Day 1767

So, I'm going to get groceries this morning and there's an ambulance with all its lights flashing parked right in front of the store. This is actually not an uncommon occurrence. I've seen ambulances and firetrucks parked in front of grocery stores dozens and dozens of times. Hey, EMT's get hungry too. What made this truck different was I immediately noticed that many people entering the parking lot took one look at the truck and just kept on driving. They weren't going to take any chances and assumedly went somewhere else to buy their groceries. Most of the people who did enter the store took a quick picture of the truck with their cell phone.

I'll have to admit I was a bit relieved to see that there were no men in biohazard spacesuits inside. There were just four EMT's in their regular uniforms sitting around a table at the little cafe inside the grocery store. Why were they all huddled around a laptop though? That didn't seem normal. They weren't drinking coffee or eating breakfast either.

With a heightened sense of awareness, I wandered around the store looking for something for dinner. I saw four old people coughing profusely while pushing their carts and a guy at the checkout counter wearing a big gauze bandage with blood stains on it. I'm sure that the busy store has always been filled with people like this. I just never noticed them before Dallas became ground zero for Ebola. Now that one nurse on the quarantine list decided to fly to Cleveland and another went on a cruise, you just don't know what to expect. I keep waiting to hear that one of the quarantined people is dating the chef at a popular restaurant, or has a brother who works in the produce department of my regular grocery store. Out of an abundance of caution and just a touch of hypochondria, I picked up a frozen pizza and two frozen Chinese dinners and headed home.

I hope they re-think this "self-monitoring" policy very quickly. It's obviously not working. Why would anyone on a quarantine list who has already been exposed to a deadly virus even think of talking a cruise? Jeez, cruise ships are notorious germ factories already. This is the last place you'd want one of those Presbyterian nurses to be.

When I was up on the roof today, I heard Dot barking and immediately climbed down and went inside to let her out in the back yard. The incontinence episodes have taught me that whenever Dot barks, she needs to pee. Sure enough, she peed within seconds after letting her outside.  There haven't been any accidents in quite a while, but it still takes a lot of coordination.

I discovered that there's a feature on our land-line phone that lets you either block 25 callers, or white-list 25 callers and block the rest. Janet and I added up all our friends, relatives, and clients and came up with a number less than 25. This might be a way to get rid of the annoying telemarketers forever. At any rate, we're going to enter our meager list of friends into the phone and give it a try.

I hope this is a quiet weekend with no surprises at all. I'm tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Of course, I could just turn off the television and pretend everything was fine. I wonder how long that would last?

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day