Do you live in Baltimore? How do the locals say it Ballimore?
Yes, we could for a HO seed bank!
H has been busy in the garden; promise to post some photos in the veg gardening thread, hopefully tomorrow.
He does garlic, right? My garlic isn’t as bad as usual, but my shallots are way worse. We will reconnoiter on the gardening thread.
Yep, lots of garlic & I’ll post on the garden thread.
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I’m a southern boy down in the swamps of Florida. Tampa Bay, born and raised
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I’m a Florida boy. Born and raised on the west coast, Tampa Bay
I’m certainly in the group who don’t use cookbooks. I might look at the pictures. I would have said more about pictures but thought it maybe deleted
I did another big grocery run and stocked up on wine at our favorite shop’s going-out-of-business sale. 
On the bright side, grocery store had TP for the first time in months. And I felt less stressed-out by the “unknowns” of how long this might go on or how the food and supply chains will hold up. Also a bit less concerned about surface transmission - we stopped sanitizing each item after last trip, in order to save for really important cleanings.
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We were led to believe that we’d move from “red” to “yellow” this Friday, June 5 and so have more access to stores and outside dining. It was time to move to normal.
Now we’re in day 3 of riots surrounding the George Floyd murder–burning of cars/buildings, looting of stores and just general mayhem. Normal is looking very far away
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Things are slowly easing here in Maryland. Our governor has been conservative and data-driven and I thank him for that. My last two shops showed much better stock so I think the “good news” of reopening has caused a lot of impulse buying and hoarding to ease. I’m anticipating a big surge in the big metrics of new infections, hospital admissions, and deaths over the next one to three weeks. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m going to make big shops today and tomorrow so we can hunker down for another month without leaving the house at all. Plan for the worst and hope for the best.
We’re in pretty good shape but our stock is not as robust as it was before we started eating it. I’m focusing on dry goods, some cans, and frozen. Later in the week I’ll take a couple of days off for big cooking and home canning for shelf stable storage. My goal is to get back to our fully stocked condition.
Throughout the CV pandemic I’ve been in hurricane mode which includes refilling car gas tanks when they get down to 3/4 and rotating gas for our generator to keep it fresh.
We live in a nice neighborhood but it is somewhat transitional. There are less nice places surprisingly close. We regularly hear gunfire within a mile. I’ve stepped up maintenance on our protective measures and we’re being much more careful about locks.
While we have not had a full fledged riot we have had arson and vandalism downtown. We’re in the state capital so I consider us at risk for escalation.
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Wisdom!
The last couple of days haven’t been great for me. For the first time since all this started, I’ve felt very depressed and upset by everything - particularly here in the UK, although events internationally are not good. Part of it is a feeling that there’s one rule for the government elite and another for the rest of us. Another part is a feeling that things are now being decided for political not public health reasons. There’s already 5 members of the government scientific advisory group, SAGE, saying that the latest relaxations are too soon, with infections and deaths not coming down as fast as expected. And even the deputy chief medical officer has said this is a “dangerous moment”. And what’s the change in the science that suddenly says that those of us “shielding” can now go out rather than staying in till the end of the month. I feel I’ve been sort of tossed a doggy treat. And, in spite of that, you see beaches packed over the weekend with no attempt at distancing. Now, I understand why folk want to get on with their lives but the consequence of that means that it’ll be longer than need be before its safe for me to get on with mine.
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I agree with you John and feel the same. I’m not sleeping well or long. Fatigue is building up and attempts at naps are fruitless. There is little to do but work unproductively and surf the Internet. Taking the trash to the curb on Wednesday night has become the high point of the week.
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Just want to say that I feel your respective pain @Harters and @Auspicious. I’ve been socially distancing since before the term was even coined, due to health issues that started on Christmas Day. I haven’t been to a supermarket since before Christmas. I will share openly that I’m struggling with high anxiety and very low moods. I am under close care by great medical professionals. Please don’t be afraid or ashamed to get help if you need to. These are truly awful times for all of us. Not complaining or feeling sorry for myself, but am so acutely aware of the ugly reality of life right now, on all levels - personal, political, economic and all the impacts of isolation. I worry for everyone on the planet, and for the planet itself. I’m also sickened and heartbroken over the murder of an innocent man. At the age of 66, it’s the single worst thing I’ve ever seen on the news. I wish I could unsee it because it will be with me for life. But maybe we all needed to see it, and hopefully things will change. Please hang in there, and hope for better times ahead. 
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Must have lime curd for the homemade yogurt projects. Don’t like this nearly as well as their lemon curd, but think I’ll
be able to doctor it up a bit. That way I can have my curds and whey, literally, since I use the whey in homemade bread. Toast and spread with curd sometimes.
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As I am over those who would use such tragedy as an excuse or rationalization for mayhem. I’m equally saddened by those who would be apologists for such behavior.
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Yes of course @Auspicious, I’m not in any way condoning further violence. I think it’s been fairly well established that most who are inciting trouble have been paid, and transported to the various cities. They’ve hijacked the peoples’ peaceful protests IMO. Given the current metrics, it’s a perfect storm for mayhem, and large groups of people anywhere can potentially be volatile. Stampedes at concerts, fights at sporting events, and the like.
All that said, I’ve seen signs that maybe some healing is starting to happen, and that some of the divides are narrowing. We can only hope that’s the case, and things will settle down.
What is troubling to me also, is that it’s providing a distraction to the pandemic, and people are getting cavalier about the viral threat. H told me that only about 10% of people were wearing masks at the store yesterday. As of last Friday, I saw about 85% of folks wearing masks.
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That doesn’t appear to be true. FOIA/PIR data indicates that the overwhelming majority of those arrested are local, just as they were in Baltimore in 2015.
I do agree unfortunate events have distracted from the viral threat. I’m seeing more people wearing masks below their nose, or as some kind of fashion accessory hanging around their necks.
For me “unfortunate events” covers more than riots. It also includes astoundingly bad behavior by bad actors within law enforcement. There needs to be more accountability, including personal accountability.
Between escalating violence and the virus, we’re stocking up again for a long hunker. One thing we can’t really plan for is the impact of violence, especially arson, on infrastructure. Not just stores: Internet, utility power, public water and sewer, gasoline.
Thanks. I was about to say something a lot less polite.
Yes @Auspicious, and @small_h, your first point may well be true. So much going on it’s hard to know exactly what’s happening. Thanks for being so polite @small_h. It is all just sad and unsettling. As I feared from the very start of our pandemic, with economic free fall, and scarcity of necessities, I don’t think it would take a lot for governments, and civilization to collapse, and for total anarchy to prevail. I think any and all preparation to take care of ourselves is appropriate, including items for self protection or protection of personal shelter or property. Lots of potential extremely dark scenarios out there. Hope we all make it through. Crazy times. Yes, totally agree about the threat to infrastructure. It’s tempting to think about a generator.
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