Lets face it, so far 2020 stinks. We just barely got into the new year and we started hearing rumors of some new virus thing on the other side of the planet. No need for us to worry, or so we thought.
Now here we are three months in and most of us have been faithfully sheltering in our homes for the past several weeks, cutting ourselves off from human to human contact as best we can and trying to survive the toilet paper wars.
Shopping trips have now become covert missions that have planning strategies and special equipment involved. You have to be up at the crack of dawn, load up on hand sanitizer and maybe a face mask, disposable gloves and disinfectant wipes. You are now ready to go to the grocery store.
Best strategy is to shop online and go to a store that brings the groceries out to you so that you don’t have to step out of the safety of your car which is now more like your bubble of immunity outside of your house. If you were smart you checked the online groups for sightings of toilet paper nearby and hope that there is still some left when you arrive.
When you get home, depending on which how-to video you’ve watched, you unpack and sanitize each grocery item before putting it away, or you leave all non-perishable items sitting in your garage for a week, saying a silent prayer over each one that it is not the one with the virus stuck on it because you are not sure of your techniques.
That done you toss your disposable gloves, ok who are we kidding, you toss the two dog poop bags you’ve been using as disposable gloves into the garbage, strip out of your town clothes and toss them directly into the washing machine and then go take a twenty minute shower singing happy birthday forty times to make sure you’ve washed properly for this virus. I call this the Howard Hughes phase of shopping.
Now that you are back safely in your house, doors locked in case some crazy relative just decides to pop in to see how you are doing, it’s time to chose what to do today. Let’s see, you’ve watch all ninety seasons of Lost, you’ve knit five more scarves, ok you only knit one more because you are really, really slow. You finished reading that huge Stephen King novel and you have actually listened to most of the audible books in your collection, so that subscription is finally paying off.
If you are like me you are already bored with all of the apps and games on your iPad or tablet and the new ones look incredibly boring or too complicated. You’ve also already beat the computer numerous times in games of Monopoly and Solitaire. Alexa is starting to get on your nerves because she isn’t following your instructions so you find yourself yelling at her as if that will help. Solitude can do strange things.
It was nearly sixty degrees out the other day and so I ventured outdoors to see what I could do out there. I have this little tiny rake, I’m not sure what it’s true purpose is or why I bought it, but I don’t have a normal sized leaf rake. I have a garden rake which doesn’t work well for leaves, I don’t know why I have that either as I don’t garden. I took my tiny rake and tried to rake the leftover leaves out from around all the plants in the front of the house, I had fair success.
Then I walked around the yard and picked up all the big sticks that had blown out of the trees the last several wind storms and put them into a big pile. I was already winded from too much activity but was determined to make a day of it. I decided to follow my daughters idea and walked out into the field and looked for pieces of corn that I could leave out for our squirrels. I only found four and walked about an eighth of a mile and back but I felt accomplished none the less.
I reclined on my lawn chair for a bit but it isn’t satisfying. I miss my hammock! If we do get money from the government for economic relief during this pandemic, I am buying a new pad for my hammock stand! I have my priorities after all.
The sun was getting too hot, yes, sixty degrees is hot for me, so I went back indoors. No sense overdoing it on the first sunny day. I looked around the living room for something to do that did not involve the TV. If I were the ambitious type I could tackle my living room closet where I store all of my seasonal decorations. It has become a giant disaster with holidays dripping all over the place. I opened the door, looked inside, shut the door. Too much trauma for me.
I’ve already rearranged my living room, so what other room could I tackle? The dining room and kitchen have no options. Same with the laundry room. We had already updated the den aka grandpa’s room. That left the guest bedroom, which is also the grandkids toy room. I stood in the doorway and looked at it for ten minutes.
To move anything was going to require a lot of removing things first. Then there is the whole plug outlet situation, and the TV dish cord is in one corner so the TV is stuck there. There are shelving units with the kids toy bins, a big sized kids kitchen set, a bookshelf loaded with kids books, my desk and a bed, and a unit with my clothes. We are talking a twelve by twelve bedroom, with each wall lined with some type of unit of something. I turned and walked away. Best not to poke the giant.
A thought of trying to bake some homemade bread flashed briefly across my brain. Who was I kidding. I folded all of the blankets on the couch and arranged all of the pillows. I almost went and got the vacuum cleaner, but that idea went away quickly as well. I spied the extra Wemo plug that had been sitting on my roll top desk in the living room and had a clear vision of what to do.
I have a large round fan that sits in my living room and is plugged into the outlet that works off of the light switch. There are two such outlets in the living room so when you click the light switch on, a light on my desk turns on and the fan turns on. I picked the Wemo plug up (it works with Alexa or by an app to remotely control things plugged into it) and plugged it into the wall behind the couch sectional that was to the left of me. Then I plugged the fan into it positioning it to perfectly blow a nice breeze on me. After several minutes of trying to remember how to program the plug, I finally got it.
Life is good for now. It’s often measured in the small things. I no longer have to get up and flip a light switch to turn my fan on or off. Now I can remain seated in my favorite spot on the couch, watching all six seasons of Schitts Creek for the tenth time and just say “Alexa, turn on living room fan”. Covid lemonade.
Please stay home and stay safe.
Until next time…
Toni