Trying to Stay Sane During a Pandemic

 

2020 Journal Blog

Trying to Stay Sane During a Pandemic

 

Since the pandemic surprised us last February, the Missus and I have tried to be careful to avoid getting dead. It hasn’t been easy; the instructions about being careful have changed several times over the past ten months such that a body hardly knows what to do. I recall that our intrepid Governor, the lady who isn’t afraid of anyone or anything, was one of the earliest to require a complete lockdown in the early spring. It was kind of a novelty at first and it didn’t seem too difficult to give up church, restaurants, and large gatherings in favor of masks, social distancing and staying home. Then things got a little better and she unlocked the state and things went back to being more normal, although we missed seeing professional sports on TV, we consoled ourselves with regular visits to our gym.

For most of the summer the incidence of COVID 19 in our county remained at 23 poor souls who had somehow contracted the disease. The number of 23 stayed the same, week after week until fall. Now, things are much, much worse and we have well over 700 county residents who have been afflicted and the total number is increasing on a daily basis. Our church family also suffered from a mini-outbreak of COVID that resulted in death of an active member.

Currently, we are in a semi-lockdown mode with restrictions only on all the things I like to do: the gym is closed, pickleball not allowed, no gatherings other than those who live together and no bars or restaurants are open for dine-in service. In other words, we are advised to stay home and order groceries.

The medical community has reported that many of us have reported stress during the pandemic because of all the limitations on our activities. Perhaps it is all this stress that seems to have affected some Michiganders severely, provoking them into planning outrageous acts like kidnapping our Governor and assembling in front of the State Capitol carrying semi-automatic rifles and demanding entrance into the legislature. Apparently, these overstressed citizens seem to think their efforts with guns will solve our pandemic problems. Hey, what do I know? We are a gun-carrying state and carrying guns seemed to help in 1776 as they are quick to point out.

The Missus and I have tried to avoid this level of stress by keeping ourselves busy. She has the fulfilling hobby of quilting to keep her occupied and I have been trying to learn to write. With our restaurants closed she has also spent a lot of time in the kitchen and I have spent a lot of time eating. We had Thanksgiving dinner alone and Christmas is looking to be the same. Despite our solitude, Marjorie made us a typical Thanksgiving feast with a 16-pound turkey, oyster dressing, Blue Hubbard Squash, fresh orange and cranberry relish, and the not-to-be-forgotten green bean casserole with home-made onion rings plus mashed potatoes and gravy. After pigging out on all those dishes that I am fond of, (everything) I still made room for her Fruits of the Forest pie. We ate the dinner on turkey day, the day after, and remnants of the turkey for I don’t know how long (I’m trying to forget the leftover turkey that remains in our freezer.)

I hope I have avoided being overstressed by keeping busy. For my part, I’ve played about a thousand games of Solitaire on my computer. Not just any game – I only play the super easy version – the one I can win about every three times, to help reduce my stress level, you understand.

The Missus and I also decided to occupy the long hours at home, alone, by playing games. In our basement, we have a long-neglected ‘games cabinet’ that has been the home of all manner of games acquired over the years, but especially children’s games that we point to whenever we have visiting children. To give you the sense of our cabinet, you should know that one of the most important games that takes up space on a top shelf is the one for children, Pretty Pretty Princess.

We decided to clean out the cabinet and begin the chore of finding all the loose pieces of all the games by actually playing each game. We began with Scrabble. Our intended chore of clean-up of the entire cabinet has been temporarily suspended since we had so much fun playing several games of Scrabble, followed by Sorry, then Chinese Checkers and other similar games.

This diversion has had some unintended consequences as we have been forced to learn how to play at least two of the games that we came across. Both were fun to learn, especially Dutch Blitz and Cribbage. Both are card games, and both have a long history of use by different cultures than our own. I have learned that some of those people from other cultures are in fact, smarter than me.

In addition to playing Solitaire, I have read several books that I wouldn’t have read otherwise, and I can recommend Barack Obama’s new book, ”A Promised Land” and a prize-winning book about migration of Blacks from the south to the north over a fifty-year period, “The Warmth of Other Suns”.

So far as we know, both Marjorie and I have avoided being overstressed by loneliness and the remarkable changes in our lifestyle. This, despite the stress of the restrictions resulting from the pandemic and the terrible partisan politics in America where politicians and their followers seem to hate those citizens who favor the other party, whichever it happens to be. This doesn’t seem to affect me too much, although I am profoundly saddened by our citizenry who seem to have lost their way and fallen into the clutches of a political party.

But not everything has turned out badly.

On one Saturday night that I remember vividly, the evening when the Missus and I enjoyed our dinner from McDonald’s take-out, eating our burgers in the car, I dribbled both catsup and hamburger grease on my clean pants and jacket that I had worn especially for occasion of a dinner out. Since I wash, dry and iron my clothes myself, I was especially stressed by the happening and I immediately blamed the spill on McDonald’s. After I arrived home, I decided to enjoy a cocktail as solace for my soiled clothes. During preparation of the drink, I happened to note that the vodka bottle was nearly empty. To avoid having a nearly empty bottle on the shelf of my otherwise tidy liquor cabinet, I decided on the spur of the moment to empty the entire contents of the bottle in my favorite tall glass. Thus prepared, I went to the fridge’ for the prepared mix that would render a wonderful concoction known as a Bloody Mary. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I discovered that I was able to empty the entire remaining contents of the Bloody Mary bottle into my tall glass. I had to suppress a smile at my good fortune in removing two empty bottles from the liquor cabinet and the fridge’ in one evening! Clearly it was a lucky evening for me.

Maybe the stress from this pandemic isn’t so bad after all.