(re-run)
This is my 21st day in quarantine. I started early when my sister’s infectious disease doctor told me not to risk it. I sold my ticket to a Motown review and went to the beach house.
When the nursing homes shut down all visitors, I saw my sis for another week. She lives in a tiny facility with only 4 residents and two caregivers. Shout out to those who have enough foresight to buy a long-term healthcare policy! Thank God Sis did that.
Then came the day when the sign on the door said no more visitors.
“They don’t mean me,” I said, ringing the bell and doing my usual hour-long visit.
Then I got a text from the owner. No visitors. From that day forward I dropped off stuff but didn’t enter the house.
My backyard fence fell down back in February. I had to come back to the Bay Area for the fence installation, which was delayed twice and finally completed on Friday, March 20th. I stuck around a few more days and then headed back to the beach.
There are fewer people here. There is toilet paper for sale in the grocery stores. The Monterey peninsula is filled with old people, so everyone is abiding by the six-foot social-distancing rule. It has been rainy and cold, so much of my time is spent indoors. I’ve read two and a half books. I have watched three movies and a bunch of mindless TV.
I have cleaned, sorted, purged, exercised and spent a lot of time on Facebook. I especially love the videos of people in Italy and Spain singing and playing music from their balconies. I don’t share posts with swear words in them like Stay the F*%& at Home or posts with bad grammar or spelling. That eliminates a whole bunch of posts, right there.
But I do share the uplifting ones, never the anti-Trump ones. We don’t need to point out the obvious. One of my Republican friends just posted how Trump warned all of us that this virus was coming. It just goes to show that you can spin anything to have it match your beliefs.
But I digress.
What I really want to talk about is Girl Scout cookies. I brought enough food to last me a week. Or so I thought. I still have eggs, avocados, one apple, canned soup, and granola bars. But I am out of the thing one needs the most while sheltering in place – chocolate.
This morning I panicked. I’d have to go to the store. And on a Sunday. What would the lines be like? Who would I be standing next to?
I needed to buy the Sunday paper, but I preferred to plug the newspaper stand machine thinige outside the liquor store with quarters and avoid the store.
But now, out of chocolate, it looked like I’d have to brace for the store. I’d eaten my one-week allotment in just five days. I’m not proud of that, just telling it like it is.
If I go to the store, I can buy two candy bars to get me through today and tomorrow.
But if I go to the store, I will come in contact with more petri dishes walking around as humans.
What to do, what to do?
Then I remembered the half-eaten box of Thin Mints that I’d thrown in the food bag.
A Thin Mint is not a candy bar, but it’s an acceptable substitute in these trying times. After all, it has chocolate, it has crunch, and it has deliciousness.
Hurray! I could avoid the store and just go as far as the newsstand machine thingies in front of the liquor store.
“I’ll walk you guys when I get back,” I promised the dogs.
I bought my paper, mailed three bills, and then it started to rain.
Dang it! Another dog walk postponed.
As they say on Facebook, now I know why the dog chews furniture when it’s stuck at home.
Boredom! Anxiety! Stress! All of the above.
We will walk today, I promise, even if it’s in the rain.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 