The Day Before the Lock-down

The governor has issued an order for all New Yorkers to shelter in place.  This order is to go into effect today.  So, what is a girl to do when she has only one day left before a lock-down? Why take a road trip, of course!

Well, it wasn't as irresponsible as it sounds.  We had planned to take a pre-season trip out to camp to bring out the television, sewer hose, water filter and a few other things TBG would need to open.  Also, we wanted to take the Jetta for a longer/highway drive.  As a result, we made it a multi-task trip.

This image is our spare chest freezer in the basement.  It is generally reserved to store raw meat for the dog.  The problem is, we not only needed to stock extra food for ourselves (don't worry, we are not panic hoarding, just buying by the week instead of daily).

One big problem is that poultry is hard to come by these days and our dog is on a raw meaty bones diet.  In years past, I would be loath to do it, but I could fall back on a high quality grain-free food, but now that she has cancer, we really need to stick to raw.  Another issue, is that even if I could stock up on chicken thighs, turkey necks, etc., these are items that people need.  Well, I'm not sure about the neck thing, maybe to make tasteless turkey stock, but I can't even find them for her anymore!

A solution fell in our laps.  We started a friend on raw feeding for her dog.  Unfortunately, her dog is picky and refuses to eat most of the poultry they had in their upright freezer.  They offered the stash to us so they could go out and get rabbit and kangaroo meat for their dog.  Can I tell you how happy I am that I have a dog who will eat virtually anything (her favorite food group is food)?  Knowing that we'd be restricted to travel, we high-tailed it to Canandaigua and picked up two coolers of meat.  Luckily, my sister has a freezer she hadn't been using.  This was hundreds of dollars of food that they would not take payment for, so we brought them a bottle of bourbon and a few cans of mackerel (hopefully their dog will like that).

I'm a border-line hoarder and hang on to stuff I think will be useful in the future.  We went to an event (against my better judgement), a few weeks ago to celebrate James Joyce.  Part of the event included a small magazine-like publication with pictures and his poems, plus a pint beer glass.  It was at an over-crowded brew pub (hence my paranoia), where they were introducing a porter in the poet's honor.  Keeping and using the pint glass was no problem, but we really had no use for the accompanying publication (we lack culture ;-).  I told TBG we'd save it for someone who could appreciate it.  He just couldn't figure out who, and I figured a solution would present itself.

Turns out my BFF's father is in a senior living facility in Canandaigua too, and he is confined tot he premise.  I offered to bring him a care package from his daughter so he could have his favorite breakfast foods.  Well, talk about serendipity.  I figured he was the perfect recipient for the booklet.  We added a bottle of sherry because I thought it might go well -- and TBG was on a liquor run anyway.

So, as our last travel hurrah, we were able to pick up months worth of food for Teddy, divest ourselves of a potential piece of hoarding fodder, and help out a friend.  We also confirmed our car can get around 40mpg highway.

As an aside note, a few days before the trip, I knew it would make sense to transfer our thruway EZ Pass to the new car.  I expected this to take a lot of time, but the state had that phone line fully staffed and we were able to easily and speedily get it done.  As a result, we didn't have to handle cash.  The rest stops were nearly empty, and we were able to sanitize at any stop we made, so it was a safe trip.  We skipped camp because we aren't sure if, or when, the park will be able to open.  But at least we got two things done!