Sunshine

Inspirational song: Free to Be... You and Me (The New Seekers)

The weather was too nice to be cooped up inside, even for a content housecat like me. I wandered out to watch the Mr perform a little fish pond pump maintenance, and when that was done, I toured the front yard twice, until I finally found where Harvey was hiding after he jumped the fence. A few hours later, the Mr suggested we take a walk around the city park that's close to here. I didn't have to be asked twice. The sun was bright and almost everything was silhouetted, and I still enjoyed the heck out of it. 

I don't feel like using a lot of words tonight. I mostly want to share pictures. Winter is ending and spring is gently rolling in, and that's good enough for me for now.

Venture

Inspirational song: I Saved the World Today (Eurythmics)

After a solid three weeks of not leaving the property, I had to make a quick drive. I was stunned to realize I didn't want to go. But I had to refill my long term cancer meds, and I got a second notice call this morning that it was ready. So whether or not I was emotionally prepared to face the real world for fifteen minutes, I had to do it. My local pharmacy, like most places around the country now, offers curbside pickup. Obviously, since I have not left the house in three weeks, I have very little experience with curbside pickup on every business. It was time to be brave and venture out.

There was more traffic on the roads than I would have liked or expected during this time of crisis. Maybe it was because I was out around lunchtime. It was disconcerting and weird. I felt like I had forgotten an important skill. Maybe I'm okay with them extending stay at home orders for as long as it takes to get this stuff under control.

Spring is taking its sweet time arriving this year. I'm okay with that too. Slowly, our bulb flowers are popping up. Most of the trees and bushes are still mostly dormant. I don't want too much to flower now, before all chance of frost is gone. If ever I wanted a decent fruit harvest off these trees, it's this year. Patience will pay dividends.

Zeitgeist

Inspirational song: The Lemon Song (Led Zeppelin)

Boy, it isn’t easy keeping spirits up during a time like this. I haven’t had a major emotional crash or anything, but I’m struggling like so many others to find energy or to be silly and laugh. I stayed in my bathrobe until early afternoon, seriously considering skipping a shower altogether and rewearing yesterday’s clothes, even though they were less than fresh and painfully unflattering. I compromised, showering but putting back on yesterday’s shirt, that wasn’t all that dirty, and some shorts I usually wear to sleep in. No one but the Man who lives here was gonna see me anyway. I haven’t worn makeup in weeks, I rarely brush my hair (it’s still so short and unruly as it grows back in, there’s no point), and I have to actively work at it to remember to brush my teeth every day. I know there are millions of people fighting this exact same battle right now. But knowing I’m not alone doesn’t make it go away.

I read some mental health professional describe this lethargy we are all experiencing together as a natural response to trauma. Neither fight nor flight is appropriate when we have to hunker down like this, and the primary remaining option is to shut down. Of course we ought to get up and exercise, keep our minds active, and find ways to comfort our souls. But we also need to accept what we are going through as normal and healthy and we must not beat ourselves up over it. If you need two naps during the day, even though you haven’t walked farther than from the couch to the fridge a couple of times, don’t hate yourself over it. Be kind to the person you will be quarantined with most closely—you. You won’t escape your own company. Do what feels right, when it feels right. This is going to be plenty hard without negative self-talk making it worse.

I have joined the ranks of quarantine cooks. I mean, I was always experimental in the kitchen, but I’m really rocking it lately. Somebody this morning said they had made lemon-blueberry-ricotta pancakes three days in a row. Naturally as soon as I read that sentence, I had to try it. I had lemons, a few blueberries, some ricotta left over from lasagna on the first day of serious isolation, and a bag of gluten free pancake mix. It was on. I don’t know why I never thought to make them this way before, but I will never go back to the old ways. I am forever changed. By the time evening rolled around I was back at it, this time making nachos supreme. I had avocados that were on the precipice of over ripening. It was now or never. Thank goodness I still had more lemons for the guacamole, since I didn’t plan ahead well enough to have procured limes before I shut myself in the house. Cooking has been the one thing that keeps me in the moment, feeling still connected to the Before Times. I want to cling to it, use it as an anchor and a pressure valve, at the same time. It will be there for me, or so I choose to believe.

In the Zoom

Inspirational song: Join Together (The Who)

Best new thing to come out of this crisis: switching to internet meetings. Now, I admit I enjoy being an active participant in the sausage-making side of elections and party politics. But I can’t handle being stuck in a high school auditorium for an entire day, sitting in seats made for skinny teenagers, being offered gluten-heavy nightmares as the only food options, having to listen to people argue just for the sake of contrariness (because that’s how the democrats do things). It takes serious commitment to put up with a whole day of that.

This year’s county assembly was a whole other story. None of us can be in the same room for several weeks, so the executive committee had to come up with a new plan on the fly. The infrastructure to run meetings online has existed for years, but many people like me had barely any experience participating in them. We stragglers were dragged into the future, and I for one could not be more pleased.

The meeting agenda was changed, allowing for the breakout meetings for different districts to happen one after another instead of concurrently, so we didn’t have to switch feeds. This made the schedule expand significantly, to a very long day. We were instructed to log in at 7:30, to allow everyone to show up and smooth out any kinks in the system. By the time we kicked off at 8, there were well over 700 people at the meeting, nearly all of the assigned delegates. At the end of the day, after 5 pm when we finally got around to voting to approve the platform and adjourning the meeting, there were still somewhere between 350 and 400 attendees. That’s dedication.

I woke at 7, piddled around reading Twitter for a bit, and then got up for coffee and a banana. I settled back in bed, propped up on a bunch of pillows, with a blanket wadded up on my lap to set the telephone on to watch the livestream. I wore my pajamas for the first four hours of the meeting, until got a long lunch break and a shower. Athena never left my side for the entire process. My stress level was nil. I was comfortable and happy and I can’t imagine going back to the way it was.

There were a couple excellent quotes I want to share. I need to give them proper credit. The party chair, John Henry Van Zant, said, “We are all Generation Zoomer now.” I loved that one. Then, as I wound down the night the same way I started it, scrolling through Twitter, I saw something by Walter Dellinger. He said he wished that Congress could figure out this whole remote voting like we did, just so he could use the phrase “In the Zoom Where It Happened.” I don’t know whether he came up with that first, but man, I like it.

Outreach

Inspirational song: Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode)

The first time the phone rang, I ignored it. It was a Colorado number, so there was a better than average chance it was actually to me and not spoofed (since my area code does not match the region where I live). But I just didn't want to talk to anyone. I let it go to voice mail. But it rang again immediately, same number. Whoever it was, they really wanted to talk to me. I answered.

I was thoroughly surprised when it was a state senate candidate calling on her own behalf. I've had campaign staffers and surrogates call me this cycle, and until now only once did I get to talk to a candidate themselves (US senate hopeful). It feels unreal to be courted directly by these people. I always thought of politicians as these untouchables, almost mythic creatures of such high station that none of us would be allowed to approach them directly. Why would I imagine that to be true? These people should be those extroverts who live to interact with their constituents. They ought to want to talk to us. It's so weird that I have this old misunderstanding about who our representatives are, and it's so cool that I am corrected in such a personal way.

I am a delegate for county assembly, chosen at caucus a few weeks ago. Assembly is still happening early tomorrow morning, however it will all be via internet meeting apps. I had my first experience with that sort of app on Thursday, so I hope I get this right. I have developed strong opinions about some of the candidates, and want to make sure our precinct is well-represented. We had a good consensus for nearly every candidate. There was general support for the state senate candidate who called me, but I was experiencing some doubts. I had chatted with the other guy before caucus, and was impressed. I liked both of them. I didn't know what to do.

This candidate asked me whether I had any questions, and I honestly didn't know where to start. So instead, she opened the conversation by giving me a bit of her background, and immediately something clicked for me. She was a pharmacist in her pre-politics life (she is a sitting state rep for a neighboring district). As soon as I could loop the conversation back, I raised an issue of immense importance to me: hydroxychloroquine. As a person with lupus, I need this medicine to function at all, and I mean at all. I am very concerned about the run on it, with tons of doctors (dentists even) prescribing it to themselves now that the president is hyping it as a treatment for COVID19. People with lupus and RA are now being denied refills on the medication we rely on to live, based on a hunch, based on dubious science. I asked this politician whether there was any current policy to insure supplies for autoimmune patients. She said there wasn't, but she suggested that I call Express Scripts and ask what they are planning to do. She wants me to call her back and let her know what happens. 

I think my mind is made up. The other candidate seemed like a super nice guy, but this one showed me how seriously she could take my needs, and what she could put in motion to address them. I'm impressed. I think she has won my support.

Tear It Out

Inspirational song: Burning Down the House (Talking Heads)

It took all of one single day of total lockdown. I knew to expect it, but I'm still startled at how quickly it happened. He has already started tearing at the walls.

I was warned last week that he wanted to reconfigure the pantry in the utility room. It had two L-shaped shelves at body height, that ran from the left to just past halfway, and one long shelf above my head that ran the whole distance. This afternoon he dragged the table saw outside, saying T was clearing out his garage and had some particle board that would be perfect for shelves. Within an hour, he had emptied the tightly packed pantry of all food, ripped out the existing shelves (probably kicking up some lead paint chips in the layers that he exposed), and set me on deciding how many shelves and with what spacing for the new layout.

The cats didn't appreciate having every countertop covered with bags and boxes, especially when dinnertime came and went. Still, they were attentive and good-natured as we worked around the Four Trip Hazards. In no time at all, we had five total shelves, four accessible ones spaced according to the height of a tall olive oil bottle from Costco, and the original long shelf moved up and back. Some old hooks that had been in that closet since the 1960s were moved over, so I could hang my potatoes and onions in a spot where they were less likely to be lost and rot. (I'm going to make some macrame hangers in the long run, but the store net bags work for now.) I was too tired and overwhelmed to worry about organizing too meticulously. It was more important to clear the counters and finish making dinner for us and for the cats. Maybe in a month, when we have eaten up much of our reserves, I can pull the food out, paint the shelves and walls, and then reorganize in a way that both makes sense and doesn't make me feel like a paranoid doomsday prepper.

The Order

Inspirational song: Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)

The county put out an edict this morning, saying we would shut down completely by tomorrow night. This afternoon, the governor stepped in and moved it up a notch--he issued a statewide order to stay in place as of 6 tomorrow morning. So that's it. We are on full lockdown. So glad I made it all the way through my two week self-isolation period, just in time to....stay at home for a month. 

I've been struggling with the inclination to hoard food and necessities for a few years now. A whole lot went on a while back that wrecked my sense of security in the world. I've had to find a lot of new coping mechanisms, and over stocking the pantry and toiletries closet seemed like a harmless place to overindulge. Now that we are locked in for weeks, having the big Costco packs of toothpaste and a cabinet already full of dried peas and pinto beans doesn't seem so silly. I felt a little vulnerable on dairy products, wondering how long milk and eggs would last if I ended up baking my own gluten free bread because I couldn't go get it. (Never mind that I had been in the habit of rarely eating bread, because now that I might not get it, suddenly sandwiches are all that I want.) But generally, I felt reasonably prepared. The boys hadn't hit that part until this week. Mr S-P made trips to two different King Soopers yesterday, and when the total shut in order came down, he and T went to the 400-Dollar Store to buy everything they could think of. He then made one more trip out for dog food after that, and on that outing he acquired the amaretto I'd been wanting, and a couple of tins of cocoa powder to soothe my great-grandmother's restless spirit that has been haunting me this week. Now my challenge is not "will we have enough," it's "is my freezer big enough?" I rearranged a few things, gave up on a couple of yucky foods that were just wasting space in the freezer, and made space in the beer fridge in the garage. I got everything put away. I'm so proud... and oddly calm.

As I said, my two week isolation passed completely uneventfully. I never got any symptoms. Not one. Now, if the Mr or I clear our throats or cough even a little, my heart skips a beat for a second. But we both seem to be clear so far. I'm out of my mind with worry for the youngest daughter and the littlest Smith who is due in May. She works in an essential job (at the hospital) and I want to throw her in a sealed bubble and protect her. I'm stressed about the oldest too, living out in California, keeping on with her side gig delivering food while her career is slowing precipitously. The foster daughter in the middle should be no worry, working from home, but she went forward with an interstate trip to see her family last week. I swear, I'm going to emerge from this confinement with hair as white as snow from the stress. If it isn't the height of fashion now, it will be by the time we are all free.

Fantasies

Inspirational song: Scattered All Over the South (Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys)

This has got to be changing all of us. You can’t go through this level of stress as a cultural event without imprinting deep scars, or without unlocking coping skills and creativity we would never have discovered without a catalyst. Scars will be easy to identify. As a cohort, we are all going to be able to point at damaged lungs, lingering hypertension, or hoarding tendencies that will be family lore for generations (like the way we nodded knowingly when we spoke of Granny’s cocoa powder supplies, as if living through the Great Depression explained why we still had some of it ten years after she died). I’m very curious what sort of positive changes will grow out of this era. The very nature of work has already shifted significantly, with everyone finding ways to work remotely on the fly. (I can only hope this one sticks, as disabled people have been demanding alternative work accommodations  for decades, but it took this level of catastrophe for bosses to find out it wasn’t impossible after all.) There will be technology advances and (god willing and the creeks don’t rise) significant medical breakthroughs. The one change I don’t want to see? I saw someone wish that we would all be healthier from staying home, but he admitted that it was more likely we would all end up like the future people in Wall-E. (You haven’t seen it? Come on. We are all streaming movies while we are locked up. Get Disney+ and watch it.)

I’m ready to start making a fantasy list. I want to plan for what we can do months from now when we are past the crisis. Or at least past the biological crisis. The economic one will last years, and I’ve come to terms with that, mostly. But much like I told myself I would travel this year, once the cancer was good and gone, I want to make plans for the After Times. I’ll keep the destination goals, but I need to add other things too. What sort of things will I want to put on that list? Should I put season tickets to one of my Buffs teams on the bucket list? Learning a new craft? I’m not the parachuting or BASE jumping type, nor any other extreme sports, so that’s right out. I don’t want to spend money just to see it burn, so I won’t be too wild. What’s on your After Times list? I might copy off of other people’s work.

Some of my old high school classmates have started planting their gardens already. Some are old pros, some are new to it. It feels like we are heading towards a “victory garden” sort of summer. I am oddly at peace with this. Eager, even. I can’t put much outside yet, but warm weather is coming. The strawberries have popped up in the last week, although one bed of them needs to be moved ASAP. The goldfish went back to the outside pond this afternoon, but try as I did, I could not get a picture of them to illustrate the blog tonight. I just got a reflection on the surface of the water. Fixing up the garden and fish pond, and resetting the flagstone patio may just save my sanity during the lock in. Planning for the future will save my soul.

Perimeter Walk

Inspirational song: Gravity Falls Theme Song (Gravity Falls)

Today's song isn't very inspirational, but it is so thoroughly stuck in my head, I can't come up with a different one. We were fine, watching the dreadful input from cable news, when the Mr said he was ready to switch to something else. He was up for a few more episodes of Gravity Falls, so that's what we did. Now the only thing louder than the persistent ringing in my ears is the loop of about four bars of the show theme song playing endlessly in my brain.

I sort of made it out of the house today. I decided to harvest a handful of last year's marigold seeds from the dead plants on the front porch. While I was there, I walked almost to the edge of the sidewalk, looking at the recently expanded paisley bed, and the older Unless garden. There are a few more bits starting to turn green, but it's too early yet to strip the tender shoots of their protective crispy blankets. I'll worry about pulling out dry stuff in a couple weeks, when it's warmer.

The Mr is getting our fishpond ready to start back up. He vacuumed some of the winter sludge out of the bottom of it, and has been working on replacing the pump that seized over the winter. (He let it run during the cold snaps as an experiment, to see whether we could keep the fish outside all year round.) I hope we make good progress moving stuff around, restructuring the landscape, doing all the things that were put on hold suddenly last summer.

Our governor has not yet put the entire state on lockdown, but some nearby mayors are starting to go that direction. The Denver mayor did it early today, and it caused a run on liquor stores well beyond the city limits of Denver. One of the places people panic-bought booze was Boulder, where the mayor later followed Denver's lead. They will shut down tomorrow. I don't know whether the smaller towns like ours will do the same. We are planning a run to the grocery store for the morning just in case, to restock on milk, eggs, and hard veggies that will keep well (like onions and potatoes). It would take an awfully long quarantine for me to use up all my alcohol, but I kind of like having amaretto for cooking too, so I might brave the lines of fools. We shall see.

Hands

Inspirational song: Lay Your Hands on Me (Thompson Twins)

Anybody else injure themselves by being nearly entirely still over the last few days? Yeah, I did. My hands hurt like hell from spending too much time holding my iPad playing games and being even more obsessive over Twitter. I feel shame admitting it. I totally did it to myself.

I wonder whether attitudes towards public gatherings and public displays of affection will alter in the long run. I was already uncomfortable touching acquaintances and strangers, hating handshakes and never having a good instinct for when hugs are appropriate. But now I look at anything filmed more than two weeks ago, and I’m already freaked out how close people stand, and how often they touch each other. Will social distancing change us culturally, to the point where we automatically offer each other six feet of personal space? Or will the need for human contact override a temporary fear of disease transmission? I will be watching to see where it all goes.

Buried among all the professional musicians putting on cell camera concerts this weekend, with no makeup and wearing sweatpants in their living rooms, was Neil Diamond. Thank goodness he said his own name, because I sure didn’t recognize him in casual clothes and a ball cap. I didn’t, that is, until he started singing Sweet Caroline—with a twist. “Hands...washing hands...Reaching out...Don’t touch me!”

Stop, Look at One Another

Inspirational song: The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In) (Hair)

Despair is trying to settle in. I’m still fine. Zero symptoms. I just have to make it to Wednesday to feel I’m in the clear. At least from the known exposure. I don’t feel like my husband and my neighbors are taking it as seriously as I, and that is tying me in knots. I understand the need to support local restaurants, and I agree the burger they brought home for me from 300 Suns was excellent (with an onion jam, on gluten free bread—very yummy). But that isn’t the only place they went around town. They went to a pet store and a building supply store and a dispensary over the entire course of the day. There were 30 confirmed cases in my county at close of business yesterday. How many asymptomatic folks are out wandering the town like my yahoos here, grabbing the same door handles, punching buttons on the same credit card readers? The risks are astronomical, and I am the only one of my friends and family who seem to believe it.

I’m really over jokes about toilet paper. I’m over people whining about boredom. This crap is real and it’s dangerous, and we are not three year olds hopped up on Easter candy. We can sit still for a few days without complaining. We folks with chronic illness do it even when it isn’t a national emergency. Embrace the stillness, cuddle your animals, and rediscover how to read, do yarn work, paint, code, or whatever you enjoy. Take out your yoga mat, do spring cleaning. Call your friends. Just stay the F home. Your own home.

I’m running the risk of really wallowing in anger and despair over the people who can’t separate long enough to save us all. I’m stopping now and leaving you with my pet pictures of the last 36 hours.

Mood

Inspirational song: Party at Ground Zero (Fishbone)

It was hard not being cranky today. I'm not struggling too much with the isolation, what with all of the opportunities to communicate on the internet and all the animals to pet. But I am experiencing some dread and hopelessness that we haven't begun to see the bad stuff yet. I catch myself swearing at the teevee a lot. No, the answer is not simply to turn it off. I refuse to hide from the situation. But it frustrated and upset me today.

It helped perk me up briefly when I learned that Gravity Falls is on Disney Plus. I'd only ever seen a few episodes, and now I have the chance to watch it start to finish. I am bringing Mr S-P with me on this journey. So far he seems into it.

I can't decide whether to hang on to this week's snow pictures, or to save them for a day when I didn't take a single picture. Now that we are officially in spring, maybe I should clear them out, knowing that flower pictures are just around the corner.

Accept Cookies

Inspirational song: I Feel Fine (The Beatles)

Day eight since exposure, day two of conscious quarantine. So far, so good. I did basically nothing for most of the day. I was planning to report that I have zero symptoms, but something weird happened about half an hour ago. I got uncomfortably warm, had to have a fan turned on to blow across the bed, and then I experienced something completely alien to me. My skin got sort of damp. Normal people will read that and wonder why that is remarkable. You need to understand that I have not been able to sweat since at least 1995. (Don’t ask why I know the date. Trust me that I do.) I didn’t sweat a lot, but I did it all over, which is startling. I’ve had a few days over two and a half decades, living in humid climates, when my upper lip got damp or bras got swampy, but actual sweat was beyond my capacity. This was slightly more than that. Just now I took my temperature, just to be sure, and it was only up a single degree from average. I can’t infer anything from that, good or bad. So do I have the Rona? Still no idea. Will stay inside tomorrow too, and every day for a week, until I know.

I planned on doing fun things today. It was Unofficial International Bob Day. This is the day when we are supposed to bake cookies and give them away, to friends, family, strangers, enemies... It all started many years ago, when my cousin decided he didn’t need birthday gifts for himself anymore. He was satisfied with what he had, and he wanted the goodwill of birthday wishes to turn outwards instead. He asked all of us in his circle of influence to bake cookies, and then send pictures of us giving them away. The tradition stuck, and now it is really a thing with him. I haven’t managed to do it every year, but I always feel good when I succeed in doing it.

I messed my cookies up a little this time. I didn’t measure accurately. I kind of eyeballed everything. I used the gluten free recipe I got off Pinterest, the one that directs me to brown the butter first, so the dough smells like caramel. It also calls for milk, just a splash, and I used too much. My cookies were super flat, and didn’t hold together too well. Since I was staying home, Mr S-P broke quarantine to take some next door, and to play several rounds of Call of Duty while he was there. I sure hope cookies are all that he gave away by being there. Keeping that man home for real quarantine, if I end up positive and he’s then one degree away, will be the hardest thing in the world.

Exposed

Inspirational song: The Waiting (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)

When I told myself maybe I should get the Rona early and get it over with, I had no idea that tempting fate would be revealed as risky so quickly. Right now I feel as normal as I ever do (with all my usual crud that I deal with every day). But this morning I got a phone call that increased my stress level exponentially. Someone who was close enough to me to touch my head tested positive in the days following. This individual felt just fine, and had no idea they were shedding virus while they were so near me, so there is no justification for blame. My heart goes out to them. I hope they sail through the illness with no lingering problems.

If it takes up to two weeks to really know whether you have it, then I have at least one more week to stay isolated in my own home, without visitors. I took my temperature right after the call, and it was still right in my regular range (low 97s). My nose is clear. I cough sometimes, but that has been happening for months, as that thyroid nodule slowly calcified. My energy is actually really good. I’ve done a little housework, pulled some weeds as the Mr worked more to expand the paisley shaped garden bed, and I made a really yummy stroganoff dinner. If there is anything remarkable amiss it’s that I have a mild, lingering headache. I was outside in the UV light long enough that a headache can’t be automatically blamed on any other reason.

So far staying home has been fine. There are plenty of things to entertain me. There are multiple signs of life in the garden, including some tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils starting to peek through the fall debris. We got quite a bit done before the spring snowstorm that is supposed to roll in tomorrow and cover us with half a foot of wet snow. While we were in the front yard, all of the dogs, ours and the neighbors’, were super noisy. I thought they were just being little jerks until Mr S-P walked past me saying he found out what excited them. One of them treed a raccoon in the corner of T’s yard, on a branch that leans over our garden shed. It took four of us humans to get all five dogs inside so the poor raccoon could slink down and hide between our shed and fence. I think Elsa and Murray will stay inside for most of the next two days, until the snow comes and goes.

House and Garden

Inspirational song: Design for Living (Flanders and Swann)

I can't believe I didn't see this one coming. I am completely off my game. There I was, sitting on the bed, eating dinner (Don't judge me! All rules are off during social distancing!) and watching the news, when the Mr came in and put a piece of paper in front of me. It had a couple of complex boxes sketched on it, one of them labeled "current." Each set was elongated, and I hazarded a guess. "Patio design?" Nope, he said, the pantry. That makes more sense, considering the overhaul of the patio will be several (probably multiple tens) thousand dollars, and we don't have that kind of cash to throw around this week unless the lottery falls in our lap. But a little shelving for a pantry reorganization? No problem.

I should have known that he wouldn't be able to stay home weeks without tearing something up and remodeling it. I know I've told the story before of him coming home from his first long deployment in the air force, calling me at work on day two saying, "Guess where I'm standing! In the doorway to our new den!" (He had just cut a hole in the wall.) So this is totally in character. It's modest, actually. He must be mellowing with age.

No, I'm just kidding. He's not mellowing. Minutes before he sketched out the pantry design, he went next door to deliver a beer to T. He wore a plastic plague mask he had left over from Halloween. Do you know I honestly wondered just this morning what the hell I was going to write about if we were all locked in our houses for weeks? What a doofus I was. 

Reframe

Inspirational song: Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond)

To get through isolation with sanity intact, we are all going to have to develop some new coping skills, or blow the carb off of some old ones. One of the first things I need to do is wean myself off of my Twitter and cable news addiction. I had almost broken those habits last summer. When you feel absolutely rotten on chemo, listening to the news gives you an instant headache, and for me personally, I found reading much of anything nigh impossible. I don’t have that strong of a deterrent this year, but I can already tell current events are making my blood pressure rise. It’s time to practice some creative distraction.

I know a lot of people are soothing themselves by saying they will write their great novel, now that they are trapped at home with no excuses. Maybe some of them actually will. I can pretend I’ll do it too, but I’m not going to beat myself up when I don’t see it happening. I’m going to start much smaller than that. I’m going to teach myself to enjoy fiction again (what I lost during my illness). I’m going to improve my physical strength and stamina by working in the yard more often. I’m going to reduce stress by focusing on things that bring instant joy, like small animals, of which there are plenty right next to me for my viewing pleasure. I will get through this, and I’m going to cling tightly to my humanity while I do.

So if I can’t stay away from Twitter, at least I can focus more heavily on Cat Twitter. If I can’t stand to have the unearthly quiet when the TV is off, I can watch new series, or catch up on what has been waiting in my DVR, like the most recent season of Dr Who. And if I find myself too nervous to go to the grocery store for fresh food, I can drag my butt out to the garden, and do a better job than last year at keeping an ancient black Labrador out of my tomatoes.

Going Out, Rona Version

Inspirational song: The Rose (Bette Midler)

Going out has a whole new meaning these days. This morning, as I stalled over my second cup of coffee, I asked the Mr, if we are stuck at home not doing much for weeks, what say we work on finishing up the big stuff in the back yard? We need to complete the garden bed move (swapping the raised beds and fence back to the south side, where it was when we moved in) and lay the flagstone patio on the north (once we have dug out all possible sources of weeds and placed an impenetrable barrier under sand substrate.) It's a lot of physical labor, which is not my strong suit these days, but it needs to be done and we can't claim to have many better things to do this month.

We started easy, by moving a peony from the back to the front yard. Well, easy for me. I wasn't the one working the shovel and doing the bending. While he dug out chunks of grass to expand the flower beds we have been building up front, I grabbed clippers and started deeply pruning my roses. I'd heard that every few years you ought to be brutal to them, cutting them way down. I intended to take them down to hip level. But the ones near where I park seem not to have done well over the winter. I didn't find a whole lot of green inside the canes. They were somewhat crunchy and brittle. I hope they improve as spring approaches. The ones on the south side of the garage fared better from two years of benign neglect, and I didn't prune them quite as much.

I imagined all day that it would be okay for one last run to the liquor store, for a bottle of amaretto. It mixes so well with stuff like Dr Pepper, and I thought it would be good while we pass the time playing games with the neighbor. I eventually talked myself out of going, because I have no business being out for weeks. Not really. I have plenty in the liquor cabinet and wine fridge to last me for weeks, or even months. I'm not that heavy of a drinker. And I'm starting to get a little afraid of playing games with friends. I literally balked at the idea of board games tonight, because I didn't want to be passing objects like tokens, cards, or dice around the table. Instead, we sat on the couch, not touching, and watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was more my speed. If things get scarier, I won't even do that much. I am prepared to isolate even further. I'm not messing around here.

Stretch

Inspirational song: Relax (Frankie Goes to Hollywood)

Did I do the right thing? I went to my massage today. I missed the monthly one in February, and I might not get another one for a long time. I really wanted to go. But I also stressed out over what a dangerous activity it could have been. My therapist never coughed or sneezed once. He didn’t even clear his throat. He’s older than I am, in the cohort of people who are more likely to be at increased risk of the virus. He is being careful too. But man, I really needed that deep muscle work. I wasn’t letting myself fully experience how much stress I’ve been carrying. He broke up tension I wasn’t even aware of. I’ve spent too much time reading and listening to the scary information out there. I was knotted up tight. Less so now.

I am emotionally ready to completely isolate myself. But I haven’t cleared off all obligations yet. And people keep putting things in front of me that I feel like I can’t skip. It feels so risky. I’m going to have to take it all one day at a time, one activity at a time. It would be cool to just relax with streaming television and my stockpiles of food and drink. People, we all need to stop doing stuff. If only I could do the same.

Date Night, Rona Style

Inspirational song: Love Her Madly (The Doors)

How exactly is this supposed to work? Are we supposed to be staying home completely already, or just avoiding big groups? What about shopping, is that still okay? I mean, I’m well stocked on toilet paper, and I’ll defend my stash if reivers try to come take it. But if I run low on cat food or half and half, I hope it’s not too late. And I still don’t know whether it’s still okay to go to that massage I had scheduled. I am kind of terrified of it, but I really need it, and it’s probably my last chance for a long time.

I guess we had a decent preview of how this is going to go. Our big Friday night entertainment was going next door for dinner and drinks and to watch Forrest Gump. I’m not sure there was a particular reason for that movie choice, other than a wave of nostalgia from T. I didn’t fight him on it. I happily settled on the couch with my steak and wine, and enjoyed the film. It’s been a while since I saw it on a screen that big, and never on one with such high definition. We noticed things we hadn’t seen in ages. We all felt giggly and relaxed by the end of it. It was a good call.

We wondered out loud how big the January baby boom is going to be. You know it’s gonna happen. Right about the time the hospitals cease being overloaded with virus patients, they’re going to be packed with quarantine babies. What do you suppose the most common names will be? I doubt the virus will be memorialized fondly via baby names. S-P Jr is going to have a huge cohort, although he or she will be a little older than most of their peers. Maybe the industry to invest in now will be elementary school construction to be completed in six years.

Cancel Culture

Inspirational song: Show Me the Way to Go Home (Irving King)

Guys, I'm already tired of it. Things have only begun to shut down, in the last 36 hours or so. It's already mentally exhausting. I still don't know whether my two doctor appointments and massage will still happen next week, but my money is on at least one of them being canceled. I mean, the doctors are pulmonology and ENT. These are probably going to be slammed. I'll be amazed if these go off. Rotary is canceled for the rest of the month, and the Mr has to rework his classes to be taught online.

I went to the physical therapy clinic at the hospital this morning, and went ahead and made another appointment for next week also, but this is not a specialty that will be particularly vulnerable in this pandemic, so there is a chance it will still happen. After my session was over, I sat in the coffee shop that is adjacent to ER, while I waited for my daughter to join me for a beverage. In those few minutes, I saw two old men come in to the ER in wheelchairs, and one woman get checked in while standing. I am not nosy enough to violate HIPAA rules to find out what they all have, but I choose to assume at least one of them is having symptoms of the Rona. There were more than 30 cases in Colorado as of this morning (more now), but none official in my county. I don't know whether anyone here qualified for a test, nor whether they would be able to obtain one.

Almost all of the D&D group came to the house tonight. So far about half are working from home now and more are expecting to. I would like to keep meeting with our small group, but it does make me nervous. But these games are getting so stinking good. The campaign Mr S-P wrote is amazing. I want to keep doing it. The kids get assigned details to draw, either of our foes or our scenery. Tonight we revealed a drawing that the man had one of their old high school friends draw. This is very entertaining, seeing how each artist interprets the things that come out of his imagination. I don't want the Rona to keep us from meeting, but if we have to do this remotely, we will.

Surfaces

Inspirational song: Doctor Wu (Steely Dan)

I’m honestly curious how many people who read this, whether regularly or just once in a blue moon, thought I was obsessing over nothing over the last week. You can tell me. I won’t be mad. Messaging was pretty messed up for weeks. I think the word is starting to coalesce now into something along the lines of “holy crap, y’all, it’s so much worse than we wanted to believe. Don’t touch anybody or anything anymore!” I wondered myself whether I was out of line for doing all my grocery shopping for the month in the span of two trips. (I already had one and a half Costco packs of toilet paper, because that’s the kind of person I am. I mostly bought food.) I let myself go ahead and use some of the “prepper” food, and then I chastised myself for getting into it too soon. I am completely in two minds about the whole thing, and I just can’t decide how scared to be.

It was probably the sales meeting we had in early January when I first paid attention to the word coronavirus. One of our agents had a sniffle, and she said something about not having it. I thought she was just making a joke about the latest scare, and I think I might have chuckled. It was totally outside of my consciousness at that point. I hadn’t read a word about it, nor watched a single news segment on it, and didn’t for a solid month after that. I thought it was something people were overreacting to, and I ignored it. I’m not ignoring it anymore.

I went to get my next dose of Botox for migraine this morning. (None too soon... I’ve had headaches for weeks as the last one wore off.) I didn’t get my usual wave of texts, emails, and robocalls reminding me of the appointment, and I wondered whether it was still on. I have three more things coming over the next seven days, and I catch myself holding my breath and stressing that any one of them could be canceled for the pandemic. I hope not. Tomorrow’s is no big deal, but next week are ones I’ve really been anticipating.  I don’t want to overtax the medical offices around town, but I also don’t want to delay things that have already been put off too long while I didn’t know any better.

I noticed something on the counter at my appointment this morning. They had created cups with labels reading “clean pens” and “dirty pens.” There was a person wearing nitrile gloves wiping down everything while I was checking in. They are taking this very seriously now. I had a conversation with a friend from Rotary who suggested we should change how we get our food every week while this is happening, no longer touching the spoons ourselves. She thinks we should have our caterers earring gloves and putting the food on our plates. Her reasoning is that germs can live on these surfaces for like half an hour, and the average age of our Rotarians is well north of the line for increased risk of complications from Covid-19. We have no business grabbing the utensils ourselves. My friend suggested I pass along my agreement with her proposition to the club president. I haven’t yet, while I let myself mull it over. I probably will, though.

Jazz Hands

Inspirational song: U Can’t Touch This (MC Hammer)

My entire life of social awkwardness has been leading up to this moment. “Social distancing” recommended for everyone? My time to shine! No more wondering whether to shake hands or hug nervously. I always panic at hug time. I’m not good at it during the best of times. Lately, I’m a tragically poor hugger. I stress out and spend months wondering whether I shouldn’t have done it at all. Now I won’t have to beat myself up over it. I can just smile at people and keep my personal space. This is gonna be great.

I had the tv playing loudly in the bedroom, while I was hanging out in the kitchen and living room yesterday. I’m pretty sure it was Kathleen Sebelius who I heard suggesting jazz hands would be an acceptable alternative to handshakes. That seems like the perfect greeting for my personality. A beauty queen wave could work, as could clasping hands over my heart with or without a nod or a curtsy. But when I’m in a good mood, it’s gonna be jazz hands.

I’ve been stubbornly refusing to consider eliminating my weekly game night as the epidemic spreads. That is, I did until about three hours ago. I’ve experienced a little doubt since then, wondering whether it’s still safe to bring a handful of friends and family around the big table for games and food. I have been discussing it with my daughter. I told her I was more concerned about Jr’s continued health. She said she’s more worried about me. We both said we are eventually going to be exposed, one way or another. I’m almost hoping to get it over with now, before the hospitals are overwhelmed, just in case. The only thing that would be better is not to get it at all, ever.

Warmth

Inspirational song: All By Myself (Eric Carmen)

The last week has been springy and truly lovely. Days ago we went ahead and turned off the heat, and have been throwing open the windows every day. Maybe you live in a part of the country where you could have started doing this in February, but it doesn’t always happen for us this early in March. There is a chance of snow again at the end of this week, but I have decreed that I will keep the heat off unless it gets absolutely miserable inside. I have plenty of blankets, jammies, and cats available for warmth.

The cats probably aren’t thrilled by this development. When I got up this morning, Athena was under the covers by my feet, unamused by the cold bedroom. I came into the bedroom to watch the ten o’clock news this evening, pulling covers up only as far as my hips. Within five minutes, I had a cat on either side of me, trying to steal my warmth. Alfred stared deeply into my eyes, willing me to understand some critical information that I must assume involved his misery at being both cold and not between me and my tablet screen. Athena was harder to photograph, as usual. I almost had her posing for the camera when her daddy made noise behind her. I gave up. She is still in that spot hours later, but she is definitely not interested in posing now.

I don’t want to keep harping on the possibility of this virus obscuring all other news, but I do spend a lot of time thinking about that subject. It’s one of the hazards of living with wacky immune system issues. But it made me wonder, what exactly will I write about if I actually get to the point of self-isolating? If I don’t get out and about often enough, writing in this space becomes an agonizing struggle. I spent all of last summer stuck in my bedroom. I can’t express how much I hope never to repeat that experience. I have so many good things to look forward to doing and seeing this year. I want to participate fully in a life worth writing about. Let’s all hope, people. Let’s hope.

Game It Out

Inspirational song: White Russian (Marillion)

There could be no better game to play on a week like this as Pandemic. We met next door as we do on most Sundays, ready to pass the time with our closest friends. There were a handful of games stacked on the table, and in the blink of an eye, they were narrowed to two: Pandemic and Code Names. We jumped right in.

To be honest, there were too many of us for Pandemic. It’s best with four, and we were six. We ran out of cards and virus markers on the same round, and doing either of those things loses the game. None of us had played this game in months, and with alcohol flowing freely (as happens often on game night) it was a slow, plodding process for us to remember how to structure the turns properly. Pandemic is a cooperative game, that is only won by everyone supporting each other (my favorite sort of game). I think we should try it again soon, but only if we are playing it as a board game, not navigating this sort of scenario in real life. The way things sound on the news, I’m not sure we will have as much say in the matter.

We switched to Code Names, which had gone very well the first time we tried it a few weeks ago. The makeup of the group was slightly different, so we had to work on different wavelengths. It was a little harder this time, but still a ton of fun. And when two people in our group skipped out because of work demands, the four of us who remained kept playing with different rules. One person was the mastermind, and the rest of us had to try to get all tiles guessed in a random number of turns (based on the roll of a die). I think we won two and lost two that way. Pretty sure I failed to place all my tiles as the mastermind, but I only missed by one.

I’ve been doing regular games with people for years. The games change, and the circle of friends changed with each place I’ve lived. But the desire for this activity has never faded. I treasure this more than I could express. Now if I could just get enough people in one place to play bunco again. Maybe after the real life pandemic comes and goes.