Sheltering In Place

It is both stressful and strange times at the moment. I never imagined that something like this pandemic could happen requiring people to stay in their homes, practice social distancing, and only go out if one needs to buy food or other essential items. And while we are sheltering in place, there are some extremely sick people who may not survive their illness.

Sal and I have stuck around the house most of the time unless we needed to go out. Our excitement is getting takeout from some of our favorite restaurants. During all of this, Sophie, our 5-year-old lab tore a ligament in her knee and needed surgery. When Sal took her to the vet, only one of us was able to go into the building. I was disappointed but understood. Sophie is quite happy since during her recovery  we are both nearby and rarely leave the house.

I do see the best of people coming out in many situations. Sal and I experienced this when we asked Sal’s cousin (also named Sal) who owns a local pizza restaurant if he wanted to park his pizza truck in front of our house to sell pizza. He had recently started visiting various neighborhoods in our area in the hope of selling enough pizza to keep his employees and not lay them off. I posted that the pizza truck would be in the neighborhood in Nextdoor (social media) telling my neighbors to come for pizza and support a local business. One neighbor asked if she could post a sign in the neighborhood and others told me, I’ll be there to buy a pizza and support Sal. Sal is very generous and supports the local schools and community. Some neighbors told me it is time we give back to him. It was very refreshing.

Recently when I went to Sprouts to buy some meat, I was leaning over to pick up a package of chicken and I guess I got to close to another shopper. She gasped, backed up, and gave me a look. I bit my tongue, smiled, and moved on. After that experience, I was a bit jumpy. While standing in the line at Target (finally found some toilet paper), the three women in front of me turned around and looked at me. They all had masks on, but I did not. I was waiting for a snide comment or insult, but instead they said, “where did you get the toilet paper? I thought they were out”. I then realized my perception should not be on the negative side but focus on the positive. Why did I expect the worst?

On another note, my house has never been so neat and clean. During the past couple of weeks, I have shampooed the carpets, cleaned out the kitchen drawers, and rearranged the pantry and spices.  I could go on and on. Sal has cleaned the garage, the garden is ready to plant vegetables shortly, and he trimmed every tree and bush to perfection. In addition, Nolja (our yellow lab) has never walked so much.  Sophie is jealous, but she’ll get over it.

Some of the social media posts have been so funny. The before and after pictures of thin well-dressed fit people on day one who now are 50 pounds overweight with disheveled hair and messy clothes. I have to laugh since it isn’t far from wrong.  I know I have gained a few pounds.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather laugh than cry. A little levity goes a long way.  My wonderful hair stylist, Melissa, dropped off hair color on my front porch so I could touch up my roots.   I wasn’t able to see the back of my head so Sal had to help.  Now that is a shocker.  I told Melissa not to worry, he may have done ok touching up my hair color, but I will never ever let him trim my hair.  Meanwhile, my hair hasn’t been this long in years.

I look forward to the time when the pandemic is behind us. On a positive note, I believe we have learned a few things over the past few months. In my 20’s, I was a medical assistant so I have always been a big hand washer. It seems that hand washing should be an everyday part of life and it certainly is currently. Sal and I always chatted with our neighbors periodically, but generally the conversations were brief since we were all in a hurry. They are nice folks and we know we could call any of them in an emergency and they would be there to help. In the last month or so, we stood in the yard and chatted (at 6 feet away of course) since there was no rush and no one was going anywhere. It was great to take the time and actually have a nice conversation. Things are slowly improving and hopefully the trend remains the same.  In the meantime, I’ll continue to make the best of a sad situation.