This happened last Sunday:
So we're pretty much under full quarantine. We were waiting for the nurse to test negative, but COVID-19 seems unlikely in her case. But now my wife's lymph nodes are swollen and she's feeling off. I got a week's worth of groceries bought, and we could probably limp by for three more days on leftovers, peanut butter and Trader Joe's frozen veggie samosas.
We have things to keep us occupied in our pest tent. Games, books, a 3D puzzle of the Weasley house. My daughter and her stuffed dog and I made friendship necklaces. Screen time rules are suspended. While my kids watched some Disney zombie thing, I made and stained laptop riser for my home office setup, depicted here:
Not bad. I'll start work on the keyboard/mouse tray once the sliders have shipped. And of course there's my new job, which started Monday. Bit of a bumpy start, what with no work laptop, but it'll be delivered, and I have things to learn while I wait.
Meantime, we're doing as we have been instructed. Handwashing, minimal touching, nuts and chips go in bowls. I should probably stop kissing the dog. I'm gonna feel that one.
My wife's dad may be dying soon, though not from the virus. She's dealing with that, plus her sister's mounting anxiety, plus going from working at home alone to having a full house 'round the clock. It's a lot, and it's only the first few turns of a Tilt-A-Whirl that shows no sign of stopping. The vertigo of that is still fresh and harder to navigate with everyone constantly sliding around and bumping into one another.
I'm providing plenty of challenges, despite my best intentions. I have what could be termed a robust voice, and so when I'm on conference calls, she's using noise canceling headphones. At one point she wandered in to my office asking why I was playing the fuck out of some castanets, only to realize that it was my mechanical keyboard. I did warn her about the keyboard.
Our coping mechanism is Dammit Rodney. Dammit Rodney is our invisible coworker. He's the one that's screwing it all up, far as we're concered. Just yesterday, Dammit Rodney made too much noise, forgot to close the storage room door, and microwaved a melamine plate, which stunk up the house and probably gave us all cancer. Dammit, Rodney.
So there are going to be adjustments, probably for a long time. But mostly I'm getting a deep sense of how lucky we are. There is no better yardstick for your social and economic standing than seeing what would happen if your entire house gets infected with a pandemic. We're pretty damn wealthy by that measure, both in resources and friends. I can't imagine how many are completely isolated right now, or wondering how they're going to survive.
It's people like them, those who can't work from home, who don't have a backup, who get laid off. Who are self-employed and watching their livelihoods teeter on the edge of ruin. Who have to live in crowded spaces where a virus can spread like a brush fire. Who can't not care for the sick. Those are the people I'm worried for today. Not us. And certainly not those who are intentionally congregating and putting people at risk to make their precious, precious point.
This pandemic is showing us the best and worst of ourselves. My greatest fear is that we'll watch that unfold for weeks and learn nothing from it. I know the worst will. I hope the best get loud.
