The Lead Up to Social Distancing at the Lew House

I don't see why I wouldn't blog a least a little bit until things are back to normal.

In roughly chronological order, here's the last week and a bit.

• Last Monday, the Canadian government advised against travelling by cruise. And so, we cancelled the Disney cruise, to which we had been really, really, really looking forward.
• We also cancelled the flights and were irritated by WestJet's handling of that. And almost a week later, well, that money might be right off.
• The kids were disappointed but understood that we were doing what was necessary.
• We then hemmed-and-hawed about some kind of local trip for a couple of days. But no.
• Thursday at 3:45 pm, we got an email from the TDSB more-or-less reminding us to wash our hands regularly.
• Not 15 minutes later, I got the news from the CBC that publicly-funded Ontario schools are closed for two weeks after the March Break. 
• As it happens, I had a lieu day booked for Friday the 13th, the last day of school before the March Break. It was kinda lucky because on Friday, there would have been many more questions than answers. So on one hand it's a little disorienting to have been out of the loop but on the other, I don't mind that I missed out on the confusion at school that day. 
• I'd kept the kids home that day also because we had dental checkups around the middle of the school day.
• So our social distancing got an early start, compared to most teachers and students.
• I also got to go grocery shopping off-peak on Friday. And while the store was strangely busy for early business hours on a Friday, it was no busier than the typical after-work rush that I usually experience. The store was also quite well-stocked.
• As it happens, I'd already been gradually stocking up on long-shelf-life groceries and supplies for a couple of weeks, because I considered it possible that we could be asked to self-isolate after our cruise and didn't want to come home to nothing. So on Friday, I just needed to pick up some perishables to restock the fridge that we'd been emptying in preparation for the cruise.
• Friday evening, we got an email from our vice-principal indicating that teachers are to be available to work-from-home (most certainly not travel) during the school closure. There are still lot of questions about what work will look like after the break but I'm not worrying about that until after March Break.
• Last week, Dion's work had started with a work-from-home rotation but has now moved to remote working for everyone for at least two weeks.
• All of our extra-curriculars have been cancelled, except for music lessons, which will happen via video.
• Since Friday, we've only had a few F2F interactions with anyone besides ourselves. One stop at Indigo and one stop at a local game shop to buy some gift cards (me only.) I'm seeing online that this is one way that people are trying to support small businesses who will surely struggle during mass social-distancing.

I think that most of my coming posts will be filled with pictures and anecdotes of how we are keeping ourselves well and occupied.