I work from home, so I haven't had much of a change there. If I go out (and I am trying to because I'm going bloody-well stir crazy) I'm making sure I'm staying outdoors rather than doing indoor events, keeping my hands in my pockets, washing my hands, and I bring hand sanitizer with me.

That said, I fully expect Disney to close their parks now that there's a European travel ban, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Orlando City Soccer Club match I'm supposed to go to on Saturday is postponed.

But I'm doing what I can to stay sane. I know I have it good because I can work from home, but when one works from home and lives alone, it does get kind of rough. I have a cat, but there's a real need to get up, get out, and DO stuff.

That said, I finished Clone Wars and am making my way through Rebels on Disney+, and I'm rewatching The Amazing Race start-to-finish on Hulu (I'm on season 5), and I finished the new seasons of Drive to Survive and Ugly Delicious on Netflix. Maybe we need a "coronavirus streaming recommendations" thread, ha!

I am in the happy position of being a communications specialist during all this. sigh.

My org works with folks with disabilities, some of whom are more vulnerable to viruses, etc. So my team has been putting out releases to our team members and to families/external stakeholders. lots of calm, informative language. Most of my job could be done remotely if it came to it.

Things in BC are not crazy as yet, but the big annual conference in my field has been postponed 'til October. Also the NHL has suspended their season, to the outcry of hockey-loving Canadians like my father and sister.

I'm not panicked, but I'm seeing some panic and paranoia start to set in around me.
But hey, gas prices are down like 12-15 cents a litre, so...

As of now, my solution is: "Keep calm and listen to DiF commentaries."

The funny thing is, this weekend Suzie and I are going, along with four friends and their kids, to Aubrac to chill out, eat good local cuisine, etc. Aubrac is one of those places in France where you can find less than 10 habitants per square kilometer. I guess it's the equivalent to northern Yukon, only significantly smaller.

I'm not sure they'll even have heard of coronavirus there. If things went to complete shit over the weekend and everyone started dying on a global scale (which is never going to happen, just bear with me for the joke), we could pretty much just not leave there and live a happy post-apocalyptic life.

All schools in Illinois are closed, my wife works in a hospital, so guess who just won the working from home lottery!

I'm just now wrapping my head around the fact that we're gonna hafta get tested MULTIPLE times.

Like, a positive test tells us you had it in the PAST (and if you recover; huzzah you can't get it again!) Gotta get tested and figure out who you might have added to The List. But, a negative test only tells you you don't have it yet, but you could get it at any point during the 'demic going forward. So if you get exposed again, back you go for another round.

Dang.

...

Well, at least you'll always have virusharp.

I'll share what I shared in chat:

Sunday morning I sent out a nice little 'evite' to some friends of ours to "The Distant Social". The evite wasn't strictly necessary since we're all on 'text-any-time' terms, but it made it feel more intentional and special, which was nice. So yesterday evening 9 people got together: some friends in state, and some who've moved away.

Basically we all mixed our own drinks at home and used a group call on FB Messenger to chat and play a couple of party games that don't require physical presence. It was really neat and interesting that those out of state are now functionally the same communication 'distance' as those right down the road. I think this is the first time we've all been together since the first friend moved away two years ago

If you can manage something like that with your peeps, it was really nice. And as Teague said, I'd be down for one here too if we can make the time zones work.