I remember 2 encounters with folks who worked at restaurants and bars right before everything shut down. One of the security guards at the Bamboo Bar (our favorite local bar), chatted with us one night we were there saying he really hoped they didn’t shut down. He has a 1-year old son. The other bar tender at a local restaurant said jokingly, of course, “This virus will never be able to infect me, I drink too much alcohol”. Just to clarify, she was joking and knows that the virus can affect us all.
That night at the Bamboo Bar when we were talking to our friend was the night the NBA shut down. I remember J saying, I really hope they don’t shut down the NHL or my league. The next day, they shut down both.
During quarantine, we ordered takeout food from one of the local, family owned restaurants a couple times a week. It was a nice change of pace from cooking at home. We wanted to support some of the local restaurants we love so much. We’ve built relationships with a lot of the staff over the years. They all know we’re hippies and like to drink out of glass bar glasses with no straws instead of plastic cups. Our friends own a local coffee shop call the Wunderbar and we got takeout breakfast from them every weekend.
I remember the day we heard about some of the meat packing facilities shutting down because their employees were getting sick. We were both a bit concerned about that and J went out to Giant Eagle that afternoon during lunch and bought over $100 worth of meat. We both texted our parents and let them know about this. We weren’t sure if they were watching the news or not and this seemed like a big deal. Both Fresh Thyme and Giant Eagle put a limit on how much meat you could buy at that time. One day, toward the end of quarantine, I grabbed an already cooked rotisserie chicken and two packs of meat, thinking they wouldn't let me buy all of that. The sign said only two packs of meat per family. When checking out, I put the rotisserie chicken at the front of the belt and the raw chicken at the back, hoping I could buy all three. I wasn't sure if the limit was just on raw meat or not. Apparently it was, I was able to buy everything.
At the beginning of quarantine, we stocked up on pantry items and things we could freeze. There’s a little bit about that in my story about the day things shut down. When we went grocery shopping, we would get the normal stuff like chickpeas, peanut butter, fruits, and veggies. But we would also get stuff like spaghetti, sauce, mac and cheese, and we doubled up on meat. Our freezer was packed and overflowing with food. We had plenty of meat and I prepped packs of veggies for two kinds of soup. I’m grateful that we didn’t have to go through all this food, and we were able to continue going grocery shopping. Things changed so quickly; we never knew if they were going to shut down grocery stores. But we were prepared if they did.
We still go out to restaurants these days. Bamboo Bar is open and they have socially distant tables and no one can sit at the bar. We have lunch there every Friday. We also still get breakfast pretty much every weekend from the Wunderbar. They now have a patio outside. Grocery shopping is a breeze on Thursday evenings and I can always find what I'm looking for. We just have to wear masks into the stores.
Thanks for reading this segment of my “This Damn Virus” story. Catch up on past segments here and come back next Wednesday for the next one! Sign up to receive a weekly reminder email about this blog here.
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