Three positive things to come out of the pandemic … and three not-so-good things as well (besides the obvious)

Life has changed so much, so drastically over the past two-three months in the wake of the discovery of the novel coronavirus (covid-19) and the ensuring worldwide pandemic with which we are all now grappling. It’s surreal (like we’re all living an episode of “The Twilight Zone”, as I put it six weeks ago), kind of haunting, and has produced a huge number of unhappy outcomes for millions of people, from illness/death to job loss (and sadly, many who lost jobs also lost health insurance), and so on.

To paraphrase a common saying nowadays, Stuff just got real for me in the past two weeks. I admit that prior to these last 14 days I was one of those people (who are millions and millions strong, mind you) who may not have been taking it seriously enough. The “Stuff” that “got real” for me was when a family member was diagnosed with covid-19, and then today I received word that a friend of a coworker of a close friend of mine was diagnosed and is now self isolating in the small town where I live.

That was my wake-up call. This, I said, is waaaaayyyyyy too close to home for comfort, I know the person in question, and I might as well get on the bandwagon of the mask wearers carrying their disinfecting wipes everywhere they go. As far as staying at home and social distancing goes, I have no problem, for the most part, with either action. I’m glad to spend my days with my four cats and attending to their…