It worked, and I got all eight of the things I'd been waiting for, and found two more things as well. I've got the dvds of Delovely and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, though I still haven't figured out how I can get the computer to play them. There there is volume one of The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham/ I'm pretty sure I've already got volume two, though I haven't dug through the stacks to see if that is actually volume one I've already got. If it turns out it is, well, the extra one I bought today was only $1.50, so not a big loss.
Then I got the remaining five volumes of the the six volume set of The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. I believe these are college literature books. They are printed on that thin but high quality paper that is often used to minimize book-carrying injuries in students. The only volume missing is #5, which covered the Victorian era. The five I've got total about 5,000 pages, so I guess I can do without the other volume, though it would have been nice to have some of the 19th century poets.
I was planning to make one more foray into the disease pool Monday to get milk and a few giant chocolate bars from Trader Joe's, but the long-awaited isolation order was issued by the Governor's office today, and everybody over 65 and anybody with medical conditions that might reduce their resistance to corona virus will now be asked to remain home. It isn't an actual order, I suppose, since I haven't seen anything about punishments (other than a miserable death) for violators, but I think I should probably heed it anyway. Like the state, and the nation, I've probably already pushed my luck too far.
While it rained for a bit last night or early today while I was sleeping, there have been only sprinkles since I woke up, or fine mists. In fact it was misting as I walked back from the Goodwill store. It was quite refreshing, and I enjoyed it very much. There are supposed to be showers again tomorrow and Tuesday, but then the chances of rain drop down to less than 20% until next Sunday. As I probably won't be going out again for at least a few weeks, I won't have to worry about getting wet.
A nephew, or the great-niece who took me to Safeway Friday, will probably be able to pick up a few perishable things like milk and vegetables and bread from the stores for me now and then, so I guess the only thing I have to worry about now is whether or not I've already gotten infected, which I won't know for sure for as long as the maximum incubation period of up to two weeks. Or maybe catching it from my mailbox (or my mail) after an infected postal carrier touches it, or from my wheelie bin after an infected fellow tenant touches it, stuff like that. I'll use the antibacterial wipes, of which I have an almost full can, and wash my hands a lot.
Anyway, Sunday Verse. I thought about posting something like a plague poem, but I guess that would be too grim, or flippant. I haven't actually decided yet, so I'll go hunt something down now. I'll try to get to sleep earlier again tonight, as I got up too early again today, and I'm tired. If I had a television I'd probably be falling asleep in front of it right now, as I used to do n Paradise. But here I wouldn't have any cats curled up around me.
Sunday Verse
The Boarding
by Denis Johnson
One of these days under the white
clouds onto the white
lines of the goddamn PED
X-ING I shall be flattened,
and I shall spill my bag of discount
medicines upon the avenue,
and an abruptly materializing bouquet
of bums, retirees, and Mexican
street-gangers will see all what
kinds of diseases are enjoying me
and what kind of underwear and my little
old lady’s legs spidery with veins.
So Mr. Young and Lovely Negro Bus
Driver I care exactly this: zero,
that you see these things
now as I fling my shopping
up by your seat, putting
this left-hand foot way up
on the step so this dress rides up,
grabbing this metal pole like
a beam of silver falling down
from Heaven to my aid, thank-you,
hollering, “Watch det my medicine
one second for me will you dolling,
I’m four feet and det’s a tall bus
you got and it’s hot and I got
every disease they are making
these days, my God, Jesus Christ,
I’m telling you out of my soul.”