It’s been only 12 days since I wrote my last blog piece, http://Corona Times in the Philippines, and well, the world and the Philippines have changed a lot since then. I usually try to write humorously but it’s a tough struggle now.

Like many people, I just want the world to return to the way it was a month or two ago. If not, I want someone to give me a date when to expect things to return. And if not that I want the world to return for just me and Janet – and maybe if I’m generous a few carefully selected others – and let the rest of you deal with all of this. That seems fair, don’t you all agree lol.

By the Numbers: As of today there are 2084 reported cases of Covid-19 in the Philippines and 88 deaths. This is 10 times the number of cases and about 6 times the number of deaths I reported 12 days ago. The numbers are small compared to the US, but growing at an alarming rate.

Unlike most countries, the Philippines, an archipelago, has a natural advantage. Ferries and planes between islands were mostly shutdown 2 weeks ago, with the exception of necessary supplies. Whatever term you use, that means that we’ve essentially been quarantined for the past couple weeks, unable to travel except on our island. Actually that’s not entirely true. Negros has two provinces and the other province, Negros Occidental closed its borders a couple weeks ago. so really we can only travel within Negros Oriental, which is pretty limiting.

I watch a huge country like the US, where people can and do freely travel between states, and can’t help but wonder if that’s a good thing. Here we have no such options.

In addition, islands like Luzon and Cebu are under complete lockdown, so you can’t move from town to town. Several of Janet’s siblings left Cebu City before the lockdown and are now home in Alcoy, Cebu.

Gradually through the last 12 days most stores and restaurants have closed. A few holdovers do deliveries. I was disappointed to find out that my favourite bagel place, Rolling Pin, actually the only bagel place, closed today. I was hoping to hit it one more time before Friday.

Why Friday? Because Friday, April 3rd the entire province announced we’d be under enhanced quarantine. This means most businesses will be closed by law. Every family will get one pass for someone to leave the home 2 days a week to get groceries or take care of whatever business they have. Janet will be the pass holder, since as a senior I am not supposed to leave the house at all. I’m not a have to go places every day sort of guy but I need my daily walk. At this age my daily walk is mostly the walk around the block sort of exercise and I’m still hoping to be able to do that. I swear I’ll wear a mask and won’t go near anybody but being locked in scares the shit out of me.

Now I have to admit that where we are locked in is a pretty nice place. We have 1300+ square meters of property. I have a shop in the back of the lot and Janet has a garden. Hell, I could walk to my shop and back 4 or 5 times and it would be just as much exercise as my walk, but it’s still not the same.

As reported before the yard is big enough to practice my chipping. I have a bucket as my target. I usually miss it and the ball goes into Janet’s garden which doesn’t enhance our relationship.

Unlike most Filipinos we have plenty of groceries and the money to get more. And we have a car which allows us to stay away from others. I never thought of this benefit when I bought the car but it seems pretty important now.

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In fact yesterday, as my darling Janet began to watch me crack up she suggested that we take a drive. We drove to Siaton; just drove and looked at the sites. The weather was beautiful of course. Dumaguete was pretty much closed down but as we got further and further out of town we noticed that commercial activity picked up, until it seemed normal by the time we hit the outer limits of our drive. I wish I could say this was a good thing but in fact it struck us as a bad thing. I could imagine the people thinking, ‘All that danger stuff is for people in Dumaguete or Cebu or Manila, not for us here.’ I hope they’re right but doubt it.

But come Friday there will be no more drives, no more bagels or most other treats I like to spoil myself and Janet with.

But it’s not all bad news. Because the bagel place was closed, I panicked. “I wonder if McDonalds (known as McDos here) is closed?” I cried in terror. “Let’s find out,” suggested my darling wife. We went down there and praise the Lord, they were open and we got our normal meals from the drivethru. Now the routine is different; money goes in a basket; food is handed to you on a tray. I had my mask on so they didn’t get my order right, but hell, they usually get it wrong anyway. Regardless, we were happy and they told us the drivethru would remain open past the dreaded April 3rd.

One more bit of normalcy. Exiting the drivethru and making a left as I do to get home is always a challenge. A motorcyclist was bound and determined to “get butchered” as Janet loves to delicately say, swerved around me to avoid being hit; and he avoided it barely. It was as if to say, “I’m not letting some damn virus keep me from my destiny – to die on my motor.” Anyway, I didn’t kill him and we returned home and wolfed down our burgers so quickly I couldn’t much enjoy it but was happy for the normalcy.

One other bit of normal. A couple days ago Shopee actually delivered a package. I kid you not! I was surprised since I’d gotten a message the day before from the driver that said he couldn’t deliver because of the quarantine. So I was shocked to see him ring the bell and ask for 171 Pesos for a tiny, sort of irrelevant item that I’d ordered a month (or a lifetime) ago. But I was happy. Now if they’d only deliver Janet’s birthday present which is stuck somewhere between Manila and Dumaguete or the little toy which I bought for myself and hadn’t told Janet about (until now) and is coming via FedEx. Every day their automated system tells me it’s coming today but everyday I get a message saying it’s still stuck in Manila. These mofos are teasing me. I wish they’d just admit, “Hey we’re enjoying your toy. You crazy Americans really spend money on this shit?”

One more piece of Philippines normalcy: As I’m writing this Janet calls me, “There’s a lizard in our bathroom.” “So what,” I say. “We see them all the time.” “This is the biggest one we’ve ever had.” I went up and sure enough he was the biggest one we’ve ever had in the house. We tried to catch him and he ran behind the bathtub. Clearly he’s a male lizard – he likes my tub. He can’t be all bad.

Ok I’m making light of all this crap. I could tell you that I’m scared for myself and I could tell you I’m scared for Janet and my Filipino family and neighbours who have it much worse than me. Or I could tell you I’m afraid for my kids, who I can’t get to see if the worst happened and visa versa.

But I can’t tell you all these things. Too busy chasing that lizard.