Quarantine Continues 1-3-2021

 That Fort Dix FCI was not earlier affected by Covid had to just be luck. All five building had no cases a month ago but are under quarantine now. The people brought in from Elkton prison (which was hot bad) are bottled up in in our sixth building, 5703. The inmates brought in from the West Side to work food service are now quarantined in in 5712 (we think they were brought over for having some sort of immunity).  Food service has been sketchy.: hoot dogs and rice one night this past week; lunches are catch-as-catch-can without any relation to the published national menu; no bananas or pancakes for today's lunch, as advertised by the Bureau of Prisons; no fruit or milk for the past few breakfasts, only powdered milk, a 2 ounce container of cereal and bread. Things are a mess. Being charitable, we have ascribed the BOP's problem to diseased staff rather than the usual bureaucratic blundering we know ever so well. 

Personally, I have done too much sleeping, too much musing on the lives I  might have lead. I have had enough of other human beings. Tomorrow we should again get our nasal passages abused. That means another at least another week of this quarantine. So far no reports of anyone with obvious symptoms.

This past Thursday and Friday we were tested on our blood pressure, temperatures, and pulse.  Which did leave us asking why they were not running these tests earlier. Also: why did the BOP stop the temp checks months and months ago? This is what I meant by the usual bureaucratic blunders.

Another example of  bureaucratic blunders; today's unit guard left open the first floor door open. Inmates thought safely sequestered from the infected freely mingled.

I did get work done on “Chasing Ashes” and now I am working on these notes. I've been re-reading Shakespeare – Othello and Julius Caesar over the weekend; Antony and Cleopatra next. 

I feel cramped. We can go to the first floor for hot water and ice when called down by the guard (so long as they lock the first floor door). I have no need for either. The meals are done similarly: we stand in the stairwell by the first floor door to get food in Styrofoam containers handed to us from the other side of the door. The TV in the quiet room has had its USB port broken so no one can watch their bootlegged movies and TV shows and is now useless since the CO who installed the set knew it was going to be used for showing movies on a USB chip did not install cable, that set is useless. (I'm not sure whether to call this inmate or CO bungling). There's not enough room in the big TV room. I'd like to hear the news since I cannot pick up NPR now. And I'm having bouts of insomnia. Writing inside of lying in bed – that's my solution.

I have never wanted to go home as much as I have these past four days. Doing this for a month will drive us crazy. I got into an issue over a shower. Two days ago we came close to having an open fight on the floor – an event I cannot recall seeing before. (Usually one-on-one fights were conducted in the restrooms).

Well, that brings us. Up to speed and into the new year.

sch