Quarantine Diaries, Day 15
22:16 No desire to do the dishes again. When two adults eat 3 meals at home and drink several cups of tea and coffee, it’s a lot of dishes. Today’s lot fit into the dishwasher. We’ll be sleeping to its sloshing white noise.
19:15 On the way home, an old lady was trying to persuade her ancient mastiff to move. She apologised for blocking the footpath. I told her not to worry about it, stepped onto the street and walked past her.
19:00 Entering a grocery store feels like playing Russian Roulette with your health (if not with your life). Before entering the store, I try to mentally map the items in the grocery list to their shelves so that I can make a quick sweep and get out in no time. Of late, I am being thwarted by depleted stock. Which means looking for substitutes, which means lingering on in the store for longer than I have any desire to.
18:26 People these days move to the other side of the footpath when they see you coming from the opposite site. I’ve begun to do the same. We are all trying to maintain the government prescribed safe social distance of 1.5 meters. Doing this in a dense city like Amsterdam sometimes means stepping off the footpath and onto the street. At any other time it’d seem rude (like the treatment of shudras in ancient India, or Jews under the Third Reich), but these days it’s a gesture of kindness and compassion. It says to the passerby “I mean well. I’ll move aside so I do not accidentally infect you”.
18:15 Stepped out for a walk and grocery run after 36 hours. Thanks to the clock moving forward by an hour, it is beginning to stay bright well past 19:00. It had rained just before I left the house. The sky was still quite dramatic. The streets were quiet and still. Except for an occasional runner or 2 or 3 people walking their dogs, I hardly saw anyone.
Empty Road
Empty Dock