Covid-19.1

At the beginning of March, my oldest son and his girlfriend left for a long-planned trip to Australia, and they dropped their dog off with me. A few days later, my husband left on an international trip.

On the 5th of March, I baked a loaf of sourdough bread and tweeted every step of it.
On the 9th, I met someone for lunch and we ate together in a restaurant.
On the 11th, I went to agility class with Fellow.

Friday the 13th of March I went to the barn and rode horses, mostly walking around the ring and talking with a barn friend, and the next day when I texted her to say hey that was fun let’s do it again sometime she told me that she had been in contact with someone who may have been exposed to the coronavirus and that she had been tested and that out of an abundance of caution she was staying home until she had the results from her test. This was the first person I had heard of being exposed and the first person I knew who was tested.

But on March 14th I did not know how any of this would go, so I stayed in. When everyone rushed out the next week and bought up all the toilet paper, I didn’t. I stopped going to dog obedience and agility classes. I stayed home from the barn. I washed my hands a lot. I worked on a completely improvised quilt top. I played with the dogs in the yard. I tweeted. I baked. I started watching Mad Men from the beginning. I cleaned the kitchen.

On the 17th I made scallion pancakes.
On the 18th, my husband cut his trip short and flew back into Washington D.C. where he spent the next two weeks in self-quarantine. He worked and ate frozen dinners and slept weird hours.

On the 19th I made a half-batch of cinnamon rolls.
On the 20th, I finished piecing together quilt batting for the enormous square quilt, basted it, and started machine quilting.

Right around March 22, the time the governor of New York announced everyone is to stay home except essential workers, I finally heard my barn friend was ok, which I figured somehow anyway, despite the high numbers of infections and I was able to go out to buy groceries and wine. My pilates teacher had given herself a crash course in teaching via Zoom, so I was able to resume working with her. I figured out how to gather all four dogs, get leashes on them, get them out the door and untangle, untangle, untangle them in an activity that would over the course of the next many days come to resemble walking four dogs at once.

On the 23rd, we had a little bit of snow and I finished the last of my Valentines Day chocolate.

On my husband’s birthday we celebrated over Zoom.
On the 26th, I got a picture of my horse looking cute and happy from the barn manager and I cried.
On the 27th, I found thin slices pf pork in the freezer and made schnitzel.
On the 29th, I heard from our landscape guy, telling us that because of the governor’s order, he wouldn’t be able to cut the grass. I made turmeric sugar cookies and homemade pizza and finished Mad Men.

March 30th, I tried making masks. And I made Jello.
April 1st, I finished binding the quilt and watched that Tiger King thing.
April 2nd, my husband came home.

April 4th, I labelled the quilt. I counted the toilet paper rolls.
April 6th, I had Zoom cocktails with barn friends. As of this writing, my barn friend remains the only person I know who has been tested. Her test was negative.