Or is it week 3? Time is starting to blur, but I haven’t set foot outside our front door since March 8. We are so very thankful to be in our lovely house and no longer in the rental apartment; the environment in which we find ourselves makes a huge difference.
As mentioned before, Michael is the only one allowed out (one designated member of the family only, and we designated him), and that is only to do our weekly food shop. This involves my calling/emailing/texting/messaging our various shopkeepers a list ahead of time so that they can go ahead and have the entire order ready for pickup. Since only one person is allowed in any shop at a time, this helps reduce our load on each of the stores, and is one of the small ways in which we can help. Although it sounds fairly simple to most of you, since many will do a “weekly shop,” this requires pretty extreme planning on my part. If I forget anything, we just have to do without. There is no running to Kroger on your way home to grab a gallon of milk.
At the same time, Michael has to take out the week’s recycling, which we collect in our front hall.
This week went really smoothly, except for one small item: our local agent for the natural gas provider called and asked if we would read our meter, since the meter readers can’t go out and about as they normally would. That wouldn’t have been a problem, but for the fact that the scaffolding is covering the meter box! Thank goodness it’s only our meter in there that’s active. I called her back, and we decided how to handle it (basically, we figured out a likely consumption for the past 2 months, and we’ll be billed on that amount). No biggie.
For exercise, Michael is doing his Stairmaster routine: every morning, he jogs/walks up and down the stairs to his office. We have other, better (wider and less steep) staircases, but they’re all above other people’s houses and he doesn’t want to be completely annoying. Fair point. I’ve been doing mini-workouts (high-intensity interval training, found easily on the web), which are pretty friendly to housebound people. Other people get more creative: Michael was telling me about one guy who ran a marathon on his balcony! It took him 6 hours, because he couldn’t get his speed up between laps. One of Michael’s running mates did a “triathlon”, of which he made a video that he posted on their group: he “swam” across the living room floor (lying on a skateboard, doing the strokes), then “biked” on his child’s tricycle, then ran. So, yes, people are getting creative and pretty silly.
I’m making bread every day. For the first time, I’ve made sourdough from a starter I created. It’s something I’ve always been a little afraid of, but it actually was delicious tonight. It wasn’t very sour, though, so maybe I need to let it ferment further. A good thing, since there’s no room in the fridge. Tomorrow will be a standard bread, but I’ve made oatmeal/seedy rolls, “normal” bread, flat breads, tortillas, and sourdough. It’s been a lot of fun getting back into it. For years, I haven’t needed to (the bread you can buy here is plenty tasty), but now that we have to have a week’s worth, bread that goes stale in a day is not quite the thing.
We play games a lot. Long strategy games. I’m knitting up a storm, but I’m ready to start back on my next sewing project. I’m up to page 50,000 in my 61,000 page compendium (no, it’s not really that big: ebooks always have silly quantities of pages because of the typeface and how much they can fit on a page). And, yes, cooking always takes up much of my day, since I make essentially three meals a day for four people. I also spend a fair amount of time on phone calls and messaging, keeping up with friends and family, and lending an ear when needed.
Life is peaceful, because we are so very fortunate, but we are extremely mindful of the suffering that is going on “out there” and are trying to do our part to prevent the transmission of the virus. Todi now has five positive cases (one of whom was already under watch, since he’d been in contact with another known case). We remain extremely impressed with our local volunteer squad and the medical system as a whole. They are performing wonders.
Love,
Alexandra
As mentioned before, Michael is the only one allowed out (one designated member of the family only, and we designated him), and that is only to do our weekly food shop. This involves my calling/emailing/texting/messaging our various shopkeepers a list ahead of time so that they can go ahead and have the entire order ready for pickup. Since only one person is allowed in any shop at a time, this helps reduce our load on each of the stores, and is one of the small ways in which we can help. Although it sounds fairly simple to most of you, since many will do a “weekly shop,” this requires pretty extreme planning on my part. If I forget anything, we just have to do without. There is no running to Kroger on your way home to grab a gallon of milk.
At the same time, Michael has to take out the week’s recycling, which we collect in our front hall.
This week went really smoothly, except for one small item: our local agent for the natural gas provider called and asked if we would read our meter, since the meter readers can’t go out and about as they normally would. That wouldn’t have been a problem, but for the fact that the scaffolding is covering the meter box! Thank goodness it’s only our meter in there that’s active. I called her back, and we decided how to handle it (basically, we figured out a likely consumption for the past 2 months, and we’ll be billed on that amount). No biggie.
For exercise, Michael is doing his Stairmaster routine: every morning, he jogs/walks up and down the stairs to his office. We have other, better (wider and less steep) staircases, but they’re all above other people’s houses and he doesn’t want to be completely annoying. Fair point. I’ve been doing mini-workouts (high-intensity interval training, found easily on the web), which are pretty friendly to housebound people. Other people get more creative: Michael was telling me about one guy who ran a marathon on his balcony! It took him 6 hours, because he couldn’t get his speed up between laps. One of Michael’s running mates did a “triathlon”, of which he made a video that he posted on their group: he “swam” across the living room floor (lying on a skateboard, doing the strokes), then “biked” on his child’s tricycle, then ran. So, yes, people are getting creative and pretty silly.
I’m making bread every day. For the first time, I’ve made sourdough from a starter I created. It’s something I’ve always been a little afraid of, but it actually was delicious tonight. It wasn’t very sour, though, so maybe I need to let it ferment further. A good thing, since there’s no room in the fridge. Tomorrow will be a standard bread, but I’ve made oatmeal/seedy rolls, “normal” bread, flat breads, tortillas, and sourdough. It’s been a lot of fun getting back into it. For years, I haven’t needed to (the bread you can buy here is plenty tasty), but now that we have to have a week’s worth, bread that goes stale in a day is not quite the thing.
We play games a lot. Long strategy games. I’m knitting up a storm, but I’m ready to start back on my next sewing project. I’m up to page 50,000 in my 61,000 page compendium (no, it’s not really that big: ebooks always have silly quantities of pages because of the typeface and how much they can fit on a page). And, yes, cooking always takes up much of my day, since I make essentially three meals a day for four people. I also spend a fair amount of time on phone calls and messaging, keeping up with friends and family, and lending an ear when needed.
Life is peaceful, because we are so very fortunate, but we are extremely mindful of the suffering that is going on “out there” and are trying to do our part to prevent the transmission of the virus. Todi now has five positive cases (one of whom was already under watch, since he’d been in contact with another known case). We remain extremely impressed with our local volunteer squad and the medical system as a whole. They are performing wonders.
Love,
Alexandra
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ReplyDeleteWow! Thanks for keeping us up to date and letting us know that y'all are doing well. I am impressed with how serious the quarantine is, even in a small town like Todi. We are not nearly as serious here in Atlanta - yet. People are starting to realize the importance of staying in place, but I still have a closing tomorrow at an attorney's office and can still go into our office (with the touch keypad everyone uses!) Many buildings and businesses, and most malls, are closed. We went to Stone Mountain on Saturday, and the park was full of people walking and biking outdoors, but everyone kept their distance. We need that exercise and fresh air! I'm amazed y'all can't walk outside if you keep your distance. Wishing you lots of productive days, and enough fresh air to keep you sane!
ReplyDeleteJody Steinberg