Covid-19: Our New Normal

It is weird to think that we have a curfew here in Atlanta from 9pm to 7am. I don’t like walking James late at night and I’ve always preferred going to the grocery store in the morning. But the idea that I can’t run out for a 10pm late night ice cream snack is just crazy! And the other morning I was up at 6am and thought about walking over to Kroger to get some banana bread for breakfast. But it was only 6am and Kroger doesn’t open (to me at least) until 8am! My stomach was already growling – I wasn’t going to make it to 8am!

I noticed a sticker on a truck the other day about being essential. I was wondering if people are being pulled over and if the curfew was being enforced? Back when Atlanta first went into lockdown, we had police helicopters flying over us all the time. Then police were on motorcycles on the Beltline (the rails to trails path) where the helicopter told them to go – they were breaking up groups. We live right by Piedmont Park and the helicopter was over that park a lot. We also heard police on a loudspeaker one night in the distance and it sounded like they were telling people to go home. I am up early some mornings and I do hear cars that sound like they are racing around being stupid. But I also don’t hear sirens chasing after them… so I’m not sure a sticker like this is needed.

I’ve never been one to like going out shopping after dark. This past fall, we were in Prescott, Arizona. It is one of my favorite places! It is definitely a retirement town and with the sun going down at 5:30pm, it was dark if I went to Target or Walmart at 6pm. One night Chris was with me and we went to Target. We were one of the only cars in the parking lot! People in Prescott, Arizona really don’t shop much after dark!

Speaking of going out after dark, just two months ago on February 27th, we had a date night at Georgia Tech. The Georgia Tech Chamber Orchestra and Chorale had a concert and it was wonderful! Little did we know that the other events like this on my calendar would all be cancelled. I am glad we got to walk around campus a bit and see this before everything shut down from the Coronavirus.

One industry I worry about (I worry about everything!) is the cruise industry. I love cruises! This picture of seven cruise ships just parked in the Caribbean will probably always give me chills.

Thankfully the cruise lines let the employees post photos and videos with updates about the ships. Apparently they were parked in the Caribbean just floating. And from time to time, the engines would get fired up. I know they were allowed back into some ports for supplies and then they would head back out to float.

I’ve been watching the cruise ship stocks. I’ve always wanted to buy some and I figured now was a good time. I’m confident cruising will be back. It will take some time. But a lot of people LOVE cruises.

A few other observations about the Covid-19 stay-at-home order:

Wearing a dress while walking on the Beltline (the rails to trails path here in Atlanta) gets me very odd looks. I don’t want to wear yoga clothes *every* day as much as they are super comfortable. So some days I get dressed up and wear a dress (with trainers or Birkenstocks – duh). The other day I got some very odd looks and even Chris noticed!

Because everyone is working from home (or sadly, furloughed), we are meeting a lot of our neighbors. Everyone is very nice and we will be sad when it is time to leave Atlanta.

I’m not even a huge Target fan (I personally love Walmart the best), but I find that wandering Target very slowly on all sorts of random aisles at least gives me a sense of shopping. I am not even a huge TJ Maxx fan (the one in Georgetown was the best; the one here in Atlanta is so-so), but I miss just wandering around TJ Maxx! I also miss wandering around the mall. I read a story recently about malls and if they will survive the Coronavirus shut downs. They interviewed a lot of people and many of them said they would be afraid to go into a confined shopping mall or store and they would now order everything online.

I am all for ordering online – I do it all the time. But everything is taking SO long to ship right now. I ordered dog food from Chewy.com for James and it took two weeks to even ship. Usually it arrives in two days! I have been adding books and other random things to my Amazon cart. And when I add them, Amazon notes “this will be delivered after X date” and that date is usually 4-5 weeks from now. I know they want to focus on essentials, but I think books are essential to my mental health.

I did order some summer clothes from Banana/Gap/Athleta and Macy’s (my summer clothes are in storage – we weren’t supposed to be somewhere hot right now). I wasn’t sure of my sizes so I ordered multiples. I kept what I wanted and returned the rest. Three weeks went by and both returns still hadn’t been processed. I called Macys and it said they are not taking customer service calls right now. I tried to email them and I got an automated response. Chris joked (!!) that I am going to pay my Macy’s credit card bill and then when they FINALLY process my return I am going to have a credit and by that time this will all be over and Macy’s will be closed permanently after not surviving the shutdown and I won’t have a way to spend my credit. Yikes. I finally did get someone on a chat with Banana/Athleta/Gap and they said it would be 60 business days until they processed my return. YIKES again! I won’t be ordering anything else online right now that even has a chance of needing to be returned if the credit to my card is going to take that long.

I am thankful we are healthy and I know we will be back to normal again soon and hopefully booking an awesome Celebrity or Royal Caribbean cruise!