Dispatches from the grocery store

These are just two of several photos taken from a grocery run that I went on this past Monday night. I had been self-quarantining in my apartment for a few days at this point and wanted to stay as far away from folks as possible, but I was admittedly running low on basic necessities, and needed the walk anyway, so I waited until the hour before store closures to venture out, hoping that streets and stores would be relatively empty. I'd been hearing stories of grocery stores getting swarmed, but seeing really does cement believing here.

The eggs (or lack thereof) were right next to the milk section, also empty. 

The meat section covered an entire wall of the store, and it was virtually empty, save a few seemingly near-expiring cuts here and there.

Seeing aisles depleted makes me think of my family, who live in New Rochelle, NY, the original epicenter of the state's outbreak. My dad's birthday is on April 8, which is also the beginning of Passover this year. I'm thinking about whether we'll celebrate those things together this year, if we'll postpone the birthday celebration and try to do a Seder over Zoom (the thought of which seems like a swift kick to the shins), what other options we might have. My parents wanted me to come home and move back in with them temporarily as soon as the outbreak started, but we all knew that for better or worse, it wouldn't be the best idea. I live in Brooklyn, which is now already teeming with confirmed (and likely, more often, unconfirmed) cases; they're both over 60, and have a slew of underlying health issues. This is unbelievably hard, and even more so just outright bizarre (see pics above), but the thought of at least trying to keep them safe by distancing myself is some comfort.