And The Quarantine Rolls On

Tomorrow is Joan's birthday and we've been celebrating all weekend.  Well, of course we've been celebrating all weekend.  The older you get the longer your birthday should last, and when it comes  to one of those big "zero" or "five" birthdays, the party should never end--at least until everyone's either passed out or gone home, the lead guitarist in the band has broken a string, the margarita machine is out of tequila and there's maybe only one bowl of chips left. This isn't a "zero" or a "five," but it's still a birthday, so of course there were presents and cake and a longish session of D&D.  (Yes, I've finally started playing D&D.  It only took me 50 years.  What's more, I've started looking online at nifty sets of dice I might like to own, which is a sure sign that you're hooked.)

Anyway, we didn't really have anybody over because quarantine.  We play D&D via Skype which, unlike Zoom, doesn't kick everybody off after 40 minutes.  That's good because our D&D sessions can last upward of five hours.  They'd go on later still if my circadian rhythm isn't still set for early morning, despite almost seven weeks now of not being able to go to the pool.  Yes, my chlorine content is at critical lows, but there's nothing I can do about it.  Even if we started swimming again tomorrow I couldn't go.  I can't be in a 2 1/2 meter wide lane with three or four other people all panting for breath from swimming 4 IMs in a row and expect to remain uninfected.  Seriously, I have asthma and Joan has underlying conditions, too, and if one of us brings this thing home, both of us are going to get very sick.  That. Can't. Happen.  I won't try to re-establish anything like a normal routine around here until the new case count is not only down, but dropping steadily for at least 2 weeks.  Right now it's doing the opposite, at least in Dallas County. And so the quarantine rolls on, no matter what Gov. Abbott has to say.

Fortunately, both of us are still employed, and more fortunately, neither of our bosses has said anything about either of us moving back to the office.  My boss is being pretty reasonable, and even if he wanted everybody back at the office tomorrow, I think I could present a fairly compelling case for continuing to work from home.  The Dallas Public Library, on the other hand, just furloughed slightly less than half of the total employees. (Not Joan, though.) The furlough lasts until August 1, but when the library reopens is up to the City Council, and that august body hasn't been terribly forthcoming with information.

It's been a lot like that movie Groundhog Day.  We wake up every morning at roughly the same time and do certain things in a certain order. By about 8:30 we're both sitting in the kitchen in front of our respective laptops.  Then it's law firm this and law firm that for the next nine or so hours, followed by the making of dinner and the cleaning of kitchen and maybe some programs on the All Paranormal, Tedious Reality and UFOs Channel, formerly known as the Travel Channel.  Or I come back here to my laptop and maybe write something.  Once in a while we leave the house to get groceries or prescription meds.  That's about it, though.  (I am extremely annoyed that the price of gas is so low and I haven't been able to buy gas because there's too much in the tank already.)  I have a temporary crown that's been needing its permanent coronation since mid-March. According to Joan, I also need my hearing checked. (Let's be honest here; does anyone out there who's actually had their hearing checked ever do it for any other reason than that their spouse insisted? If so, write to me.  I'm taking a poll.) I don't think I can get my hearing checked until this is all over.  And I don't know when this is going to be all over, and I don't think anyone else does, either.

One thing I'm reasonably sure is going to happen: The number of coronavirus cases is going to start shooting up again, and maybe get a lot higher than it is right now, because a lot of states, like Texas, are "reopening" way before it's safe to do so.  If enough people get sick and emergency rooms and ICUs start running close to capacity, we're all likely to be ordered right back into "sheltering in place", only for a longer period of time this time.  Figure another sixteen weeks or so, just based on how long it typically takes an epidemic to peter out. And there won't be a vaccine for another year yet, and they don't know who's going to be able to get it once there is one.  And let's just add to the pile of uncertainty by stating that there's no evidence that getting the coronavirus means you're immune from getting it again.  There are multiple strains of it now, and it's possible you can get strain A even if you've already had strain B.  Kind of like the common cold or plain old flu.

Se we may be here, with our respective laptops, for quite a while.  This is the first time I've had office mates that purr.  The commute is awesome, except that one part of the hallway where the traffic always piles up.  And I don't get in trouble for calling my wife during work hours because she's, uh, sitting right here. I don't have to be anyplace after work.  I don't have to color my hair or style it.  I don't have to wear makeup or sunscreen.  I don't have to get up at four dark thirty to go to the pool, though it's such an ingrained habit I usually wake up then anyway. And I'm quarantined with people I like, including two that have fur.  So silver lining, sort of.  We have been incredibly lucky.  There are so many ways that this could be worse.

Which brings me back to something Buddha said; "Your problem is that you think you have time."  A little while before this all happened, it occurred to me that I was sort of treating my days like they came one by one out of an inexhaustible well.  That everything would continue rolling along just like it had and nothing would change.  But everything changes.  Things change.  People change. Haircuts change.  So accept and embrace what is, and let it go when it's time to move on, or something like that.  Probably Buddha said it better.