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Breaking The Rules

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Today we broke the rules, at least some, of the social distancing rules. Two dear friends, a married couple of licensed addiction counselors from the Rez came to town to sign their wills at their lawyer’s office, and we had them over for cheesecake and a nice visit over lunch. We hadn’t seen them since the summer. We didn’t hug or shake hands as we normally do (shaking hands is a really big deal with the ND tribes), and we sat about four feet apart at the dining room table, and we had a good talk. They brought a jar of tribal produced honey, and we gave them oatmeal bread, French Bread, and lefse. They showed us videos of their newborn Kiko goats, and we showed them photos of our grandson. It was nice, but odd with the lack of contact and the distance we put between ourselves. We were all very self aware of our coughing and took care to shield the others from our exhalations.

I am a pretty rigid rule follower, and this made me somewhat uneasy, but it felt like the right thing to do.

What sort of a rule breaker/risk taker are you? 

37 thoughts on “Breaking The Rules”

    2. Shocked. (Thinking of the scene in Casablanca in which Claude Rains says “I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling going on here” and then the croupier hands him his winnings.

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  2. i am a rule breaker chance taker but not here

    my easter was without my mom sister son this year because they all needed to stay away

    my sister works at costco and thought initially that it was no big deal and we kind of laid into her. my mom is 90 and lives in a wonderful 500 person co op but my sister was still interacting with her even though she was exposed to people on a large scale at work every day. my daughter ( who announced easter that she is pregnant with 2nd kid) is very outspoken about it and told her aunt carolyn that she is risking killing grandma. grandma finally gets it and is being a lot more careful and her building is doing a good job of keeping everyone safe sanitized and seperate.
    i get out to work at my warehouse getting moved but wear latex gloves and a bandana. menards must have a role telling employees not to wear masks or gloves and many employees don’t get it. i would suggest avoiding menards stores. wal mart tries and has people who don’t get it shopping there. my daughters and son at home all get it and we have our daily routine of separate tasks done in solitary but we do share pizza and movies ( everyone gets their own bowl of popcorn) and we wait for it all to be over. one daughter wants to go back to chicago where her significant other and school friends activities and life are calling her back
    we’ll see…… stay safe baboons

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    1. Re: gloves. It’s fine to use gloves when pumping gas but then they should be tossed in the outside trash – don’t wear them if you pay inside or go in to buy something. Just wash or sanitize your hands well afterward (and don’t touch your face before you wash). In the grocery store it is probably better to not wear gloves at all because to use them properly, you’d need to change them each time you touched an item. Gloves can spread the virus just as easily as bare hands. Many people seem to not understand this. The best advice comes from trusted sources like Dr. Fauci – wash, wash, wash your hands and try really hard not to touch your face (This is where masks/bandanas can be helpful). Sorry to preach but I was a hospital nurse for over 30 years and it really bothers me to see gloves used improperly.

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      1. I suppose the real danger of wearing gloves may be that they give you false sense of security. I’m puzzled, though, by your admonition to not wear the gloves inside the store. If your gloves are no more likely to spread the virus than your unwashed hands, why not wear them? I agree that washing your hands is the best strategy, but for me, wearing disposable gloves and a mask when grocery shopping is an effective reminder to keep my hands away from my face. Both, by the way, are uncomfortable enough that I don’t wear them any longer than I absolutely have to.

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  4. OT: my closest friend, a doctor in Montana, called last night. I was relieved to hear he is safe. As one of the leaders of the medical community, he is being kept away from the virus because it would be too risky to lose him. (In war, you don’t put generals on the front line.) He feels guilty, but does what he can to fight the good fight.

    He mentioned a revolutionary change in tactics, something that has not popped up in the media yet. Ten days ago, doctors considered the ultimate threat to be the “aerosolization of the virus” (allowing wet virus-infected droplets to get in the air). Now doctors concentrate on supplying oxygen to severely affected people, using other means to avoid spreading the virus. This has produced a sharp reduction in the use of ventilators and an increase in survival rates.

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    1. Not sure that I understand how that last paragraph describes “a revolutionary change in tactics.” Containing the aerosolizastion of the virus would appear to be one of several reasonable strategies to prevent the spread of the virus, but it can hardly be considered a treatment once you’re infected. What am I missing?

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      1. I’m not highly informed about this. The earlier treatment protocol involved intubating a patient and supplying oxygen with a ventilator. Now they use a more conventional and benign technology–those oxygen tubes that clip to a patient’s nose–and use other measures to discourage the virus from spreading in the air. And that’s the best I can do, PJ.

        To my friend, this represents a major step forward.

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    1. For someone like me, arbitrary and unwise is a burr under the saddle. Those things just wear me out. That is why I now find MPR irritating at times. It started as a creative outlet and grew into a bureaucracy. Ouch.

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  6. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I follow the rules at most times, unless I find the rules to be harmful. (I.e. if you are following an erratic driver on the highway who is obviously dangerous, I will pass or speed to get distance from the vehicle despite the rules). Most rules do us a favor.

    I have been pretty rigid about the Shelter-in-place rules. I go to the grocery store once per week early in the morning when few people are there. I have avoided Costco, which seems to me to be an infection waiting to happen. I had to go to Target, which had some employees in masks and gloves. When The Easter Bunny and I made a delivery to my son, we maintained our distance, stood outside, and took a walk together in masks. We ascertained that they had not broken the rules themselves before we visited. My husband keeps going to Menards—our toilet broke and there was a need. He comes home with toilet parts, books, candy. I think he does not quite get the need to stay distant, though. He keeps wanting to go places, and I keep reminding him. It, which ever it it is, is closed.

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  8. I will occasionally break a rule if it doesn’t harm anyone else, and If I won’t suffer severe consequences for doing so. I am following the Shelter in Place rules as long as I can still walk outside with friends at a distance, which rule I will flout if it comes to be. I really need to see a few other faces that aren’t on a screen.

    I am more than willing to search for other ways to do things that are within the guidelines. Project for this week is to see if we can do a Song Circle via Zoom…

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  9. My mother was a life-long Catholic and so until I was old enough to have a mind of my own, I was subject to the strictures of that church. It’s hard to imagine a more arbitrary and unsupportable set of rules than some of those, which they presumptuously call “teachings”, that emanate from religious bodies.

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  10. We joke that I’ve always thought the rules don’t apply to me.
    Stop signs with white around them are optional. Arrows on the floor for directions (I’m talking to you IKEA) are merely suggestions. Red turn arrows in the middle of the night when no one else is around? Pish.

    But I also follow the rules for the business office and those unwritten rules of theater like not crossing the stage when the house is open or not turning on the work lights if patrons are still in the space. And I’ll get in your face about it if you do those things.

    Talking with the woman who does scheduling at the college; she said one day that she always checks with a VP before scheduling Sunday events. Except in the theater because I run my own show and the rules don’t apply to me. So there, see? Proof. 🙂

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  11. I bet almost all humans object to some rules as ridiculous and meanwhile enforce rules, perhaps of their own making, which are ridiculous.

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  12. I’m pretty good at following most rules, and I’m social distancing as best I can. I go grocery shopping once every ten days or so, and then only during the senior hour, first thing in the morning. Unlike my cell mate, I don’t think of reasons why I need to go to Costco, Home Depot, or the art supply store in the middle of the afternoon. I often have to remind him that it’s not just himself he’s exposing whenever he makes such an excursion. I’m grateful he has discovered Zoom, otherwise I think he’d drive us both nuts.

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  13. I don’t find myself into many situations where I’m able to break rules. I guess that makes me a rule follower for the most part. However I am with the Ben on the right turn on red turn in the middle of the night. And in fact I go a step further and just run a red light out and out if it’s three in the morning and I can’t see any lights in any direction.

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  14. Husband and I just finished an “ongoing” game of Scrabble, where you just leave it up on the dining room table and put on a word as you’re passing by. It was OK, and we did sit down together for the last few words, but … meh (as Joel would say). So the next time we’re going to relax the rules, allow creative spellings, proper and foreign words, allow one letter off the board… Could be lots more fun.

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  16. OT – Last week on the discussion about Telehealth, I commented that I had noticed that there was a person in Minnesota who had contracted COVID-19 at 104 years old. And the person was apparently not hospitalized and hadn’t died, which would make this person a survivor of the 1918 flu pandemic and COVID-19. MPR mentioned this yesterday, and the Strib ran this article:
    https://www.startribune.com/at-104-minnesota-woman-may-be-oldest-in-u-s-to-survive-covid-19/569554552/

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  17. I’m a pretty straight rule follower, but I do usually drive about three or four miles over the speed limit. When I see a police officer, I always look down at the speedometer even though it’s on autopilot, and I feel just a little bit guilty. No enough to change, though.

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