Pandemic: signs of the times

Miss V and I had to run a few errands today before we (mostly) retreat to the house for the next several weeks. As the coronavirus pandemic has pretty much turned the entire Puget Sound into a ghost town, I thought I'd take a few photos.

Traffic today, even during rush hour, was like Sunday morning around 10 a.m.

A literal sign of the times. Variations of this notice are posted on businesses and grocery stores all over town. You still can't buy toilet paper or hand sanitizer anywhere, not even at Poor Man's Costco (I tried, and they were sold out of anything and everything labeled "sanitizer." But they did have huge honkin' bags of onions, cheap bulk popcorn and a box of SKOR bars, so my visit there was not in vain!).

While V bought sewing notions to finish a project for a friend, I went off to QFC to recycle a load of plastic bags.

Let's just say the mall looked... different. Ordinarily this place is full of chairs as well as tables, and is teeming with life and movement: young families feeding their kids, teenagers flirting, retirees swaying to big band music, bookworms sipping their vanilla soy lattes, old guys playing chess, cute li'l grandmas and laundry faeries knitting in public, alla that. It was eerily still and silent today. There were probably all of ten people in the place, and that's counting the folks who were running the few restaurants still operating for take-out customers. A woman passing me enthused, "We have the mall all to ourselves!" Well, yes. But even for introverts, there's not much of a draw.

The signs on the tables have some legal verbiage indicating that the food court has been closed to dine-in service by order of the governor.

All this scene needs to complete the ennui is a single lonely tumbleweed to blow through the frame.

On my way back, I noticed that Uncle's Games was open and bravely soldiering on, even without customers or gaming groups, so I went in and bought a card game from the cashier. I know we'll want some family diversion in the next month. People are comparing the effect of COVID-19 on the Seattle area to a zombie apocalypse, but I noted to the cashier that so far it seems more like a vampire apocalypse... people hunker down in their homes, a few people furtively sneak out during the day, staying well away from everyone else, and by dusk everyone vanishes. AND THEN THE DARK MYSTERIOUS ONES RULE THE NIGHT.

*pfft* yeah right. That's when I do my shopping. I'm about as dark and mysterious as a doorstop.

At least one of us is perfectly happy to have all the hoomans stay home and lavish affection and treats upon him. So that's good.

In the next few days I think I'll do another outing, this time to choose a public place -- city park or vacant lot, I'm not sure yet -- and clean up the trash. I'll do a little geocaching in places where I can maintain a safe distance from others. I'll read a lot, finish projects, write, do a lot of cleaning. In fact this coronavirus thing might finally do what Marie Kondo couldn't: help me get my house organized.

What are you doing to wait out the coronavirus pandemic?