Day 17 Update

As Ethan watches Game of Thrones for the third time, I decided to slip away into my newly-organized office to do a little writing. I’m just not sure I can handle 70 hours of anxiety and gore right now. My actual life is full of anxiety the way it is. I’ve been really struggling to collect my thoughts lately or focus on anything. My sleep has definitely been less than desirable because I’m recently terrified of the dark. My mind is already drifting as I try to string words together. 

I felt so optimistic five days ago, but unfortunately, the optimism didn’t stay very long. Like anything, it comes in waves. In all honesty – I am okay. My husband is okay. Our families and friends are healthy. We have abundant food, toilet paper, internet, and technology.  Yet, the growing numbers of cases in Oklahoma and the lack of testing concerns me. I can’t stop thinking about those who have lost their jobs, incomes, and have mouths to feed. It’s too much for my empathetic heart. 

Okay, enough with my pity party. Other than the waves of anxiety and sleepless nights, it’s been a really positive few days. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous in Oklahoma with crisp mornings and sunny afternoons. I have made Ethan strap up the hammock in the evenings so we can snuggle up under the sunset together. I’m one of the few people who doesn’t want to kill their husband yet, so I’m taking advantage of the snuggles right now. Honestly, he’s pretty great. It would be really hard for me to want to kill him. 

Because my mind is all over the place right now, here are some other highlights from the week: 

1. I met up with my friend, Katina, and we did a really difficult social-distancing workout in the park. Sweating out my feelings really helped a lot.
   
2. On the same topic – I haven’t been to the gym in several weeks and have been craving a strength session. There’s nothing quite like weight training to help with my anxiety; however, every single store has been sold out of free weights. By the way – I have not been going into the stores. I’ve been online shopping to see if free weights were available. Zero luck anywhere. I don’t often ask for help because I’m always scared to inconvenience people, but I decided to ask my friends if they had any extra dumbbells around the house and they DID. I stopped by today and they sent me home with four different adjustable dumbbells. Yes, I openly wept about gym equipment.
   
3. My friend, Sharon, brought me Peeps yesterday. I freaking love Peeps. She’s the best. I did decide to make April my healthy month, so I’ll be rationing those Peeps for the next few weeks.
   
4. I finished Unorthodox on Hulu. Holy crap, it was so good. Again, more open weeping. We are also watching Little Fires Everywhere and I’m very impressed with the TV adaptation of the book. Good job, Hulu!
   
5. I have honestly never had so many friends reach out to me this much in my whole life. It’s been truly wonderful. I love the texts, calls, and Zoom dates with everyone. It makes my heart so, so happy.

That’s all I have, folks. I can’t wait to touch base with you soon. If you have great ideas for hobbies right now, please let me know. We don’t have kids, so I have time for hobbies. 😉 Okay, for real though, all of you folks with kids out there are remarkable. I cannot imagine. At least 8 times a day, I think about letting our dogs loose because they are driving me crazy. I can’t imagine having to entertain little people all day and trying to manage your fears and feelings with their fears and feelings. That’s a whole lot of energy floating around one house. Don’t turn them loose! 

xoxo,

Gossip Girl (Okay, I’m definitely rewatching GG again, too. I NEED HOBBIES.)

Day 6 – Remote Drama

Good morning, friends!

How is everyone this morning? Still sleeping? I’d love to still be sleeping, but evidently shelter-in-place rules don’t apply to the neighbor’s yappy Rottweiler. I wish so badly to be the type of person who can sleep through anything like Ethan. 

I went to bed around 10:30 p.m. last night. It would have been 10:00, but we had a dire emergency pop up around 10:00. I know this is a total childish thing to do, but I make Ethan tuck me in at night. He’s a night owl and I go to bed 2-3 hours before he does. Each night, he tucks the covers around me, plugs in my iPhone and Apple watch, kisses me on the forehead, tries to get the dogs to kiss me on the forehead, and turns out the lights. In the two minutes he was in the bedroom, Rigby (our ¾ Aussie, ¼ Red Heeler) managed to get ahold of the deck of cards sitting on our coffee table and ate some of them. Not a HUGE deal. We can get more cards through Walmart delivery. 

However, after Ethan picked up the cards, he noticed that the remotes were missing. Rigby loves the remotes. If we don’t put them in a safe spot, she’s almost always chewing on them. Remotes are not an ideal item to hide or destroy in a “shelter-in-place” pandemic. I jetted out of bed and we turned the living room upside down. We checked her kennel, under the couch, in the couch, under the chair, in the chair – EVERYWHERE. Finally convinced that she devoured them whole and we would be forced to play 49-card card games for the remainder of our time at home, I headed back to bed. Then, Ethan shouted, “FOUND THEM!” from his music room. Come to find out, Rigby wasn’t the culprit. Ethan set the remotes on his dresser on the way to tuck me in. Tensions are high, y’all. Keep track of your remotes. 

Other than the remote saga, we’ve really just been preparing for a possible “shelter-in-place” order from the state of Oklahoma. We had Walmart delivery come on Thursday with a fairly big order of essentials, like Lucky Charms and Reece’s peanut butter cups. They were out of the massive bag of dog food, toilet paper, and two loaves of bread I ordered though, so naturally, I panicked a bit. Thankfully, Amazon had dog food and it will arrive tomorrow. My friend, Kylie, snagged some TP from Target today, and Brown’s Bakery in OKC is still baking! 

You guys, I don’t even eat that much bread, but it just seems like a necessity in times like these. I ordered two loaves of bread and donuts for curbside pickup. Each loaf was twice the size of Rita. Like, so big they wouldn’t fit in our freezer. Thankfully, our neighbors down the street wanted the bread, so we harnessed up the dogs and took them for a walk to our neighbor’s house. Don’t worry, we delivered the bread from a safe distance. Despite a little wind – there’s always wind in Oklahoma – the weather was gorgeous. Almost made you forget about the global crisis. 

Last night, Ethan and I picked up Tino’s for supper and came home to watch the Joe Exotic documentary on Netflix. We decided to savor the documentary for a while, so we only watch an episode and then watched 10 minutes of Scarface (not my thing, I tried), and about 3/4ths of Kill Bill (is my thing, but I was tired). 

This morning, I took Rigby for a short run. I haven’t been running in about two weeks and, after tasting blood in my throat today, convinced myself for a solid five minutes that I had COVID-19. Maroon 5’s “Harder to Breathe” came on just as I about passed out. It was all very poetic. I lived and we made it home. We came back inside to brew some coffee (delicious beans from Prelude) and blog. Later today, Ethan and I plan to pick up curbside from Carol’s Kitchen in Norman and deliver to Ethan’s brother’s family. 

In rural Nebraska, my parents’ neighbors hop in a pickup every evening and drive around the gravel roads. I always envied their routine. They make plans with each other every evening to drive around, even after 40+ years of marriage. This strange global crisis is making me more appreciative of mundane tasks spent with Ethan, from walking the dogs to delivering food to our friends and family. It’s a reset of priorities. It’s a little romantic. Unless he loses the remotes. 

Day 3 – Callin' Oates

How in the world is it only Wednesday? Does anyone else feel like it should have been Friday three days ago? Man, pandemics really make the time drag on. 

Our office has remained open this week, so I have had some semblance of a normal schedule. I’m actually surprised that the days have been dragging. I blame the lack of meetings, emails, and phone calls throughout the day. I also usually work out 4-5 times per week, which would suck up some of my evening time. Plus my commutes are way shorter now. So maybe my days really are longer than before.

Tonight, I made a promise to myself that I’d get back into a normal evening routine starting tomorrow. I’ve just had such a hard time getting off the couch at night. I think my body and mind just needed some sulking time these past few days. If you asked my sister, Jacy, she would tell you that I’m extremely cynical and pessimistic. I prefer the term “realist,” but whatever. Thankfully, my cynicism only lasts a moment. I like to imagine every single thing that could go wrong first and then build up positive scenarios around the situation. This helps keep me prepared for when the worst happens, but then when the best happens, I’m extremely surprised. It’s a bit messed up, but it’s how I cope with life.

After two days of imaging all of my loved ones dying, my dogs eating me when they ran out of food, washing our clothes in the sink if our 1971 washer and dryer break during a lockdown, wifi going down, and running out of toilet paper, I’m finally on level ground today. I’d actually say that I’m even upbeat right now. A few really wonderful things happened today: 

**Little Fires Everywhere finally premiered on Hulu. We are two episodes in and it’s a great adaptation of the book so far. 

**Hannah B. and Tyler (from the Bachelorette) are quarantined together in Florida and look like a real life couple (squeal!)

**I heard from a few friends and family members today and they are all healthy.

**My workplace sent out an email that addressed PTO, which put my mind at ease. 

**My workplace also sent out a really great email to the community about the pandemic, which makes me feel like I’m a part of something greater in the community.  

**I found toilet paper.  

**Ethan just told me about Coldplay’s tiny desk concert (how did I miss this)? Also, Chris Martin started an Instagram live trend yesterday and he’s just so wonderful. 

**I stopped freaking out about the house situation. What will happen will happen. The world is literally in this together. If the home lending company or title company or whatever isn’t open as we approach our closing date, then it’s not my fault. It’s not their fault. It’s nobody’s fault. We will figure this out. 

**I found out about this phone number. 719-266-2837. It’s a hotline called “Callin’ Oates” that only plays Hall and Oates songs when you call. It really is what the world needs right now.

This whole pandemic is scary and honestly, for lack of better terms, extremely annoying, but it has been good in ways. It’s forced me to slow down a bit and prioritize my loved ones. It’s forced me back into writing again. It’s forced Ethan and I to get creative with our otherwise mundane evening activities. Last night, I gave him a massage for his birthday since I couldn’t purchase a professional one for him. I lasted all of 15 minutes of massaging before crabbing about my thumbs hurting (you massage therapists are incredible!). Tonight, we whipped out the Wii and placed Mario Cart and darts. Ethan tried to mansplain virtual darts to me, so we had a good conversation on why he can’t do that when we’re cooped up together because I will throw a virtual dart at his virtual head.  

I’m going to sign off and finish this Coldplay Tiny Desk concert. Seriously, how do I get invited to a Coldplay Tiny Desk concert? With that, I will leave you all with this newish Coldplay song. It makes me feel so hopeful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OgVs4N1Mkk

Lord, when I’m broken (when I’m broken)
I’m in need (I’m in need)
I feel that ocean (feel that ocean)
Swallowing me (swallowing me)
Head is hanging (head is hanging)
So sorry for me (so sorry for me)
Oh Lord, come shine your light on me (shine your light on me)

Last notes: For those of you who have stayed home this week or even longer – I applaud you! For those of you who didn’t have a choice to stay home (bartenders/nail technicians/hair stylists/waiters/musicians/tattoo artists), I REALLY applaud you. Please continue to share your Venmo account handles on social media so your faithful clients can continue to tip you. For doctors, nurses, hospital staff, custodians, grocery store workers, fast food employees, UPS/USPS/Fed Ex employees, and delivery folks – you are sacrificing your life for this country and you are the true heroes of this whole mess. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. 

Day 1 – Strange Days

After whining for food for 20 straight minutes, Rita has finally conceded to cuddling up near my right leg on the couch. I guess she saw that my left leg was already taken, serving as a lean-to for my half-empty wine glass. Rigby is nodding off on Ethan’s lap as he watches Armageddon. The irony of his movie choice is not lost on me. It really does feel like Armageddon in Oklahoma tonight.

COVID-19 has the state, the nation, and the whole world in a panic. Just 10 days ago, a dolled-up version of myself danced around the Omelette party, a fundraiser for the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, without a care in the world. Now I sit on our couch, my feet propped up on a newly-cleaned coffee table, in leggings and a hole-covered t-shirt — my new uniform. For the past few days, my thoughts have toggled between “Will I get the virus?” and “Do I already have the virus and am I spreading it to everyone else?” My mental state is realllll great right now. That’s why I get to drink wine on the couch and not clean the fresh mud off of the tile. Self care.

Ethan and I aren’t technically in quarantine yet. He is off work for the week because a case of the coronavirus was found at his workplace. I’m working indefinitely, but I know a quarantine is coming with more cases popping up around the state. My typical 45-minute drive to work this morning only took 20 minutes. Schools are already closed for spring break, but it was just announced today that those closures will extend into April. My commute will be an easy one for the unforeseeable future. Who would have thought that a quick-spreading virus would make me appreciate heavy traffic?

Ethan and I trekked to the liquor and grocery stores tonight. I’ll admit, the trip was irresponsible, but wine and ice cream are essentials right now. Grocery stores are out of the real essentials, like toilet paper, bleach, and hand sanitizers, (which we were actually on the hunt for), so junk food is a great replacement. I need anything to soothe my anxieties. I woke up at midnight last night crying. Ethan and I just went under contract on a house last weekend and I’ve been in a 72-hour panic attack about this decision, ever since COVID-19 cases have accelerated. Thankfully, my friend, Sharon, settled my fears today — she said that whether we pay rent to a landlord or pay a house payment to the bank, we’ll need a place to live. She’s right.

This is only the beginning of many days spent at home. In about a month, maybe we’ll have a new home to sanitize and never leave. I hope this all works out for us.

Ethan celebrates his 32nd birthday tomorrow. While we’d love to drink some green beer at O’Connell’s, we’ll instead host our friend, John, for Corona, margs, and green pistachio muffins at home. Sorry, only three people allowed.

Hang in there through these strange days, friends. This is only just the beginning. Praying for my friends and family in the service industry tonight. I’ll come blow all of my money at your restaurant/hair salon/bar soon!

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” AJ, Armageddon.

P.S. Please ignore any typos. I’m prematurely rationing my food, so two glasses of wine is making me see double.