In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Fort Bend County is now under a “stay-home-to-save-lives” order.

To remain healthy, we need to remain home, stay away from crowds, avoid social contact with others and wait until the contagion period has passed.

I can handle this.

For months, I’ve told myself if I ever get the time, there’s a long list of things around the house I want to do. Now I’m forced to stay at home, so it’s time to get busy and start in on the list.

First of all, I have to find the list.

I think it’s underneath the stack of unread magazines and unopened mail next to my computer. Since they go back two years, it’s a good shot the list is buried in there somewhere.

I sit down to go through everything, and find myself paging through an Oprah magazine, wondering how her designers can get a room to look that put together.

“Get to work,” the little voice in my head whispers. It’s right – forget the list. I can look around to see what needs to get done.

But where to start. There’s something to be tackled in almost every room, so I decide to start in the kitchen.

Too overwhelming.

So I elect to start in our bathroom and choose the top drawer under my sink. There’s prescription bottles in here dating back three years.

Better find out how to safely dispose of those, I think. I head to the computer, but that nagging voice tells me to stay put and finish one job before I start another one.

So I keep going through the drawer, making stacks. Here’s one for all the little soaps I’ve picked up in our travels.

I’ve thought about throwing those away, but if we’re going to be short on toilet paper because of the coronavirus, then I’d better hoard those.

Same with the trial sizes of shampoo and toothpaste I’ve been stockpiling in that drawer. And the three half-empty jars of Vicks VapoRub come in handy when I’ve got a stopped-up nose or a visiting grandchild has a pesky cough.

I probably don’t need all these loose Q-tips and cotton balls, but with this virus and the shelter in place, I’d better keep them.

An hour later, I end up keeping everything that was in the drawer. But at least there’s some order to the stuff.

Feeling accomplished, I figure it’s time for a much-needed break. I grab a couple of Oreo cookies and sit down to take a quick look at the news.

It’s depressing and devastating.

So I decide to take on something manageable – organize the T-shirts in my closet.

I take them all off the shelf, thinking they’d look nice organized by color. All the white shirts to the left and the rest to the right. That doesn’t quite work because most of my T-shirts are white.

Stacking the T-shirts on the shelf in a variety of colors looks better. At least, that’s the rationalization I use before starting in on organizing my shoes.

But first, it’s time for a break.

I surf through YouTube for an hour, avoiding all news about the coronavirus, until I remember I’m supposed to be organizing my shoes.

I find the shoes are somewhat orderly.

Most of them are matched up, even the ones with the worn-down heels and the ones I never wear any more. I can probably skip this job.

“Slacker” whispers the voice inside my head.

With all the bad things happening in the world, having organized T-shirts and shoes should be the very last thing on my to-do list.

Congratulating myself for following the law of the land, I sit down at the computer to see what everyone’s posting on Facebook.

If we all do our part, we just might come through this pandemic a stronger nation.

“If you keep eating all those Oreos, you’ll come out a much rounder citizen,” the voice tells me.

“Yeah, but I’ll be a much happier staying-home-to-save-lives citizen,” I reply.

I wonder if there’s any chocolate-chip cookies in the pantry…

 

        This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

 

It’s the last day of spring break, and we just found out the schools are going to be closed for the next week.

My husband and I volunteered to take care of our five grandchildren since their parents are still working outside the home.

The grandkids come to visit often, so we’re familiar with their routines. We also reared three boys, five guinea pigs, two hamsters, a cat and a couple of dogs.

How hard can taking care of our beloved grandkids be?

Day 1:  The kids arrived at 7 a.m., ready to start playing, excited about being out of school an extra week.

As the day wears on, the news isn’t looking good about school returning next week. In fact, it looks like a lot of businesses and establishments are going to be shutting down.

News flash – there are rumors that school could be closed an additional week. No problem. Parents have created elaborate online schedules to keep their children on task, and they look easy to copy.

I’m a list maker. I should be able to come up with something for the next few days.

News flash – school’s out until Easter.

Kids celebrate.

I scramble for a game plan.

Day 2:  I have a plan. We’ll get up with smiles on our faces, have a delicious and nutritious breakfast and then spend 45 minutes reading.

Then it’s play time, a hearty lunch and they’ll quietly complete worksheets for another hour. After that, all the happy children will go outside to play.

The plan is a moot point about 10 a.m.

We had a pretty good breakfast if a pound of bacon and a half pound of powdered sugar on french toast is considered nutritious.

When it was time to read, somehow I was the one reading all the books while the kids curled up on the couch all around me.

I’ll admit, it was heavenly even though the 45 planned minutes were over in 20. I suppose I’m a fast reader but we did cover six books in that amount of time.

News flash – people might be forced to shelter in place.

My husband braves the grocery store and comes back with everything we need. In the meantime, I thought the children could straighten up their rooms.

That was pie-in-the-sky thinking. Instead of cleaning up their toys, I let them swim while I obsessed over grim Covid-19 news.

Lunch was Spaghetti-O’s and chicken noodle soup. Snacks were all the Doritos in the pantry and a few oranges thrown in to ease my conscience.

I did manage to get some worksheets printed out. The hour of after-lunch learning was over in 4 minutes and 29 seconds, and then it was time to eat again.

Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs, snacks were the crumbs from the Doritos bags, two bags of cookies and an apple with Nutella on it.

Hey, that’s somewhat healthy.

Day 3:  I don’t think I remembered to brush my teeth last night or this morning.

I don’t remember taking a shower last night either.

It’s hard to be sure since I slept in my clothes, falling asleep on my way from the laundry room where I just finished folding the 10^th load of clothes for the day.

Day 4:  Or is it Day 5? Maybe it’s the weekend.

Wait, it’s only Day 4 and there’s almost 30 more to go?

We’re gonna need a lot more Doritos and Spaghetti-O’s to get through this.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

I saw a tired woman in the grocery store doing her best to get her children to behave.

The kids were a bit rambunctious, giggling and chasing each other, and mom was unsuccessful in getting them to quiet down.

My first reaction was judgmental – that woman should either learn how to control those kids or leave them home.

My second reaction was shame. Has it really been that long since I was in her shoes and have I forgotten what it’s like to be overwhelmed and exhausted.

The answer is obviously yes.

Our son just moved into a house he’s been building for two years.  His previous home burned to the ground, and he lost everything. He’s been working shut downs and saving every penny to build a house for him and his children.

He moved in a couple of weeks ago and he’s slowly but surely furnishing the house. He let his children pick out the beds they wanted, and he posted a picture of their bedrooms on a family site.

My first reaction was pride – he’d accomplished what he set out to do after life dealt him a hard blow.

My second reaction was – why didn’t he make the beds before he posted the pictures.

My third reaction – shame on me.

This single dad is doing everything himself, from putting furniture together to cooking to making sure his children are safe and fed and I was worried about whether or not the beds were made for photos.

Many of us make snap judgments about what others are doing based on a single snapshot of their day.

The people in front of me in the grocery store line in the middle of the day using food stamps initially made me wonder why they weren’t working like other people.

Then I looked a little closer at what they were buying – formula and off-brand diapers. Perhaps that young mother was doing her best while trying to rear an infant, but my first judgmental reaction was “get a job.”

I see able-bodied people parking in handicapped spots, and I can feel my shackles rise because I have friends who need to park closer due to age or an illness. Here’s someone who seems to have it all together taking that spot.

Then I remember friends who have anxiety attacks and need to get out of a stressful situation in a hurry. There are autistic children and adults who have melt downs – not because they want them but because they can’t help it, and they need a close and safe escape route.

I remember the times I forgot my checkbook or my wallet at the grocery store. People behind would sigh loudly and angrily move to another line while I stood there embarrassed.

I remember changing lanes without checking properly because I was distracted, worried about a family member. Usually the person I’d almost smacked into would lay on the horn and scream obscenities at me.

As a young mom, one of my toddlers would throw a hissy fit in the store, and most people would back away with a glad-that’s-not-me look on their face.

But there would always be one person who’d smile and quietly whisper they’d been in my shoes plenty of times.

I need to be that person.

I need to be the person who reassures, not the one who steps in as the judge, jury and hangman.

Please, Lord, let me be that person.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

No bottled water.

No Germ-X.

No chicken-noodle soup.

That’s what I found in the three grocery stores I visited this week. The reason – the scare about the coronavirus, abbreviated to COVID-19 by the Center for Disease Control.

There’s now a confirmed case in Fort Bend County, and the simmering panic we’ve been reading about will probably blow into a full-blown fire right here in our own back yards.

We’ve been through viruses before. There was the SARS outbreak a few years ago that caused shortages in grocery stores, even though the flu – which has been around for centuries – historically affects thousands more than any virus so far.

But we panicked, clearing out grocery store shelves in case we were quarantined.

There was the Bird Flu, SARS, MRSA, the Swine Flu and the H1N1 virus.

This past summer, people stayed away from Texas beaches because we heard the waters were polluted with flesh-eating bacteria.

When it comes to the beach, I’m not easily scared.

We visited Gulf Shores, Ala. after the British Petroleum oil spill, and the waters looked the same as they did for the past 10 years. The only difference was I was the only soul on the beach except for the occasional person coming by in a haz-mat suit.

According to abcnews.go.com, we’ve worried about cell phones giving us brain cancer, getting a letter in the mail with anthrax bacteria and trans-fats in our food. We shouldn’t eat fish because of the high mercury levels, and vegetables are loaded with dirt and bacteria.

When a hurricane or bad storm’s coming, the weather folks go into overdrive, and people panic. Stores shelves are bare, there’s long lines at the gas stations and you can’t find a generator for hundreds of miles.

It’s good to be prepared for emergencies, but are we overreacting?

This week, I went to the store for a replacement bottle of hand sanitizer. I got a little spooked when the third store I visited had bare shelves. I looked online at Amazon, and the bottle of sanitizer that was $4 in the store a month ago was $50 online.

That’s what panic will do to us.

National Public Radio is practically dragging out the air horns and emergency broadcasting signal to tell us the sky is falling and we’re all doomed. Oh, I’m sorry, they say that every time a Republican’s in the White House.

On the other hand, what if we really do need to be prepared and COVID-19 could wreak havoc on the operation of the world?

If we quarantine workers, forget getting fuel at the gas pumps, groceries or pharmaceuticals. Stores will close until the emergency passes, and people who stocked up on bottled water and Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee canned spaghetti will be sitting pretty.

All of us who shrugged off the warnings will feel ignorant for not paying attention sooner.

So I find myself in the middle of the debate.

I’m angry at the media for causing public panic with phrases like “I’m not going to use the word pandemic, but we should be worried.” Announcer – you just used the word pandemic and raised the anxiety levels of every listener about 20 points.

I’m angry at people for not washing their hands throughout the day, coming to work with a cough and cold and for not examining every piece of news with a skeptical and informed eye and believing every bit of exaggerated news they hear.

But then I find myself in the grocery store at 6:30 a.m. with a dozen other shoppers. We’re all filling our carts with toilet paper, cans of beef stew and the biggest jar of peanut butter we can afford.

Here’s the best advice I’ve heard and read:  Wash your hands. Stay home if you’re sick. Wipe down door knobs and light switches with Lysol and, whether it’s the COVID-19 virus or a shortage of toilet paper, keep your wits about you.

Get the facts.

Make informed decisions.

And don’t panic.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.