Walking Rules of the Road during the Pandemic

Walking has been my primary form of exercise for several years now.  I’ve averaged 19,268 steps a day since the start of the year, according to my Fitbit.  That’s a little short of 9 miles a day.  

So when the order to be “Safer at Home” was issued by my state, with the caveat that we could go out for “essential services,” like groceries, or get some exercise, I knew my routine wouldn’t change very much when it came to what I did to stay fit.  

Only it did.

I noticed in the first week of the stay at home order that the number of people walking or running around my neighborhood jumped up.  A few at a time at first, but pretty soon it was getting…  Not crowded.  In the freeway reports they’d probably call it, “busy but moving.”  

There was just more people out there.  And there were times, mindful of trying to keep my distance from people, that is not possible to stay six feet away from other people on the sidewalk.  I decided to opt for a “scoot faster than a virus can catch you” approach.  Moving to the other side of the sidewalk and picking up speed to get past oncoming walkers, or move to one side and hitting the accelerator to pass people in front of me walking slower than I was.  

Things got more complicated the second week, after the government warned people to take the stay at home order seriously and not go to the beach or the park like it was a holiday.  They repeated the warning to keep one’s distance from others.  And later added that you needed to wear a mask outside.  

It was shortly thereafter I noticed it.  One morning, someone wearing a mask was coming toward me.  I was wearing mine.  I moved closer to the right edge of the sidewalk to put as much distance as I could between us when we passed.  

The other person then stepped off the sidewalk and into the street.  He walked around a parked car as I slowed down to watch him.  At a driveway, he cut back onto the sidewalk and got back on the sidewalk.  

He had avoided me.  It took only a moment to realize he was doing it as a social distancing measure, but it still took me by surprise.  There had been an instant flash of, “What do you think is wrong with me?” when he made his move, clearly to stay away from me.  

I kept walking.  I got it.  Six feet is six feet, and a sidewalk was half that distance or less.  

It happened a couple of more times on that walk and I was starting to wonder if I shouldn’t be stepping off into the gutter a time or two.  Sometimes I’d think, “Oh-kay…  This will be my turn to step off,” when I saw someone to coming, only to see them move off the sidewalk well before the point I’d picked to move aside.  

The first time I did move out of the way I was pretty much forced to do so.  It was a couple, walking side by side, taking up the entire sidewalk.  I thought that at some point they’d go single file, like other people had done.  But when they made no indication of doing so, I stepped into the grassy median then into the street.  

As we passed the woman gave me this smile that seemed to say, “I’m so glad you recognized that it was your place to step into the gutter and NOT ours.”  

And there were other times when it was clear I had to be the one to give way.  A parent pushing a baby stroller.  Couldn’t expect them to take that thing four-wheeling over a curb.  Or someone walking two dogs, where one was sniffing a tree on one side of the sidewalk and the other was doing its business in someone’s yard on the opposite side.  With the leashes covering the path like police tape I wasn’t going to cross, I got into the street.

There was one time when me and the other person did a long distance version of you first.  I moved early into the gutter.  Then looked up to see that she had done the same.  I got back off to see her with one foot off the sidewalk to give it up to me again.  I decided to steam ahead forward.  She took the sidewalk and steamed forward herself.  We nodded at each other as we passed.  

So, with the quarantine giving us all more time to think over silly stupid things, I’ve decided to think up what would be good walking etiquette in the time of the pandemic.  I share them with you hear.

Walking Rules of the Road during the Pandemic

(Or, How to decide it’s YOUR Turn to Step Into the Gutter)

First, a definition: “Your Side of the Sidewalk” is the right side of the sidewalk in your direction of travel.  This is the same as how we drive so it should be easy to remember.  Right?  Right.  

Basic Rule: If Your Side of the Sidewalk is closest to the street, and you meet an on-comer during your walk, YOU should be the one to step into street to maintain social distancing.  

Or, put more generally, the person whose Side of the Sidewalk is closest to the street is the one that should give way and step into the street to maintain social distancing.  

Obviously, stepping into the street should only be done when it is safe to do so.  When there is no vehicular traffic that could endanger you.  If there is a median between the sidewalk (those places where they have trees growing or signposts planted), and walking there allows you to maintain social distancing, then it is fine to use the median instead.  

Personally, since its the grassy median in my neighborhood that serves as the most commonly used canine pooping spot, I prefer the street.  

Parties walking together should, when an on-comer approaches, form a single line and then follow the Basic Rule above.  The leader of the line is whoever is ahead at the time the on-comer is spotted.  Groups become a living train or big truck carrying a trailer, following the rules of the sidewalk after that.  

Driveway cuts in the sidewalks should be treated as passing lanes on mountain roads, to go around slower walkers while maintaining social distancing.  

Exceptions to Basic Rule

People pushing baby strollers have the right of way.  This is mainly because they tend to take it anyway, but also because we don’t want to encourage people to take their children into the street.  Children are our future.  It takes a village.  We should make sure these innocent babes are protected.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  

People walking multiple dogs (more than one) are excepted as well.  Mainly because the dogs are moving however they please and almost no one these days seems to take the time to train their pets to heel and walk with them in an efficient organized fashion, but also because we don’t want to encourage people to take their precious fur-babies into the street.  Doggies are our future.  It takes a village.  We should ensure these innocent creatures are protected.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah. 

People with just a single dog should be expected to follow the Basic Rule above.  If you can’t keep a single dog on a leash under control, then you have clearly abdicated your darwinistically derived place as a member of the top species on the planet and don’t deserve special consideration.  

If there is any confusion as to who should be abdicating the sidewalk to the other, then hand gestures should be used to indicate which direction everyone intends to go.  The gesture should be big enough to be recognized and unmistakeable.  Look at the NFL rule on signaling for a Fair Catch for guidance.  The person who makes the strongest, clearest indication of direction first will be allowed to maintain right of way on the sidewalk.  The other person…  Well, if you find yourself in the role of the “other person” more often than not, you just need to be more assertive in general, I imagine.  

I was fully prepare to start implementing these rules on my own this week.  If I did it forcefully and consistently enough, other people would pick up on it and follow along.  Just as I picked up on my responsibility to occasionally step into the street to maintain social distancing.  The rain storm that swept through Southern California removed the necessity of doing so.  During my walks this week I’d had the pathways pretty much to myself.

Yes, I walk even when it rains.  That’s what umbrellas and Tilley hats are for.  

But now that I’ve posted my proposed Basic Rule and Exceptions, I’m hoping everyone will see the underlying logic behind them and adopt them as the most reasonable way to maintain social distancing while keeping from going stir crazy staying inside all the time.  

Or, all this walking will turn out to be a fad for other people and I can just go where I darn well please like before.  Wouldn’t that be nice.  

Things I’ve Noticed Working from Home.

In the first few days since the “Safer at Home” order was issued in my state there were a number of news articles on the radio about what people would do with the free time they’d have.  There were observations that there would be a baby boom nine months from now.  Or that publishing houses would be flooded with novels that people had written about being quarantined, or at least while being quarantined.  One of my colleagues at work asked me, as we were finishing up our efforts to get our teams able to log into the system on Monday and continue working, “What language are you going to learn now?”  

I didn’t have any plans to learn a new one, I told him.  I’ll probably just practice the ones I’m already trying to learn.  

“Which ones are those?” 

Japanese, I replied.  And Spanish.  And Korean.  In that order, by which I meant the ordering in which I was comfortable in trying to use.  

He laughed.  “Well, now you can try add another one.”  

One of the news articles I heard was with a woman, a writer I think, maybe a historian, who was discussing the idea of people writing journals while being quarantined.  She said something which I found interesting, which was that when people write journals they often think that they have to be profound.  That they have to write something important.  That they forget that the most important, well regarded journals were those where the writers detailed their daily lives.  She lamented that often in the past journals were often destroyed at a person’s desk, particularly with women’s journals, because it was assumed that they didn’t have any such important thing to write about.  

So, with this point of view in mind, I’m not going to try to write about anything important.  I’m not going to make an effort to be profound.  Or at least not too profound.  I am going to log what I’ve been seeing and feeling around me that has struck me as odd and interesting and hope you find it so as well.  

So…  Here we go.  

It’s harder to see on my walks these days

I’ve taken a morning walk of 20 to 30 minutes from years now.  Either around my neighborhood or around the campus where my office is located.  But it’s harder to see what’s around me these days.  

Because of the mask I now wear.  

I started wearing it more because my face was cold on my early morning walks.  More than because I was afraid of catching the virus from someone else.  I walk earlier than I did before, around 6:30 in the morning rather than around 8 AM when I was going to the office.  The cold was irritating my lips and nose.  

I had some surgical style masked I’d purchased for a trip to Japan a couple of years ago, when I had a cold at the time of departure.  So I grabbed one figuring it would do the trick in keeping my face warm.  And it worked.  My breath did a wonderful job of keeping my nose and mouth nice and toasty.  

But it also caused my glasses to fog up.  So much so that I was afraid of tripping over a crack in the pavement or stepping off a curb unexpectedly.  With my glasses off, though, it’s only marginally better.  With my eyes I have difficulty making out details beyond the reach of my hand extended forward.  But I can at least tell if cars are coming toward me before I cross the street.  

So I walk in something of a haze.  Something like the information haze that has grown over us regarding what is going on with the virus.  I know things are out there.  I just can’t tell what exactly they are until they’re right on top of me.  

Toilet Paper but why not Soap?

I’ve looked in askance at the online videos of people tearing into a palette of toilet paper, making it disappear in but a few moments along with the rest of you.  But I’ve noticed other shortages, and some lack of shortages, that have had me scratching my head.  

Like soap.  The first time I went into the store after the County of Los Angeles, along with the Cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and my hometown of Pasadena, announced their “Safer at Home” order, which was followed by a state wide quarantine a couple hours later, I saw the denuded shelves where the toilet paper was usually kept.  I wasn’t worried.  I had five rolls at home at the time, which at my rate of usage, would last me 8 to 10 weeks.  I should, I told myself, be able to buy more at least once in that time, I told myself.  

What I really wanted, though, was soap.  I had one bar left and while I washed my hands frequently before, the encouragement to do so by all the health advisors that could be stood before a microphone made me worry that I would use it up before I had a chance to get more.  So I hustled past the empty toilet paper shelves to where the soap was kept. 

There was plenty.  The shelf was nearly full.  Including several packs of my favorite variety.  Not wanting to be a hoarder, I took one pack, then went to see if I buy some chips to snack on. 

I couldn’t.  Those shelves were also completely empty.  Why?  Not just, “Why would there be a run on any kind of chip or cracker?”  That fell in the same category of question as, “Why would there be a run on toilet paper?”  

It was, “Why would there be a run on toilet paper, but NOT one on hand soap?”  Hadn’t all the health experts been repeating again and again that the best defense against catching the virus was frequent hand washing?  With the two bars of soap I had in my shopping bag, I had armed myself more effectively against getting sick than if I had bough a family size bag of tortilla chips, or one of those twelve roll packs of toilet paper.  

And dry roasted peanuts.  Gone.  Every time I go.  At least in my store.  Today was the first time I saw a jar on the shelf in two weeks.  A generic brand of the store I go to.  I bought it.  

But honey roasted peanuts?  Plenty.  Dozens of jars.  Did I miss a news article that dry roasted peanuts lower your rate of viral transmission by twenty percent or something?  

And California Mix vegetables.  The frozen vegetable combination of cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots.  One of my favorites.  And a favorite of people staying at home to avoid catching the corona virus, too.  I can buy brussel sprouts if I wanted (I don’t).  And I can still get peas and carrots (which I do like).  But not the white, green, and orange combination of vegetables that I like.  At least not with the same frequency as before.  

And I don’t know why.  All I can do is check the frozen food aisle whenever I go to the store and snag the errant overlooked bag that might be there on occasion.  

Work Belongs in the Office

In the past, I used to have a bit of envy for those people that could work from home.  The advantages were obvious.  No traffic.  No dress code to worry about.  Lunch and snacks were a few steps away in the kitchen.  The time and money saved and the conveniences made it look like an ideal situation that I was unfortunately not going to experience.  

The Corona virus changed that.  We were warned to create a plan to have our departments able to get our work done from home.  We were given two weeks to have something ready.  

Four days later, the state issued its stay at home order.  

My department was fortunately ahead of the game.  We had already started implementing a paperless system, which was necessary to work away from the office.  Half the department was already using it.  But it was still a wild ride those last two days in the office.  Trying to do a week and a half of planning and training and set up in two days.  We got it done.  And the following Monday people started reaching out to our network from home to do their jobs.  

Two weeks later of overseeing this effort I am firmly convinced of one thing: work belongs in the office.  

The last two weeks have been the most stressful I can remember in my working life.  I start my day at 8:30 AM while working from home.  From the moment I log into the system it’s going from one email, text message, system alert, phone call, to the other.  Working in the office on a daily basis was something of a marathon.  You had the goal of getting the work out for the day and eight hours to get there.  

Now, it’s a sprint.  It’s the same distance, the same goal, and the same amount of time to get it done.  But now I’m going hard and fast the entire time.  It would be like running a real marathon in 100 meter sprints.  

I’ve heard via the internet of something called the “quarantine 15.”  A reference to the fifteen or so pounds people are expected to gain due to staying at home all the time with nothing to do but eat.  

Me?  As of last Friday, the end of my second full week of working remotely, I’d lost a little over three pounds.  Mainly due to forgetting to eat until after I log off for the day.

Part of this is due to pushing our remote way of working into the system sideways all in one day.  Since then each week has been dominated by the disaster of discovering some error or miscalculation that now has to be fixed on the fly.  And they are getting fixed.  But only to find another one just behind the one you’re working on now.  

I still have the hope that we’ll work it out and come up to something like normal.  Something tells me that everything will get smoothed away the day before they announce the quarantine is lifted and we can all go back to work the way we were doing before.

But beyond the stress of essentially doing the equivalent of changing the tire of a moving car, there has been a mental adjustment I’ve been trying to make.  Or series of them.

For example, the first few days, when I stopped to take a breath, I noticed that I was antsy.  A nervous sort of sense that something wasn’t right.  That something was…  Not there.

It finally hit me when I left the radio going as I was setting up my company laptop.  There was no sound.  No voices.  It was too quiet.  In the office there are all sorts of noises.  Printers humming to life, people talking to each other, on work matters or just catching up after the weekend, phones ringing.  The sounds of people.

Now, there was just me, the sound of my keyboard, and the occasional curse as a fresh disaster came my way via some text or email.  

I thought to just keep the radio on as I worked.  But this had the effect of making me depressed as one story after another about the impact of the virus came over the news program.  Corona virus this, Corona virus that.  These many people died today.  It may be extended to this month.  This is the damage the isolation is doing to our psyche. 

I tried switching to music, but it was too distracting.  After a few days of searching, I finally hit upon the solution: I started streaming Japanese morning talk radio.  It was perfect.  Their tone was cheerful and friendly, a feature of broadcast morning shows around the world I guess.  I could understand enough to understand some stories (Yokohama was hit with an unexpected cold snap, with snow falling a few days last week).  But when I focused on my job, it became background noise.  Friendly, human sounding background noise.  

But mainly, it’s the sense of invasion.  Encroachment.  The virus has not only forced me to stay at home.  But it has pushed my job, which was kept safely at a distance at a place designated for it, into my home as well.  The place I went to relax and refresh after working.  

I know I’m lucky to have a job right now.  I just want to go to the place where it belongs.  And have everyone else do the same.  

Once its safe to do so.