Mark woke up Thursday morning, March 12th, at 4:30am to hear Karen talking to someone about cancelling her air flight to Houston TX for the Fotofest event. We had talked the night before briefly about the wisdom of her attending. I gave a moderately negative, “Perhaps this isn’t a good idea.” She woke up in the early morning worrying about the advancing pandmeic that we weren’t yet addressing at 114. She read that the NBA had cancelled thier entire basketball season, others were following along….
Later in the day Karen learned that others had cancelled their trips to Houston, both reviewers and photographers. This event collapsed entirely shortly afterwards.
Thus began our “social distancing”.
By Saturday March 14, the pandemic had made its way into our day to day lives in a big way. The library board of trustees cancelled its in person meeting. We had a drink with David Drake at 225 Warren on Saturday night, sitting a good distance from the few other patrons at the bar. This turned out to be the last in person social event.
By the time St. Patrick’s Day came on Tuesday March 17 we had truly gone into isolation. The planned dinner with Dave Drake was turned into an exchange of foods we had jointly prepared. We drove over to Dave’s apartment in Catskill and handed over bags of food. This was the beginning of a food sharing pattern that went on for months.