Haha, a text from the government: we are not to leave the house. 

Which would not be quite so funny if the previous news about the government weren't how they raised their paychecks to the absolute existing maximum the third day of their enstatement. Rather cute in a socialist country, but, you know, it's a crisis. They'll be solving our problems while we are locked indoors. Like that one time last week, when they tried to buy 3 million face masks from a shady Balkan dealer to at least supply the health workers and the masks never came.

How the fuck do I walk the dog? I feel like the lady in Room.

Here's some funny memes on top:

Shockingly, but not surprisingly, when parents went to the hospital for dad's eye exam, they were given neither gloves nor masks. This surprised my dad so much, he didn't know what to say when doctors started touching him without gloves. I made him put on gloves in the parking lot, but the poor fool took them off, expecting some proper gloves will be supplied for them. 

I know that there is very little risk in the hospital, because we only have 2 or so contained cases there and it's in another ward, but I am starting to suspect: "No need to wear masks and gloves, they don't work" has a little bit to do with "Fuck, we don't have enough masks and gloves even for our personnel!"

I wear a construction worker's anti-dust mask and I look stupid, but people ask me all the time where I got it. I bought them for the pigments. I have no idea why they wouldn't work - they stop particles so fine they only glimmer in direct sunlight when I work, yet alone sneeze spray. The General needs to use gloves at work, so he bought some in the local farms' supply station. Things are getting so cute at his place - people no longer care to shop, they just order on-line, so yesterday he had tons of potato go though the distribution hall :D Ah, the work of a mailman these days.

The pharmacy was interesting, too. The line in the street is annoying, but once I got to the little glass window and put the card(s) into their reader, she gave me the medicine and then I had to pay with cash and she took the cash from me, via the little drawer, with ungloved hands and put it in the register.

Am I over-thinking this, but how does she know that money wasn't compromised?

Maybe I'm just over-thinking this.

I have to stop googling: How come Ebola never spread to Europe?... and stuff like that.

To me, this is just a big dress rehearsal. So far we are not doing too bad in this country. The curve is slowly flattening. And maybe the way Americans are acting, they'll be lucky. Although something tells me these odd times, this weird calm before the storm ... so quiet, so peaceful, so calm. This may still get interesting. 

So peaceful outside. Ah.

I desperately wanted some bread today, so I went to a story which I assumed was safe to buy bread from and got multicolored bagels in all colours - painted with charcoal, red kale, saffron, spirulina and so on, they were really pretty. So, of course, the moment I step out of the store a homeless man approaches me, saying their soup kitchen has been shut down and he hasn't eaten in two days. 

General asked how I managed to spend 30 bucks in a store again and, again, the only thing I brought home was Kraftiq Neskafe. 

Now I have to go intercept my parents on their way to an eye clinic, where they've been told they will be given masks and gloves, but my mum is skeptical and doesn't wanna chance dad. I'm taking protection stuff to them and taking his medical card to go get them medicine. Tons of people standing outside pharmacies, so it's better I go and they retreat back to their castle. 

While Italy is experiencing a shitshow and nobody knows what the fuck is happening and why (and why to Italy, when China handled it so much better - "Isn't it just a flu?"), our politicians have been sooo funny :D The dictator-wanna-be guy took over for the third time and started with his immigration and anti-abortion shit and everyone was like: Ye, dude, not now. ... He got shut down in a minute. If he had the sense to promise more hospital solutions and better care, he'd have won the people by now, but of course, that would mean actually delivering on the subject. At the moment everyone just knows he's gonna waste money on our shitty army and implementing religious bullshit in schools and same old. Nobody has time for that now. Now those who can steal will steal and those who get paid for doing so will point fingers at why money wasn't handled better and aww, poor people, taxes will have to be higher for a little while. Same old, same old indeed. 

The one thing that really had me laughing was the mayor of the capital, when smaller regions were shutting down schools, bars, and traffic, him saying he's not gonna fall for this race of "who's shutting down more" and making lives of people harder... He's, you know, the cool politician.

       Well, yesterday the day was super sunny and warm and tons of people were out and hanging in the parks and at hiking stops and being jolly, Instagram shots circling the IG... and he was like: what the fuck is wrong with you?! Which part of 'highly contagious pandemic we are trying to prevent before it gets insane don't you get?!'

Ah, dude. As long as you are the hip one.

The statistics game has been curious and since this is such a new thing, nobody knows much of anything for certain. For example, numbers are so super low in US, because people have to pay for their testing and it's not cheap. There are no cases to speak of in Africa while Iran is going wild. Italy is suffering the worst at the moment, but is it because a) it has high elderly population, b) a lot of them are smokers, c) they commonly greet one another by kissing cheeks, d) a lot of mild cases aren't being reported so mortality seems so dense, e) nobody remembers being paranoid, so people didn't think to care until it hit the fan?

If it gets resolved in the next few days, it will just be a dramatic scare, most people hardly having noticed it and for others a mere inconvenience. But if it doesn't get resolved in a few days... I have been stacking craft supplies for decades. I'm just saying. You gosta be prepared. I grew up in Yugoslavija. We were always trained for the next shitty situation. Generation of my parents still keeps enough food to feed a village in their basements. An adorable meme circling these days: We may have to resort back to the days of hunting ... but I have no idea where hamburgers live or how you hunt them down!

Well, if things get interesting, we have water for about six days, food for about ten, coffee for about a month and books for about ten or twelve years. I think we should be fine. 

Korona ninja

"Thundercunt gray"

I'm tired as fuck, but I refuse to sleep enough, because there is so much going on and I am riding a creative wave, looking for lost and forgotten pans in corners and under the couch, "inventing" shit while I wait for the third filling to dry. The General usually drags me to bed around one in the morning, angry I still have so much to achieve for the day - and then at around seven something I get up and pick right where I left off - some of it is playing games, some of it researching the plague, some of it self-promotion, some of it dealing with customers ... I managed to mess up an order the other day - luckily, albeit expressing disappointment, they were willing to resolve the matter in an amicable way. Now all I need is for the post offices not to close, either here nor there. They will be closing all mail to Italy come Monday, for now the only state going there. But US has been reporting an odd lack of cases, which may have something to do with the fact testing is rather costly and a day may come when they realize they are in a full-fledged end of the world mode and then what will happen to my pretty Etsy, mm?

The paint I invented - well, I mixed three or four paints and bet on the sand within - is a trial between creamy darks and grainy c.mortuum. It is a weird, ugly, messy paint. My best so far, by far. I need more of this shit. Alas, I have no pans and no g.arabic and the othered supplies refuse to come. 

May be a good time to sleep two days and then pick up writing a novel for a little while? Library's closed and with a big warning poster on the front gate - one of those you see in the beginning of post-apocalyptic movies, blowing down the street among abandoned cars and swirling garbage empty bags in the air.

Can we please hurry with the zombie apocalypse, some of us have shit to do!

... I just jinxed my entire extended family, haven't I?
O.O