Sunday morning. I usually wake up early on Sunday morning and check my work email from Friday and Saturday (my weekend). I then log off for the rest of the day (which always includes a nap) and log back in during the late afternoon when I go back to work. It is an understatement to say this Sunday hasn’t been normal. I have been on email all weekend and though I have not been on duty (the weekend team is on the front line), the news (and the iPhone) are always there.
Last Sunday morning, on March 15th, Sara, Will and I began taking our temperature each morning and writing it down on a chart in the kitchen. A week ago that might have seemed extreme--but now, not so much. It’s actually very comforting--and it can be reassuring for lying-in-bed moments of panic. On Wednesday morning, I woke up, certain my head was burning with a fever. Hot, sweaty and anxious, I got up and went downstairs. I took my temperature and it was normal--which for me is between 96.5 and 97.1 if the last week is any indication.
This Sunday morning, I woke up committed to calm. I organized the 953 pictures I’d scanned this week with my Doxie scanner and got ready to upload them to my hard drive. I waited 30 minutes after my first cup of coffee to take my temperature. I looked down and went into a panic, 99.6.
Was this it? OMG. My mind was reeling--but only for a moment. It took me two terrible seconds to realize that I was holding the damn thermometer upside down. My temperature was actually 96.6. Normal--or at least as normal as things can get these days. Seeing the household chart with the last week of steady temperatures for was completely comforting.
We keep the chart on a notepad I ordered from Shutterfly. A picture of our granddaughter Turner is in the background. I looked at Turner’s picture and thought, “She doesn’t know this is going on.”--and that thought was also comforting. Friends at work have just had a baby and they’ve gone on social media to say they’re in a cocoon with their baby. Comforting.
Our dogs Happy and Stella have never been calmer or happier--and they’re perfect “Stay-at-Home” role models. Get up. Go out back. Pee. Come in. Drink. Wait for breakfast. Eat. Lay down. Nap. Wake up. Cry to go outside. Chase a bird. Come in. Lay down. Nap. Go for a walk. Poop. Nap. Eat dinner. Go out. Pee. Come in. Walk. Pee. Come upstairs. Watch TV on the bed. Go back out. Pee. Sleep. Repeat.
The dogs sleep with us and in the last week, when I wake up Happy does that dog submissive thing. Laying on her back, paws in the air, using universal sign language, she’s crying out for a belly rub. We’ve had Happy for three years. She’s never been happier.
The daffodils are up, the forsythia is yellow and there are buds on the lilacs. They don’t seem to have noticed corona.
(For the real-life story of a group of people who didn’t know about coronavirus, read this March 17th piece from Charlie Warzel of the New York Times, “They Went Off the Grid. They Came Back to the Coronavirus.” It’s the story of a group of rafters who went on a trip through the Grand Canyon--off the grid and out of touch for 25 days, returning to the explosion of the coronavirus pandemic. (h/t: Zoe Marcus.))
Maybe not knowing is better. Remember, for Tony Soprano, his life didn’t end. It stopped.
And that’s what I think is so hard about this phase of the coronavirus. For the most part, this country has shut down. The next few weeks are going to be horribly hard for so many of us. Hunkered down, we’re all just trying to get through these next few weeks--but then what?
What’s the new normal in a month? Two? I have faith in humanity--and science and scientists--but I have no idea what’s next.
FULL STOP!
Annie, and others, have told me to keep things light and funny in this daily quiz. Annie texted me last week, “Keep it on the comedy side… Play to your strengths.” So, ignore that tangent. 96.9--not 99.6. Back to the crazy things that happen every day. And even with corona--especially with corona--what’s more normal than food?
What did NOT happen?
A. Our local butcher, Perrotti’s, is shut down so this week, I ordered steaks from Omaha Steaks. They arrived this morning. I’m grilling some tonight;
B. Sara and John made bread Saturday using Sara’s Instapot. They were disappointed with how the bread first looked when they took it out of the InstaPot before they took the final step of browning the top of the bread under the broiler for 3 minutes;
C. Will observed that the true test of bread was how it tasted when toasted. He popped a piece in the toaster. His verdict, “That slapped;”
D. Saturday, Steve used a “recipe” he’d seen on Twitter from the sports media blogger, @Jomboy, for making homemade chocolate peanut butter cups. He’d used paper cupcake holders to hold and make his chocolate peanut butter cups while they set in the freezer. I looked around. We had chocolate and peanut butter but no paper cupcake holders. I did find some paper coffee filters--and used them instead. So, instead of a dozen bite-size cups, we ended up with 4 giant, chocolate peanut butter creations, each the size of a big, round coaster, three-quarters of an inch thick. Two bites were enough for dessert--and they remain in the freezer, waiting for more bites on another day;
E. On Twitter, I replied to JomBoy with a picture of my coffee filter, chocolate peanut butter creations. Within an hour, JomBoy “liked” my reply.
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Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #10. Tuesday.
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #8. “Crazy.”
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
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