Tag Archives: masks

Habits left over from COVID

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More cactus blooms in our yard. Isn’t that amazing for July in Arizona?

I wash my hands a lot. Every time I go outside and come back into the house, I wash my hands. I realized that my constant handwashing was a habit I picked up during COVID. I get up from typing on my laptop or using my phone and wash my hands some more.

I remembered other things that changed from the COVID shutdown days when we didn’t know much about how the virus was being spread that stick with me today.

Washing hands is number one.

Number two is I don’t like being in crowds like going to big sporting events or the movies.

Three is I’m not as social as I was before.

I worry about travel on airplanes. I’ve gotten sick from COVID after travel twice.

I was very confused about masks. In CA, masks and vaccination cards were required to go in public spaces like restaurants. After we moved to AZ, you rarely saw anyone in masks and no vaccination cards were required — even through we got vaccinated in huge stadiums in AZ with thousands of others driving through the parking lots of the State Farm Stadium where the Cardinals play and the AZ state fairgrounds. After visiting our kids in Berkeley, I’d be back home and realize I was the only one wearing a mask at the grocery store.

I had a close friend in Palm Springs whose daughter was working for a grocery delivery app. They’d have her strip at the backdoor after work and put her clothes in the washing machine, shower and then enter the rest of the house. They also took their groceries out of their car and wiped them down with alcohol wipes before bringing things into the house.

I have friends who traveled to visit family in Michigan and Ontario Canada this week who got COVID. They are holed up in a hotel recovering, but are not very sick.

Last summer, during our beach trip to Santa Barbara, we had several friends cancel getting together with us because they all got COVID. It was eerie. We ended up leaving early because of it. We checked websites and local news and COVID was breaking out everywhere in that area. We decided to go back home to our wildlife of Arizona.

I did lose my mother to COVID on January 1, 2023, so I so know COVID is a real threat to our health. I have to say, I was more worried about cancer after my daughter-in-law’s diagnosis of stage 3C colon cancer during last summer’s vacation. That was way more on our minds than our friends in Santa Barbara getting COVID. Thankfully, everyone, including our DIL and Santa Barbara friends are doing well!

Has COVID from 2020 to today changed any of your actions or behaviors? If so, what has changed?

It’s happening — again!

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empty shelves at grocery stores
I took this picture in March 2020 during the TP shortage. Our grocery store was almost completely out of TP today. The only difference from this photo to what the store looked today was this year’s much higher price tags.

It was a weird feeling today going to a large grocery store and discovering empty shelves in the toilet paper aisle. There wasn’t any name brand TP. The few packages left were brands I’d never heard of.

Do you remember hunting for TP in 2020? I do. I resorted to ordering it from Amazon and it was some very bizarre stuff with Chinese writing that took a month to arrive. At the time, I was shopping for my dad’s groceries and delivering them to him each week since he was 88 years old. He was asking if we could spare a few rolls, since there wasn’t any at the stores.

Bizarre to see that again today. What is up?

The other weird thing I noticed was almost everyone was wearing masks. In Arizona, we have a high vaccination rate, but you don’t have to wear masks anywhere. Well, mostly not anywhere. The exceptions are doctor’s offices and government buildings. I normally see a few elderly people wearing masks and that is all. Today there were only a handful of people NOT wearing masks.

I asked the checker what was up with the toilet paper. She said she’d heard a few things, but wasn’t sure what was true. First, they couldn’t get people to work to make the toilet paper. The other excuse was supply chain issues. How many times have I heard that since 2020? The checker said we’d all be fine if people don’t buy nine packages of toilet paper and just buy what they need. I honestly don’t think I have patience for this again. Do you?

I’m wondering if I’m missing something going on in the news? Is there something happening in Arizona? Are you seeing TP shortages, too? Do your stores have other items out of stock? Does everyone wear masks inside? How do your grocery prices compare to a year ago?

empty shelves at Target March 2020
We were looking for bleach at Target March of 2020.