Sheltering, Week Two

Sheltering in Place 2020, Week Two

It’s amazing how quickly we can go from looking like fairly well coiffed citizens of the milleneum-  gingerly stepping our way through the twenty-first century with our smarty pants smart phones tucked into our pockets- to becoming characters from the once wildly popular Clan of the Cave Bear- you get the point even if you're not familiar with the text: proto-Neanderthals.

The preponderance of really bad hair days for just about everyone over the age of fourteen that I pass on the streets these days is astonishing. It’s like those fairy tales we love but in horrible reverse: princes quickly turning into frogs, princesses to unruly-mopped hags, not the other way around, the way it's supposed to end. . . . My shocked, hopeless sense of diminishing beauty at these dishevelments helps me deal with my own hair issues, since these pauvre miserables are nothing more than mirrors. I try not to obsessively check myself out in store windows. Without our regular trims, cuts and restylings, it’s a jungle of flying feathers out there, to say nothing of those blatantly naked roots that are making a sizable portion of the population seem a tad more "mature." Oh, the things we took for granted!

I’ve also began considering with riveting interest my increasingly frightening looking toenails, and the therapeutic effects of podiatry that we carelessly assumed would always be there. And while we’re at it, if we cannot shop (even if we don’t always buy), why live? I mean, what does this say about us as a people??

On the other hand, families of all ages, locked together in irreversible quarantine, are taking quaint, afternoon strolls together, acting a tad awkwardly as if they’ve just met. There are so many parking spots available on the avenue that it looks like a scene from the 1940’s. And once people have gotten used to conducting all their daily business, working, learning, teaching, shopping, banking, agonizing, leisuring and worrying online, they actually look a lot less crazed (screen over exposure notwithstanding). No getting up at the crack of dawn and fighting traffic. No waiting in line at the post office. Time for a second cup of coffee, even if you don’t drink the stuff; it’s the idea of it.

And if the news becomes too much, you can say “no” to the media!!! Well, maybe it does require some professional help. . . . Their egregious exploitation of the situation (like that Amazon price gouging for generic, bad smelling hand sanitizer of spurious origin) the cable  fear mongering is plain shameless. A daily and nightly horror show about truck morgues, tents outside hospitals and pleas for sanctuary in churches, scenes you can switch off with the right kind of therapeutic intervention.  

My favorite headline today had to do with the police making fewer arrests, along with another ominous story alerting readers to the fact that “jailhouse doors are open.” So far though, I have not encountered any psychopaths in prison suits rampaging through the streets.

Unfortunately, I can’t even seem to read. Those slick, Brit sleuths with the clever intonations do provide a modicum of relief, but the hypnotic, soothing effect of gorging on BBC mysteries doesn’t endure. At the moment my husband is “relaxing,” watching a series about the French resistance and the Nazis. Amid the sounds of machine gun fire, summary executions and brutal interrogations from the next room, all I can think about are microbes.  And a line from Macbeth, “Nature seems dead;” I’ve updated this thought to “the neighborhood seems dead.” Nature on the other hand is much too alive, especially in the realm of microbiology. . . .

Whole days are spent strategizing about what tasteless, non-perishable meals to assemble in order to boost the immune system while conserving the nutrition stash.  I’ve taken to purchasing profuse amounts of broccoli so this oft maligned (though strangely long lasting) veggie can now while away its days in my fridge instead of hopelessly lingering on market shelves, daring you to cook its sorry looking "flowerettes." Five or six previously vigorous red peppers are aging and withering before my eyes because I felt compelled to remove them from their shiny, colorful shangri’las in the produce section and throw them into that dark place at the back of the fridge. 

There is one encouraging blip of salvation on the horizon. Although the first batch of brownies (after decades of forgoing baking) was indeed a rock hard disaster, the second try was sincerely edible. Now I'm planning a third attempt, just to see if I can perfect the recipe. And if I have to sample a few to make this pronouncement, well, then so be it.