I visited the NY Botanical Garden with my BFF today, whose special-needs kids will likely be home for weeks and weeks so I won't get to see her for a while. They won't get educational therapy while they're at home, so she despairs of keeping them entertained while trying to get work done. 

The orchids were very pretty. There weren't many people.

I went with her to the Aldi on Broadway in the Bronx. The lines wrapped up and down the aisles. I didn't need anything from there. Just curious.

Ed starts working from home tomorrow. I had a shopping list in hand, for my own neighborhood. 

As I rode a bus home, my iPod offered up, in a row:

The Weeping Song, Nick Drake

I Wanna Be Sedated, the Ramones

Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi

THEN the supermarket all-70s muzak offered up OH MY MY by Ringo Starr.

"I called up my doctor to see what's the matter

He said come on over, I said do I haveta..:

THANKS UNIVERSE.

I bought a lot of durable groceries this week, to supplement the stuff we already had: rice, pasta, ramen, canned tomatoes, butter, cheese, potatoes, turnips, carrots, hummus, peanut butter, crackers, chocolate, cookies, frozen sausage, frozen veggies, matzoh, popcorn. Hot sauce for all the rice and beans in our future. WINE. Got a hunk of corned beef for the weekend, enough to share with Ed's elderly aunt whom we are still planning to visit on Sunday.

(We already had beans, coconut milk, jam, canned soup & shelf-stable broth, corn chips, pumpkin, couscous, bulgur, cornmeal, coffee, tea, cereal, raisins, nuts, granola bars, chutney.)

The supermarket had lines, but I've seen it worse on just a regular weekends. Shelves were being restocked all week. The usual stuff was flying out: paper goods (we have plenty), bread (we have enough), Clorox wipes (we have LOTS). I did buy extra laundry detergent and dishwashing liquid.

I got good at prepping due to 9/11, Hurricane Sandy and various big blizzards. I know how to cook meats and veg nobody else seems to bother with.

The bus home passed the Met Museum. I felt heartsick for the street vendors who won't have thousands of tourists thronging their carts for weeks and weeks. I hope they can survive.