You might remember that Stella is good friends with a couple of neighbor girls, and that I have a fraught relationship with their mom. Maybe the pandemic is causing all fraught relationships to be the NOW-WITH-EXTRA-FRAUGHTNESS versions of themselves, but I have been acutely aware of the differences in the way they're handling things at their house.
They seem to be very worried about surfaces. They wanted Stella to cat-sit when they went out of town on vacation, and they sanitized aggressively so she would (in their words) feel comfortable in their house. (We're not worried about Stella getting COVID-19 from a countertop in an empty house.) Yesterday the girls were eating breakfast on the deck and Stella asked if she could have a blackberry. She brushed against another blackberry in the carton, though, and the neighbor girl made a worried face. She took the blackberries to her mom and explained. "Oh, what a shame," said the mom, and proceeded to dump the remaining blackberries in the garbage can. The whole carton! In the garbage can!
But! If it were a consistent flavor of paranoia I would be totally sympathetic! Out of sync, maybe; making different decisions, probably, but totally sympathetic. The thing that flummoxes me is that they have a rotation of different guests over at least twice a week. I fret regularly about whether it's wise for Stella to keep playing with the girls, even though they're always outdoors, because the neighbors are spending time with so many other kids.
I think the absolute risk of illness is low, and I think Stella will be awfully sad and isolated if I forbid her to play with them. And this blog offers me ample evidence of the ways in which my own levels of paranoia have been out of step with the actual risks. (Dear March Jamie, you do not need to think about putting the mail in the oven. Dear April Jamie, it's probably fine for you to run on the multi-use trail even when it seems crowded. Dear May Jamie, you can receive communion and not land yourself in the hospital.)
It feels a little strange, though, to be looking at the same information and making such different decisions.
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