Posts by Jonah

Dear Ian,

Happy 16th birthday! I bought you a present, but I got an e-mail today from Amazon saying that they had tried to deliver your package to your PO box but that they couldn’t because there was no one there to sign for it.  I kind of think they’re not being quite truthful with me, but who knows these days.  At least I tried. I should be able to get it to you eventually. 

Uncle Berck and I are both working from home, which we can both do as long as we have our computers and the Internet. There are only two people working in my normal work office, and I offered to come in so that one of them can work from home but I was told they didn’t want that because I have a sore throat.  My throat has been slightly sore for the last two and a half weeks.  I’ve been happy to keep working.  I’m one of the best people at what I do in the state of Colorado, which I’m pretty proud of.

To see if he has a fever, Uncle Berck has been checking his temperature regularly with the kind of thermometer that you rub against your forehead.  He’ll do it about five times in a row, and each time it says a different temperature.  Then he comes over to me and interrupts whatever I’m doing and rubs it on my forehead. Each time he looks at he display and says, “Hmmm.”  I’m not sure this thermometer works all that well.  But we feel fine for the most part.

One of our favorite restaurants just closed. King’s Chef Diner served massive portions of delicious, greasy food topped with spicy green chili. They were always packed on weekends.  After all the restaurants were ordered closed, they tried to stay open for take-out only, but they announced last week they were closing.  I hope they aren’t closed for good.  I worry they are closed for good.

Three days ago a country singer named Joe Diffie died of the virus.  He had a song in the 1990’s that I liked called “Third Rock from the Sun”.  He was 62.  Today a member of a band I really like called Fountains of Wayne died of the virus.  He was 52.  That’s just six years older than I am, and a lot younger than Nana and Pop. A lot of people have died of the virus, but for some reason this particular one made me really sad.

Uncle Berck decided we should hole up in our house the day after your mom and dad decided to. I did the day after that.  It turns out that was a wise decision. 

I know this situation won’t last forever, and I hope this is the only year you don’t get to have a real birthday party.  I’ve been trying to keep positive.  I know from history that most of us will make it through this OK and we’ll collectively celebrate our victory one day.  But history also seems to indicate this crisis won’t be over anytime soon.  

Well, after writing this, I guess I won’t send it to you.  Birthdays are supposed to be happy occasions, and I can’t seem to write about anything today except how sad I am. Maybe I’ll go read some articles people have been publishing about how it’s OK to grieve in these times. 

Again, have a happy birthday, and I’ll see what I can figure out what’s going on with Amazon.  Maybe they’re too busy delivering hand sanitizer, which I guess is OK with me.

Love, 

Aunt Joanna

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.