CoronaQuarantine, Day 78
Looks like Shobhit's stuck with taking transit to work until at least Tuesday. That's the soonest day he can have someone come and unlock his ignition and steering wheel for him. He got off work yesterday at 7:30 (which will also be the case today, tomorrow and Sunday) and since he had to rely on two buses to get home from Northgate, he did not get home until close to 8:30.
In the meantime, after work was done yesterday—closing out seven weeks of working from home—I watched two episodes of The Leftovers, leaving three episodes of the first season left to watch. I'll probably watch at least two of them tonight. I still need to watch this week's final episode of Mrs. America on Hulu as well. Once Shobhit got home, he dished himself some dinner—all leftovers from what he made Wednesday—and we watched another two episodes of Ozark on Netflix.
This is the thing about how much I miss going to the movies. I keep thinking about paying to see one of the movies associated with SIFF Cinema online, because they get a cut of those ticket sales and it supports them. The problem there is how much of the theater-going experience is critical to my enjoyment of cinema, which I have been obsessed with for decades. When I am at home, and this was the case even when movie theaters were an option, there is just so much great television to choose from, and at no extra cost from streaming services to which I already subscribe. It's hard not to keep going for that as the default option as long as I am home. Maybe one of these days I'll get bored of TV options, but that'll take a while. There are three seasons of Ozark alone, and we are all of halfway through the first season.
Anyway, the other thing I did last night was call Dad, which actually had a little to do with Dad. I remembered Sherri's old friend Sherri lives in Missouri, and that they had visited her there once or twice in the past. I wanted to know if they had ever been to the Lake of the Ozarks, where the show is set. Indeed, they had.
And then, we talked for just over an hour. I learned some interesting stuff I wasn't expecting, because I had forgotten both Thurston and Mason Counties are already in Phase 2 of Washington State's recovery plan—those are the locations of Olympia, where Dad and Sherri live; and Shelton, where Dad grew up and I still have lots of relatives (including my cousin Jennifer). Apparently Dad and Sherri went out for dinner at a restaurant in Shelton on Monday, the first day they were allowed to re-open, at half capacity and with patrons spaced two tables apart from each other.
I was interested to learn that not only did this restaurant adhere to these rules, but they went further, asking patrons to wear masks any time they were anywhere other than sitting at their table to eat. Even more notably, they apparently had transparent plastic sheets hanging between the tables, which struck me as a smart and innovative move, particularly for a restaurant in a small town.
They had gone with Aunt Raenae (who also lives in Shelton). Dad said she complained about everything, but that's just Aunt Raenae. Dad also mentioned reading about what hotels are doing, and a lot of them are only booking rooms that have not been occupied at all for one or two days, which made him feel more open to travel sooner than later.
All that is basically fine, I suppose. But, he also told me about other things I wasn't as crazy about, in terms of family behaviors. Three of my nieces and nephews had babies this spring, and Dad and Sherri finally went to visit one of them: Enzo, Brandi's baby, who was born first, in late March. I guess they went to Brandi's house, at a time when Nick and Jaycee were somewhere else, so it was only Brandi, Gianni (her little boy) and Enzo inside, with Dad and Sherri there—both of them wearing masks, according to Dad. The thing is, the bigger concern is of Dad or Sherri catching COVID from someone else, in which case their masks, which serve to protect others, are ineffective. But, this was Dad's rationalization: the stay-home orders have been much harder on Sherri than on him, have really affected her emotionally, and getting her out to see at least one of her new great-grandbabies really improved her mental health, it sounds like. It's a calculated risk for another benefit, I guess.
The thing I liked even less to hear about is that, according to Dad, all of Angel's kids—Brandi, Ricky, Britni, Alex—have been hanging out with each other and around each other's kids, "And none of them are social distancing," he said. "And who knows who else they've been around." Indeed. This kind of stuff is a little exasperating, but what can you do? Wait and see how much more the virus spreads in those counties and we move forward, I guess. The numbers there were never anything like they've been in King County and its immediately-bordering counties anyway. Of course, Thurston County is only two counties away.
What that means for me, though, is that it sucks for me more than them, as far as getting to get together any time soon. King County is worst off, always was and still is, and has much further to go. We're still going to rent a yurt at Kayak Point next month for our anniversary, since that's something we can do where we get away for a bit but can still avoid other people.
My annual review with Eric never happened yesterday, so now it's bumped to next week. We just had our weekly checkin, and it wasn't even on video but just Skype call; he was apparently in the process of moving his work station upstairs in his home. And, he said, he just got behind on a lot of stuff this week what with there being no work on Monday and so those meetings got bumped to Tuesday and there was a snowball effect, etc etc . . . so, he was unable to get to my review. That's fine.
We actually got to talking about the possibility of hooking my work PC up to my iMac to make it a larger monitor for me, and he convinced me to contact Andrew in IT about it. As I suspected he doesn't know of any easy way to make that happen, but he's apparently still looking into it.
Speaking of which, Karen was the one who had suggested Kayak Point when I had told her I was actually considering camping as an option for Shobhit's and my anniversary—and I just got done with a FaceTime lunch with her, our fifth one like that. We were originally scheduled for yesterday but she had to reschedule.
I had Tandoor Chef Naan Pizza, which I always typically had on paydays while at work. I can bake those in my oven at home just as easily as I ever did at work. I was a few minutes late getting it into the oven, which worked out fine because when I actually called Karen at about 12:01, she, Dave and Anita were all just outside their house's door and Karen said, "I'm trying to get back into our house, can I call you in five?" I said of course, and that gave me just enough time to take the pizza out of the oven, cut it, and sit down.
She called me a bit after that, Dave apparently heating up a burrito for her, and explained that they had spent much of the morning outside while their housekeeper had been cleaning their house for them. They took longer than expected, "because apparently we don't do a good enough job," Karen said, which cracked me up.
We talked about all sorts of things over the course of the hour, much of it pandemic related, but not all. She told me a bit more about Kayak Point where I hope to be spending a couple of nights in a yurt with Shobhit on June 23nd and 23rd. I think I have more of an idea which of the yurts we should reserve. We also talked about how lots of office spaces are planning to have their workers return sometime this year, and this had not occurred to me: keeping it at half capacity, but having who is there rotate depending on the day. I'd still only be okay with that if I knew we had a particularly good air circulation redesign, or perhaps new plastic barriers between desks, which would go a long way—just like the plastic barriers that were in the restaurant Dad and Sherri went to. I might be more inclined to feel comfortable returning in a scenario like that, except that elevators and bathrooms are always a pretty major concern.
Anyway, I still have plenty of work to get done today so I guess I'd better get back to it.
[posted 1:12 pm]