Here's a followup, one day short of ten months later.



If we'd left town in March we'd almost certainly have come back in a week or three. Based on the information I have now, it would have been an overreaction. Based on the information I had then, I still don't think it would have been.

The rest of what I wrote then seems to be just as true, other than that the TP shortage was very brief here.

New lessons since then:

• Every cellphone in my family uses the same large national provider. I do have an independent capacity to make and receive phone calls via the Internet and my home Internet is with a different carrier. With that said, I think I should get an inexpensive prepaid phone from one of the other large national carriers.
• Good relations with our neighbors have (unsurprisingly) paid off both in fellowship and assistance. In October we had a security issue with the police involved; the way the neighborhood worked together with us to mitigate the problem was gratifying. Unfortunately, the perpetrator was not arrested, but more importantly the problem has not recurred.
• All four schools we are involved with (one for Mrs. Magnet as an professor, the younger Magnets as students) are all flailing and failing to adjust to the circumstances. Losing most of Mrs. Magnet's income hurts, and losing it due to bald-faced incompetence stings.
• Carefully planning our essential travel has made things much easier.