Posts by Jonah

Today is the start of work week three of our self-isolation. Sometimes I feel sorry for people who live alone. And then there are days where I feel like living alone might be nice.

We might live in the best place in the world for self-isolation. We have a beautiful view. We have more books than we will probably ever read. We have a barrel with 55 gallons of beer (well, the beer evaporates, so it’s less than that).

I’m used to being home and not going anywhere. I homeschooled. So sitting at my desk doing work while another person sits at their desk doing their work isn’t unusual for me. When I was a kid, my little brother, who wasn’t doing school work, would taunt me from the banister up the stairs. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I’d run upstairs and tickle him to try to get him to stop.

These days Berck works at his desk. I either work upstairs at the dining room table or down at my desk, depending on which place is warmer. If the sun is shining, I like to be upstairs. Today it was snowing, so I came downstairs and sat at my desk closer to the fire.

On a normal work day, if we left for work, the cat excitedly greets whoever gets up first. When that person leaves for work, the cat then goes to the corner of our bed and pouts. He lies there with his appendages tucked under him, stares straight ahead, and won’t react to anything. It’s heartbreaking. When we come home in the evening, he runs to the window and shouts at us through the glass. In the summer, we can hear him meowing loudly. In the winter, all we can see is his little jaw flapping. Then he runs to the door and jumps into my arms or onto Berck’s shoulders and rubs his face furiously against us.

It’s enough to make you guilty for leaving the little guy all day. But you know what he does on the weekends? Around midmorning he starts his nap. Then he gets up grumpily around 6ish. So it’s hard to feel bad for leaving him all day when all he’s going to do is sleep anyway.

But we haven’t been anywhere for the last two weeks, except to go to the store for a grocery pickup and to get the mail (Berck begged to go with me both times so he could drive somewhere… anywhere). And most of the time the cat naps. But today was an especially short nap.

Today Professor von Neuamann wanted to walk on keyboards. And he wanted to climb on shoulders. And just like my little brother used to do, he climbed halfway up the stairs and taunted me from the banister.

At some point, I needed to make a phone call to one of my clients, so I went into the guest bedroom and closed the door. About halfway through the phone call, I could hear the cat yowling from outside the door. Our cat resents closed doors.

Once I finished the phone call, I hung up and opened the door. The cat was not right outside the door waiting to be let in, like I expected him to be. He had used his litter box, which is currently located in the second bathroom, then jumped onto the bathroom counter, switched on the fan, and was perched on the counter screaming. He screamed until I finished scooping out his fresh poop. It was pretty stinky, so it was nice of him to have turned on the fan.

Professor von Neumann knows how to turn on the fan in the downstairs bathroom because he does it to try to annoy us. When he was a “teenager”, I decided to teach him not to wake us up at five in the morning, since every morning he would start caterwauling at 5:00 a.m. on the dot. He apparently thought that was when we should wake up. So for a very long time, every morning he would start singing the song of his people, I would get up, grab him by the scruff of his neck, take him downstairs, and lock him in the downstairs bathroom. This is in no way cruel in any way, but it was quite effective because he hated it so much. He would express his displeasure by banging on the shower doors and screaming as loudly as he could. But because he was downstairs and our bedroom is upstairs, we could barely hear him. He eventually taught himself to turn the light on and then how to turn the fan on. He would scream and turn the fan on and off and on and off, and I would turn over, so my good ear was against the pillow and my deaf ear was exposed, and go right back to sleep. Berck, with his two functioning ears, isn’t as lucky.

The Professor has learned not to wake us up in the morning anymore (at least not by caterwauling). But he has apparently kept his fan-turning-on skills sharp. I still don’t know why he turned the fan on today, other than to express his displeasure at me locking him out of the guest bedroom. I guess I should take him with me next time I need to make a phone call.

Today, after he was being as annoying as he could be, I tried to distract him with a shoelace for a while, whipping it back and forth with one hand while typing with the other. When he got too annoying, I did this.

He was happy to swat at the shoelace through the slots in the upturned laundry basket for a while. But then he gave out a couple of mournful yowls that indicated he was sad that he was trapped. Because he might be smart enough to turn the bathroom fan on and off, but he can’t figure out get out from under a laundry basket.

Maybe I should just give him more practice.

Tomorrow is my birthday; I turn 46. I was looking forward to going to Carlos’ Bistro. Usually, he’s closed for the month of March, but he announced a couple weeks ago that he’d be open starting March 18.  Now he’s closed.  Every restaurant in Colorado is closed.  But even if the restaurant were open, we wouldn’t go now.

Fortunately, we have enough cake flour from last year for Berck to bake me a cake.  It’s only been expired for like a month, which counts as fresh in my house. Berck cooks me whatever I want for my birthday, and this year I chose meatballs, because Berck doesn’t like meatballs and won’t cook them normally.  Meatballs are one of those things that can be really bad… or really good.  I love good meatballs.  Heck, I love decent meatballs.  My favorite sandwich at Subway is the meatball sandwich with everything except olives, salt and pepper, oil and vinegar, yes, banana peppers, yes, jalapenos. But I only get it if if I can eat it sitting at a table because it makes a huge mess.  We fortunately have enough ground beef to make meatballs.  Our vegetable options, on the other hand, are limited.

We’ve self-isolated since Friday, March 13 and have been working from home. We have plenty of toilet paper because I bought a Costco pack a couple of months ago.  We’re running low on milk.  This morning I put in an order at the grocery store for pick up, but the website said I couldn’t pick it up until Wednesday.

I haven’t been allowed to return to work because I have a sore throat.  Other than a sore throat and some congestion first thing in the morning, I’ve felt fine.  I’ve been working remotely 8 hours a day on weekdays.  I’ve been trying to get sunshine and exercise (shoveling snow).  I’ve been leaving Zip-Locks of sourdough starter outside for neighbors to pick up after a discussion the neighborhood Facebook page because everyone is bored and staying home.  I wipe the Zip-locks down with alcohol before I leave them outside.

But today I don’t feel good.  I feel like I just want to lie in bed and read.  I feel cold.  I’m not coughing or running a fever. But I have no appetite. I don’t even want meatballs. 

I’m not afraid, and I’m not anxious. I moved most of my 401(k) assets into bonds and money markets a couple of years ago. I have a full pantry and fridge.  My cheese drawer is as intimidating as always. I am ashamed that we are out of peas and kidney beans (though we have dozens of cans of all the other beans).  Last year Berck bought a UPS for the pellet stove and a generator.  I’m also not afraid to die, though I was kinda hoping I was only halfway through life.  The news keeps talking about how young adults, age 20-45, are less likely to die of COVID-19.  Which means tomorrow I am more likely to die.  And am no longer a young adult. 

Which I find a little insulting. 

We have two tickets to fly to Rome, Italy in three days. But Italy just imposed a country-wide quarantine because of COVID-19. This comes as a relief, as we bought airline tickets, a rental car reservation, and hotel and AirBnB reservations months ago. We were planning to go anyway up until today, though it was getting more difficult to figure out how we were going to arrive in Rome and somehow make it up to Zurich without driving through northern Italy. When the quarantine was expanded to all of Lombardy, I contacted the hotel in Como to ask for a refund. They e-mailed me back today and said:

“We are afraid for the actual situation in Italy and in particularly in Lombardy. We hope to quickly reach healthcare solution.

“We accept and confirm the cancellation of yours reservations, without any penalties.”

I hate planning trips because I’d much rather be spontaneous and go with the flow. But this was a trip that Berck had promised to take his mother on, and he made me plan each day and night between Rome and Zurich. I worked really hard on this trip.

But maybe we can cut and paste for next year.

We’ve spent the evening cancelling our AirBnB reservations. In Italy AirBnB will let us cancel them for full refunds because of the Coronavirus. So far they’re only giving us half refunds for Switzerland, so we’ll see what happens there.

My mom has been e-mailing me articles about the Coronavirus daily, and my boss told me I needed to talk to the other two partners about possibly self-quarantining once I got back. Berck and I have been watching the news carefully, since it changes by the hour. I worked from home all day yesterday to try to make up for the two days I was going to be gone this week. I was going to work late every other day this week, but Berck texted me the BBC article tonight, and I turned out of my office light and went home.

Even when I can handle it myself, I’d say my favorite perk, by far, of being female is having males come to my rescue when I have automotive problems.  

Also, sometimes it’s unwarranted. Berck needed to take the Focus today, so that left me with trying to get the Miata up the hill.  My first attempt left my wheels spinning, so I needed to back up off the icy tracks and onto the snow on the edge to get some traction.  Unfortunately, right at that moment, our neighbor Al drove up behind me in his white van.  That left me less room to back down our one-lane alley.  Then I suddenly saw Al in my rear-view mirror trying to push my car.  I opened my door and stuck my head out to tell him I needed to back up, but before I could, he told me that I might have better luck if I backed up off the icy tracks and onto the snow on the edge to get some traction.  I sighed and said I thought that sounded like a good idea.  He also told me to use the emergency brake and hold the button in to keep the wheels from spinning as much, which actually worked pretty well.

 
During my lunch break today, I thought I’d be nice and go wash Berck’s car.  I drove over to the nearest car wash and then waited for an eternity for the four morons in the car wash bays to try to figure out the payment machines. Finally, it was my turn.  I did a thorough job and used the brush all over the car, even the wheels.  Then I headed back out onto the road hoping I’d have enough time to run by the grocery store.

The car wash is on a little road that empties out into an on-ramp onto South Circle.  It’s a tight curve, and you have to try to accelerate quickly into oncoming traffic.  I take this curve a lot, and as long as I’m not driving the Land Cruiser, I’ve never had any problems. But today was not one of those days.  I don’t know if it was because my tires were wet and soapy or the snow tires just don’t have as much grip.  I made the curve and then just kept rotating, sliding off the road to the right and spinning around backwards.  There’s no curb there, and the ground is flat.  I headed forward, and the car seemed fine.  I waited until there wasn’t any oncoming traffic and pulled out into the right lane.  But the car was not fine.  Unfortunately, that stretch of road is an overpass, and there is no shoulder.  So I limped along until I came to the first turn, which is an entrance into a trailer park.

I got out and investigated.  My newly cleaned car was now filthy from spinning around in the dirt. But more importantly, the left rear tire had come unattached to the wheel.  I texted Berck and then opened the trunk to get out the jack and lug nut wrench.  That’s when a gentleman in a pick-up pulled up as he was exiting the trailer park and asked if I could use some help.  Of course I could, and he took over, undoing the lug nuts with his own drill and socket he had in his truck. He had my spare donut on hardly any time at all.  Berck still hadn’t responded, so I drove back to my office.

When he finally saw my message, Berck told me to take the disassociated wheel and tire to Rex Tire, where they determined the wheel was fine (whew) but the tire was toast. I went back to work and waited for Berck to come, since driving 30 miles home on the donut was not advisable. Berck had just given a set of Miata wheels and snow tires to his buddy at work, so he borrowed one of them back and met me in the parking lot at work.  I got to watch another man jack up my car and replace the tire, this time while I at least could be helpful by holding a flashlight.  Berck complained that I’d let some stranger over-torque my lug nuts.  Then he took me out to dinner.

Maybe I’ll wash the car again tomorrow.

There was a fire inspection at our building at work at this morning at 7 a.m., and someone had to be there to unlock our office. I volunteered last week and immediately set my alarm for Thursday at 5:40 a.m. I put it on both my personal and work calendars and set each to send me two notifications. There was no way I was going to forget. I checked the weather last night (not much snow) and calculated my commute time and and double checked that my alarm was set for 5:40 with the “Bright Morning” sound. I went to bed early.

This morning I woke up with Berck rubbing my belly, which is his way of telling me that my alarm is going off and it has awoken him. My phone was vibrating, which is how I usually set it. It was also going off at its usual time of 6:25, and it said I had a missed alarm from 5:40. In ideal conditions, I have a 40 minute drive to work. I was already late.

I was out the door in ten minutes, dressed and teeth brushed, and engaged in the extreme sport of driving without my windshield defrosted. There wasn’t really snow on the roads, but people were driving sooo slowly. I got to work at 7:20, twenty minutes late. The building was pretty much empty, and I unlocked our office and propped open the front door, hoping they hadn’t gotten to my suite yet.

At ten till 8:00, the fire inspectors finally strolled through the open door, sweeping the ceiling with their gaze, searching for sprinkler heads. “Hi, we’re just here to do a fire inspection!” they greeted me cheerfully. They found all the sprinklers then told me not to use the fire extinguisher because it had been recalled. Then they inspected the fire extinguisher more closely and realized their co-worker had signed off on it. Tsking and taking notes, they told me they would let the property managers know we needed a new one.

It snowed all day today, but it was too cold (edit: too warm) to stick. This is the most dangerous precipitation. As soon as it got dark, the temperature dropped, and all that melted snow on the roads froze. I started up the pass tonight after work and then realized that suddenly the cars in front of me were going REALLY slowly. When everyone around you is doing something out of the ordinary, it is often a good idea to give in to herd mentality. Sometimes there is wisdom in crowds.

So I slowed down too and turned off the radio, wondering how long I had been dangerously driving the speed limit. Eastbound traffic on the other side of the creek had slowed to a crawl as well, and that’s when I realized how many backwards vehicles there were on the side of the road. Once I got high enough, the road dried up and it was safe drive normally again. I turned my podcast back on.

The dictionary definition of luck is “success apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.” By that definition, I consider myself extremely lucky, because my ability to avoid disaster does not seem to be related at all to my own efforts. Another way of thinking about it is being blessed. Today I’m thankful for luck.

(If you have a Pixel 3 phone, make sure your alarm volume is turned up if you set it.)