Monthly Archives: March 2020

Day 9 – Laugh a little – it’s good for the immune system


Seriously – I’m sure there is some study out there that proves that laughing improves the ability of white blood cells to fight off COVID-19. Must be right?

In any case – my daughter-in-law has been gleefully sharing jokes related to the epidemic with me – so on the eve of my getting on an airplane (that’s scary) to leave my safe haven (also scary) – I share with you some humour.

What if they close the Grocery Stores? We’ll have to hunt for our own food. I don’t even know where Doritos live!

Like a Good Neighbor – Stay Over There —->

First time in History we can save the world by laying down in front of the TV and doing nothing. Let’s not Screw This UP!

A link to a song that sums it up – Stay the F*ck at Home – so worth a listen!

Thoughts and prayers going out to all those Married Men who’ve spent months telling the wife – I’ll do that when I have the time.

Every few days it would be smart to put your jeans on to be sure they still fit. Pajamas and Sweats will have you believe that all is well.

Now that we have everyone washing their hands correctly – Next week Turn Signals!

Wanna find out who your real friends are? Ask them to borrow a roll of toilet paper!

Yet another great video worth watching – again shared by my daughter-in-law – and trust me this one is really funny – in a serious way: Flatten the curve\

Single man with Purcell seeking Woman with Toilet Paper for good clean fun

Ladies – time to start dating the older dudes – They can get you in the Grocery Store Early

I know that there are a lot more in this vein out there – I saw a bunch that basically made light of all the sports cancelations – implying that men suddenly realized there was a wife in the house.. Like all jokes – funny because they have a grain of truth in them.

True – but still very funny – the Leader of Quebec has decided that during this crisis all stores need to close on Sunday – even Grocery stores. Why? All workers need a day off. (Why am I leaving my island hide-away to go home I am forced to wonder…)

So share any jokes you have here – and remember – Orange Juice and Laughter are great for the immune system.

Be safe

Be healthy

Signing off to spend 25 hours getting from my island to my home in Montreal – all the while keeping social Distance and wiping down surfaces… The world has never been so clean…

The Soup Lady

Day 8 – We must leave our island hide-away


The borders are closing and the flights out of here are getting canceled.

As much as I’d rather hide here on the island – we have just 9 COVID-19 cases on the island – we need to get back to Canada while the getting is still possible.

We had a flight planned that would leave the island around 3:30 in the afternoon, getting us home (via Miami) at around midnight. But the direct flight from Miami to Montreal was an early casualty of the need to cut back on planes flying empty.

Our next option – leave early in the morning – fly to Miami, from there to Chicago, and then home. The idea of spending 4 hours in the Chicago Airport exposed to all those travellers was frankly scaring me to bits – but at least it was just one day.

Now the morning flight from St. Croix has been canceled.

We have to go to Miami and spend the night in a hotel there. Then in the morning – we need to get back to the airport – from there via Philly home.

I called the hotel – who warned us that food service is very restricted – basically carry out only and eat in your room. And there are no services in the hotel – no pool, no sauna, no nothing… and no loitering in the lobby.

On the good news side – they are using serious measures to sanitize the rooms – and I trust them to do what they say.. It’s a very nice hotel, and I think they would make every effort possible to make sure we’re safe.

So that’s the plan.

I’ll report on how it goes when it goes….

Signing off to wish her husband of 50 years a very happy 70th birthday – The Soup Lady

Day 6 – Advice on home schooling – from an Expert!


I read this on one of my absolute favourite sources of interesting news and health info – the Tufts University Newsletter – called “Tufts Now” (google it already) and thought it good enough to share. Enjoy.

The author of the piece is Taylor McNeil – and his email address is at the bottom.

He starts off with a fabulous quote by a British Professor forced to home-school his 6 year old. After 30 minutes – he tweeted – School Teachers should earn a Million Pounds a year for doing this!

Having been lucky enough to ‘home-school’ two of my grand-kids for several years – I share both the pain and the joy of spending hours and hours with a young person. It’s not an easy task – and my best advice is to break it down into small, extremely manageable bits. We can keep focus a lot longer than a 3, 5, 7, you name it, year old. Teachers know that short and sweet and highly focused beats out long, boring, slow paced learning.

In any case – what follows is the text of his article. It’s basically suggestions by a senior lecturer in the Department of Eduction, and I’d suspect taken from a paper. But it does contain some really good ideas for all those parents out there now getting up each morning to the ‘sunny’ faces of their kids – ready to start the day with a lesson. Or two.

“That doesn’t mean there are not things we can all do with our children, said Erin Seaton, a senior lecturer in the Department of Education in the School of Arts and Sciences. From creating new routines to devising project-based learning, she thinks parents can turn a potentially distressing time to an opportunity for new types of learning.

At the same time, she recommends talking with your child about the changes going on in the world. “Take cues from their questions, and respond with honesty and reassurance,” she said. “Seek out support,” she added. “Ask friends and relatives what they are doing to keep busy.”

Here are Seaton’s recommendations about how to help children cope with so much time isolated at home.

Routines are important. In a chaotic and uncertain world, schools can provide a structure that is comforting to a child. Losing this routine can leave children unsettled. Think about when your child will do best with more structured times, and when you need your child to be independent for your own sanity or work schedule.

Invite your child to help you create a routine and try to stick with it. Build in breaks, and if you can, try to find time for your child to go outside. Think about spaces that are best for working and learning—sharing these can be challenging. Try to carve out a corner or counter space for your child to consistently work.

Establish screen time guidelines. Talk through screen time ahead of time, so that your child knows what the expectations are. Keep in mind that unsupervised screen time in a crisis might be scary for young children; have to-go and approved apps and programs a child can access on their own.

“Follow the child.” Italian educator Maria Montessori urges parents to “follow the child”—observe a child’s passions and tailor their education to them. Learning at home can offer children a chance to dig deeply into a subject of their own choosing, from baking to politics, video game design to volcanoes, women’s soccer to activist art.

Focus on project-based learning; help your child to identify a project they can explore deeply and without too much guidance or adult support. Can your child create their own paper basketball court and use statistics to show how they might pick their dream team? Even though they are homebound for now, could they create a travel plan and budget for a new destination, here on Earth or in space? Can they design their own future city, including the laws and policies they might enact? What would it look like if your child tried to map their neighborhood? Could they create a cookbook with favorite family recipes to share with others?

Independence is important. Montessori argued that children need to learn through experimentation and practice and that independence can build a child’s sense of confidence. In my family, there is always a tension between wanting my child to do something independently and the need to rush out the door.

Right now, parents have the gift of time. Allow a young child to practice tying their shoes or an older child an opportunity to solve a puzzle or problem without solving it for them. Likewise, don’t feel as though you need to rush in to fix every problem. Invite children to come up with their own solutions or try things first without coming to you for assistance.

Help with household chores. Inevitably, having children at home is going to create more mess, more dishes, more unidentified sticky globs on the floor and chairs and, in my house, windows. Help your child to identify some daily chores they can accomplish on their own as a part of the routine. Have your child make a box or bag or chart that lists activities they can do when they feel bored or you need them to play independently.

Keep up skills, with an accent on fun. It never hurts to practice basic skills, but allow for children to do this creatively. Playing cards and using dice can be a wonderful tool for reviewing math skills. Cooking offers ample opportunities to apply ratios or measure out fractions.

Reviewing these basic skills never hurts and can strengthen understanding for more advanced concepts, and it does not require expensive materials. Games and puzzles build skills in logic and reasoning, but also in taking turns, planning, and creative problem solving.

Make time for literacy.Reading can mean many things. Children can read directions to a game, read a book to a younger sibling, read a comic, read a newspaper story, read a biography, cut up a newspaper and arrange the words into a poem. They can write a letter to a far-off friend or a nearby neighbor who might need support, or draw a picture of what happens next in a story or movie.

Help your child to process information by asking your child about what they notice, or see, or wonder about, or what they think might happen in a story. Listen to a book online. Watch a video of a favorite author or illustrator talking about their work. Have your child film a stop-motion movie scene with toys or act out a story with their siblings or stuffed animals.

Go easy on yourself. Do what you can. These are difficult and uncertain times for parents and children. Parents will feel stressed, and children will, too. Talk about this with your child, explain how you manage stress, and invite children to help think through ways they can be more helpful or ways you can both make a difference in your own community or family. Skype with older relatives or invite them to Zoom in for dinner one night. Seek out support. Ask friends and relatives what they are doing to keep busy.

If you can, have fun. Build a fort. Have an indoor picnic. Take a walk. Make a pie. Create playlists. Have a dance party in the kitchen. Write funny tweets about how hard this is. Try to find a rhythm or a time when you can get the most work done and maximize this. In a world where children often feel over-scheduled and overwhelmed, try to frame this time as a break from the stresses and pressures children face. Offering children opportunities to go outside or experience unstructured play are valuable opportunities. “Play,” Montessori argues, “is the work of the child.””

Taylor McNeil can be reached at taylor.mcneil@tufts.edu

Interesting reading, eh? And much of it echos what I suggested for Seniors – and really for all of us. Keep busy, Make a schedule. Have Fun. Be easy on yourself. Skype. Viber. Touch Virtual Hands

Signing off to attend a meeting, play bridge, and basically be glad I’m alive. The Soup Lady

Day 5 – Reach out and Talk to a Senior


Do you know a Senior who is trapped at home alone? Reach out to them right now!

As a senior I can tell you that the hardest thing about being stuck at home is the loneliness. Seniors organized their lives to keep busy. Volunteering, playing bridge, going shopping, visiting the bank – even just walking the mall – our lives are kept organized by our schedules.

And the effect of being ‘home bound’ is to lose our schedule. My BFF – the Intrepid Traveler – is an wonderful example of how a Senior organizes her life. She volunteers at a host of different places – including two museums as a docent (volunteer guide), and also does Meals on Wheels. Her normal schedule includes swims at the Y, walks to get groceries and the like, and of course time spent going to the theatre with me. She also takes classes at our local university and volunteers there.

Expect for Meals on Wheels – all of that has ground to a halt in Montreal. No Theatre, No Museums, No shopping except for essentials, No nothing.. Now my friend has alternative resources including her daughter and grand-kids and her husband – and she’s still doing Meals on Wheels which she tells me is taking amazing precautions.

A digression here – Meals on Wheels, for those who don’t know – is a program aimed at feeding the elderly who are shut in. They sign up to get 1 or 2 meals a week which are cooked and ‘plated’ in a community kitchen. Then a team of 2 – a driver and a delivery person – take the preprepared meals to their homes. Generally the delivery person uses the ‘drop off’ as an opportunity to make sure the elderly person is in good spirts. A quick visit does that trick.

But COVID-19 concerns have changed that. Now there are two delivery persons in the car – and keep in mind that most of these volunteers are well above 70 – one to open the doors with gloves, and one to carry the meal. And no more visiting. A knock on the door (gloved hand) – a through the door – are you ok – and off they go.

In the kitchen things have changed as well. Normally the space is shared with a day care, the occasional meeting, maybe a Yoga or Tai-Chi class – but now it’s just the two cooks – staying 6 feet away from each other for safety.

End of digression

As you can imagine – my friend’s life has drastically changed – and she is not without resources. Imagine other seniors who count on their schedules to keep their lives full – now reduced to reading books or playing bridge. I have another senior friend who is coping for now with solitary walks up the mountain if it’s sunny, and a lot of reading. Her computer skills are not up to using the new technology – and she’s alone. She let me know that her daughter is calling daily- which is a help – but her social interactions have completely dried up.

So – got a senior in mind? Reach out now – and set a schedule to contact them regularly – daily if possible, but at least every other day. Even a 5 minute ‘check-in’ will provide them with something to schedule their lives around – and right now – that’s going to be a life saver.

Be safe, Be healthy – keep social distance if you must go out – and wash your hands.

Signing off to call her friends…

The Soup Lady

Day 4 – Why is Soap so great against the Coronavirus?


This is a cut and paste from a reenacting friend of ours from Malta – but it’s so well written that I just know everyone is going to be sharing it around. Read – and Wash Hands! Singing Happy Birthday twice is about 20 seconds… in case you wanted to know.

“Why can a common cleaner, available for hundreds of years be so effective against a 21-Century pandemic virus?


Well it comes down to the makeup of soap. Soap molecules have two halves, one loves water, the other loves Lipid’s, which are fats like oil and grease. The real name for these molecules is AMPHIPHILIC (amp-er-phil-ic) meaning it is Hydrophilic (loves water) and Lipophilic
(fat loving). This is what makes it so good for washing up. Soap bonds to the fats on your breakfast plate and to the water it is being washed in.
Corona Virus is made up of a ball (membrane) of Lipids containing the Virus’s RNA.

When you wash your hands, the soap lipids bond with the virus lipids and the water you are using and break the virus membrane apart, literally shredding it.


The trick is to wash long and hard enough to break all the virus membranes on your skin. 20 seconds is the average time for the bonds to break. But even if you don’t break all the membranes, the soap still clings like mad to the viruses and you wash them away under the tap.
Hand- sanitiser uses alcohol to break down the virus lipids, but it is really volatile being 60-70% alcohol, so gives it much less time to work, as it evaporates.

With soap you can just keep on going.”


Paul Osborne IEng APkgPrf MIET MIMMM
Managing Director – Performance PharmaTech Ltd.

Ok – Admit it – you read it all the way to the end right? It’s just a lovely easy read!

Be safe. Be Healthy

Wash hands!

The Soup Lady

Day 2 – and I’m already getting bored


Which is probably a good thing. Better bored than sick – Right?

London – and the UK in general – has finally started taking this thing seriously. Which is very good news. Countries like Iran – that didn’t take it seriously – are having someone die every 10 minutes – as per the latest from CNN

Everyone I know is either voluntarily self-isolating – or being mandated to do so by the government. I think this is likely a good thing, but it’s really really going to hurt small business. Actually, it may hurt any business that came into this period anything but flush with cash.

One of the CNN reports actually Refered to the Great Depression in terms of the impact this is having on the economy. But since we’re in this together, it would make sense to paddle together – so I’m thinking if you are in business – talk to your supply chain. Better to not pay them today, then for you to go bankrupt tomorrow – and so on down the line.

Canada in general, and Quebec in particularly have made downsizing the number a company must pay easier. They have removed the delay on getting Un-employment benefits – so employers can be frank with their staff. “We need to let you go – so go on Unemployment – as soon as we can, we’ll hire you back”. This works, at least in a country like Canada, in a good way. The company stands a much better chance of weathering the storm, and the employees are protected.

Think ahead. Plan for folks ordering on-line, wanting delivery to their doors with no touching, etc. I think there’s potential here for businesses to flex and change and stay in business. But being able to Flex? That’s tough.

Meanwhile – as a retired lady – stuck in the Caribbean, I’m entertaining myself by Skyping my family and friends, playing bridge on-line, and reading a book. Thank goodness the library was still open, although that might not be forever. Or even correct tomorrow!

Which would be easier if the Bridge sites weren’t finding the sheer quantity of folks trying to use them almost impossible for their servers to cope with. Which is actually kinda funny if you consider what this must mean in terms of ways to handle boredom.

Maybe my number of followers will go up?

Hope beats eternal here in St. Croix. Signing off to take a walk on the beach – and incredibly happy she’s able to do so – they are closing beaches in Pensacola… The Soup Lady

Hiding out from Coronavirus


It’s beginning to feel like this will be a marathon – not a sprint. We’re going to have to all hunker down to weather this thing out – and fortunately for me – I’m not in a decision making position.

I actually feel really bad for those in power – any kind of power – right now. And that includes my kids. Not that any of them are either medical or political in any way shape or form – but they all have folks that rely on them to make the smart decisions – and smart decisions seem to be the challenge. Is closing down the right or wrong thing to do? I’m not so sure there’s a correct answer – if you close down (as many folks have) you put people out of work at a very tough time. If you stay open, you risk their health, your health, other folks health.

So my question to you – my readers – are you hunkering down, or trying to pretend things are normal?

Personally – I’m hunkering down. The good news – if there is good news on this topic – I’m hunkering down in St. Croix, USVI. Montreal is still extremely cold, and wet, and nasty outside – our typical March – and we’d come to the island a week ago, not knowing at all that things would go from bad to incredibly scary in just 7 days.

It’s really the terrifying speed of this that’s the really worrisome part. That and the panic buying. We went to Costco in Montreal a bit over a week ago, and toilet paper was on our list. There was NONE – of any brand – to be had. Why would people think it critical to stock up on toilet paper of all things? Will we still be laughing at them in another week? Maybe they know something we don’t know? News from Heber City in Utah (I have friends there) is similar – no stock of toilet paper. As someone quipped – don’t they know this is a respiratory problem, not an intestinal one? Buy out Kleenex – that makes sense. On the other hand – on the Montreal News this morning – apparently Montreal has been restocked.

I can tell you that here on St. Croix, it’s very different. Given that stocks have to come in by barge, and running out of something means RUNNING OUT – for months – the stores seem incredibly well stocked of everything except alcohol. I think folks are taking the advice to wipe down surfaces seriously, and yes – alcohol is superior to Anti-bacterial wipes, which have no impact on viruses at all.

Which brings to mind the gal at the Plaza Extra (it’s a grocery store) here on St. Croix with her shopping cart full of big bags of anti-bacterial wipes. I think she bought out the entire shelf. Hmm.. smart? Dumb? Mis-informed? I’m not sure.

In any case – I’ve taken to checking the WHO site every day – and reading CNN – live every morning. The list of countries that have closed their borders grows and grows. I think they are going to have to start publishing a list of countries that have NOT closed their borders.

Meanwhile some news that won’t make headlines. My son has an Amazon Store that sells our Soup Bases (Luda Soup Bases) – and his team is busy filling the orders that are pouring in. Given that we sell to restaurants, we’re talking fairly large quantities of soup base, enough to feed a family for months. But our bases have a really long shelf life, so at least this buying makes sense. And my daughter – who makes and sells artisanal sausages from her own website (Crown & Queue in the UK) is also reporting an up-swing. So it wasn’t surprising to hear that Amazon is hiring 100,000 temporary workers to fill the demand.

Another no news trivia – the major on-line Bridge Playing website – Bridge Base – got overwhelmed big time this weekend. If you don’t play bridge, you won’t understand – but there are literally thousands of folks that do play bridge, most of them in Clubs scattered all over the US and Canada and the rest of the world. All have been closed – and all these folks now have time on their hands. Result – the on-line site got swamped. I’m betting that Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other’s of that ilk are also getting hit big time. My son who does IT says that the ‘Cloud’ is suffering as well.

My question to you – my readers – what are you doing? What are your kids doing? Are any of you Covid-19 positive? Did you get really sick? I realize that we’re hardly a news worthy group, but I’m wondering. Right now I don’t personally know anyone with the Virus – and I’m hoping it stays that way.

Signing off to admire the beach and sun, and hope to Heaven that this too shall pass – The Soup Lady