How I Spent My Quarantine Staycation

Hmm…2020. You were supposed to be the year I got in shape, learned French, became more social, pick up the acoustic guitar, finish a novel and of course, spend 3 days in Venice, Italy followed by a 7-day cruise through Greece. One of these is no longer possible. I am, of course talking about the ‘getting in shape’ one.

I kid, I kid. Ciao, Italy. Mi Mancherai…

So the trip was cancelled and I had nothing to look forward to, except mounds of work because luckily (or unluckily) I work remote. But of course, I could do the other things, right? YouTube offers tons of exercise classes, there’s an app to learn French, I have the guitar right here, my computer is working so I can write and there’s social media for the “social” part.

I did none of these, except social media. And work. But here are the few things I DID manage to do during my quarantine.

• Picked up a game from 2001 that I bought 5 years ago. Started from the beginning, got to the end boss and stopped.

• Made flatbread – twice. Which made me realize that cooking sucks because you make something that takes an hour and a half and inhale it in 5 minutes.

• Gained 5 lbs because inhaling food in 5 minutes.

• Zoomed and Skyped which forced me to look at webcam me and it ain’t pretty.

• Gave evil eyes to every idiot in the grocery store who thought masks were optional.

• Learned to death gaze through the mask, especially if said mask-less person looked smug. And that means YOU blonde-haired lady in the too-tight yoga pants touching every single orange with nary a covering or gloves to protect from your suspiciously good-looking manicure. That means YOU.

• Saved enough 10-cent deposit Diet Coke cans to put a downpayment on a car.

• Realize I might have a wee bit of a problem with Diet Coke. But I’ll stop after all this is over. I promise.

• Nah, I ain’t stopping.

• Missed people.

• Never finished the game from 2001 but started a game from 2010 because I am nothing if not hip, happening and current.

So I guess I did a few things? Okay, none of these were productive or ambitious, but maybe that was the point. We’re all doing the best we can and while binge-watching a series, or playing a game isn’t going to enhance our quality of life, it can make us feel normal.

And isn’t that what we need a little of right now?