WOULD YOU LIKE TO READ MY MIND TODAY?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO READ MY MIND TODAY?

Today marks the start of our fourth week isolating from the world since our return from Mexico. As the pandemic continues to grow globally, a lot of thoughts are running through everyone’s mind, including mine. Some of them follow:

• As time drags along, I don’t know if is getting easier or harder. On the one hand, my daily routine helps me take one small step at a time and I find that helpful. On the other hand, I do miss meeting and interacting face-to-face with friends and family. I am trying not to look too far down the calendar, but I do feel we are in for many months of similar days and routines. We must persevere!
• From our twentieth floor, I continually watch freight trains rumble past us about every twenty minutes. It helps elevate my spirit to know that with every train over 100 railcars and containers are moving vital supplies and merchandise east and west in our country. It signifies that one of our commercial carriers is still hard at work. I find that comforting. 
• I am totally disgusted when I read of people trying to take advantage of the pandemic to try to sell various snake oil remedies and protections, unproven masks, and other equipment to the gullible. Online cons continue to use scare tactics to lure people into revealing personal banking and credit card information. The lowest form of person is the one trying to sell needed supplies that they have stockpiled at exorbitant prices on the Internet. Pathetic!
• After my second trip to the grocery since returning to Calgary, I think perhaps we have made some worthwhile changes that we should keep when the problem subsides. Senior shopping hours, one way arrows up and down the aisles, limiting customers into busy stores, and limiting quantities on popular and essential products are all pretty good ideas. Despite some product shortages the actual shopping experience is very efficient and effective.
• I filled up my car with gas before we went to Mexico and refilled it today. Although it was in dry dock while we were on holiday, I only had to put in $18 over a three month period. I love sixty cent a litre gasoline! Low price gasoline is small compensation however for the fact that there is nowhere we can go for a drive!
• I watch a minimum of TV news daily and read basically only the headlines on online newspapers. I find it very overwhelming to be viewing or reading a never-ending menu of pandemic stories. The essence is that we are fighting a global pandemic that is deadly and contagious. As individuals we can only follow the advice of medical professionals and self-isolate, wash hands, and avoid any non essential human contact. Everything else is peripheral, speculative, redundant, after the fact, and repetitive. I read the daily highlights and that’s it.
• The highlights of everyday are the phone calls or face timings that we make or receive. Our current plight  during this difficult time only emphasizes how important friends and family are. I make it a point to phone at least one or two friends everyday and every contact helps lift some of the veil of darkness that has surrounded us. Where would we be if we didn’t have smart phones at the ready? And it was only a little over a month ago when we spent a lot of time complaining that, “People are always on their phones!”
• I personally don't know of anyone who has been infected by the virus and pray that none of my friends and acquaintances become ill. Protect yourselves, follow the rules and try to keep positive! Have a nice drawer cleaning, book reading, TV watching, limited snacking, healthy, and safe day!