Archive for March, 2020

Self-Isolation

30 March 2020 at 9:20 pm
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.

His nose is cold.

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.

Some cats like laps. Ours likes laptops.
Mostly, he likes shoulders.
Working hard

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.

This slowed him down, though he did start trucking around like a tank.

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.

Tuckered out from a hard day of work

Birthday Eve

22 March 2020 at 6:40 pm
by Jonah

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. 

Italy

9 March 2020 at 7:44 pm
by Jonah

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.