Day to Day in The Upside Down

I am enjoying the lockdown – no pressure to People when it’s not allowed = no guilt! – and, honestly, I will be sad when it is over (happy people are safer, of course. yadda yadda). But our days are pretty monotonous, I have to say that.

Weekdays, hubby gets up around 8:30 to start work at 9am. Some days he has a meeting starting at 8 which he complains about which, really, is ridiculous since he doesn’t even have to get dressed. lol I tend to wake up to pee about 30 mins before his alarm is set to go off EVERY. DAMN. DAY. So I -try- to wait until it chirps to go do my business before running back to bed because he wakes up pretty easily in the morning if he is scheduled to work. If I don’t happen to get up, hubby shuts the bedroom door with me inside to keep the sound out but mostly to keep the Baby Floof from head-boofing me at 11am precisely because I, clearly, need to be awake by then. For the first week or so he would screech outside the door (he doesn’t really meow, he squeaks) at precisely 11am but seems to have given up now.

We are in the process of updating computer stuff and renovating our office so, at the moment, hubby usually works with a lap desk in his huge, leather rocker-recliner in the living room with his laptop. He puts some nerdy movie he’s seen before on one of the streaming services on our big 80″ tv and keeps the remote close by so he can alter sound as he works and gets phone calls. He is the king of multi-tasking so he’s usually got his phone going, texting with colleagues and his ipad going, playing some kind of computer game that requires you to push a button or two every once in a while. He is usually “in meetings” which means listening in on, leading or participating in phone, zoom or video chats for most of his 8 hour day. Whether or not he will be “on cam” for particular meetings is something I have learned to ask about the day before.

I have been getting up for the last week or so around 11:30 – noon. At the beginning of the lockdown, I was getting out of bed more around 1 or 2pm. Once I realized we hadn’t had our B12 shots and remedied that, I began to open my eyes at a semi-reasonable hour. I have never been a great sleeper, suffer from insomnia regularly and with chronic pain that varies greatly from day to day I’ve learned to just let myself sleep whenever I need to (if possible). I still feel guilty about not keeping a regular schedule but I am fortunate enough to not have to right now so I can put what my body seems to be saying first.

Anyway, I had been wearing the same comfy outfit much of the time – switching it up when something gets dirty or weekly – but leaving it in the bathroom when I went to bed at night. Getting up in the morning and not knowing whether or not Hubby was on camera with his co-workers or clients but having to cross the hall (which the chair backs onto) to get my clothes for the day was quite the adventure! Sometimes he would be able to answer me if I yelled, oft-times not. I attempted to get him to work out a signal with me. That didn’t work. I didn’t trust him to always remember to blur his background – also I’ve never done that myself so I don’t know how fool-proof it is. So I’ve become accustomed to asking him what his schedule is the following day and when his first meeting might be in which he could possibly need to be on camera. I’ve also tried to remember to bring my day-jammies into the bedroom with me at night but, let’s be honest, I’m still not brushing my hair or bothering to take great care of what I look like. lol

So, once I’m up and have peed — cuz that is ALWAYS the first thing that has to happen. I can’t think when I have to pee! — I grab the newspaper for mom from our mailbox outside the front door. She still has one delivered though it seems to be thinner and thinner every year. (I never read it – paper or online. If I want news, I watch the local and national cable broadcasts — which I do try to do daily in “regular times”). I realized the other day that I don’t know if our delivery person wears gloves or what state he is in covid-wise; I contemplated if I should be sanitizing the paper before I take it to my mom or if we should be handling it with gloves… Ultimately, I decided that it’s been in the bin since 3-4am and any germs are probably dead by 11am. I will review that decision if I hear something compelling from one of our country’s health experts.

I take the paper downstairs to mom in her little flat in our basement and say hello. Ask if she’s talked to anybody else in the family. She’ll tell me any of that news — all of our extended family are safe and healthy so far, as far as we know. My youngest first cousin is pregnant, due in June. I’m interested to see how that birth goes. They are saying on the news now that spouses will not be allowed into the operating room if a c-section is required. I doubt it will be because that branch of the family are “good birthers” but I wonder what other preventative measures there might be by then… Her baby shower was scheduled to be in-person on May 2nd. That has since been cancelled, of course; now, we are supposed to be dropping off presents over a couple of hours on that day. She may or may not be outside to receive us from a safe distance. They plan to video tape her opening the gifts and share it on social media. Frankly, that would be one of my worst nightmares – not only having to open gifts in front of people but be videotaped doing so??! omg, no!!! Frankly, I’m probably not going to drop my gift off on that day. I’m gonna wait until that lil bugger (a girl, I’m told but I knew that beforehand – my mom and I just seem to know these things before we’re told) busts out and THEN take my gift. I wanna meet the baby! I’m kinda done with making nice with the cousins, even though this particular one was in my bridal party. I think when/if I ever have a baby, we will definitely be doing a co-ed baby shower and that it will be AFTER the baby arrives. People want to see the baby more anyway. And I’d prefer not to be the center of attention too.

Other relevant news (note I didn’t say family news because I don’t consider myself a part of hubby’s family – heaven forbid! I firmly believe, in my old age lol, that Family = who you choose, period) before I move on – one of hubby’s cousins on his dad’s side passed away in her sleep (complications from a surgery expected, I guess) on Apr 2nd, at the beginning of lockdown; so they have been unable to have a funeral. I don’t think I mentioned that before in my previous Death Wishes post… but who knows.

Then I will come upstairs and get ice out of the ice maker on the door of our fridge. I love having ice in my drinks and have long wanted a fridge with an icemaker. I -hate- making ice cubes in those stupid plastic trays that hurt your hands and crack and then refilling the stupid things and waiting for them to freeze. I bought bags of ice for a while which Hubby detested doing but he buys coffee out every morning on his way to work and I don’t (or he/we used to) so that was my rationale for the expense. I did hate purchasing water but I hate making ice cubes more. Anyway, I usually grab a diet pepsi 750mL bottle, kiss Hubs good morning and then hop on my desktop computer in the office to check my email and tweets. I have been staying away from Facebook lately. Actually, that’s probably another post. But am slowly going back to it. Slowly.

We recently bought a smaller 40″ tv to hang on the wall in the office so that we can stream movies or series or youtube while we work, once we both have our desks set up properly. I set it up (sans wall mount) and played some streamed stuff on it the first day but haven’t really touched it since. My desk is currently facing the wrong way – we will right that wrong as soon as our new ones arrive (we ordered identical Z-shaped gaming desks from Newegg.ca but have been having issues receiving them from the distributor in the USA). My desk has two monitors which are both second-hand. I bought an ergonomic keyboard at the suggestion of my massage therapist to help with a pinched nerve in my neck that flares up every once in a while. I really like it! I bought an ergonomic mouse too but it was too large for my hand and I hated the way it felt. So Hubby has taken that one and I bought one with a different grip that suits me better. Both of those came from Amazon. Amazon Canada, that is. Which has been prioritizing shipments to get essential supplies out to customers first and safely – as well they should. We are only now receiving most items we ordered in March, even though we are Prime subscribers. And we’re totally fine with that, too.

Most of the time, I feel tired and sleepy and sore. I definitely don’t ever want to get out of bed but I do force myself. Some days I can’t but there haven’t been any of those during lockdown so far. My focus has been severely lacking this past week. I have been keeping occupied most days lately by alternating between browsing the Tweet Zone for positive stories, silly videos to share, griping about the Orange Potato, and playing hashtag games or doing genealogy research on the family tree of an adoptee I know as well as my own. Sometimes, I read a book. I tend to go in streaks of reading though — sometimes it’s nine books consecutively, sometimes I can’t concentrate on a book at all. I’m in the latter phase right now. Although I still like to browse for more books I will one day read!

Hubby has lost about 70lbs doing his doctor-supervised weight-loss program (yay!) but only drinking special shakes 4x per day so I’ve been on my own for meals and, admittedly, I gave up trying to do a good job. I bought a 3-row packet of chocolate creme cookies from Walmart that was supposed to last the entire lockdown. Yeah. Gone-zo! I tend to make a big batch of something (ie, soup) and then eat that every meal until it’s gone or make grabby-things my meal — ie, grapes, berries, cheese, hunks of chicken. Ran out of grapes though… really missing grapes. Hubs is starting back on solid foods again this week, though – one meal per day. He was SO HAPPY to chew 3oz of chicken and 1-cup of broccoli tonight – it was SO CUTE! lol We will be meal planning better as the nutritionist helps him to the end of his program so my eating should improve shortly. I might have gained some weight – in fact, I probably did but I’m trying not to think about it so I don’t risk spiraling into depression during this crazy time.

When Hubby is done work for the day – usually around 5pm – he calls his mom if it is a day to do that (it’s not a scheduled thing, he just tries not to do it every. single. day or she will easily slip back into calling us 9x per day, no joke) while I clean something to keep myself busy or get myself some grub. Then we start doing something together or watching something together. We cleaned out the office to get ready for the new chairs and desks one night. Another night we cleaned the living room. Sometimes I get to watch a little bit of live news on tv but it tends to make him anxious so I usually try to avoid watching news on tv until he’s gone to bed. We watch a few episodes of a series on Netflix or Crave or Disney+ or Amazon Prime. For a while, in the early days of lockdown, we watched movies (free with our cable package or On Demand) but seem to have shifted to binging entire seasons of things now. In March we ordered a Fire Stick on Amazon so that we could access new content from Apple TV and that arrived last week so we have mostly been consuming content from that service these days. [SEE (w/ Jason Mamoa), For All Mankind (w/ Joel Kinnamen), now The Servant (w/ Rupert Grint). Impressed with the quality of the content so far]. Or we catch up on episodes of things that are airing live – like the final season of Homeland or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Once in a while, we watch something and then I go back to the computer while he watches a show he’s interested in and plays a game on the tablet. A couple of nights a week, he plays D&D with his guy pals – yes, still. Before lockdown, the group played every Friday night from 6-11pm and ordered takeout. Once lockdown started, they took the party online and added a couple evenings here or there.

Hubby will go to bed on weekdays around 11-11:30pm. I usually will stay up doing whatever on the computer. If it’s an extra-sore day for me (like today) or I feel my mood slipping or just can’t concentrate, I will go to bed and watch a bit of news and a series I’m interested in. Right now I’m watching “Shtisel” which is about an ultra-orthodox Jewish family and has subtitles. Hubby doesn’t mind subtitles but prefers without. I’m sure he wouldn’t probably choose to spend his time watching most of the stuff I watch when he’s asleep. Same as I don’t really care to watch the crap – I mean, stuff – he watches when I’m asleep. We’re pretty good like that – we know what we enjoy watching together and have never had that fight about “you continued watching X without me, you jackass!” If I don’t feel like “reading” a show, I’ll pick something I’m familiar with already and just let it play while I fall asleep. Usually Forensic Files or something on Amazon Prime that will automatically run for 6 episodes so I don’t need to wake up and put something else on. I need to have sound in the background – if it’s too quiet, I can’t sleep. It is definitely really, really quiet at night now in the community…

Annnnnnnnnd REPEAT. TADA! We have reached the U-turn in The Upside Down world we live in now. LOL

Weekends aren’t much different. Hubby sleeps in a little longer but still has some time to himself and whatever nerdy stuff he wants to do or watch before I get up. Then we do whatever until bedtime.

Mom goes for walks through the park (not in the park, as required by our city during quarantine) on days that have nice weather. She’s cleaned every cupboard and drawer in her apartment, cleaned out her fridge. She has been working on jigsaw puzzles, watching shows she’s recorded, doing crossword puzzles in books I bought her when I did my last shopping trip. She finished all the puzzles in the game we downloaded to her tablet so Hubby removed that app and put on a different puzzle one. We ordered her a DVD player from Amazon so she could do a yoga dvd but I don’t actually know if she did that, now that I think of it. She occasionally telephones a few friends who live alone and keeps in touch with her sisters and sister-in-law. Yesterday, she was adamant that she deliver a casserole she’d made and frozen along with some novels she’d finished with to her eldest sister whose health is not good. If this sister gets Covid-19, she is doomed for sure so I acquiesced. She called sister beforehand and told her to check her porch within a half-hour because we were going to drop off. Her husband was on the porch when we arrived and met mom half-way down the walk-way. She followed my instructions to put the bag on the ground and back away before he moved to pick it up, thankfully. Then, despite not touching anything and not being within 6 feet of anyone else, I gave her antibacterial gel to cleanse her hands when she got back in the truck. I used some too. (AND when we got home we both washed our hands with soap and water). Then we went to McDonald’s and ordered her 6 coffee via the drive-thru (she refrigerates them and warms them up, /shrug). It was the first time she’d been out of the house, other than for a walk, in 4 weeks. She commented on the people adhering to social distancing rules when they were out walking their dogs, on how many cars are parked in the driveways during the day now. I pointed out that there was no line up at the grocery store, thank god – gives me hope for my trip next Monday. Maybe the lineups were only insane because it was just before Easter… Right??