Thanks: 
I feel like so much has been changing over the past month for me and Petteri. I believe San Francisco was the first city in the U.S. to mandate a "shelter in place" order which started on March 17. At first it was to last until April 7, but it has now been extended to May 3. Basically it just means to stay home as much as possible. You can go out for walks to get exercise, and shop for only essentials like food and medication. And of course, make sure to social distance, keeping a six feet distance from people that you don't live with. Restaurants are only open for take out, if they are open at all. (Some are just closed during this time) We did order some take out a few days ago, for the first time since this happened. I thought it would be good to try to support some local businesses at this time. We ordered some Chinese food.
Petteri and I are mostly homebodies, we like spending time at home, we like to play video games, go online, watch YouTube, TV shows and movies. Of course we like to travel and go places too, but we can enjoy our time at home, so we don't really have a problem with it right now. Petteri also likes to play games on his computer, and I like to draw... (And I really should be working on my animated short so I can finally finish it!) So we don't really have that hard of a time staying home like some people do. Sometimes I do get a little bit of cabin fever, and I want to go for a walk outside, to get a little bit of exercise and fresh air, so I usually do that about once a week or so. If I feel like I want exercise but don't necessarily feel like I need to go outside, I will play Ring Fit Adventure on my Nintendo Switch. That game is fun and it really makes me work up a sweat when I play it! Petteri and I have also been playing a ton of Animal Crossing too.
When it comes to our jobs, I work at Whole Foods, which is a grocery store. My job is essential, so I was never worried about losing my job. People are always going to need food. Things started changing rapidly at my job just over the last month. There is no more coffee bar, or salad or hot bar. (Which was sort of buffet style food, and the food was priced per pound). People would normally help themselves to putting the food in the food container and then a cashier would weigh it when ringing them up. There is temporary no more seating to eat at our location. Plastic "sneeze" guards have been installed at every register. Each cashier is at every other register to maintain social distance between the registers. There is markers on the floor to remind people to keep a distance of six feet between each other. We spray and wipe down the registers between every customer with disinfect spray. We now have always have an employee at the cart return area to spray and disinfect the carts and hand baskets. We have to wear gloves, (which I change often) and just recently, we always have to wear a mask. Customers are not allowed to bring in their own reusable bags in the store, and if they do, we ask them not to put their bag on the counter. For the first hour of the morning, is for shoppers age 60 and over only. We normally close at 10:00 pm. But then it was changed to 8:00 pm. Then just last week, our hours are now that we close at 1:00 pm. They are doing this so our store can focus on doing online orders only, since so many people are doing online grocery orders through Amazon Prime. We are the only Whole Foods store in San Francisco that is closing at 1:00 pm currently. So customers have the option of shopping at a different Whole Foods store after 1:00 pm if they need to. Honestly I kind of like this. I like working in the store with no customers, it limits our exposure to so many people. I don't mind doing Amazon Prime Shopping.
Petteri worked at Car Rental place. I was a bit worried about Petteri's job, I don't know if rental cars were considered essential? But there are people in San Francisco who don't own a car, but they rent cars every once in a while. I guess because it's considered transportation, it is considered essential.
So I thought his job was safe. His hours weren't being cut either. But when he went to work last Tuesday, after working for a couple of hours, they sent him home. His job was terminated.I was mostly worried about this because we get our health insurance through his job. We will get health insurance for one more month, but that is it. I wish his job was furloughed, where we would continue to get health insurance through his job. So now I am trying to get health insurance for us through my job. I only work part time right now, and I have to work full time in order to qualify for health insurance. If I start working full time soon, I can get health insurance by May 1. If not, it will have to be June 1, as they can only start it the first of the month. I did talk to my HR and my boss. He is going to try to see if he can get me to start working full time soon, but he is not sure yet if there is enough in the team's labor budget to do that for me, he said the manager will look into that for me next week. But if that is not available for me, I might have to transfer to a different department that has a full time position available, or transfer to a different Whole Foods store... I honestly hate the idea of working full time, my shoulders and back hurt quite often after working a shift, but we have to do what we have to do. I am grateful I have a job still. And Petteri told me he will handle the cooking and cleaning. I guess for now he will be a house husband.
This is all a little stressful for me, worrying about health insurance. That is something I hate about this country, that health insurance is so dependent on your job... I think everyone should have the right to affordable health care no matter if they have a job or not... But anyways, I know we will get through this. If it's not until June 1 we get health insurance, we will only be without health insurance for about two weeks.
Petteri still got paid for a full day's shift that last day he was there, and he will be getting severance pay for seven weeks. He also applied for unemployment, so he will get getting that soon. He is going to use this time to try to work on coding and programming, so he can try to eventually get a job in his field. (He graduated the end of last year with a computer science degree)
All things considered, it's not the worst. Gotta stay positive and support each other. We are healthy, well at least I hope so! I know some people feel fine and don't show any symptoms even if they have COVID-19.
Hang in their guys, we will get through this.
