03/15/2020-03/21/2020
03/15/2020
Birthday of the Goddess, Erika Paradise. Gifts included two poetry books and Artic Fox hair dye, which is vegan, cruelty free and donates 15% of profits toward preventing animal abuse.
All of Erika Paradises gifts arrived yesterday.
Erika’s sister, Alina Baked Up a Strawberry Matcha Sponge Cake w/ vanilla icing.
Erika’s family ordered pizza for everyone. We watched the movie Moana.
Erika’s birthday cake…
Baked Up by Alina
03/16/2020
Not sure what happened that day.
03/17/2020
The year St. Pattrick’s Day died and everyone in Boston cried because Tom Brady the Robot decided to fly south for the next season, assuming there will even be one.
Everyone in Ireland still found a way to get drunk.
03/18/2020 - 03/21/2020
Unlike most other people, many other people, my job is NOT furloughed, nor do I work from home. Along with everyone else at my job, I am also considered an “essential employee.” In fact, the work load, the work flow and the work rate have increased exponentially, along with our hours. So has our pay, temporarily.
Most of us transcribe phone calls for mostly older, slightly racist people with hearing problems. In the last few days, the calls of the mostly older, slightly racist, hard of hearing people have been using their phones way more, as they’re going through the 5 stages of grief about Coronavirus w/ panicked loved ones who are taking time out of their days from not finding essentials like pasta, toilet paper and kindness to listen to their mostly older, slightly racist, hard of hearing loved ones. I would make the mistake of coming from from my night shifts to scroll Facebook in hopes of finding some sanity.
Calls and FB posts included:
Conspiracy Theories:
It’s not Coronavirus, but Trump arresting all the pedophiles.
The Deep State Gov’t putting Coronavirus in the water supply to sabotage Trump.
Liberal Media hoax trying to stop Trump 2020
Dis-mis-information:
If you can hold your breath for 10 seconds you don’t have Coronavirus.
Coronavirus is a Chinese Bioweapon.
Trump is going to lock down the U.S. w/in 24-48 hours by using Stafford Act.
People getting “right” w/ God:
Talking in tongues (2x)
The end times are here and God is killing homosexuals, people who get abortions and maybe Jews(?) (3x)
Apocalypse/End Times are here but w/o homophobia or antisemitism. (3-4x)
Confusion/Check Ups:
People out of work due to layoffs or some working from home (too many to count)
Checking on friends, “Do you need anything?” (too many to count)
I work in training department, but training essentially cancelled as everyone is now just on calls.
Work also saw a major increase in call volume when an earthquake struck just out side of companies headquarters in Salt Lake City, briefly knocking out 2 call centers for several hours in which time everyone else on phones tried not to curl up in the fetal position under their work station cubicles and cry.
Within 12 hours, San Antonio Texas (where I live) went from 7-day social distancing ordinance measures to 30-day social distancing ordinance measures. I still go to work to transcribe calls from mostly older, slightly racist, hard of hearing people, while their panicked loved ones are taking time out of their days of not finding essentials like pasta, rice, soaps, toilet paper and kindness.
After a week or so of agonizing scenario’s, Erika Paradise finally sends a heartfelt email to renters asking to bring Fifi the cat into the condo.
The jury takes a day of deliberations
They said yes
Erika rejoices!
Despite being fairly well stocked before National Emergency of Coronavirus, we got o Sprouts in an attempt to re-stock up on a few things. Among the items the (mostly) affluent middle-class have disappeared from the shelves:
Sprouts brand Almond milk, lentils, potatoes (but not sweet potatoes), veggie patties, all frozen fruit and veggies, frozen pizzas, pineapples, frozen fake meat, smiles, music, and of course essentials like pasta, rice, soaps, toilet paper and kindness.
Streaming companies Netflix and Youtube (later Amazon, Disney and Facebook) finally recognize their dreams where millions of people are stuck at home w/ nothing to do except watch stuff, but are forced to lower streaming quality due to high traffic, thus confirming they never anticipated/intended their best case scenario of wanting all eyes on their products. Believe in yourself!
Older people’s nightmares are coming to fruition as virus spreads that mostly affect people w/ pre-existing conditions and 65 or older while the Trump gov’t ponders socialist solutions to save the crashing economy and now, due to social distancing, they are forced out of necessity to learn technology if they want to communicate with the outside world.