Charlie

I am wondering how this can be an exact reproduction of a long verbal exchange on the phone. I might give @vasudev some leeway because he is new to the conventions of posting here, but I agree that identifying the provider seems to indicate the motive for the post is retaliation against the provider as much as receiving feedback from members.

That was a sensational headline, not an accurate summary of the actual order.

I worked online from home from 2002 until I retired in 2018. The downside was that I missed the live interaction with colleagues. The upside was that I never had to shower beforehand.

The 55+ community in which I live has all of the indoor amenities--tv lounge, meeting rooms, game room, library, gym, etc-- quartered in the common building, which is now closed to anyone but staff. However, the outdoor amenities--pools, tennis courts, etc.--are still open to residents. My brother-in-law, however, lives in a huge Del Webb Sun City community, where everything is off limits, even the golf course.

As usual, the headline is misleadingly sensational, since Newsom could not possibly order "all Californians" to stay at home, since there would be no medical care, police, firefighting, food production, functioning utilities, news media, etc., without numerous exceptions, which are a much longer list than the order itself. But it does get most people to read the article. Even I am still going to the supermarket and the pharmacy, and walking my dog.

A friend who is an airline stewardess operating out of LAX says most of her flights are almost empty now.

Adriano46 was a regular here for a long time, but he hasn't posted anything in almost a year. Ragazzolupo hasn't posted in almost four years.

I saw a warning somewhere today about flushing other kinds of paper, including some of the "flushable" wipes, because they can clog the system, and not having a workable toilet is a much bigger problem than running out of tp. The Sears catalog was OK as long as one didn't have indoor plumbing.

I saw large gaps in the milk products area at my supermarket yesterday, but I think it may be that they have not been getting their normal supply rather than crazy panic buying. They also had no fresh fish, not a product that shoppers are likely to hoard.

Kitty litter is the feline equivalent of toilet paper.

When he moved to Broad Court 50 years ago, it really was an ideal spot in London, and I often used to stay with him when I visited. Now it is as @keefer describes it.

Got milk?!

Here at our "active adult" community, there is a small gym in the community center, and there are rarely more than one or two people in it at any one time. I went to it last Friday, and there were eight people! I'm sure they were trying to avoid the dangers of the commercial gyms they usually go to, but there was less social distancing here than at World Gym. My spouse usually uses the treadmill and stationary bike at the gym here, but now it feels so crowded that he is going to stay away and just take long walks instead.

I think trip insurance is a moneymaker, because very few people actually do cancel their trips. However, in a situation like this, with enormous numbers of people having to cancel, I wonder if companies like Allianz will be in financial trouble.

My friend was referring to a lockdown for residents.

For those who might care: the PS City Manager has just ordered all cannabis lounges in the city to close.

A close friend of mine who lives across the road from the opera house told me today that the gov't has said there will be a lockdown, but they still haven't announced details.

Another major difference between AIDS and COVID-19 is that from the beginning, it was clear that only certain kinds of people who engaged in certain kinds of disreputable behaviors were affected by AIDS. It was easy for Reagan and his administration to avoid dealing aggressively with the disease, or even mentioning its existence, because those kinds of people and those behaviors weren't associated in the public mind with the people who supported him. COVID-19 doesn't discriminate on the basis of political ideology, religious identification, or sexual orientation: anyone can get it, by engaging in the most common activities of daily life. There wasn't much panic over AIDS among the general public once it was clear that most of them weren't at risk; they had to be persuaded into feeling sympathy for the initial victims. It wasn't until heterosexual women, men who didn't use drugs, and babies were affected that compassion for those with AIDS became generally respectable. Many people like to ignore that uncomfortable fact now, but I ran an AIDS Hotline as a volunteer from 1986 to 1989, and I know who was calling with concern and who wasn't.

The primary difference to me is that in the early years of AIDS, we didn't know what was causing it or how it was transmitted. I had acquaintances who died of unusual illnesses which at first didn't even seem clearly related to one another. One of them was a gay doctor who got bizarre symptoms for which he tried to treat himself; he died in 1980, and it wasn't until a couple of years later that we began to connect the dots. By the time another acquaintance died early in 1982, there were rumors going around about a "gay cancer." It wasn't until 1985 that we had a definitive answer about what was really going on.

What a nice hood ornament!

Maybe Traviata?

The hardest part will be at Dulles, where the absolute minimum amount of time to clear customs and immigration seems to be thirty minutes after you de-plane. Try to get as much sleep as possible on the flight from Narita to prepare yourself. Good luck!!

Palm Springs City Manager has used emergency authority to close all bars. Restaurants can stay open, but seated patrons have to be distanced. Group gatherings of more than ten people are discouraged. Governor has asked all Californians over 65 to isolate themselves at home, except for necessary trips to grocery store, pharmacy, or medical appointments; sex with young men seriously frowned upon (OK, that's my interpretation).

If restaurants are closed, how are people who don't have kitchens or pantries supposed to feed themselves? What about workers who can't bring food to work?

I stopped at a local Von's supermarket this morning to buy fresh produce--you can't stockpile lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms or bananas--and it was the most crowded I have ever seen it on a Sunday morning, my normal time there. The checker told me that when she arrived for work at 5:30am, there was a line of people waiting to get in. They got a fresh stock of tp overnight, and it was all sold out by 7am. It is strange to walk down an aisle and see the shelves normally stocked, then turn a corner into another aisle and see them stripped bare.