Day #23: The Grocery Store Makes me Sad
I was totally fine until I went to the grocery store. From my perspective as a stay at home non healthcare worker (a place of privilege I acknowledge,) nothing feels like the end of the world until you go the the grocery store. The grocery store feels apocalyptic.
Josh, who was our designated grocery store runner until they started closing at 8, said it first...the place just started to have bad vibes about a week and a half ago. Like, it was under control...no one is rioting for toilet paper (today there wasn't any, but I have seen it within the last 2 weeks, it does exist) but it feels like it wouldn't take much to start one.
When you are out in the woods, on a walk, in the yard, the other places we are allowed to go, people smile. They wave. The Chinese food people offer my kids extra fortune cookies when we pick up takeout. No one smiles at the grocery store. A few people wear masks. There is always someone stocking, A guy was wiping down freezer handles.
They had most of the things on my list. No garlic, which was weird. No flour. Apparently everyone is baking. And no egg noodles. But they had spray cleaner and toilet cleaner, diapers, frozen peas...all the other things I needed. But everyone there looked sad and scared.
Yesterday when we dialed in to Parent-Baby class they had a guest speaker on coping with anxiety in these times. She talked about the four basic biological reactions to fear: fight, flight, freeze and fawn. It really helped me to understand some of these behaviors more. The hoarding thing is a fight response. It's a my tribe is gonna eat and have toilet paper whatever happens. It's not a logical response. I've been saying control but it's more than that. It helps to understand it. Flight is the people who took off for a mountain cabin to wait it out or are dissociating at home. Freeze is the people who are stuck, endlessly refreshing their facebook feed, unable to do anything. Fawn is the people who are constantly worrying at you, trying to bake for their neighborhood. Taking care of people in whatever way you know how is also a biological response and it's common in moms.
I think we all have done some version of all of these at some point. I know I have. It doesn't help when your normal coping mechanisms aren't working. Literally everything I used to do to relax...hike, swim, go to the library, sit in a coffee shop, read a book, write...all of them are either closed or very hard to do with people stuck in my house all the time. It's why I cling to my road trips. Going for a drive soothes me and I'm still allowed to do it. Unfortunately, it's not one of James's favorite things, making it hard to do when I'm in charge of both little people.
So I spent a small fortune on groceries. Call it hoarding behavior if you like, but the stress eating is real and I don't want to go back there anytime soon. Grocery delivery is currently running 5 days out, so if we wanted food this weekend I had to go. I mean, we had food. I just didn't want to eat canned stuff all weekend. Tomorrow I really want to go to the fruit stand for fresh fruit and fresh flowers. We shall see. They are open. I know we have to minimize trips, but oh, man, supporting one of my favorite local businesses and getting fresh fruit and fresh flowers sounds so amazing right now. Much better than the apocalyptic hellscape that was the grocery store.
In other news, the new version of at home school starts Monday and I'm already irritated. I'm trying not to go into it irritated but it's hard. The district has decided getting everyone to work on the same thing at the same time is good for teachers, so my kid now has some version of online school from 9-10:30 a.m. MWF. I've mentioned that mornings are one of our harder times and in ordinary times his school doesn't start until 9:30. I really don't want to start 3 days of our week with an hour and a half of school on the screen. I'm fairly over it. I understand what the school has to do and is trying to do but at this point if we're going to home school I'd rather just do it and stop getting this weirdness from the district. Today was fun, though. He got to have a zoom meeting with his teacher and his classmates and while zoom was not built for kindergarten classes he did enjoy seeing them. We will see how the new version of school goes. It's no one's first choice. I feel for the poor teacher. She's not the most tech savvy person on the planet and I know she didn't sign up for this.
In honor of our last day doing school and learning our way (I know, we'll still have PLENTY of time together,) James and I wrote a story together. I'm preserving it at the end of this post after I close for posterity.
I want to talk more about what I'm reading, when I have time, and how that ties into my bigger emotional state around all this, but this post has already been long so I guess I will try to do that this weekend. It turns out I have a lot more to say in pandemic land then I thought I would.
In the meantime, today I'm grateful for having lots of food, my health, writing, writing with James, chocolate, dark chocolate, Max dancing, books, audiobooks, Harry Potter, and classic baseball replays.
The Ghosts Downstairs by James and Mama
Once upon a time deep in our basement two ghosts were born from their mother and father. The ghosts are my best friends. Their names are Arnold and Phoebe from The Magic School Bus. They like to play games like checkers.
They are nice and friendly ghosts. Sometimes they spook me. They think it is funny but it kinda scares me Sometimes they scare each other which I think is funny but they don't. When they are trying to be spooky they run up and say "Boo!" I can see them. They are very white and only I can see them. They make my house fun. The End.
Josh, who was our designated grocery store runner until they started closing at 8, said it first...the place just started to have bad vibes about a week and a half ago. Like, it was under control...no one is rioting for toilet paper (today there wasn't any, but I have seen it within the last 2 weeks, it does exist) but it feels like it wouldn't take much to start one.
When you are out in the woods, on a walk, in the yard, the other places we are allowed to go, people smile. They wave. The Chinese food people offer my kids extra fortune cookies when we pick up takeout. No one smiles at the grocery store. A few people wear masks. There is always someone stocking, A guy was wiping down freezer handles.
They had most of the things on my list. No garlic, which was weird. No flour. Apparently everyone is baking. And no egg noodles. But they had spray cleaner and toilet cleaner, diapers, frozen peas...all the other things I needed. But everyone there looked sad and scared.
Yesterday when we dialed in to Parent-Baby class they had a guest speaker on coping with anxiety in these times. She talked about the four basic biological reactions to fear: fight, flight, freeze and fawn. It really helped me to understand some of these behaviors more. The hoarding thing is a fight response. It's a my tribe is gonna eat and have toilet paper whatever happens. It's not a logical response. I've been saying control but it's more than that. It helps to understand it. Flight is the people who took off for a mountain cabin to wait it out or are dissociating at home. Freeze is the people who are stuck, endlessly refreshing their facebook feed, unable to do anything. Fawn is the people who are constantly worrying at you, trying to bake for their neighborhood. Taking care of people in whatever way you know how is also a biological response and it's common in moms.
I think we all have done some version of all of these at some point. I know I have. It doesn't help when your normal coping mechanisms aren't working. Literally everything I used to do to relax...hike, swim, go to the library, sit in a coffee shop, read a book, write...all of them are either closed or very hard to do with people stuck in my house all the time. It's why I cling to my road trips. Going for a drive soothes me and I'm still allowed to do it. Unfortunately, it's not one of James's favorite things, making it hard to do when I'm in charge of both little people.
So I spent a small fortune on groceries. Call it hoarding behavior if you like, but the stress eating is real and I don't want to go back there anytime soon. Grocery delivery is currently running 5 days out, so if we wanted food this weekend I had to go. I mean, we had food. I just didn't want to eat canned stuff all weekend. Tomorrow I really want to go to the fruit stand for fresh fruit and fresh flowers. We shall see. They are open. I know we have to minimize trips, but oh, man, supporting one of my favorite local businesses and getting fresh fruit and fresh flowers sounds so amazing right now. Much better than the apocalyptic hellscape that was the grocery store.
In other news, the new version of at home school starts Monday and I'm already irritated. I'm trying not to go into it irritated but it's hard. The district has decided getting everyone to work on the same thing at the same time is good for teachers, so my kid now has some version of online school from 9-10:30 a.m. MWF. I've mentioned that mornings are one of our harder times and in ordinary times his school doesn't start until 9:30. I really don't want to start 3 days of our week with an hour and a half of school on the screen. I'm fairly over it. I understand what the school has to do and is trying to do but at this point if we're going to home school I'd rather just do it and stop getting this weirdness from the district. Today was fun, though. He got to have a zoom meeting with his teacher and his classmates and while zoom was not built for kindergarten classes he did enjoy seeing them. We will see how the new version of school goes. It's no one's first choice. I feel for the poor teacher. She's not the most tech savvy person on the planet and I know she didn't sign up for this.
In honor of our last day doing school and learning our way (I know, we'll still have PLENTY of time together,) James and I wrote a story together. I'm preserving it at the end of this post after I close for posterity.
I want to talk more about what I'm reading, when I have time, and how that ties into my bigger emotional state around all this, but this post has already been long so I guess I will try to do that this weekend. It turns out I have a lot more to say in pandemic land then I thought I would.
In the meantime, today I'm grateful for having lots of food, my health, writing, writing with James, chocolate, dark chocolate, Max dancing, books, audiobooks, Harry Potter, and classic baseball replays.
The Ghosts Downstairs by James and Mama
Once upon a time deep in our basement two ghosts were born from their mother and father. The ghosts are my best friends. Their names are Arnold and Phoebe from The Magic School Bus. They like to play games like checkers.
They are nice and friendly ghosts. Sometimes they spook me. They think it is funny but it kinda scares me Sometimes they scare each other which I think is funny but they don't. When they are trying to be spooky they run up and say "Boo!" I can see them. They are very white and only I can see them. They make my house fun. The End.
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