NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND...or...The Story of My Day

Saturday (?): My cell phone rings. “Remember when you used to answer it?” Hubby asks, from his permanent location on the west end of the couch. “There’s no point. The face-recognition feature no longer recognizes me. I think it’s my neck. It’s gotten crepey.” I didn’t mention the extra poundage that has found its way onto my frame in the last few months. “Maybe it’s your hair,” spouse says. “It’s turned into a wall.” What he means is that my hair has grown upward and outward, exploding like a mushroom cloud. Oh, and it’s now an interesting medley of bleached blond and natural gray. “I notice there is a gathering of ducks in our driveway,” spouse says, changing the subject. “It’s not ducks. It’s the newspaper. Several newspapers.” “Shouldn’t you go get them?” “What’s the point? I’d just have to wash my hands again. I’ll collect them next Friday when I go to the grocery store.” “I guess we can get the news from TV,” he says. D’uh. The ad for Farmer’s Dog comes on the screen and Toby, in his permanent spot in the middle of the couch, doesn't even look up. Normally he’d be jumping up on his hind legs, ripping the paint off the $800-dollar TV stand, and barking at the top of his lungs. “What’s the matter with the dog,” spouse asks. “Is he sick?” I eye the mini-goldendoodle from my seat on the east side of the couch. “I don’t think he can see.” Toby, of course, has not seen the inside of the grooming studio in about eight weeks. I heave myself off the couch, lurch the twelve steps down the hall to my computer and dial up You Tube where I find a relevant video. And that is how Toby and I came to spend TWO HOURS watching a professional groomer shaving a full-sized golden doodle. Toby was fascinated and no wonder. By the end there was enough hair to make a second dog. While he watched, I turned on the dog shaver I’d ordered and experimented. Afterwards, we returned to the mothership (couch.) “What’s that crevice in the middle of his back,” Pete asks. “I can see his skin.” “My first swipe. I wasn’t sure how to hold the razor.” “His ears look kinda short.” They do. “And his mustache is gone.” It is. “But I can see his eyes. Good job!” The dog food ad comes on the screen again a few minutes later. Once again, Toby doesn't react. This time, though, it is because he's focused on consuming the Frosty Paw I promised him for being a good boy in the barber’s chair. “What are going to do tomorrow,” Pete asks, when it finally got dark enough to go to bed. “Hm. Maybe take a walk. As far as the end of the driveway.” “To get the newspapers?” “Sure," I say, still flush with a sense of achievement. "Why not?"

RAMBLINGS FROM THE LOCKDOWN, or Emily Dickinson did it. What is it so hard for us?

Today I awoke to an email message from something called “Pelgrip” (?) which addressed me by name and offered seven suggestions of ways to avoid anxiety during social distancing. Number six is: do a little online shopping. Way ahead of you Pelgrip. My kitchen table is littered with boxes and bags of clothing/jewelry/a breadbox, and shoes that don’t fit/I didn’t like/I don’t have room for/I didn’t need in the first place. Binge-watching shows on Amazon or Netflix is suggestion number three. My husband, who will agree to watch anything if it means I will stop talking, and I are in the midst of the series “Absentia” in which a beautiful FBI agent is kidnapped for six years and returns to find her hunky husband married to someone else. On top of that indignity, she is suspected of much mayhem and has to go on the lam to clear her name. What stood out to me was the scene in which she hopped into a truck, found some random clothes, and changed into them to avoid detection. All I could think of was that, in the same situation, I would never be able to fit in any random clothes. And that brings me to another quarantine universal truth. We are told not to limit our trips to the grocery store and I can see from Facebook friends and acquaintances that some are staying away for weeks at a time. Sunday I shopped during the sacred “seniors hour” and spent several hundred dollars stockpiling food in an effort to stay home for two weeks. Today is Tuesday, and I am beginning to panic about the rapidly diminishing supply of fresh fruit, peanut M&Ms and Entenmann’s crumb-topped doughnuts. Pelgrip’s list does not address what to do when you wake in the middle of every night with a hacking cough/ suspected fever/ pressure in the chest and/or visions of sitting around in a germ-filled emergency room waiting to be told you are too old to bother with. Of course that is imaginary. Probably. To tell the truth, the only hard part of this, for someone like me, is having to stay six feet away from family and, by that, I mean seven-months-old Josie. Missing her like crazy. And our little boys in New York. On a better note, the chalk drawings made yesterday on my driveway survived this morning’s rain. I can still see “Abby” and “Molly” in big letters and just looking at them makes me happy. It’s just those doughnuts…. Stay safe and healthy, friends.