Self-Isolation Day #47

Wednesday, Self-Isolation Day #47

We request continued prayers for my husband's mother D. She has been sick with COVID-19 for a month (now negative, but still sick), alone in the hospital for nearly that long, and is now on her second stretch of being on a ventilator in order to give her lungs support for longer while they heal.

Joseph (7) reading at bedtime

Today was quite a red letter day! Chris and I left the house . . .  together . . . alone! We had a months-long standing appointment with someone whose profession is an essential service, so we kept our appointment. We hired our team of babysitters, which are essential services, too. (NC Stay-at-Home Mandate Section 2, Paragraph C-23.) On our way home, we shopped at Costco for a necessary item: Chris has been doing all our shopping, so it was the first time I had stepped place inside a business in 6 weeks, which is psychologically surreal. What I experience is that the media and government has spent all this time conditioning the populace that every individual person, even neighbors, even loved ones, is a danger to us and the only entity that can save us is The Big Paternal Government. No one could reasonably accuse me of saying coronavirus is a hoax (reference my dear, suffering mother-in-law above), but right now, I see that individual Americans are generally scared of each other ("you might make me sick" leads to "you might cause my death!") and are granting all decision-making and power to the federal government instead of banding together and understanding that Constitutionally, all the power lies in us individuals.

After all that adventure, Chris and I had a lunch date by picking up restaurant food (walking inside the restaurant to pick it up at the counter . . . oooooo!) and eating in our car in the parking lot.

I gave the children the day off of school just to luxuriate in socializing with their beloved babysitters and it was so refreshing.

Bonus Reading for Posterity:

• Today our county lockdown expired and was not renewed because two of the five cities in our county would not agree to vote for it. This means our lockdown procedure is now slightly more lax. I can no longer find the quote in this article that I know was there previously (because I emailed it to a friend!), in which a county representative complained that there is a "hole" in the system that allows the five cities to vote against something, as it is the county's opinion it should be able to dictate to the cities (dictate being my word!). As NC prepares to reopen in phases, here’s how life in Charlotte will change.
• The only benefit I can perceive from the slightly more lax lockdown is that our neighborhood tennis courts re-opened . . . although why PRIVATELY OWNED courts ever closed under the guise of "the state requires it" (which is what was stated) is quite unclear to me. 
• We experienced some excitement in the morning when the adjacent county had the chutzpah to say that the county is re-opening despite the state mandate. Gaston says stay-at-home order won’t ‘fix anything,’ supports businesses who defy it. [GASP! I just read this article again and it has been entirely changed! The original article is gone!]
• But by close-of-business, the county leadership was backtracking under the muscle of the state and our hopes were dashed. Governor says Gaston County creates ‘confusion’ during pandemic.
• Media’s COVID-19 Coverage Has Been Disastrous For America