Quarantine Life

Conversation between a long haired child with  bangs  covering face   and his parent also with unkempt overgrown bangs covering face:

Child; "Mom we need haircuts!"
Parent: "I'm Dad!"

We have been sheltering in place now since March 10th. By the end of March my husband has been working from home. We last shopped in a store (Trader Joe's) around March 22. My brother and his wife drove to our house around this time to drop off some fresh fish that a friend had received. They just drove by and gave it to us and drove home. Our other friends Mary and David also drove by and dropped off some bathroom equipment for my upcoming surgery which was scheduled from April 10 but ultimately cancelled because of the rise in Covid 19 cases. By the end of March my husband had stopped going to the gym for his daily workouts. He stopped just before there was a complete shutdown of gyms. By the beginning of March (1-10)  when my sister and I were in Dallas there were hints of a virus but it was not called a Pandemic.  The virus was spreading quickly in China and people were beginning to wear masks but it was not common. My sister and I joked about this on the plane ride to Dallas. We said no one would choose to sit by us because we were Asian. I was carrying hand sanitizer and wipes and a mask that I didn't wear. I cleaned off surfaces by our seats. While we were in Texas friends in California were saying there were shortages of toilet paper. We shopped daily at the neighborhood "Tom Thumb" market and saw no shortages of tp or Clorox wipes.  Still I did buy a big package of toilet paper and one container of wipes for my daughter's home. By the end of our trip I decided to take a big package of toilet paper home in my luggage. It seemed silly but I did. When I got home I grocery shopped early the next morning. I noticed that the parking lot, usually empty at 6:30 a.m. was pretty full and once in the store there were lots of shoppers with grocery carts full of items. The toilet paper aisle was cleaned out and shelves look stark naked. I decided to stock up on several things that weren't on my list just because it seemed prudent.
In the weeks to follow restaurants, hair salons, nail places and all non essential small businesses were shut down. Little did I know that my haircut January 9th or my pedicure January 24th would be my last for a very long time. We took a trip to San Francisco January 16-20th I went to a 70th birthday party for my friend Karen on January 24th. In February my calendar was full of social events, there was a day at the Getty with my friend David Capra from Australia and my cousin Nancy and sister Jocelyn, there was book club and Italian language classes. The Oscars were on and so was the annual Hillcrest Art Festival where I met my cousin Nancy. We met up on Feb. 22 with my family and my mom's best friend Helen who is 103.  We had lunch, worked on a jigsaw puzzle and had a lovely afternoon. My next door neighbor Darlene's mom passed away and we attended her memorial service on the 25th of Feb. Life as we knew it would all change with the coming of March 2020.

In the past 7 months so many things have changed. We cancelled trips to Australia for July. We cancelled trips to Dallas for this coming October. Athena and Mat had their first child (our second grandchild June 17th). Sofia turned 5 on the 5th of June. I had always been with her on each of her birthdays and expected that this year would be no different. We missed Easter with the family and so many birthday celebrations. Mother's day and Father's Day, 4th of July passed us by as well.

A different kind of daily life evolved and it was not all bad. Mike and I began to take daily walks. We walked streets of our neighborhood we had only previously driven by. We started documenting our walks with photos of trees and flowers and interesting garden decors. We would walk after dinner as well. Often especially in the warmer summer months we would take a drive and walk somewhere nearby. We walked in nearby Park Estates area and looked at pretty homes and nice landscaping. We walked at Marine Stadium and the bay changing up sides of the bay. Often the question of the day "Where do you want to walk?" Sometimes Mike would surprise me and would take me to someplace new. We found the boating area by the Crab Pot restaurant to be fairly quiet and we'd walk or sit in the car with the windows down to feel the cool early evening breeze. We'd sit at Heartwell park or by the Colorado lagoon and read books. We found new spots to sit. We'd always wear our masks.
In July we'd often go to Sunset Beach for walks or to sit on the sand and look out at the ocean. We'd take walks at the Bird Sanctuary preserve area in Huntington Beach. We are feeling the changing of the seasons from June gloom to hot July to some overcast morning in August.

We planted a garden in early April. Mike planted potatoes from cutting up an old sprouting potatoe and he took the seeds from a tomato we had for dinner and let them sit in a cup for a couple of days and planted those. We bought a few packs of herb seeds basil, cilantro, dill and planted those. We tried cuttings from  carrot tops too.