Coping with Isolation

Math puzzles are good fun
Remember the little person on the last line is wearing red shoes and holding 2 cones

Fortunately human beings are very adaptable. We are all finding ways to cope with this pandemic. Having the luxury of connecting on the internet, unlike during the time of the 1918 flu pandemic, life is a lot better.

We are able to share ideas on how to manage keeping children busy, with things like Tumble Book Library, free with your Calgary library card. This allows kids and parents to listen and read-along to animated story books. Adults can get e-books and audio books. There are crafts and window displays to keep neighbours amused while out walking. There are computer learning opportunities for both adults and kids.

Painting our home is another way to keep busy

A few nice things are happening to make life a little better. With the amount of families out walking there is a need to increase the width of sidewalks. This has prompted the City of Calgary to consider closing off some traffic lanes to vehicles, and opening them up to people walking, or cycling. This helps maintain the very important 6ft. personal space circumference. Alberta is opening some of its child-care centres for health workers, and core services personnel. These will be phased in around hospitals first. We rely on these people to keep us safe and alive. The government of Canada is giving $82 billion dollars to support families and businesses. This is an attempt to keep the economy going, and help prevent massive unemployment.  Hopefully this will help us to recover when life gets back to normal.

I heard a psychologist today giving a tip on surviving  uncertainty in the duration of the virus. She gave the analogy of a starving person not knowing when his next meal would be. This is very difficult. However, if he is starving and knows that a day later he will be getting a slice of bread, it is a different story. We should say to ourselves "I can do this for a month." We can survive this deadline. If life has not changed after this time, we start again using the experience we have gained.