Date: March 25, 2020 at 10:39:38 AM EDT
Subject: Re: Coronavirus quarantine.
Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 10:29 AM Philme L’Amour <philmelamour@gmail.com> wrote:
Day 18 – Covid-19 Pandemic. I, Philme L”Amour, and the fabulous Muffin
are “sheltered in place”. We have taken what seem to be extraordinary
precautions to protect ourselves from the deadly virus. We have
considered building a panic room or isolating to a remote location.
Both ideas are on hold for now. To keep ourselves entertained, we have
had great fun loading and reloading shotgun shells for the side by
side double barrel. Sometimes late in the evening when Muffin is in a
melancholy mood, I have found her in her design studio cleaning her
S&W revolver or making Covid-19 molecule models from styrofoam and
golf tees. She paints them all different colors and are very pretty
but the pile of completed virus models is becoming alarming.
We have begun rationing our food supply. If we conserve the frozen
products and can live without caramel M&Ms and cheese curls, we could
last about 227 days. We only have 6 cases of water, but we can
supplement with the 17 cases of Yuengling and several gallons of
tequila. Of course, we will use the fresh water supply as long as that
lasts.
Feeding the dogs is another problem that we will have to deal with.
K-9 training for our new self-protection dog continues each Monday
night. We got EmptyM just as the pandemic was presenting itself and
scheduled classes right away. It is one of the exceptions to isolation
that might be a good investment for the future. Our trainer and most
of the other dog owners enrolled in the class are called “preppers”.
We figure that all of them are taking the same precautions that we are
taking, making it less likely that they are Covid-19 carriers.This
week the dogs will be focused on take down moves used in threatening
situations. Our other dog, Diogi, thinks the whole thing is stupid. By
the way, Muffin is the best dressed member of the class. Last week,
she wore her camouflage yoga pants, black Doc Martin boots, and a sexy
“Shoot like a girl” v-neck t-shirt.
The last time that we were sheltered in place was during Hurricane
Charlie in 2004. 19 of us were hunkered down in a Ft. Myers condo
while the storm screamed at us from the outside. We found comfort
watching movies, specifically “Kill Bill 2”. Muffin and I rewatched
“Kill Bill 2” and added “Night of the Living Dead”, “Gone in Sixty
Seconds”, and our all time favorite “Eating Raoul”. To satisfy our
religious needs, we have discovered “The New Pope” on HBO. We have
watched all nine episodes and are looking forward to number ten this
week.
One last thing. Don’t be drawn in by scammers during this period of
crisis. We have had our eye on a really nice camp shirt for me and a
sundress for Muffin at SteinMart. There was an add in yesterday’s
paper offering 20% off, putting both items right in our price range.
We ventured out and found the store closed citing the Covid-19 crisis.
Will they honor the coupons when they reopen? Was this just a ruse to
get us out of the house? To say the least, we were disappointed.
Stay well.
Philme.
On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 7:33 AM Don Elliott <delliott1055@gmail.com> wrote:
Day 19 – Covid-19 Pandemic. What to do when there is nothing to do. Hmm! All of the obvious things, read a book, do a puzzle, clean out the garage and do laundry (again), are all loosing their appeal very quickly. It would be much more fun to drink, gamble online, get naked or smoke pot—or maybe all of those things at once or more than once!!!
So I, Philme L’Amour, went academic and reread one of my favorite books, “Theory of the Leisure Class.” In 1899, author and economist Thorstein Veblen wrote that the Industrial or Working Class will behave like the Leisure Class if they don’t have anything to do. Back then it meant joining a country or men’s club and wear fancy clothes, experiment with drugs, take on a lover, race horses or gamble, apparently all things that people with resources did to take up their leisure time. He proposed that the Industrial Revolution would require less workers and leave large segments of the population without anything to do, and, unfortunately with no personal resources. He proposed that the government had to come up with ways to keep these newly idled people busy before they became burdens to the rest of the Working Class and the wealthy Leisure Class. The new Leisure Class, like Covid-19 shut-ins, will be okay for a while but when resources run out and/or the usual sources of entertainment have lost their value or are cancelled, they will find other distractions that might become a problem for the rest of society. When resources are completely gone, this idled group would resort to crime to get what they want or more importantly, what they need. Not smart for the Texas governor to close the state parks. Nor was it smart for the Pennsylvania Board of Education to shut down e-learning because some kids might not have access to it.
So, I went to Costco to study the situation. There was a line to get in. Costco workers in the aisles reminded shoppers to stay at least 6 feet away from the other shoppers. And food rationing was actively in place. One gallon of milk, one carton of eggs, 2 cases of water, no toilet paper, and amazingly only one bag of dog food per customer. One bag of dog food??? Are people hoarding dog food? Well, that was my plan. Either I feed the dogs or they feed on me! And the vet said, “No table scraps.”
Muffin came up with a great idea with some help from our Pennsylvania peeps. We are going to use the Next Door app to encourage our neighbors to put pictures of animals in their front facing windows. We want families with kids to get out and walk, taking time to identify as many animals as they can along the way. She has done a beautiful painting of an Irish Setter on her office window and another picture of a red shouldered hawk for the front door. Once the pandemic winds down, we will host a party for all the kids with prizes for the most interesting lists including cell phone pictures, spelling, most animals and so on.
Hopefully, when that time comes we will all still be here.
Philme.
On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 7:36 AM Don Elliott <delliott1055@gmail.com> wrote:
Day 20 – Covid-19 Pandemic: Very sad news today. This morning the Indiana governor announced that all businesses except for essential services should be closed until April 7. We were not affected too much since we were already huddled together spending more time at home than we have in the past 20 years. The bad news came 15 minutes after the governor’s announcement when our cleaning people called to say that they wouldn’t be cleaning our house this week or any week until at least April 7. What??? They have been cleaning our place every two weeks for years. And we are definitely making a mess since we are here all the time. Maybe we can find a YouTube video to tell us what we need to do to clean this place up.
On the bright side, we had our first ZOOM video happy hour this evening. Nicknamed “The Club”, several of us all with a history caught up on family, jobs, friends that didn’t make the call, pandemic excitement, and drinks. We learned a few things to improve The Club’s call next Monday.
- Bring enough drinks for the whole hour
- Use the virtual background if the stuff behind you is too much
- Change out of your day pajamas
- Beer pong is not fun virtually
- Virtual drinking is cheaper than tavern activity
- Bring your own snacks. No waiters in this format
- Bring more drinks in case the virtual happy hour goes long
The plan is to set up a virtual happy hour for each night of the week. We will get to hang out with some really great people and go to bed a little earlier in the evening.
Drink more and live well in quarantine.
Philme.
Day 21 – Covid 19 Pandemic: The fabulous Muffin and I, Philme L’Amour, have decided that staying at home isn’t really working. We are wiping down the mail with sanitizer but who knows who might have decided to put their sticky fingers on our junk mail. The Amazon packages that arrive every day have to be wiped down on the outside and on the inside. Oh, and the groceries! Besides mingling with the infected masses at the grocery store, each of those products needs disinfected. We made up several gallons of sanitizer but it will only last so long.
So we decided to buy a boat and sit out on the ocean until the pandemic is over. On Craig’s List, we found a nice 1979 Defever 43′ Trawler. The owner says it is seaworthy and ready to go. Big discount for cash. He has offered to top off the diesel and fill the fresh water tanks. He says he had it completely refurbished in October of 2018. Since all of the marinas in Florida are officially closed, he has offered to take the boat out of the harbor late at night and meet us on a beach to exchange cash and take over the keys and title. Our plan is to pack up everything that we need including our CB radio, some fishing tackle, and some personal protection in case some bad guys want to take over our little slice of isolation. We have plenty of sunscreen, books to read and puzzles to build. It will be challenging with the dogs, Diogi and EmptyM, but the boat has a back deck and AC so it shouldn’t be too bad for them. We hope to leave tomorrow or Thursday and drive straight through.
We went to howmuchtoiletpaper.com to figure out our toilet paper needs. According to their calculation, we have enough toilet paper to get us well into September if we aren’t able to replenish our supply. In any case, we hope to be back ashore before hurricane season gets into full swing.
We are not sure how to handle the internet connection. Our Verizon plan automatically connects us from anywhere if we are willing to accept the roaming charges. That should do it, but we need to test it out before we get too far offshore. Obviously no cable out on the open water. We will have to rely on Roku, Hulu and the Disney Channel for most things, including news on when it is safe to come home.
More news tomorrow as we iron out the details.
Philme.
On Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 1:38 PM Philme L’Amour <philmelamour@gmail.com> wrote:
Day 22 – Covid 19 Pandemic: Our trip to isolation aboard the vessel “After You” is on hold temporarily. First, a few basic issues. The fabulous Muffin had hoped to get a fresh mani and pedi before we leave. Unfortunately, none of her favorite manicurists will come out for an emergency redo.
Second, the 12’ trailer we have borrowed from a friend is all packed and ready to go. We keep thinking of more things that we might need; extra sheets for the bed, laundry soap for hand washing clothes, extra oil for the engines, a sextant, a map, water proof cases for phones and laptops, jellyfish sting meds, scuba equipment, extra rope… at least this boat comes with 120 feet of anchor chain. I hope it also comes with a winch to pull that much weight off the bottom.
I talked to our financial advisor this morning to get her input. She was very nice but not very supportive. In fact, after her laughter subsided, her best advice was to update our will before we go. She would handle whatever money we have left.
I am also not feeling too good about our boat seller. His name is Jesus Martinez. He seems to know a surprising amount about the remote shoreline where we could take over possession of the “After You”. He is getting a little aggressive about when we will be there and how many of us there would be. He asks that we bring the money in smaller bills if possible. I had a friend in law enforcement check his phone number which, he says, is a “burner phone”. Apparently lots of people on Craig’s List use prepaid phones to avoid nuisance calls and scammers.
The final sign might be the passage of the Coronavirus bill by Congress. We figured that we would just let our mail stack up at the post office. But, I would hate to miss that big fat check from the government while we are hiding out on the ocean.
Muffin and I are going to have a long talk tonight to determine our best course of action.
Thanks to all of you who have offered advice.
Philme.
Sent from my iPhone
Day 23 – Covid-19 Pandemic: Philme L’Amour admitting here that maybe our beautiful boat named “After You” was an impulse reaction to concerns over the spread of the Covid-19 virus. We learned that the boat has been stopped several times by the Coast Guard for transporting people from certain Caribbean and South American countries to the United States. It is probable that lots of nice people have been crowded onboard very recently making our use of this boat for isolation from germs a bad choice.
We have revisited the panic room as the fall back to isolation at sea. We have everything we need for several months. And some stuff we really don’t need now. With a little help from Muffin, I think we can get the panic room built in about three weeks without anyone locally aware of what we are doing. I have the carpet in the living room pulled back with the area marked off for trap door access. I can spread the dirt we need to remove over the fenced back yard so no one will notice. We will use portable sanitary service to avoid calling a plumber. The electricity is no problem with the new generator for backup. We may have to cut the cable to save costs. We can probably survive with just Hulu, Netflix and the Disney channel. Muffin wants to add a sauna but I think that would be too much.
Tension is building locally. The mayor shut down a portion of the hiking trail where I walk Diogi and EmptyM every day saying that people were walking too close. One of my neighbors got a ticket yesterday for taking a bite out of his Jimmy John sandwich while he was still in the restaurant. Even more troubling, there is a man and woman who meet regularly at our health club in the parking lot. They arrive in separate cars but end up in the back seat of one car or the other. Since the gym is closed, they have moved to the very back of the parking lot. I watched them for quite a while this morning. There was definitely no social distancing going on there.
I am off to the crawl space to work overnight. We need to dig deep enough to be able to hand pore the footer on Monday. The new concrete mixer and supplies are stacked on the back deck. We have a project plan in place…all dependent on my stamina to stay on schedule. Muffin is providing the catering to the construction workers. That would be me.
I have 25 gallons of diesel motor oil and a brand new West Marine Manual Oil Changer if anybody needs them.
TTFN.
Philme.
Sent from my iPhone
Future Thinkers Guild 