Corona Confinement – The Big Q: #7

The Big Quarantine – March 23, 2020

The Day in Confinement…the Actual Word Confinement: The use of the word Confinement in my headline for you grammar/word nerds, is a specific choice. You can have your lockdowns and your shelters in place. I like confinement. Of course the root “con” denotes some negatives. We confine prisoners, for example, and solitary confinement is not walk in the park; but I’m looking at the medical use of confinement, like being held in confinement until you are healthy, or the old-fashioned medical use of confinement, the time when a woman is about to give birth to a baby. (Ain’t that effing genteel?) This Covid confinement isn’t a punishment and I’m coming to terms with it. Not full term. If I have a baby when this is over there will be a real fight for medical story of the year!

The Day in It Is Another Day: I’ve had this building feeling like I’m supposed to go somewhere, to be somewhere. And, of course, there is nowhere to go and nowhere to be. Except here. Going to bed last night and waking up today I felt a little sluggish. And my brain quickly diagnosed me as a Covid victim. And, just as quickly, like being slapped in the face by Cher, I snapped out it. Glad to see my brain still works. It’s under duress, of course, but it works!

And speaking of health, I did my daily indoor exercise routine this morning. Later in the day when the sun came out I took a quick walk around the hood. Also the park my apartment overlooks is Covid-appropriately filled with dogs and people moving around and loading up on human connectivity and vitamin D. It also has this one guy who I know is just doing his exercise routine, but as I hold my glass of wine and see him, I can’t help but think he’s just showing off. Well, when I’m the only one in the neighborhood left with Doritos, I guess I’ll have the last laugh.

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The Day in New Rules: New rule…I can have chips with every meal, including breakfast. The new world order does have some perks.

Update – The Day in Dried Beans: I wrote a couple days ago that the extreme purchasing of dried beans and rice from Kroger set off pandemic alarm bells for me. It turns out, this is a pandemic thing.

If you are following Covid 19 news sites, many of them are filled with not just facts about the virus and political blah, blah, blah, but also on the impact the virus is having on day-to-day life. These articles on how to get through confinement are covering the gamut from entertaining/educating your kids, to how to do virtual happy hours, to how to cook all that weird food you stocked up on. The sheer amount of dried beans recipes is amazing.

I associate beans, conversely, with both cowboys (baked beans) and international food that, with the exception of refried beans, isn’t terribly known or popular in America. A lot of older adults associate beans with being poor. A lot of Americans only know the kidney or pinto beans that are in our chili or the garbanzo/chickpeas we find in our hummus. Anyway, I’m very excited beans are having a moment.

Oh, and I’ve planned split pea soup and a baked lima bean casserole that I like to eat with lemon rice. Welcome to Bean Wagon you stocker-uppers!

The Day in My Mom’s Weekly Pandemic Care – Part 1: Tomorrow I have to pick up a prescription for my Mom. I called her today to remind her I’m on my way, etc. I asked her if she *needed* anything at the store, not wanted, needed. She said she was fine until Sunday. She isn’t getting the concept that days of the week are fluid now and she doesn’t have to wait until Sunday.

Anyway, to give her something to do I told her I would bring her a pizza from from one of two of my neighborhood pizza places and it was her job to pick which place. My Mom, in typical Cookie fashion didn’t miss a beat: “Just bring me a damn pizza…with pepperoni.” Well, tomorrow I’ll see how I did on her task for me.

The Day in Miniatures: To salute my confinement, here’s a mini-delivery. It’s a mid-century bisque piece, one of my more unusual items.