Stay at Home - Day 16 - Swimming With Sharks

I had been wondering where my mail was. I was at my post office several times a week to pick up my mail for the shop, but every time they said my bin was empty. On Saturday, I finally got to speak to the Manager of that Substation who tried to phone my carrier. She wasn't answering, but she was due back in the building by 1:00 pm, so he said he would check with her then. 

The Postal Service and transportation system workers are
considered essential and they're doing a wonderful job
during the pandemic. Jean and I got our wires crossed,
but we're straightened out now and there won't be any
more missed mail. 

It turned out that Jean and I had our wires crossed and when I had turned in my instruction card, and assumed Midway would have my mail, she thought back to earlier discussions we had about mail and had forwarded my mail to the Roseville location. Yes, it's more convenient, but No, I hadn't even thought about that as a possibility. So, they open at 8:30 am today, and I'll be picking up two weeks of mail from Roseville, then going to Midway to check the mail there, and from now on all mail will be at Midway. Tomorrow I'll write and mail all checks, and I'm hoping this mix-up won't cause me to be late paying any bills from my various vendors. I'm sure they would cut me some slack, but still ... 

The St Paul Bridge Fund will accept applications until a certain date, then
put all vetted applications into a lottery and draw from that to assign
funds. They are requesting corporations to step up with more funds
to help more people. We'll see - this funding source is NOT guaranteed. 

We got our application in for the St Paul Bridge Fund on Saturday morning. As of close of business on Friday (Day 1), there had been 3000 families and 1200 businesses whose applications had already been submitted. It's a guarantee they'll run out of money. Since this one is a lottery, not a first-come, first-serve, it's a total crap-shoot if we'll get the boost or not, but my landlord came through with a copy of our lease so we now have all of the supplementary documentation available that they will request within a few days. I'll jump through whatever hoops I need to in order to keep my business afloat and my employee paid. I have resources of my own through April, but then I'm out of money and without the two grants I'm applying for, I'm out of business. 

I'm not comfortable swimming with sharks, but often if you don't
call attention to yourself, you can float over the surface and
escape unscathed. We'll see - I'm not that good at camouflage. 

But, I'm basically an optimist at heart, so I'm going to practice what I preach and continue looking at the positive instead of the negative. Deaths are stabilizing, new cases of COVID-19 are decreasing, and even though we're still in the middle of the maelstrom, we're still hanging on to our broken timbers and staying afloat in the sea of sharks. In the meantime, please take care of yourselves, stay safe, stay home, stay well. I'll be back tomorrow.