Quarantine

On Monday, March 16th, Governor Cuomo declared all non-essential employees work from home for the next 2 weeks, starting the following day. I packed up what I could from my desk when I left Monday night to head home, and I’ve been here since. My husband is working from home as well, so apart from a few trips to the store to procure supplies (read: alcohol, and one last quest to find toilet paper, since we had no luck the previous Sunday when we did our grocery run. Still no luck finding any toilet paper, although we have ample supply of Gin and Vodka.) Thus, we are effectively quarantining ourselves in the name of social-distancing. Its been weird.

I am a natural introvert, so I normally have no trouble keeping to myself and keeping myself amused for days at a time. I usually wind up puttering around the house doing sundry chores, tidying, and special projects when left to my own devices. Years ago, my sister and I devised our own method of cleaning affectionately termed “Polish Cleaning,” wherein we make the most of our mundane chores by adding a little fun. Same idea as “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” In this case, the “medicine” is blasting cheesy pop favorites and showtunes at high volume while downing a few drinks while you work. I highly recommend it.

Only this time, “Polish Cleaning” hasn’t happened yet. Our quarantine has been decidedly more somber. Its also been largely unproductive, as its very hard to focus on anything right now. I’ve been posting a lot of levity on social media over the last few weeks as much to try and cheer myself up as to try to garner a few laughs because the truth of the matter is that I am utterly terrified right now. I am asthmatic, and have 2 aging parents (one of which has MULTIPLE underlying conditions) that make us all very bad candidates for Coronavirus. Even more terrifying to me is the long incubation period for this infection; that on average you are infectious for 4-5 days before you even begin to feel sick, such that there are all these people walking around interacting with others who are spreading disease unknowingly, and you have no idea who they are any more than they do. I’m doing my best to obey the immortal wisdom of Douglas Adams, but its been hard not to panic. At least once a day, if not multiple times a day, I’m completely immobilized by panic and I just stand in place for several minutes not knowing what I should do next, my mind racing with all sorts of epidemiological questions, which then leads to a lot of googling, which usually doesn’t help with my peace of mind.

I’ve decided I might as well document our quarantine period. I have plenty of time for blogging now…

• DAY 1

  

  In which I have cheesecake for breakfast.

• DAY 2

  The day I spent all day googling things and put myself in a right state of panic.

• DAY 3

  

  As foretold in prophecy, I download and begin reading “Love in the Time of Cholera.” The first chapter is very promising!

• DAY 4

  In which I’m seized by panic and break down in stress-tears over the sad stories and news flooding my fb newsfeed, and I snooze every page I was following on fb so that I don’t have to see anymore.

  In the name of peace and sanity, I decided to blow off the little bit of work I had left to do and joined my husband on the back porch to start drinking a little early (it is Friday, after all). Thankfully, we had a rare warm day in the upper 60’s and we cracked open the first Sam Summer of the season. Felt much better. Finished bottle of beer in the shower. Had nice chicken dinner, watched the Orville. It’s a far cry to say that all is right with the world again, but I can’t deny the power of inebriated oblivion and a warm spring breeze,