Today I noticed some changes in the virus culture.

I thought Starbucks was so pretty smart and trendy with its new designer bags, that can stick closed once the cup of coffee is in. They were one of the first to let workers to wear a mask and gloves. I stopped drinking my coffee in the coffee shop, and started buying two or three bags to go, and make my coffee at home. OK, I usually make coffee at home but now buy more bags, so I don’t need to shop so often.

The next time I went to buy coffee they had the door blocked, and the chairs were upside down, and I had to order from the doorway. They did let me go to the counter to scan my phone to pay, but that was because they couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t understand their Chinese.

Then yesterday, I went to another location for coffee, they let me go in but had a line drawn on the floor, showing how far away from the counter I should stand while paying for my bags to take away.

Then I went to the local vegetable market which I love so much, and there were signs up, all written in Chinese on red fabric, and I was trying to read it with my google phone app. The sign was too large, and I couldn’t get the whole thing in the frame and couldn’t read it, so I decided not to go in. I could only imagine what it said. Sometimes my imagination can run wild. Like maybe it says everyone entering this market must be quarantined because someone in there had the virus. Later I showed someone my picture, and found out it said lets all work together to beat the virus. Oh, well. I bought my vegetables upstairs in the supermarket.

Some days, it helps to have a taste and smell reminding me of my childhood. My mother use to pack my lunch to take to school every day when I was in the 2nd grade. I will always remember a certain feeling when I opened that lunch box, and breathe the fragrance of ripe banana after it was rapped for a couple of hours. So today, I fixed myself a Peanut Butter, Jelly Sandwich with banana. Very sweet and tasty like desert. In English we called this “comfort food” because it is like mom used to make.

(Story by Phillip Jarrell)

(Photos by Phillip Jarrell)