Happy Ides of March! I hope y’all are enjoying being socially distant, and that you haven’t gone thru all your boxes of wine! I’m still processing this whole situation and trying to keep a smile on my face, which you can’t see behind my protective, and oh so festive face mask; and positive thoughts in my aluminum foil-covered protective headgear! I’m sure the aliens are involved in someway! But I digress – I do that a lot!

Friday the 13th – So, after the Prez gave his emergency declaration speech, I wasn’t thinking much about the looming Apocalypse; just another Friday night. Boy was I wrong! After supper I decided I needed to make some Nutter Butter cookies, because, that’s what you do on the eve of a disaster, right? No problem! I drove to my neighborhood Kroger, found a spot to park and walked through the first gate of Hell! Well, not really; I’m sure that was at the local Walmart. I was really surprised by the crowd! It was crazy! Mad props to the Kroger peeps! They had every checkout line opened and all hands on deck! The patrons were frazzled but seemed to be taking everything in stride. Thank goodness! It could have been ugly!

Welcome to Venezuela/Socialism! I should have just slowly backed out the door, but no, I wanted those four items for my cookie recipe! So, since I’m already there, I decided to stroll thru and see how bad it was…

As you can see, it wasn’t pretty! I basically came in for a jar of peanut butter and was lucky to find a couple on the shelf! I joined one of the ques and waited for about twenty minutes to get to the self-checkout. After that, I raced home and made those cookies! And they were GOOD!

The Morning after – On Saturday I ran some errands, and just for fits and giggles, I stopped to check on the Kroger situation. It was almost back to normal! Well, there were still a lot of things missing, still no toilet paper or sanitizer, but normal size crowds and much less anxiety in the air. Hopefully, the worst is over? I know that this happened pretty much all over the country, and I’m sure we’ll get through this, but you never know. Of course, being the rebel that I am, as the government is telling us to stay home, I decided to drive to Indianapolis, just because! It was raining when I left home, and twenty minutes later, SNOW! I had a great time shopping – thank goodness things were open – and then got back to the homefront where Dad and I went for some “fine” dining!

Today – It was weird watching church online and seeing the sanctuary empty, but I guess that is our new normal for a while. I haven’t left the house yet, and I’m making my favorite anti-viral food – homemade chicken soup, aka Jewish penicillin! It smells wonderful! That’s all I’ve got for now. Take care of yourselves! Hydrate! Was your hands, yada, yada, yada. You know the drill! Hasta whenever! Greg

PS – Before I forget, here’s a mad shoutout to my local Kroger: y’all are great! Thanks for the hard work you’re doing for us!