The last two days haven't been great in my head. My anxiety, which is already like that annoying kid in school that won't leave you alone, is looking more like the playground bully lately. Apparently, skyrocketing Covid numbers are for my nerves like anger is for Bruce Banner.
I'm doing what I can and know should work to beat back this particular nemesis. Stay busy - my work hasn't really slowed down, which is good. Exercise - I can do that, including a run today over and back what is literally called Mountain Road. Clean - yes, cleaning and organizing help me feel in better control. And maybe, write and tell some jokes, because despite the fact the world has gone mad, it is still Lent, which means that I'm doing all of this sober. Yes, I gave up alcohol for Lent, like I do every year. No, I no longer know why either.
We are the second day in to Colorado's "stay at home order." Apparently, EVERYONE who lives around here is an essential service worker, because there has been absolutely no change in traffic levels on the highway we can see from our deck. I tried yelling "stay home" at passing cars but my advice hasn't been heeded as yet, so I'm left to grumble about it like an old man with kids kicking apart his leaf piles in fall.
Speaking of, the exemptions to the "stay at home order" include liquor stores, pot shops, hardware stores and gun shops. Alcohol, marijuana, power tools and guns in confined spaces with nowhere else to go - what could possibly go wrong?
I think this weekend, I may wash the walls I still haven't done since the unfortunate incident. By the way, that bathroom still isn't complete. Its the project that never ends. Eric got the new light fixture up today, but I gave him yet another task: moving the only electrical outlet in the bathroom since with the new larger vanity, it now is directly behind one of the sink faucets, and I'm sure that's not code. Also, the mirror we bought (which will arrive at Lowe's on April 6, which means I have until then to assemble impermeable germ armor to go pick it up. I'm thinking head-to-toe trash bags, ski goggles, gloves, shower cap and the dirty but functional N-95 mask Eric found in the garage last weekend.) will cover it up in its current location. Fortunately, the mirror will cover the holes we will leave behind, meaning while we will patch them, I don't have to be exacting in my repair work of the drywall.
In case my proposed ensemble for a sojourn to Lowe's wasn't a clue, I'm now terrified of being around others. Since the Covid numbers jumped over 100,000 in one day, I'm convinced everyone is infected. Also, half of Colorado Springs fled to the mountains and have taken up residence in our neighborhood, because there are so many people here now. We've lived here for four years, and I've marathon trained on these streets and trails for all that time. I go weeks without seeing another person out. Now? In a time when this extrovert is actually trying to isolate? Yea, ALL kinds of people out on the roads, exactly when I am running. People I have NEVER seen before, and I am SURE do not actually live here. There's a lady with her two daughters on bikes. The woman with a walking toddler and her pushing a stroller. The guy with three dogs. All these people are close-ish to our age, and let me tell you - there are normally only three couples that are our age in amongst the retirees out here on our mountain! Today, there were two women out walking on the road, one on one side and the other on the opposite. How do I stay six feet away from people taking up both sides of what is basically a single-width road? Ahh!
I'm also concerned that since the Incline is closed, I'm not going to get the training in for the Pikes Peak Marathon that I planned. Even the over and back on Mountain road only netted me 841 feet of elevation over six miles, and that's less than half of what I get in one Incline. So, I tried to get more by going up our driveway ten times at the end of the run. I'm not sure it helped, but I'm sure my neighbors, should they have been looking out their windows during that time, thought I was bonkers.
I am bonkers.
But it will still be at least two weeks before we break quarantine.
Maybe two months until we break quarantine.
No comments:
Post a Comment