Day 21

I walked 170.62 miles in the past 30 days which burned 71,990 calories. That's something I can still do.

This is such an incredibly strange time in life. I know we are better off than 90% of the world. We have a home, electricity, food, water, a neighborhood we can walk around in. We are still employed and for the most part able to work at home. My business is doing better right now then it would be if I was in the classroom. We have a lot to be grateful for during this time we are staying home. For many of my years I've been an ER nurse and if I was working in the hospital I would be having an entirely different type of stress right now. We are all healthy. So many people are sick at home or in the hospital

That said I want to record all the changes in our lives right now.

•    I can't see my grandkids. For that matter we can't see anybody. It could be 7 months without seeing them. This is just unbelievable. There were a couple times after January I thought about flying out for a week but I didn't. I figured I would be there for 2 weeks in May and I would just save money by waiting to go. I wasn't expecting a pandemic. St George Island is crazy right now. They are running out of state people out of town. I know we need to stay put but they are positively crazy. It seems like the kind of crazy that happened in Rawanda where over night people turned on their neighbors. I know it's just cyber talk but people are saying such hateful things and threatening violence.

I found an article explaining to correlation between empathy and fear. It was very insightful.

 Fear is our brain’s way of keeping us (and our species) alive. This emotion is regulated in a part of our brain called the amygdala. It is responsible for innate reactions that we have about the world around us – especially things that might harm us.

An overactive amygdala can shut down or limit access to empathy. It does this in order to respond to fear and our evolutionary focus on survival.

Empathy is the ability to understand and to imagine another person’s experience – the capacity to walk in another person’s shoes – including those who are different from us.

The good news is that according to Roman Krznaric, author of Empathy: A Handbook for Revolution, 98% of humans are hardwired for empathy.

However, when the amygdala is activated, it’s very difficult for humans to empathize because of the negative emotional “noise” created by the amygdala.

• No school for Sean. He isn't too bothered by it but I think it's sad. No competing in Lego Mindstorm at Lagoon. No end of year piano recital. No 6th grade dance or graduation. No hanging out with friends. They haven't cancelled school for the year but it's only a matter of time. Elementary school will just end with no ending and he will start Jr High.

  

  Good thing this kid likes to sit at the computer. He is spending a zillion hours playing Fornite. It keeps him entertained and happy. Spring break is over tomorrow and online school starts back. That was pretty much a spring break bust for the entire planet.

• Simple things like going to the grocery store is weird. I'm trying to only go twice a week to get milk and bread. The CDC has finally come out with the recommendation that people should be wearing mask when they are out. Duh, maybe stop people from coughing on everything. Stores are limiting the number of people who can go in at a time. They've been doing that at Costco for awhile but I have stayed clear of Costco. I've only gone to Walmart and Dicks. Now Walmart is limiting the number of people in the store at a time and making people all walk in the same direction in the aisles. I found toilet paper last week but now there are no napkins. I did buy paper towels.
• I went to the bank to deposit the "lost money" check from mom's Capital One account. I had to deposit it and get cashiers checks for my siblings at the drive through. The lobby is closed. I deposited our rent checks on my cell phone to save a trip.
• No swimming for Don, no library for me.

In February when I got my hair colored I told the stylist that I was thinking about going gray and we both laughed and said "but not today." I'm thinking now might be the time. I either need to dye it with a box or let it go. I'm thinking I'll just see how much it grows out before life get's back to normal.

• Carter turned 37. No candles on his cake because it's not a great time to be blowing on everyone's food. There is no dining in at restaurants. NONE, that's an adjustment.No lunch with my friends. We got take out from Texas Roadhouse so he was OK with it. No gym for Carter which totally bums him out.

• Tomorrow I'm going to go into the classroom for a couple of hours and help Linda get started with a lab. It's only 8 people. I kind of just want to see how it flows. It's weird to have over 100 students in the class online and know I won't even meet 90% of them. We've always had such a personal relationship with our students.  

• Don and Mao Yu did yard work yesterday. I feel bad that I'm not having Talitha clean the house right now. I know she needs the money but I'm home ALL the time so our house is really clean and I don't want to have someone else coming in that isn't necessary. 

• The Chinese interns can't get home. They had flights but they've all been cancelled. I don't know if Mao Yu is going to be able to get home for the summer. If she get's home for the summer we don't know if she will she make it back for when school starts in the fall. She doesn't have her visa for next year and if she goes home she will have to be quarantined in a hotel for 14 days and then she will have to quarantine again when she gets back.