My last day in the office was March 17. We were practicing social distancing— not allowed to pass each other in the hall, speaking from inside our offices, wiping down doorknobs and the copy machine.
It was George’s mother’s birthday and he couldn’t go see her in the nursing home. That made him sad.
Tomorrow will be my 13th day of working from home. The fourth day of my second year with the agency. My first full day working on my new laptop. I had to reset windows and I managed to send myself this old picture from my phone for my desktop photo:
Traveling
I took it on the road between Djibouti City and Lac Abbé four years ago. Other than my daughter, I’ve shown one person this photo and they didn’t even ask what it was.
“Some random African photo,” he said when I asked if he noticed it, “I know your fascination with Africa.”
So I explained. “Ah,” he said, “that makes sense.”
This is the original photo that I took in January 2016.
On the Road
There is beauty in that photo, and oppressive dry heat, and the implication of hardship. Where are they going? Is it far? Yet, such color and contrast. Simplicity.
The man in the front is wearing a traditional man’s skirt. They say it helps you stay cool in the heat. The women have such light but colorful layers, lovely hijab blowing in what appears to be a slight breeze.
This photo takes me away when I look at it, and for me, it offers perspective and optimism.
I do have a critical theorist’s fascination with Africa, but my passion is actually post-colonial Francophone Africa and how their colonial experience and subsequent (ahem) immigration issues and Muslim relations provide lessons for American imperialism in a post-9/11 world.
Though recent political upheaval in South Africa may provide an interesting cross-examination of the British colonial experience… and what that means for the next generation of African citizens across the continent.
But I digress… not uncommon.
I have some goals I want to set this week.
Have several meals with my daughter at our patio cafe.
Take 3 walks.
Do 5 push ups tomorrow, 10 on Tuesday, and as many as I can each day as long as it is at least the same as the day before.
In early March, I made the decision to keep acrylic on my nails for two-ish more weeks before switching over to a natural French manicure.
That was scheduled for March 28.
As far as nails growing out go, they look good and Beth, my amazing nail professional at Hyperion Salon, posted lots of tips of how to decorate them if one has an opportunity to go out.
She also posted how to remove acrylic and gel manicures at home. I have lots of experience removing gel manicures with the Up and Up Gel Removal kit from Target (though I only have 6 pads left). The process for acrylic is similar.
She mentioned that I need to watch for acrylic lifting away from the nail because if water gets in there fungus can grow. Well I have some concerns about two of them so I’m taking them off.
If this helps anyone else, look up Hyperion on Facebook:
My daughter has suggested a new series for Instagram— #thingsfoundinthecouch hidden by #fogourcat.
Fog is the sister of Misty, one of three kittens the teenager trapped this Christmas. Fog was the smartest and was out on her own the longest. The three of them were born under our neighbor’s porch.
I never intended to keep any of them but to make a long story short— I’m a soft-hearted sucker especially when it comes to babies.
So Fog likes to stash her prey in her den, which is the couch. I’ve found pens, keys, and they even tried to drag a skein of yarn there.
I didn’t sleep much last night, wide awake at 5:30 a.m. After tossing and turning for an hour, I got up, fed the cats, reset windows on my newly arrived computer and decided to do my grocery shopping at Lidl when it opened at 8.
There were about 8 of us in the parking lot when it opened and the population of the store doubled in the first ten minutes. I did a lot of shopping in about 20 minutes, with everything from bathroom supplies to Easter Candy, plums to the last of the Brussel sprouts.
Lidl still has toilet paper, hand soap, various wipes, acetaminophen and disinfectant spray.
Many of the shelves are completely empty but others are untouched — so some of my protein choices are unorthodox. I bought some things I prefer not to eat, like frozen black eyed peas, because they are cheap and will keep. I also bought processed foods I avoid for health reasons for the same reasons, namely hot dogs. I also snagged the last carton of liquid egg whites. I’ve never cooked with those but they have a freshness date of June. So it’s a protein I can store.
I bought the teenager a bag of lemons and a bag of plums. I treated myself to a large cantaloupe. I will surprise us both will pre-cut watermelon— a luxury I never indulge in but we can use the extra fruit.
And while everyone else ran to things like meat and toilet paper, I went to the bakery and put on the disposable gloves they offered, grabbed a pastry paper and selected warm croissants— you know before everyone touches them.
I also bought juice, again which I never do preferring the fiber and extra satiating qualities of real fruit, but if we’re not going to the store, we need some vitamin c source.
And one man noticed how quickly and efficiently I shopped. He made robot gestures and called me a machine.
And I got a big old bag of lavender Epsom salts. That was my treat.
I’m proud of my daughter. I’m proud of her teachers. I’m proud of her school district.
This was the first week of her traditional public high school functioning virtually. She started strong.
She struggled a bit with geometry.
She downloaded all the apps she needed and kept up with all the work.
But yesterday her dad’s internet proved unreliable then my provider had an outage throughout our entire neighborhood.
Today she got up at 8 a.m. We both started work then, and neither of us finished. I clocked out at 6:15, after problems with the work server all afternoon.
Over dinner, at 7 pm, my daughter mentioned that she was exhausted even though she wasn’t tired.
I explained that was mental exhaustion.
“Now I understand how you feel when you get home from work,” she said.
I mentioned that’s why I watch so much Gordon Ramsay. Mindless.
My HP elitebook arrived today. My daughter got it charged and working and on the internet.
She brought it to be and I downloaded the remote server file for work.
I worked on the new machine for about 3 hours but I kept having issues. It didn’t occur to me that the work server was having problems. So when I saw the message that I had windows updates I restarted.
When I came upstairs, it was still lingering on the screensaver.
I had a stressful week so I hope the computer isn’t broken.
It wasn’t supposed to arrive until sometime between April 7 and 10. So it was 4 days early.
My day started with stripping the bed, finding my body in pain, starting a load of wash, unclogging the bathroom sink drain (gross but oddly satisfying) and feeding the cats.
Nala refuses to step up today, but I offered her her token sip of coffee anyway.
I took my allergy medicine— good thing as I could barely swallow.
I contemplated what will happen if we run out of toilet paper. I thought of the rural African way, a bucket of clean water and a crudely fashioned recycled water bottle ladle.
I make myself self-care pledges and find myself updating them regularly. I still struggle to stay on top of household chores while working full-time in a stressful job but I am confident the right routine will come.
I have succeeded with:
Eating plenty of vegetables
Prioritizing sleep and finding routines to fight stress-related sleep distuptions
Tomorrow will mark two weeks since I started working from home due to the Coronavirus.
I have left the house six times in the last two weeks— three times for work: once to go to the office, once to go to Staples, and once to go to the post office. Once to take a walk and once to walk to CVS to get my prescription.
I reached my one year anniversary today in the small non-profit where I work in the development office. I was hired in a communications position, and four months later promoted to a more directly fund-raising/grant writing position. And for the first five months I was the only person in the department. And this field is new to me.
So the last year has been a whirlwind, stressful and exhausting before you even consider that my husband moved out nine months ago and I live with my teen daughter, two cats, two kittens, three parakeets and a cockatoo.
I’m relishing the stillness of the Covid-19 worth. I enjoy my home as the epicenter of my universe. I love seeing how the technology forces our creativity.
But today I did the unthinkable. Something I swore I would never ever do. Something entirely against my principles and completely disgusting to me.
I bought a laptop— and it wasn’t a Mac. My last laptop was a MacBoor Air 2013 that traveled the world with me. My first computer ever was a PowerBook 165 in 1994.
But now my boss has signaled that she anticipates us working from home through the end of April. And it’s not fair to continue to borrow my just-about-ex-husband’s laptop. And the child needs her MacBook Air to do her schoolwork now.
My mom offered to buy me a laptop for my birthday— so I ordered a refurbished HP Elitebook for $300. A refurbished MacBook would have been twice the cost. Honestly, for work, Microsoft Remote Server works better on the PC. And I know that if I leave this job I will never touch this PC again.
And that’s okay with my daughter, she already has plans for it.
Today was hard—one of those days where I thought I had all my ducks in a row only to be asked why the sheep were still out to pasture.
A goofy image, but how I feel.
The teenager and I have been eating well. My neighbor has been sharing some of her Hungryroot deliveries. If she doesn’t like it, she sends it to my house.
That’s how I discovered that I like polenta.
So this weekend, I made spaghetti with Hungryroot’s Spicy Thai peanut sauce and sautéed fresh radishes and frozen stir fry vegetables in sesame oil and Bragg’s liquid aminos.
For breakfast that morning we’d had scrambled eggs in homemade crepes with turkey bacon, Gouda and a pickle.
Today for breakfast, the teenager had the last of the Thai peanut sauce and bacon on a bagel.
For lunch today we had leftover spaghetti, vegetable dumplings and Green Giant Steamfresh superfood edamame mix. So yummy.
Dinner was salad with sesame dressing and Hungryroot lemongrass tofu.
And yesterday the teenager baked me the most amazing dark chocolate cookies with dark chocolate chips and piles of fresh coconut.
My dear friend and traveling companion M got to meet Nala over FaceTime today and commented how she was more cuddly and quiet than he expected.
She’s been very tired lately, but she’s been waking often in the night.
Nana sleeping on my chest
And for one last burst of cheer, here’s a pile of kittens:
My teenager wanted junk food and wanted out of the house so she accompanied her father grocery shopping. At Target. Her choice.
I made her a list, downloaded the Target Circle app to her phone, logged her into my account and loaded all my coupon.
We weren’t at the point where we needed groceries, but if things are going to get scarce, I want to be ready. I’m not hoarding but I’m trying to stay ahead of what people want next.
I use a lot of bleach, white vinegar, Borax powder and baking soda when I clean because of all the animals so I asked her to grab them if she saw them.
Flour, cooking oil, tuna fish, peanut butter. Things like that. Well, tuna is getting more scarce so I asked her to get canned chicken. It was that or the expensive tuna. Next time we’ll grab some Spam.
She even nabbed a bottle of acetaminophen— PM. But hey, if I need the acetaminophen I might need sleep, too.
This morning for breakfast we had the last of our homemade crepes, turkey bacon, scrambled egg and smoked Gouda (with pickles).
The teenager and I FaceTimed my parents— which was a riot because I don’t think they ever FaceTimed before so they were struggling with the camera angles and my stepmom was showing me pages from her cookbook while my daughter chased cats around the house.
And then I got a text. My prescription was ready at CVS.
The teen and I had a 30% off coupon expiring today so we walked the half mile to the pharmacy. I got my prescription. We got a bottle of acetaminophen without sleep aid. And she got a gallon of Arizona iced tea. We got some other impulse buys that included a strawberry Twinkie, which resulted in a very silly video of us:
Some of this might be repeat for my regular followers, but I thought it would be nice to compile some of the animal news here.
Lord knows happy pet news can be beneficial to everyone’s spirits.
Oz
Opie and Oz, our two male tiger stripe cats, both turned 9 this month. Nine! The teenager and I raised Oz—the big, dumb, cuddly teddy bear—from a three-month-old kitten rescued from the local animal shelter.
The teenager, then turning seven, wanted an older pug but her father said no dogs and certainly not a pug. So we explored the kittens, basically because my husband trusted me more raising cats.
Oz was one of several kittens from a litter the animal shelter named after Pepsi products and his original name was Dasani. Oz was the tiniest kitten with the biggest damn paws. He grew into a big cat, with an even bigger docile personality.
The teenager named him after The Wizard of Oz but also after Scott Green’s werewolf character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then her favorite TV show.
I made the decision to put Oz down when he was three because he had recurring urinary crystals and we couldn’t afford the $1000+ surgery he needed to flush the crystals out of his urethra or the even more expensive surgery to cut off his penis and make him a bigger hole to pee from so he could pass future crystals.
Luckily, the veterinary practice had a young vet who had never performed the surgery and offered to use him as a test case for $600. At that point, that is what I was almost spending to put him down. I think it was $200 more expensive that killing him. So I took the deal.
That’s why Oz can only eat wet food.
And Oz had a fear of drinking water— because he associated it with the pain of passing the crystals when he urinated.
He has since learned to drink lots of water.
But he still has an obsessive desire to eat kibble.
Opie
Opie, our other male cat, is a major badass. Super loyal. Super cat-like. Some cats act more like stereotypical cats that others. Opie is pure feline.
In addition to a birthday this month, Opie also celebrates the one year anniversary of his leg amputation. Opie is a kitty cat bone cancer survivor.
We took Opie in when he was seven months old after friends rescued him from a feral mama. They had planned to keep him but their other cats picked on him.
Oz was still a kitten at the time and the two got along beautifully and look very similar.
Opie is on the top, Oz to the right, Fog left
Opie was our head mouser, but the kittens might give him a challenge.
Mistofelees (Misty)
Misty was the first of three kittens my daughter trapped between late December and late January. They were born probably in late October under my neighbor’s porch.
Misty was the runt. When the others went out to hunt with Mama, he stayed behind.
My daughter worked very hard to tame him and earn his trust.
I think Misty is on the right
We trapped the kitten that later got naked Smoky next. The neighbor named it. And it found a good home. But now a theme was developing.
Fog
Fog was the last one trapped. I named her to fit the theme. She was on her own for about two weeks after Smoky. She would reach into the trap from the side, slip her paw into the food and ladle it out of the trap lick by lick.
When we reunited her with her brother, my heart melted and I couldn’t give her up.
The Budgies: Boo, Wink and Yo
Peek-a-Boo (Boo-boo), so named because she was so spastic when she came home we thought she had a hurt wing, is the dominant bird in the group. And the fattest. She is pure yellow.
The teenager bought her and Periwinkle (Wink) for me as a Christmas present. Wink is the pale blue bird and the most skittish of the group. She and Boo were bonded from the pet store.
I added Yo-Yo (Yo) to the group last fall because I really wanted a traditional green parakeet and to add a male. He is vivid green with some yellow and this amazing navy blue tail.
The teenager made a lot of progress hand-feeding them but hasn’t maintained the training.
And that leaves… Nala.
Nala
Nala is a four-year-old Goffin’s cockatoo with a lot of attitude. I have no large bird experience but she took to me. We brought her home in early January.
She can be very obstinate, which is very common in cockatoos, but we are progressing well.
In the beginning, toweling too often became necessary to keep her from being too aggressive but now that we have learned more about each other it is easier for me to work with her and I can often get her to do something she really doesn’t think is fair— like go to bed—without even threatening to towel her.
It helps that I finally found a treat she can’t resist. She turns her nose up at everything.
She’s displaying a new behavior that I call the “step up” noise and she uses it when she wants to confirm my step up command or is asking me to come get her or sometimes as a demand, like when I won’t let her have my coffee.
