After spending my R&R in America, I came back to COVID raging and a required-for-work two-week self-quarantine. I wasn’t forbidden to go to the store or anything but couldn’t go into the office. For me, this may have well of meant no human contact because I can’t communicate with anyone else.
To counter it and to do something productive, I
signed up for an online class, and in participating in it, became a cliché.
Yes, I gave a presentation while wearing a bathrobe.
The first week of working from home was brutal
due to the class, which was 5 p.m. to midnight my time, which fell,
theoretically, 7.5 hours into my normal workday. This was especially
nightmarish on Tuesday when, due to local time zones elsewhere, I also had a
4:30 a.m. webinar.
These are the times when I am really glad I don’t
use the camera on my laptop, because no one needs to see me straight out of bed
(or even in bed) while wearing a “Peace Corps – We Run the World” jogging tank
top.
Since the class was a solid eight hours, I didn’t
mind if I took it easy during the day’s work, so suffering from both jet lag
and something I’m fairly confident was(/is) a cold, I alternated checking
emails with crashing on the sofa and watching “Schitt’s Creek.”
This, as many now know, is an awesome show that
ran on the CBC in Canada, home of Hockey Night in Canada. (It never occurred to
me they did other programming.) The episodes during its six-season run were
under 25 minutes each, so it was fairly easy to crash and watch one and
somehow, a mere two hours later, have completed half a season’s worth.
“Schitt’s Creek,” for those who don’t know, is
the story of a family that loses its money and relocates into a small town the
patriarch bought as a gag gift for his adult son. The actors who portray the
father and son are real-life father and son and the mom is the Beetlejuice/Home
Alone mom. There’s also a daughter and several other main characters. It’s all
Canada nice; I was struck that the socialite daughter, who’s probably in her
20s, said please and thank you – something that would not ordinarily be written
into most shows. Mostly I liked the fact that it went somewhere – there was a
definite progression and growth of the characters. You don’t see that much in
TV, and that made it a reason show. (Looking at you, Conners.) The son, who was
pretty flamboyant, reminded me very much of a roommate I had in Detroit, who
was one of the best roommates I’ve ever had.
Even including work and the class, completing
that show was probably the most productive part of that first week back. I was
just exhausted, even though I still walked every day. I just couldn’t get out
of bed.
We’re in the crappy part of the year where the
sun doesn’t show itself much. If it comes out at all, it’s not until after 9
a.m. and then it is gone by 5 p.m. It’s just bleak, but at least as of today I
tell myself the days will start getting longer soon. (Countdown: 20 days!)
By the weekend of week 1, I decided that I could
leave the house and took a long walk on Saturday, I think it was. Even hit a
grocery store, but I had previously decided to do most shopping on
Thanksgiving, after my massage. (Remember: it was self-quarantine, and I wore a
mask the whole time.)
Shopping on Thanksgiving was fine here; obviously
it’s not a holiday. But I was struck by two things: there appears to be no
spinach in Minsk right now and, for some reason, there were Black Friday sales.
Really? Black Friday is an American thing. How have we infected other countries
with our commercialism?
Thanksgiving itself, the food part, as a sad
little affair. I had decided to splurge and go to TGI Friday’s to get American
food, but when I looked online at the menu, I saw that Tuesday is 2-for-1
burger day, so it seemed like if I got a burger it should be that day, and I
saw the chicken – the closest I can get to turkey right now – came with sides
of mashed potatoes and broccoli. Well, I make good mashed potatoes and have
broccoli (but no spinach), so I just couldn’t justify an overpriced meal,
especially at a dine-in restaurant during COVID. And why would I take chicken,
broccoli and mashed potatoes home when I had chicken, mashed potatoes and
broccoli at home?
In the end, it was tasty but still quite sad. I miss people. I can’t say I miss wearing a bra, but I miss people.
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