Tag: coronavirus

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 26

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 26

or

How out of shape can one fat asshole be?

I have been challenged.  A friend today challenged me to try to do push ups every hour on the hour during the work day.  Actually, the discussion started with him asking if I can do A push up.  My answer was a derisive laugh and an emphatic no.  So the challenge, to start with at least, is more like try to do one push up every hour on the hour during the work day.

This discussion started a little before noon.  Fuck it, I thought, I am going to do it.  At noon I got down on the floor, got into the “up” push up position, started to lower myself toward the floor and… splat.  Right on my dumb face.

A few minutes ago I tried again for 1:00 and managed sort of like half a push up.  I lowered myself a little, but not all the way to the floor.  I’ll take that as a win.

I had mentioned that we’ve tried to go for walks around the block.  We haven’t been able to do that consistently, so exercise opportunities for me have been few and far between.  After two failed attempts at push ups over a little more than 60 minutes has me feeling like I ran a marathon.  Ouch.

45 minutes to go until the next try.

Challenge accepted, even though it’s likely going to destroy me.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 25

My hair.  Just… my hair.

I probably wrote about this already, but it is a seemingly never ending source of crazy.  When all of this crap started I was already needing a haircut.  Now we’re into week seven and oh my crap this is insufferable.

As it was starting to cover my eyes I joked with my wife saying that I would cut it myself once it was long enough for me to accidentally inhale it up my nose.  It’s still not there, but it’s long enough that it is starting to reach the tip of my nose.  Given how lightning fast my hair grows, I expect it to be up my nose by week’s end.

I have two Facebook friends who own hair salons.  One of them warned that they can’t fix your hair if it’s not there.  Don’t cut it off, she said.  That was three (I think) weeks ago though.  How much longer am I supposed to hold out?

I am willing to bet a fair sum of money that youtube contains a plethora of videos that will instruct viewers on how to cut their own hair.  Failing that, I am guessing amazon has a fair share of affordable clippers that would at the very least get the hair out of my eyes.

Hair, man.  Hair.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 23

Ever since I started using the CPAP machine and wearing my Apple Watch to sleep, the first thing I do in the morning is check the SleepWatch app on my iPhone to check out my numbers.

This morning when I woke up I took my phone off the swanky charger thingie… inductive?  enducive?  What ever the hell they call it.  I opened up the SleepWatch app and…

Their servers are down.

I can’t see my numbers.

That was 3.5 hours ago and it’s still down.

But… but… but… what am I going to do without my numbers?  How am I going to get through the day?  Are the SleepWatch staff even still working through the lock down?

I NEED MY NUMBERS!  The CPAP app gave me a 98.  It ran for seven hours so I got full marks there, but I took the mask off too many times and lost two points.  98 is pretty sweet.  It doesn’t tell me how my heart rate dipped though.  It doesn’t give me sleep time vs restful sleep time.

I NEED MY NUMBERS!

Leave the House?

I had to leave the house today.  Not only that, I had to actually go somewhere.  Specifically, I had to go to a store.  It’s been five weeks since I interacted in the same physical space with someone other than my wife and two step kids.

My parents needed something from Home Depot.  I ordered it online and picked it up for them and dropped it off on their front steps.  I used Home Depot’s curbside pickup.  They brought the item out to the car and dropped it off in the parking spot next to mine.  When they walked away I picked it up and put it in the car.

Terrifying.

I exaggerate, but only a little.  I had a mask and gloves on.  My wife made the mask out of a bandanna and some elastics.  It worked great.  When I got home I put my clothes, including the mask, in the wash and took a shower.  Paranoid?  Yup.  Do I care?  Nope.

My father wanted to install the item I dropped off.  I didn’t think his back would let him.  I thought I would do it, but I talked to my brother about it and out of respect to the diabetic in my house who is at high risk from COVID-19 I asked him if there was any chance that he could handle the install.  He did.  I thank him so very much.  My brother John is awesome.  You should all send him some happy thoughts from me.

So I had gone about five weeks without interacting with anyone outside the house.  Now, officially, my clock is reset to zero and I’m going to be looking for COVID-19 symptoms even more than I already was for at least the next two weeks.

Yippee.

Thank you, John.

Screw you, COVID-19.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 22

We expanded our instacart experiment today by placing an order at BJ’s. Double entendre aside, the order consisted mainly of dry goods.  Garbage bags, kitty litter, stuff like that.  I selfishly and frivolously included a request for some wild bird seed.  Jen found one option on the website and we ran with it.

Had I noticed that it was actually a FORTY (40!!) POUND BAG I probably would have thought better of it.  As it is, now I have both bird feeders full, and enough left over to refill them probably three more times each.

Come on birds, the dinner bell is ringing!

In closing, here’s a picture of my cat…

Untitled

COVID-19 Numbers

Here’s what I have for today:

  • Methuen, MA
    • Total Cases: 396 (up 6 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 19
    • Death Rate: 4.80%
  • Massachusetts
    • Total Cases: 41,199 (up 1,556 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 1961
    • Death Rate: 4.76%
  • United States
    • Total Cases: 814,587 (up 31,297 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 43,796
    • Death Rate: 5.38%

An interesting coincidence, both the city of Methuen and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had exactly the same number of new cases today as yesterday.  I don’t think that means anything, just a bit of statistical weirdness.

More importantly though, Methuen hasn’t had a death since April 18th.

What’s Going On? Nothing

In response to my previous post where I wondered aloud if a delay in the sharing of the daily COVID-19 statistics by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was some signal that bad numbers were coming, the answer is no.

They completely redesigned the report they are using to release the stats, so that might have been the reason for the delay.  The numbers they shared were bad, terrible even, but they were actually a little better than the previous day.  That’s a good sign.  Let’s keep that up, shall we?

What’s Going On

Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health releases COVID-19 numbers at around 4:ooPM every day.  It’s often a little late, but not too bad.  It’s 5:27PM now and they have not posted today’s numbers yet.

Is that a bad sign?  Should my spreadsheet, and my whole state, be worried?

Week Six

It’s Monday again.  Patriots Day for those of us in Massachusetts.  It should be Marathon Monday in Boston but nope.  We have completed five weeks of our working from home lock down.  Today begins week six.

Sleeping is weird.  I’m doing more laundry than I’ve ever done before.  We’re doing the dishes more often than I’ve ever done before.  We’re still making the bed every day, though the sheets are in the wash today so it’s not made right now.  The trash is going out more often than ever.  The house hasn’t been this clean for this long since we moved in almost 10 years ago.  We haven’t gone anywhere since week one.  We do sometimes leave the house and go for a drive still, though much less often than before, but we just drive around and then go home.  We don’t stop anywhere.

We’re leaning on instacart for groceries and amazon for everything else.  We haven’t used amazon much because we’ve been insanely frugal.  Jen bought a new desk after week one, I bought window screens, she bought a new USB headset, and we’ve both bought bandannas to use for masks.  That’s it.  We haven’t bought books or movies or music or anything, I haven’t bought any guitar gear, she hasn’t bought any computer gear other than things needed directly for work.  We also haven’t been going out to eat at all, which under normal circumstances we do all the time.  We’re somehow managing to save a little money.  Unfortunately, the instacart bills are pretty high so that’s been eating into our available funds.

Last night I jokingly suggested to Jen that we do a Star Wars movie watch and run through them all.  To my shock she agreed.  Then to further my shock I asked her which movie she wanted to start with and she said to start at the beginning.  Episode One?  On purpose?  Amazing!

So how will week six go?  I’m guessing it will go fine, just like weeks one through five.  We just need to make sure the idiot in charge doesn’t ruin the progress we’ve made by letting his cult start going to Starbucks again.  Keep hanging in there.  Keep washing your hands.  Keep doing what socially awkward folks like me have always done and be socially distant.

Solidarity.