Expired N95 Masks! Pets, Box Spring?, Coaching, More

CONTENTS

3/30/2020 8:45 PM #2

  Expired N95 Masks Wanted!

  Makerspace Donations Location

  Covid Projections From UW

  Caring For Our Pets

  Food Co-Op Update

  Delivery Folks & Tipping

  M.A.S.H. And Corona Virus

Columbia Neighborhood

  Box Spring Needed

  Backpack Reunited

Editor’s Corner

  Coaching Help?

Poem:  My Shoulder Misses You

EXPIRED N95 MASKS WANTED!

I just got word that in Whatcom County, we can donate expired N95 masks! The only thing that wears out is the elastic. I’m so excited, because years ago I organized a group buy for cases of those masks for earthquake preparedness. Our front entry was stacked with big cartons for weeks. I’m hoping a bunch of folks who got them from me back then still have some. I just checked my stash, and I have 3 boxes of 10 3M 8511 N95 masks. Makerspace folks will seal the exhale valves on these ones so they are safe for this use. I am SO excited that we can donate them! If you have an earthquake stash, or sheetrock or construction or whatever stash, of unused N95 masks, you can donate them! If you’re not going out, check in with me tomorrow. I’ll organize to get the masks where they need to go. Or if you’re going out, just take them by Makerspace. See the next post.

MAKERSPACE DONATIONS LOCATION

12 – 5, Mon -Fri

Someone will be available to receive donations at Bellingham Makerspace which is located at the Bellis Fair Mall. If you are in the parking lot and driving toward Dick’s Sporting Goods, there is a loading cu-lde-sac on the right. That’s where.

COVID PROJECTIONS FROM UW

National and state-by-state detailed projections. Click on the home page where it says USA to get the state listings.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

CARING FOR OUR PETS

Have you made arrangements for your pets if you should contract the virus and be unable to care for them yourself? It’s not a likely scenario, but not one we’d like to see ever. Please talk with your neighbors and set up care just in case.

FOOD CO-OP UPDATE

The Co-op is open, and has posted senior hours and procedures for bulk foods on their website, which is updated often. They are not accepting any returns, including glass milk bottles at this time. It will make the workers lives easier if you check the website before you go, or before you phone. Please make only essential food runs wherever you shop. [And if you really have to go anyway, please check with me. I’ve got some items I could use a re-stock on sometime this week.] https://communityfood.coop/

DELIVERY FOLKS & TIPPING

I heard yesterday that tips have fallen dramatically for pizza delivery folks, and worry that it’s true for other workers as well. I wonder if it has to do with so many people getting laid off. If you can afford to tip extra well, please do!

M.A.S.H. AND CORONA VIRUS

Sorry, I couldn’t find this except on Facebook. But I loved it!

I have sincerely believed for a long time that whatever issue life puts in front of us M*A*S*H had a solution. I had some pent up creative energy today, so I did this while you were all cleaning your closets and such…lol

Posted by Frank Vaccariello on Saturday, March 28, 2020

COLUMBIA NEIGHBORHOOD

BOX SPRING NEEDED

My daughter has had to move out unexpectedly and is in need of a full-size box spring. We could pick it up as soon as possible if someone offered. ~ Christy Raper 360-441-5905

BACKPACK REUNITED

The backpack left outside our house has been claimed. ~ Sue Hodges

EDITOR’S CORNER

COACHING HELP?

We’re way hunkered down. It’s now been over 2 weeks, so we’re likely to be fine. Friends and neighbors drop off groceries (and I adore them for it – talking about YOU Reisa, Jamie, Heather & Ellen!). Everything joins the 3-day queue unless it needs refrigeration, in which case Zeke deals with it. He’s got a nodding acquaintance with laboratory decontamination from his university days, half a century ago but procedures haven’t changed all that much. Mostly he just washes things. We’re planting our own salad greens (thank you Carol Brach!) and have a bunch of frozen beans and broccoli to tide us over. Starting to figure out how to host Passover Over The Internet this year. Starting to learn Zoom. Crazy busy! If you’re bored, you’re invited to help me transition to a different email program, or figure out break-out rooms on Zoom, or help me learn to do a better layout job on my new virus blog: columbianeighborhood.org.

POEM: MY SHOULDER MISSES YOU

© Karen Motan

My shoulder misses you, dear stranger,
how we would brush by each other on the crowded street,
unaware of the gift of this barely noticed moment of intimacy.

How could we have guessed that we would be asked next time
to give each other such a wide berth,
to cross to the other side of the street,
to avoid each other like the plague;
our shoulders now pulled in imperceptibly towards our own center,
as if the whole world were out to get us, could be the death of us.

Who would’ve thought I would miss so many people I did not even know;
the sweating panting crowd I would push my way through
to get to the stage, to hear the music closer, closer to the band.

How could I have known how much I would miss you,
the ones who barely registered as a blur, how we would all move together like one living organism, this crowd of bodies.

How could I not have known how much I would miss you;
the hand that would touch my arm lightly,
then reach around me with a smile to grab a pint of milk at the grocery store.

How could I have missed the exquisite beauty of that moment?

If I had known what I know now,
perhaps I would’ve turned around and embraced you,
breathed in the smell of your perfume,
or the sweet-sour scent that your baby left on your blouse
after her mornings feeding.

Of course, if I did so, you would have thought I was a lunatic,
because, at the time, you did not have a crystal ball to see
all that would be suddenly taken from us.
You would not have any idea how, in the blink of an eye,
the same grocery isle would be like a ghost town,
and a lonely box of produce would be sitting on your front door,
ready to be washed, and then washed again, and again.

I did not know I would miss the handyman who came to fix the leak;
I did not know I would miss the simple warmth of his knuckles as I passed him a glass of water,
or how he would laugh hearty and full, just inches from me,
when my child came running in asking if the handyman could join us for our lunch of SpaghettiOs,
if he could be her friend.

How could I have known I would miss the promiscuous pen,
passed casually by the bank teller into my waiting hand,
while I thought of nothing else but how bright red her nails were,
and how I liked the way she smiled?
I could not know what a gift it was to linger with her for a few seconds,
to find her eyes, and to tell her that I hoped that she had nice day,
to have her offer me the same.

When we find each other again, and we will,
let us not go back to sleep;
let us take every chance to pull close, to pat each other’s backs, shake each others hands, embrace.
When all of this is done,
let us crowd into the smallest church, or temple, we can find,
until there is barely enough room to move, or breathe–
And then let us lift all our voices in one cacophonous chorus;
let us sing songs of gratitude for this sacred moment of flesh to flesh,
breath to breath–
as if we were Adam and Eve, dropped down from the heavens,
seeing each other for the first time.

© Karen Motan

Love/Fl!p

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