Quarantine Diary April 21, 2020

We'll start today's post with a picture of Rhapsody begging for food, which is pretty much her only communication except when we're upstairs when she begs to be petted. Otherwise, she's a pretty independent cat who will do her own thing. She and Rory are not too fussed by quarantine except that Rory likes having Patrick home because he scratches her ears more than I do.

I'm not handling quarantine as well as I thought I might. I mean, migraines have made me a homebody, so you'd think I'd do great with just staying at home all the time. But, not so much. Now that I HAVE to stay at home, I want to go all the places! Or I have days like today when I have a headache, but not a migraine and I sleep late and then nap in the afternoon. Seriously, how much can one person sleep? Apparently, a lot.

I'm also rather stressed out by the whole pandemic concept. I've quit watching the news and I only check the computer a couple of times a day, but it's still pretty anxiety-inducing. I mean, 41,000 people have died of Covid-19 in this country! And that's just the beginning! 41,000 people. It's not a huge percentage of the population, but it's 20x the population of our town. And, it's not over. This is a nasty virus.

Yikes! I'm glad I live in Wisconsin. We are doing the Badger Bounce Back, which is a slow and measured reopening of our economy. The problem is that nobody has enough tests to do an adequate test and quarantine strategy, but we'll do the best we can. I'm just glad I don't live in Georgia or Tennessee where they're opening things up all willy-nilly. Wait for cases there to skyrocket and governors to say, "Hey, what happened? We didn't expect this!" as Dr. Fauci facepalms.

In the meantime, I've been listening to the Artemis Fowl books on audio. They are books that we read or listened to when the kids were in elementary or middle school. They're very light and don't require much brain or emotional power! I do have a new "serious" audiobook called God Shot, which seems good, but it requires a little more attention, which is in short supply these days.

We got Hulu when we signed up for Disney Plus, so we watched the whole season of Lego Masters. What fun!! Patrick and I totally recommend it! We're working our way through Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist, which is fun but also has some serious notes. I'd be into just about any show that breaks into song and dance, but this one is really good. And we've just started the third season of The Handmaid's Tale. Just when you think your own life is rough, you watch a dystopia and realize things aren't so bad!

And there's a rumor that the temperatures are going to be up in the 50s this week, although Patrick tells me there was snow on the ground for a while this morning. (There's something to this sleeping late thing, I tell you.) I hope to get out and walk and squeeze every bit of dopamine and serotonin out of nerves and into those nerve junctions and drive the depression and anxiety away. Also, burning calories is good, especially when you thing Reese's Peanut Butter cups is required food group.

And for those of you into Bible study, what are you reading/studying right now? I'm listening to a podcast on the book of Jonah. Really cool. I do my daily readings with a Presbyterian Church (USA) site that follows the daily lectionary that most other mainline churches (Episcopal, Lutheran, Catholic) use. Right now, we're in the time between Easter and Pentecost, so getting lots of readings about the risen Christ.

How's your quarantine going? Are you feeling stressed? How are you managing it? We're going to get to the other side of this together. Hang on!

Catherine