First Trip To The Grocery Store
Otherwise known as the day I almost cried in the middle of a Save-On-Foods. Being on the go month after month, we hadn’t been to a supermarket in ages. Whenever we had stayed in a place with a kitchen or even a mini fridge I had thoroughly enjoyed going to shop for groceries, but we hadn’t had that since Europe. Before all the coronavirus stuff went down I had been daydreaming about my first trip back to the grocery store at home and all the things I would buy. During our quarantine we had been relying on family members to bring us groceries and had done online delivery a few times. I was probably unreasonably excited to go to the store, but after not having the luxury of buying my own groceries for months my level of giddiness and enthusiasm seemed quite normal in my eyes. This was going to be a great day.
I had my list, my mask (we had purchased these ages ago in Vietnam because of the pollution), and hand sanitizer. I also took my Save On More card and my credit card out and put them in my pocket so I wouldn’t have to rummage through my purse for them. Basically I only took in what I needed. Over the last few months of travel we had become quite good at minimizing contact with surfaces so I felt fairly confident heading into the store.
When I first walked in it didn’t seem too bad. There weren’t a ton of people but there were more people than there probably should have been. Honestly, I should have just turned around and walked out of the store, but I didn’t. I started to shop. I wiped down the cart handle and used my forearms to steer it. Then I looked around the floors to see what direction I was supposed to go, but there were no directional arrows. My anxiety went up. As I went through the produce I did my best to keep away from other customers, but I seemed to be the only one making any attempt to keep a distance. I began to feel a bit like a paranoid schizophrenic with my eyes darting around frantically in all directions, quickly grabbing what I wanted and then dodging the person who was coming in for the same item and already closer than 2 meters. This is a fairly accurate visual of my internal dialogue.
My earlier excitement had now vanished completely. There were a good number of people wearing masks but I think this gave them the feeling of invisibility because they were cruising around like normal. But then again the people without masks were doing the same. I was absolutely shocked at how few people appeared to be aware of the importance of social distancing. The store didn’t do much to ensure people were able to keep their distance from each other. There were no arrows and no reminders over the intercom to keep space. There were a few signs put up around eye level in a few spots but they were not noticeable with their regular font on white paper.
As I looked around I started to get really emotional. Even though people weren’t doing what they needed to do to be safe, it wasn’t completely their fault, and seeing the plexiglass partitions at the tills and the look on people’s faces, in their eyes, it all just got to me. This was not a reality I wanted to accept. I blinked back my tears. Lord knows I wasn’t about to touch my face in the supermarket.
As a result of working with children with unique needs over many years I immediately envisioned exactly what I would do in this store to make things easier for people to abide by social distancing measures. I quickly stopped by the customer service desk on the way out to offer to some suggestions. I stared into the eyes of the human equivalent of the “grumpy cat” and shared my thoughts, but was met with a defeated shrug and a comment about there being no point to implementing clearer visuals because people wouldn’t follow the rules anyway.
That’s the spirit! Now I was stressed and irritated. I got out as quickly as I could and vowed not to return. If this was how things were operating I would stick to online ordering.
A few weeks later after the trauma of that first trip had worn off I decided to give it another go. I headed to a nearby Co-op. I had been tipped off that this place had its shit together. It was a million times better, although I did have to gesture several times for people to to turn around when they were walking down an aisle toward me going the wrong way. I did not care one iota about being considered rude at that point. I had made a decision that if people weren’t going to be aware of the rules or follow them I would gladly help them out.
Nothing Left to Organize
I’d gone through the entire house and there was nothing left to sort through. I’d organized and culled everything. I had officially run out of mindless ways to occupy my time. We went out for some walks around the neighborhood and there had been a few nice days where we had sat on the back deck and enjoy some sunshine. We had also started going for regular car rides. I was beginning to understand the excitement dogs feel when they hear car keys jingle. Car rides had become a real treat.
My dear friend Justine had moved into the building next to ours shortly before we had left on our trip and she was on her own. Her place is lovely and the view is killer, but she has no outdoor space. She had completed her isolation a few days before us and had delivered a beautiful bottle of wine to me when she was able to leave her home. I knew that even though she was at a point where she could leave, the truth was she wasn’t going anywhere. None of us were. There was nowhere to go. So one afternoon Andre and I decided to do a drive by waving. We called her on our way down McDougall Hill and waved out the sunroof. We pulled over in front of our buildings and looked up to the 21st floor to see her little hand waving back. It was the highlight of the day for all of us.
One afternoon I did a big delivery of Duchess Bakery treats for friends. Ordering online from them was like waiting for ticket sales to open up for some huge rock concert. The site had temporarily stopped taking delivery orders because they were too busy, but had posted the day and time they were set to reopen. I was online ten minutes prior with my finger on the “place order” button. I actually went back on a few hours later because I had missed one item. They were no longer taking any more orders for the week. I was happy to see that their business was doing well.
Eventually we did a few front lawn visits and saw some friends, which was such a treat. We also did some group chats online but it just wasn’t the same as visiting in person. I’m a hugger too. I was going to say I’m a real toucher, but that sounded creepy. I am though. I like to get my hands on people. This is really not coming across the right way, but I know you know what I mean. Anyway, it was extremely weird visiting with friends from a distance and not being able to hug or touch them. It was starting to get to me, but we followed the rules.
By week five I was reaching a breaking point. I was enrolled in a course through MOMA called Fashion as Design and continuing to write a bit but I was finding it hard to keep it together. I am not a morning person to begin with, but with nothing to wake up for I was finding myself sleeping later and later and becoming quite depressed. I had called Edmonton Public Schools to let them know I had returned early and that I could come back to work to assist teachers with creating and implementing their online lessons. This was something I had lots of knowledge in and had already used a lot of tech with students over the years. They thanked me and told me they’d be in touch if they needed me. I knew I wouldn’t hear from them. There is no money left for anything in education anymore.
More Netflix and Crave
Well, at least there were more shows to catch up on and comedians to watch. During these last weeks I had started watching After Life (season 2) which I highly recommend, Hollywood, and Dead to Me. All great but After Life is by far the best. Shamefully I will admit that I watched all of Tiger King. We watched Game of Thrones from start to finish as a family. Nothing like you and your partner watching a little soft core porn with your parents. I had somehow forgot how much sex and nudity were actually in that show.
I had also completed the latest season of Ozark. I watched it alone because Andre said he had had enough intense stuff with everything going on in the real world and he didn’t want watch a show that had him in a continual state of stress. Fair enough. I also started re-watching The Good Life. Another favorite.
Andre was happy to watch more comedians though. The following are some of the ones we enjoyed the most. Well, I’m pretty sure they are. We normally started family happy hour Caesars around 4pm after the first month of quarantine so I can’t be absolutely certain. Okay, it wasn’t after the first month, it was during the first week. I know I’m not alone here.
Top Picks
Sarah Silverman: A Speck of Dust
Sebastian Maniscalco: Why Would You Do That?
Ricky Gervais: Humanity
Joe Rogan: Triggered
Jo Koy: Live From Seattle
Neal Brennan: 3 Mics
Michelle Wolf: Joke Show (Her voice is super painful, but she has good material)
We Are Tired Of Being Homeless
So…the last time we talked to our tenant we were still in a state of disbelief about being back in the country and were not ecstatic about the thought of re-assuming our home and all of our payments, but 6 weeks of basement living in your parent’s home (as amazing as they are) will make you reevaluate things. We hadn’t heard from her since we had last spoken in mid March. At that time we had rallied for her to stay on in hopes of things improving and restrictions being lifted. That had not happened. In fact things were looking worse on the reopening front and given the nature of her business we were 100% certain that her company would have her moving back to Calgary for the first of May. There was no way they would be reopening before June.
I reached out to her to get the scoop and she messaged me back right away. Her company was planning on fulfilling the lease. She would be there until the end of June. You had got to be kidding me. We were shocked. Andre immediately said, “I don’t know how she did it, but I’d hire her based on the fact that she persuaded them to continue keeping her here even when she’s unemployed.” I knew she thought that we would be thrilled with this news based on our last conversation, but things had changed since then and we sincerely thought we would be moving back home. I had been fantasizing about being back in our own space and setting up our deck. I was more than a little crushed and was not looking forward to calling her.
She had been so wonderful and we felt awful that we now wanted her to move out. It was within our lease agreement to give her notice at any time, but we never envisioned we would actually need to do so. She was clearly not thrilled when we explained that we needed to return to our residence. We explained that my parents were older and we didn’t want to put them at risk. We had been so careful. We hadn’t been seeing anyone and hardly left the house. We just mentally couldn’t take it anymore. We had suggested helping her find another place and even helping her move. She didn’t need to stay in Edmonton as she wasn’t currently working, but she said that two weeks just wasn’t enough. She wasn’t prepared to move out May first. We understood and told her that we would make it June first instead. I don’t think she was super happy with that either, but it was only a month earlier than the lease agreement and as much as we loved her, the situation was unique. We didn’t want to be back in Canada, and we certainly didn’t want to ask her to leave, but it was a bloody pandemic and we were basically homeless. Things were not going to reopen soon and there would be no flying to the east coast to visit family. Any hopes we had of salvaging the last few months of our year off had pretty much disappeared. Being overseas and living like a hobo you’re riding the high of seeing new places and having new experiences day after day. It is completely different than being displaced in your own city.
I was now officially depressed. There was nothing I wanted more than to be back in my home trapped alone with my number one guy. I was over being in other people’s spaces.
Who Wants Roommates?
By the end of the sixth week we started formulating a plan. It was now the last week of April. We were getting out. Andre could see I was starting to lose it. He made some calls. A friend in Calgary had a beautiful big house to himself and worked from home. Perfect. Another friend in Victoria also lived alone and worked solo. Perfect. So the plan was to spend two weeks in Calgary and then two weeks in Victoria. After that we would return to our home on June 1st. We were hitting the road with our face masks, hand sanitizer, Lysol spray, and a car load of crap. We were done with backpacks and taking full advantage of filling up my car.
41 days back in Canada…
Leaving the basement and heading to Calgary.