Where will I put it all? I have no idea - that's why it all ended up there in the first place. If I chip away at it a few minutes here, a few minutes there, in the times my husband is taking a break from his work on his computer on the other side of the room, I might be able to get to see the machines by the end of next week. Over the weekend I'll have my guys help find homes for all the crap under the table. The chair may be a lost cause (Every horizontal surface in this apartment that doesn't move has a pile of books on it) so I can just wheel in my computer chair when I'm ready to sew.
Luckily, I have a lot of usable fabric from my quilt making days within reach and not all of it stuffed into storage. It'll be easy to find a few novelty prints in a woven cotton calico to make these masks. I have a whole plastic shoebox filled with various elastics, including elastic cording, so that's covered. I have to find where I put my sewing machine thread stash. I didn't see it in the space I used to keep it so it must have gotten moved, but where??
And after all of that is done, keep your collective fingers crossed that I can actually do it - the cutting out and the sewing of these masks. My fingers hurt just using scissors to open bags of frozen veggies, and on a bad pain day, especially when my knuckles are swollen, I can't even do that. My fabric scissors - expensive when I bought them over 30 years ago - are really heavy. That makes it easier to cut through tough fabrics like jeans-weight denim and such, but using them is tiring and usually painful, even before my RA diagnosis. Decades ago I bought a pair of electric scissors but they couldn't really cut all that well, and holding down the button while cutting was more tiring and painful than just using regular cutting shears, so I got rid of them, donating them to a senior center.
Oh, gosh, I'm rambling again. And now my hands hurt from typing so much.
Stay safe, everyone.
But now, I feel a real need to get sewing again. The first things I'm going to make are a few masks using this video for inspiration:
I've seen dozens of mask-making videos the past few days but this one is not only the easiest one but safest because of that pocket for inserting a filter. As many have suggested in the replies, I'll be sewing in a strip of wire at the top before folding up and sewing the pockets so the mask can be shaped to block out more air. I know I have various wires in this house - my son's an engineer and used a lot of it during some of his college courses, especially while getting his MS in electrical engineering. Some also suggested using those twist ties from bread or produce bags but I think they would be a bit too flimsy and break easily, especially if these masks get washed as often as they should be.
But first, I have to find my machines.
Oh, geographically, I know exactly where they are in the living room. But you know how people joke around about their treadmills are used more as clothing racks than for exercise? Well, my sewing machine table has been the dropping point for "stuff" ever since I covered up the machines a few years ago to keep them (Yes, more than one) dust-free. Computer components, extra keyboards, magazines waiting to be gone through and recycled, and I may have even seen a bag or 2 of beans on it, for some reason. Underneath the table it's even worse, with Nintendo Wii boxes, unused fans awaiting warm weather again, is that a grocery bag filled with my son's pasta sauce I see? I know he grabbed a few extra jars when we first started stocking up and I told him to find a place to store them out of the way, but why under my sewing table?? The chair I used to use has been shoved into a corner and is now holding boxes of books, a bag full of cables, wires, and extension cords.
So it'll take me a few days to clear that corner of the living room out and find homes for all the stuff on and under it. Where will I put it all? I have no idea - that's why it all ended up there in the first place. If I chip away at it a few minutes here, a few minutes there, in the times my husband is taking a break from his work on his computer on the other side of the room, I might be able to get to see the machines by the end of next week. Over the weekend I'll have my guys help find homes for all the crap under the table. The chair may be a lost cause (Every horizontal surface in this apartment that doesn't move has a pile of books on it) so I can just wheel in my computer chair when I'm ready to sew.
Luckily, I have a lot of usable fabric from my quilt making days within reach and not all of it stuffed into storage. It'll be easy to find a few novelty prints in a woven cotton calico to make these masks. I have a whole plastic shoebox filled with various elastics, including elastic cording, so that's covered. I have to find where I put my sewing machine thread stash. I didn't see it in the space I used to keep it so it must have gotten moved, but where??
And after all of that is done, keep your collective fingers crossed that I can actually do it - the cutting out and the sewing of these masks. My fingers hurt just using scissors to open bags of frozen veggies, and on a bad pain day, especially when my knuckles are swollen, I can't even do that. My fabric scissors - expensive when I bought them over 30 years ago - are really heavy. That makes it easier to cut through tough fabrics like jeans-weight denim and such, but using them is tiring and usually painful, even before my RA diagnosis. Decades ago I bought a pair of electric scissors but they couldn't really cut all that well, and holding down the button while cutting was more tiring and painful than just using regular cutting shears, so I got rid of them, donating them to a senior center.
Oh, gosh, I'm rambling again. And now my hands hurt from typing so much.
Stay safe, everyone.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
A Break from the Nervous Breakdown - BEANS!!
Ah, something I can control! My beloved beans!
A few days ago, I read this post I had saved in my cardfile from 2010 by a member named Essie on the Fuhrman message boards:
Simple, easy, and really can't be messed up! Just my kind of recipe! And I certainly have plenty of pinto beans on hand right now.
So, I took a bag of Goya pinto beans I had on my bean shelf. Hmm, this one is dated June 2020, and since Goya beans are usually dated at least 2-3 years ahead of when I purchased them, this is at least a 2 year old bag of beans. So I put them on for a little soak, letting them sit on the stove in a pot of water for 4 hours. They're so small that I knew a full overnight soak or a quick-soak by boiling the water and letting them sit for an hour would be too much for these little things.
After all the lunch dishes were washed I rinsed the beans off, poured them into the Instant Pot with 6 cups of fresh water, about a quarter cup of dehydrated celery, a quarter cup of dehydrated carrots, a cut up Vidalia onion, and a few tablespoons of dried mushrooms, then hit the Bean button.
After letting it cook and come down from pressure naturally I tossed about half a bag of frozen chopped spinach, a few tablespoons of nutritional yeast, and yes, a tablespoon or 2 of tahini. Jeff Novick makes a sauce out of it, so why can't I use a bit in a full pot of beans!
When it was getting close to dinner time I got out the rice cooker and tossed in the Carolina jasmine brown rice. Darn - I didn't have quite 2 of those little rice cups left in the bag. There was another bag in another room, but I was too lazy to go get it. I did have a lot of quinoa in the same kitchen cabinet as the rice, so I filled the rest of the cup with tri-color quinoa. Also into the rice cooker with the rinsed grains I tossed a tablespoon of dehydrated garlic granules and about 3 tablespoons of the dehydrated soup vegetables. Filled the rice cooker with water a teensy bit above the 2 cup mark to compensate for the dried veggies and cooked that all up. I love my rice cooker! I could never consistently get good rice in the Instant Pot, but have never had a failure in a rice cooker.
Now I know Dr. McDougall says to limit our beans to an average of a cup a day, but in these trying times, a don't think a little protein splurge is going to do much harm. None of the other WFPB docs like Esselstyn or Fuhrman limit beans. We each had a nice sized bowl of rice and beans, then had a much smaller amount as seconds. The rest is put away for lunch.
The same day I made this bean meal, what should appear on YouTube but another Ann & Jane Esselstyn cooking video, this one on making beans from scratch! Ann broke her quarantine to go to Jane's house to watch Jane's husband Brian Hart make this batch of spicy black beans.
I agree with Ann that the beans would be just fine without all those spices, but when the stay-at-home order is lifted and the virus numbers start dropping in our area instead of doubling each day like they did the past week, we already planned on hitting Lowe's and stocking up on more Bone Sucking Sauce, so we'll grab a bottle of the Bone Sucking Rub, too. My husband watched the video with me and practically drooled at the screen, and was happy when I said we'll get the stuff and I'll make it as soon as I can. He asked if it could be made with the Bone Sucking Sauce itself, and I said it probably could, so I have a feeling black beans (But in the Instant Pot, not in the Wonder Bag like they did) will be on the menu for Easter Week. But I'll be making 2 different batches - one seasoned this way for my husband and one without seasoning for me. There is no way on Earth I would eat something cooked with a few tablespoons of chili powder!!! My throat is burning just thinking about it!!
A few days ago, I read this post I had saved in my cardfile from 2010 by a member named Essie on the Fuhrman message boards:
Pinto Beans in Gravy
(Copied from another thread. Ha ha, I get to quote myself.)
Quote:
Pinto beans are naturally pretty creamy, especially if you cook them yourself and let them break apart a bit so they make their own gravy.
Put some chopped onion, celery, carrots, dried oregano, whatever, in to cook with them and let those get completely soft and disappear as the beans cook.
Then scoop up a single portion of the tender beans in their own gravy, stir in about a Tbs of tahini and a tsp or so of nutritional yeast.
Tahini will provide the richness of the butter, as well as more body, and the veggies in your broth (especially celery) and nutritional yeast will give it a savory taste. If your DH likes mushrooms, you could put water-sauteed mushrooms or dried mushrooms in as well.
Simple, easy, and really can't be messed up! Just my kind of recipe! And I certainly have plenty of pinto beans on hand right now.
So, I took a bag of Goya pinto beans I had on my bean shelf. Hmm, this one is dated June 2020, and since Goya beans are usually dated at least 2-3 years ahead of when I purchased them, this is at least a 2 year old bag of beans. So I put them on for a little soak, letting them sit on the stove in a pot of water for 4 hours. They're so small that I knew a full overnight soak or a quick-soak by boiling the water and letting them sit for an hour would be too much for these little things.
After all the lunch dishes were washed I rinsed the beans off, poured them into the Instant Pot with 6 cups of fresh water, about a quarter cup of dehydrated celery, a quarter cup of dehydrated carrots, a cut up Vidalia onion, and a few tablespoons of dried mushrooms, then hit the Bean button.
After letting it cook and come down from pressure naturally I tossed about half a bag of frozen chopped spinach, a few tablespoons of nutritional yeast, and yes, a tablespoon or 2 of tahini. Jeff Novick makes a sauce out of it, so why can't I use a bit in a full pot of beans!
When it was getting close to dinner time I got out the rice cooker and tossed in the Carolina jasmine brown rice. Darn - I didn't have quite 2 of those little rice cups left in the bag. There was another bag in another room, but I was too lazy to go get it. I did have a lot of quinoa in the same kitchen cabinet as the rice, so I filled the rest of the cup with tri-color quinoa. Also into the rice cooker with the rinsed grains I tossed a tablespoon of dehydrated garlic granules and about 3 tablespoons of the dehydrated soup vegetables. Filled the rice cooker with water a teensy bit above the 2 cup mark to compensate for the dried veggies and cooked that all up. I love my rice cooker! I could never consistently get good rice in the Instant Pot, but have never had a failure in a rice cooker.
Now I know Dr. McDougall says to limit our beans to an average of a cup a day, but in these trying times, a don't think a little protein splurge is going to do much harm. None of the other WFPB docs like Esselstyn or Fuhrman limit beans. We each had a nice sized bowl of rice and beans, then had a much smaller amount as seconds. The rest is put away for lunch.
The same day I made this bean meal, what should appear on YouTube but another Ann & Jane Esselstyn cooking video, this one on making beans from scratch! Ann broke her quarantine to go to Jane's house to watch Jane's husband Brian Hart make this batch of spicy black beans.
I agree with Ann that the beans would be just fine without all those spices, but when the stay-at-home order is lifted and the virus numbers start dropping in our area instead of doubling each day like they did the past week, we already planned on hitting Lowe's and stocking up on more Bone Sucking Sauce, so we'll grab a bottle of the Bone Sucking Rub, too. My husband watched the video with me and practically drooled at the screen, and was happy when I said we'll get the stuff and I'll make it as soon as I can. He asked if it could be made with the Bone Sucking Sauce itself, and I said it probably could, so I have a feeling black beans (But in the Instant Pot, not in the Wonder Bag like they did) will be on the menu for Easter Week. But I'll be making 2 different batches - one seasoned this way for my husband and one without seasoning for me. There is no way on Earth I would eat something cooked with a few tablespoons of chili powder!!! My throat is burning just thinking about it!!
Monday, March 30, 2020
Time to Stop Looking At Covid-19 News, or, NOW Can I Panic??
When in danger or in doubt, Run in circles, scream and shout.
Popularized in Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny (1951), which describes it as an ancient adage.
My husband quotes that line frequently, and the above is taken from a Wikiquote post on panic.
Earlier I was reading on the Takotsubo FaceBook community how we people who have had this cardiomyopathy are having a tougher time with Covid-19, and people who have Covid-19 are experiencing new attacks, reoccurrences, or even getting myocarditis which could lead into Takotsubo. Since Takotsubo is also known as "stress cardiomyopathy", and these are very stressful times for everyone, not just those of us who went through this heart thing already, we’re sitting on pins and needles, waiting, watching , stressing! Will we get the virus? Will the stress of trying not to get it trigger another event? If we do get it, will either one then kill us?
Then there are the posts on the Mixed Connective Tissue Disease and other autoimmune diseases communities, again waiting , watching, and stressing, asking the same questions.
And of course there’s the data they already have on people with respiratory diseases, like my asthma. No guesswork there - just about everyone over 60 who had known respiratory disease and contracted this coronavirus died.
Those of us who have multiple medical challenges are either walking around wringing our hands, getting super hyper, reading and watching everything we can get our hands on, and have hair-trigger nerves, or go in the opposite direction and cower in fear, afraid to even open a window for fear of breathing in virus droplets in the air (Well, it’s also allergy season and another good reason not to open them) or go near even our immediate family who live in the same residence, especially if they’re going out frequently. Stay away! Don’t touch me! Don't come near me!! (Um, honey, we sleep in the same bed, eat in the same tiny kitchen, use the same even tinier bathroom. I can't not get near you.)
After listening to Dr. Lisle talk statistics in the Covid crisis in the first part of this video I’m even more scared. I’m a person over 65 with health issues, especially respiratory disease. If I do get the virus there’s statistically a big chance of my dying from it. (BTW, I never finished watching the whole video. I got too freaked out after the Covid part I just turned it off.)
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!
When in danger or in doubt, Run in circles, scream and shout.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
. . . sigh . . .
The more videos like this I see the more frustrated, sad, and scared I get.
From his Tips for Shopping:
1) Wipe down your cart (not just the handles) - Well, if I had any wipes, I would be able to do this, but stores here haven't had any since March 12.
2) Commit to buying any item you pick up - The stores around here had so few items on the shelves, as a McDougaller I have to read labels of everything first when they don't have what I usually buy. Most items I touched were put right back on the shelf.
3) Don't go to the supermarket if you have any respiratory symptoms or have been exposed - Food shopping is the ONLY thing I've gone out for since I had my 2 doctor's appointments earlier in the month. I could have been exposed then. No doubt everyone in our city has been exposed to *somebody* who has it, especially when supermarkets were elbow to elbow that first week and longer. Heck, my son works at Target and could be exposed every minute he works and then comes home to our apartment, so if exposed to him, does that count?
4) Don't allow your loved ones over the age of 60 to go grocery shopping - Well, I guess we just have to make do with what we have in the house, then, because my under-60 son works all day, would have a hard time carrying groceries home on the train ride home, and by the time he comes home, showers, and gets out of his work clothes the grocery stores are either empty or closed for the day.
5) Buy 2 weeks worth of groceries at one time - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!
Other tips are to leave your groceries outside of your house for a few days before bringing them in. Um, dude, I live in an apartment with no access to the backyard. If I leave my groceries on the front porch, well, remember porch pirates? They steal more than just Amazon packages! There's no place outside my apartment on the landing to put bags of groceries, and every square inch of space inside is taken so there's not even a space to put them aside once they get in. Groceries would go right from the car into the kitchen.
Sanitize your workspace - See #1 (lack of sanitizer) and #5 (lack of space to make into a workspace)
Disposable bags - Sorry, they've been banned in our city and all surrounding cities for months now.
Loose broccoli - I don't trust any fresh produce right now that doesn't come pre-wrapped. Not when you have idiots like that lady who purposely coughed on $35K worth of food (Thankfully she was arrested but not until after the store owner had to throw away all that fresh produce and meat) and teenagers who go around coughing on and even licking food items as a joke/dare. I see his is in a shrink-wrapped bag, so that I would trust. None of our stores sell broccoli like that. Then again, our stores have had no broccoli of any kind for a few weeks, anyway. Same with those oranges and apples (OK, they had some mealy looking apples last week, but ugh).
He took a reusable bag off the floor and put it on his supposedly "clean" surface! Well, it's no longer clean now, is it?!
That fresh baked bread - How many hands touched that bread before he put it in that bag to bring home?
Washing your fruit in dish soap or hand soup? I don't think so! Even the FDA says not do do that, not with dish soap or any soaps or detergents that aren't specifically labeled for use on food.
Take-out food - Sure, go ahead and fling it on a plate and then microwave it. Why not? Who doesn't like sandwiches with the fixings tossed all over the plate and then double-cooked so the bread is now hard and the only healthy stuff on them, the lettuce and tomatoes, are now cooked?
Corona and other viruses can live in the frozen state for up to 2 years? Well, luckily I cook all my frozen veggies, but I never washed those bags before putting them away. And wouldn't do so, anyway, even if I knew about all this when I bought them weeks ago. Take a close look at those frozen veggie bags, especially the steamer bags. Do you see those tiny, almost microscopic, holes in them? Yeah, go ahead and spray Lysol on them and onto your veggies.
You know, Doc, I would be more concerned about the crap foods you're purchasing and eating than worrying about washing my cardboard boxes.
Right now I have a time bomb, um, Amazon package containing 2 bags of Sari nooch, sitting in my apartment on the mat we use to hold our wet shoes and boots. If the virus lives on cardboard for 24 hours, I'll not touch it again until some time tomorrow (It was delivered around 7 last night). Will I wipe down the bags inside the box? Probably not. And the box has to hang around until Tuesday night when recyclables go out for Wednesday pick-up. It'll sit there with the 3 other delivery boxes that came this week from Amazon and Harmony House.
But if following all his cleaning rules is the only guaranteed way of keeping coronavirus out of my apartment, we're doomed.
From his Tips for Shopping:
1) Wipe down your cart (not just the handles) - Well, if I had any wipes, I would be able to do this, but stores here haven't had any since March 12.
2) Commit to buying any item you pick up - The stores around here had so few items on the shelves, as a McDougaller I have to read labels of everything first when they don't have what I usually buy. Most items I touched were put right back on the shelf.
3) Don't go to the supermarket if you have any respiratory symptoms or have been exposed - Food shopping is the ONLY thing I've gone out for since I had my 2 doctor's appointments earlier in the month. I could have been exposed then. No doubt everyone in our city has been exposed to *somebody* who has it, especially when supermarkets were elbow to elbow that first week and longer. Heck, my son works at Target and could be exposed every minute he works and then comes home to our apartment, so if exposed to him, does that count?
4) Don't allow your loved ones over the age of 60 to go grocery shopping - Well, I guess we just have to make do with what we have in the house, then, because my under-60 son works all day, would have a hard time carrying groceries home on the train ride home, and by the time he comes home, showers, and gets out of his work clothes the grocery stores are either empty or closed for the day.
5) Buy 2 weeks worth of groceries at one time - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!
Other tips are to leave your groceries outside of your house for a few days before bringing them in. Um, dude, I live in an apartment with no access to the backyard. If I leave my groceries on the front porch, well, remember porch pirates? They steal more than just Amazon packages! There's no place outside my apartment on the landing to put bags of groceries, and every square inch of space inside is taken so there's not even a space to put them aside once they get in. Groceries would go right from the car into the kitchen.
Sanitize your workspace - See #1 (lack of sanitizer) and #5 (lack of space to make into a workspace)
Disposable bags - Sorry, they've been banned in our city and all surrounding cities for months now.
Loose broccoli - I don't trust any fresh produce right now that doesn't come pre-wrapped. Not when you have idiots like that lady who purposely coughed on $35K worth of food (Thankfully she was arrested but not until after the store owner had to throw away all that fresh produce and meat) and teenagers who go around coughing on and even licking food items as a joke/dare. I see his is in a shrink-wrapped bag, so that I would trust. None of our stores sell broccoli like that. Then again, our stores have had no broccoli of any kind for a few weeks, anyway. Same with those oranges and apples (OK, they had some mealy looking apples last week, but ugh).
He took a reusable bag off the floor and put it on his supposedly "clean" surface! Well, it's no longer clean now, is it?!
That fresh baked bread - How many hands touched that bread before he put it in that bag to bring home?
Washing your fruit in dish soap or hand soup? I don't think so! Even the FDA says not do do that, not with dish soap or any soaps or detergents that aren't specifically labeled for use on food.
Take-out food - Sure, go ahead and fling it on a plate and then microwave it. Why not? Who doesn't like sandwiches with the fixings tossed all over the plate and then double-cooked so the bread is now hard and the only healthy stuff on them, the lettuce and tomatoes, are now cooked?
Corona and other viruses can live in the frozen state for up to 2 years? Well, luckily I cook all my frozen veggies, but I never washed those bags before putting them away. And wouldn't do so, anyway, even if I knew about all this when I bought them weeks ago. Take a close look at those frozen veggie bags, especially the steamer bags. Do you see those tiny, almost microscopic, holes in them? Yeah, go ahead and spray Lysol on them and onto your veggies.
You know, Doc, I would be more concerned about the crap foods you're purchasing and eating than worrying about washing my cardboard boxes.
Right now I have a time bomb, um, Amazon package containing 2 bags of Sari nooch, sitting in my apartment on the mat we use to hold our wet shoes and boots. If the virus lives on cardboard for 24 hours, I'll not touch it again until some time tomorrow (It was delivered around 7 last night). Will I wipe down the bags inside the box? Probably not. And the box has to hang around until Tuesday night when recyclables go out for Wednesday pick-up. It'll sit there with the 3 other delivery boxes that came this week from Amazon and Harmony House.
But if following all his cleaning rules is the only guaranteed way of keeping coronavirus out of my apartment, we're doomed.
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