This morning I found out the why of John letting me go to the office alone.  It seems Jason was behind it.  They were both aware the coffee was running low, and that’s why I had switched to tea, but Jason was more familiar with my storage than John was, and knew where he might find more.  But he also had something else in mind: breakfast cereal.  The morning of John’s birthday when I said I was tired of toast, Jason took it to heart and wanted to do something about it.  He knew I would never allow him to share precious eggs; eggs that sometimes were Jacobs only protein.  But he also remembered items I had forgotten about, like oatmeal.

Last summer he helped me inventory my long term food shed; food that tolerated not only the heat of the summer, but the freezing days of the winter.  Foods like the wheat berries, sugar, rice, beans and various cereals like grits and oatmeal in sealed five gallon buckets; plus items like cans of coffee – ten of them!  I had forgotten what was in there, and my inventory list was on my silent computer.   The shed was half buried in snow right now and it took both of them to dig it out enough to open the doors.

For breakfast Jason fixed steaming bowls of oatmeal, sprinkled with dark brown sugar (also from a forgotten bucket).  We each had a small glass of Tang, from yet another bucket and, I think as a joke, toast.  And a full pot of coffee.  To say I was surprised would have been an understatement, and I was definitely touched by their thoughtfulness.  I’m looking forward to grits and cheese tomorrow!

With a full and warm tummy, I went back to the office to see if I could find any news on the computer.  Not knowing what filters or restrictions might be on the township owned computers, I took my laptop, and was glad I did.  Every elected official seemed to be there and working; a surprise, and curious.  I pulled out my wad of paper towels and disinfectant, sprayed my desk, chair and wiped it all down.  Others were forgetting we were still in an epidemic; once over their bout with the flu, things went back to ‘normal’; I wonder how many of them would get re-infected from carelessness.

I set up my laptop on my desk, tucked in a corner of Darlene’s office.  I still had the view of Fram’s store, and remembered watching the tanker of diesel.  For a moment I wondered how that young man, Marie’s cousin, was doing, and if his son was well.  I brushed them from my mind; I can help only so many.  Right now, I needed to know what was going on in the world.  I logged on using the local server, the one that didn’t reach my home.

I surfed the net for about twenty minutes, finding only local bits and pieces that had obviously been sanitized.  A little spritz of Lysol and the news was all happy again.  Right.  One article did catch my attention:  It seems that North Korea is getting ready to test yet another long range missile with the intent of hitting the US, no surprise there, but this time they plan on arming it with a nuclear device!  They could be trying for an EMP.  Just what we don’t need, more power loss!

Another news clip was on the flu epidemic, and how wide spread it is.  Officials urging everyone to get their flu shot –isn’t that a bit late? – and to cover your mouth when coughing.  Oh, good grief.  People are dying and they don’t want to talk about it.

I dropped a quick note to Jane, letting her know I was still fine.  I need to write her a longer post, off-line, and then send it the next opportunity.  I’d forgotten I could do that.  My mail box was jammed and my spam box was overflowing.  I deleted the spam.  I quickly browsed thru the mail for anything personal, and reset my groups to no mail; I hope that helps the clog.  One personal email I opened; it was from Rick, and it gave me the most and best news of all.  New trucking routes were being established around the Fault, up thru Canada!  The most used route is now across the west to I-29 up to Winnipeg, across Ontario, with routes cutting off down thru Duluth, Sault Ste. Marie, and Toledo.  Toledo being the main crossing point, to get supplies of food to the east coast and DC.  The crossing at The Soo was likely how GFS was getting resupplied, or maybe from Duluth; I don’t care how, just as long as supplies get thru.

The next email was from Ken in Texas.  Wow.  Our government has pulled all troops off the Mexican border to keep peace in the major cities.  Now the Texan Patriots are manning the crossing and patrolling the border, and apparently doing a better job of it.  Of course, the traffic has slowed greatly, with all the free aid being withdrawn.  This is a big step forward.  But something troubled me, so I did a quick search on peace in major cities.  WOW.  Virtually every major city east of the Fault Line is under Martial Law and is in 24 hour lock down!  Every city with a population over 100k is under Martial Law, but not lock down.  The Upper Peninsula has escaped this, but falls under the ‘as needed’.  The largest city is Marquette, but has a population of only 25k.  From what Don told me, there are curfews and travel restrictions, but as of yet, no Martial Law.

I finally closed the laptop after saving a few things to read later, and glanced at my watch.  I hadn’t realized it was getting so late.  Yesterday, before he ‘let’ me venture out on my own, John asked me to start wearing a watch and to promise never be gone past 4:00pm, unless pre-arranged.  I agreed.  How can I argue with someone who cares so much about me?  It was 3:35 and I not just needed to go home, I wanted to go home.   My head was spinning with all the news.