Today, I scored toilet paper and West Virginia finally confirmed its first case of COVID-19.

Yes, I ventured out to the Kroger again.  I needed some things and rumor had it that the store had been restocked.  Besides TP, there was an urgent need for critter food, bleach, and cherry pie.  Plus a $100 worth of other stuff.  My larder is stocked.  All I’m missing now is hamburger which I may or may not pursue.

I worked from home today.  It was a weird workday.  I started at roughly 7 a.m. instead of my usual 9:30 a.m.  I roared through email (there isn’t much at 7 a.m., but more than you would think) and then did the dishes so as to clear the kitchen table.  I moved the laptop to the table and spread out my work materials.  It was time to descend into the bowels of my organization’s webpage.  I always get a bit nervous when tweaking the webpage.  It’s a wonderful webpage, professionally designed, and it’s beyond my skill level to maintain.  Every change provokes prayer.

At 11 or so, I started ruffling around for something to eat.   The first snack of many.  I called my boss to see if she missed me.  (She didn’t.)  I spoke with a co-worker.  Called my mother.  Worked on some photo editing.  Rinse and repeat.  That was my day prior to the Kroger.

I ventured out at 4 pm.  I was surprised, but not really, by the number of people out and about.  The Kroger looked like a war zone.  I noticed the absence of background music.  There is no soundtrack to the apocalypse.

Post-Kroger, I have a kitchen full of work materials and groceries.  I have too much food for my available storage.  I generally do my shopping for at most a week ahead of time and usually not even that.  Then there’s the fact that I have enough for three meals a day instead of the usual one and a half.  There’s food everywhere.  Three (3!) pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream almost didn’t fit into the freezer.

I need to find a rhythm to this new life.  Right now, I still feel as if I’m waiting for the shoe to drop.  I thought that feeling would occur when they finally diagnosed a case here.  But, well, nope.  There’s still free-floating anxiety.  Oh, and cherry pie.