Journal of the Plague Year 4-20-2020

While the rest of the world slept, we watched TV. Or maybe it’s the other way around. In any event, here’s our watch list for the last few days:

Tiger King: Let’s be honest. This is trash TV. In the end, none of the characters are particularly appealing or redeemable. Nevertheless, we did watch to the bitter end. And apparently there's one more episode coming soon, back by popular demand. Cute cats.

Freud: Managed to get through four episodes of this costume horror series, each one bloodier and crazier than the one before. It had all the clichés, with the benefit of a few lines in Hungarian spoken with a German accent that even I could understand. But it also had the ages-old trope about Hungarians being closer to the dark side due to … something in their blood. I find that irritating but maybe true, given the politics right now of that country. 

Bosch, Season 6: Based on the Michael Conelly novels, this is a well-written series about an idiosyncratic LA cop who wins some, loses some, and tries to keep victims from falling through the cracks. 

Sour Grapes: A 2016 documentary about wine fraud, the film is really a story about the vulnerability of hedge fund managers and others with too much money. If you enjoy drinking Burgundy, it’s worth watching. 

Nothing much else has happened. We have not bought gas since March 14 and still have about 90 percent of that tankful. New chairs that we ordered in the fall finally arrived. The delivery and setup crew wore masks and gloves. My Minneapolis son decided he could safely visit the old folks without infecting them, so he showed up with mask and gloves and we sat in lawn chairs on the driveway six feet apart. It was wonderful to see him in person, but I wish I could have hugged him.

Stay safe and keep watching!

Journal of the Plague Year 3-19-2020

Getting cabin fever. And I am a homebody. I see a walk in my future tomorrow. It’s supposed to be nice tomorrow, although cold and windy. Our local playground has a paved path around the edge of the baseball field. It’s a quarter mile long and wide open, so walkers can see potential virus carriers coming.

Today, I made some progress in the decluttering department and managed to weed out all the old, frayed and unmatched sheets and towels. I kept four sets of sheets—two good ones that I like and two sets to use as backup. That left approximately seven unmatched top sheets—bottom sheets wear out faster. Some I remember purchasing many, many years ago.

I did the same with towels. I was ruthless. There were some still nice extra-large bath towels that don’t even fit on my current towel racks. Gone! There were some strange colored hand towels that I don’t remember buying and don’t match any past décor that I can recall. Out! 

Sheets and towels will go to an animal shelter, once I can find one that is open and accepting donations. In the meantime, they are going into a mesh laundry bag that one of my sons took to camp about 20 years ago. He no longer needs or wants it, so that’s part of the discard pile. 

The exercise left me with an empty 19^th century dresser that I can’t bear to get rid of, even though it is falling apart. It will go into the basement once OLGS finishes cleaning down there and our son can help him move it. The dresser will live with the four Scandinavian caned chairs that no longer have intact seats. Once the crisis has passed (see how optimistic I am), it will go to a furniture repair shop, wonderfully named Strippers. After six months or so, it will emerge in like-new condition. What do I do with it then? 

In other news, our mailman has started wearing shorts, a sure sign of spring even if the temp is around freezing and it’s drizzling. We watched three episodes of Keepers, a harrowing true crime story about the 1969 murder of a nun in Baltimore. OLGS baked bread. Son delivered groceries, although he included Pop Tarts in the delivery, something I neither asked for nor have eaten in 40 years. Maybe he was planning on removing them and eating them himself but forgot. A handyman came by to check out a possible job. He kept his distance. In other words, a quiet day in the Land of 10,000 Swamps.

Journal of the Plague Year 3-16-2020

I didn’t go out at all today. My son refused to visit for breakfast, as he fears he is a carrier of COVID19 because of his public-facing job. He doesn’t want to infect the old folks. I am touched by his concern, but also feel that we could have monitored his health status had he been willing to show up. He is single and has no one to look after him. 

I hope he is doing what we are doing—watching TV and movies. Today we watched Irma LaDouce, a 1963 Billy Wilder film. Starring a young Shirley MacLaine and a not-so-young Jack Lemon, it was cute, but too long. Maybe tomorrow we will watch Jack in How to Murder Your Wife. 

Hubby (aka OLGS, or Oldest Living Graduate Student), did venture out briefly to work on his woodpile and thence to CVS to pick up some meds. When I suggested that we could have them delivered, he demurred, saying he wanted to take a walk. When he returned, he told me that he had not interacted with anyone and had used the self-checkout to pay. I usually hate self-checkout but may learn to tolerate it in the current crisis. Trying to avoid human contact is not only social distancing, it’s isolating. We will see how long we can keep it up. 

Today’s other activity was decluttering, something that we have been doing sporadically for a while. Today, we got rid of some papers, including a 1983 British road atlas, some old financial reports, and a letter informing OLGS of his paltry 2017 raise from the University of Wisconsin system.

Not a huge haul, but if we do a little bit every day, we might have a smaller footprint in a few months. Maybe this enforced seclusion is a good thing. Without it, I would certainly find an excuse to do something more interesting.