Isolation Diary

What’s nice about this pandemic is that it’s occurring in an era of social media, instant messaging and extensive video content. So if we must be physically isolated, now is a great time, because we can still socialize remotely.

Every morning, my kids either do a yoga video with a highly enthusiastic yoga instructor who has an enviable assortment of onesies, or they do a “PE with Joe” video, where an English PE instructor leads them through a 30 minute workout and gives shout-outs to kids watching from all around the world.

I, in turn, do workouts with a YouTube Aussie girl who has a pre-baby body and no body fat, or I do spin classes, from the group I normally go to, as they’ve posted workouts online. Sometimes I find instagram influencers and do their workouts. It isn’t the same as being at the gym, surrounded by like-minded people, or in front of a sweaty instructor who sees my waning will and yells at me to dig deeper. For example, today, during my spin, I gave up on the final two minutes of the 60 minute workout. Cadence lifts. I hate them. I hate them so much.

Then I shower and eat a cookie. (Did I mention? I’ve been baking things.)
This is quite possibly the most exciting part of my day.

I’ve been seeing patients virtually, which is great, because I’m still able to work, but also not so great, because so much of my specialty depends on a neurological examination.
I did this for the first time yesterday, from home, wearing sweatpants while sitting on the floor and having the computer propped on a chair in the non-descript guest room. Mid-conversation with my patient, I see my son’s head creep into the frame. I shoo him out. Minutes later, he is standing over my shoulder again, goofy grin and fleecy dump truck pyjamas. So professional.
I get daily updates from our local health authority; which hospitals have positive cases, deaths, the number of beds standing by, regulation and protocols for PPE use, the backup stores available for our health region. It’s sobering, but then I close my email inbox and… have a cookie.

There is a kids messenger app now, so my daughter video calls all her friends and they play games through the app together. She is talking to her cousin regularly (whom she hasn’t seen in years because she lives on the other side of the country), and by the same token, all the grownups are doing the same. We had friends from the city come up the other day to pick up a few things they’d left at our place a few months ago. On our driveway, we drew two lines. In between these lines sat a stool with hand sanitizer and a Negroni (aside from baking, I am honing my bartending skills), along with the helmet and bike saddle they came to pick up. We had our drinks and talked at a safe distance (behind the lines) from each other until it got too cold. The night prior, the four of us video chatted with each other, on our own phones, in different rooms.
My local girlfriends and I have a thread currently going to encourage each other to get out and move for at least thirty minutes a day. It’s become a thread of top secret sweaty selfies.

Let’s see what comes in the next few weeks, while our lives are on pause and we are reveling in the free time and our online connections. It’s all a little magical and bewildering. I may not actually hone all the awesome skills I thought I would “when I find the time”. Instead, I’ve been drinking excellent craft beers that our local brewery kindly delivers TO MY FRONT DOOR, THE SAME DAY, if I order before 2 pm. It’s connoisseur-ship, really.

I just had to explain to my kids where the term “hang up” the phone came from. And I patted myself on the back this morning because I found the will to put pants on.

Right now, I’m of the opinion evolution couldn’t possibly have happened because just look at how much I’ve devolved in a matter of a week. I would comfortably be the ostrich with head in sand while the world ends.

*happy sighs*

Now

Remember when only the now mattered? When what was happening right this second was the most important thing ever?

I frittered away the day today. It was highly enjoyable in retrospect, but in the moment, I did not realize how much I was enjoying it.
It all started at the gym, where I ran into two of my “summer friends” in the early morning. (I only see them in the summer, as our common interests lie in summer activities).
An old friend is in town for a visit, and we went snowshoeing in the rain. It was a nice wander through the woods, catching up on all manner of minutiae.
I then took my bike to my bike friend who removed a dropper post, gave me my new pedals, and mounted an alternate seat post to use while I take the dropper post to the city tomorrow for repairs. He’s like a drug dealer, but for bike stuff, and he’s kind of always available to dispense bike wisdom. It’s pretty handy and awesome.
I got my kids from school, and when we got home, there was a huge digger-like truck shoveling snow into a dump truck to cart away off our street. You see, when there’s lots of snow, turning onto our street is like turning into one of those castle mazes, as snow is stacked 8 feet high in walls, and the road is reduced to the width of one vehicle. Every so often, the municipality sends in a dump truck and a shovel truck (I don’t know what they’re called) to clear out the snow and dump it into a less consequential ditch somewhere. This photo is my son, watching the process avidly in his favourite digger costume (I told him TV makes his brain mushy). This is only after we had stood outside for fifteen minutes watching them, and I convinced him to come inside to watch in the warmth.
This snow-clearing is a nice touch, but not entirely necessary, as our street only has ten houses on it, and two of them frequently sit empty as they are vacation homes.

Then, my dog choked on a piece of apple and he was vomiting froth and peeing himself and I was in full panic. I called my vet friend, who calmly advised me to try a few maneuvers, then suggested I take him in to the office. I hauled my beloved pet into my car, and drove as calmly as I could to the vet’s office, heart pounding, fearing the worst when I couldn’t see or hear him rummaging around in the back of the car. I park and open the back door, and there’s my dog, right as rain, excited that we’ve gone on a car trip.
What. the. Actual. Hell.
There’s a puddle of frothy vomit in the car, and my little goof of a dog, tail wagging, ready to go.
You know, because every so often I need to test my ability to drive whilst in full panic.

Okay, so that last part wasn’t so enjoyable. But overall, good day. Mundane, but four stars, because sometimes it’s just about being present right here, right now.

Spin class and dough

Another day, another spin class.
I don’t know what it is about being in these classes that gets me wanting to write afterward.

I’m battling a cold, where my barking cough and aching neck and shoulders were assuaged by some extra strength ibuprofen before running out the door after work with kids in tow because my husband suddenly had a client meeting until 545. My class started at 6. Hubs had to get the kids from me in a parking lot. It was like a child smuggling campaign.
What’s the big deal, you ask?

These aren’t your regular spin classes. They also cost more than your regular spin classes, and I’ll be damned if my asian genetics will let me waste money just because of a cold.

I went last Wednesday morning where it was a different instructor. He’s a bit shouty, and rather, I think, enjoys the sound of his own voice. He tells stories of his glory days in cycling, ensuring we know the level at which he once raced at, while dispensing advice. There were only a few people who showed up, mostly doughy middle-aged women, save the young girl beside me. I was the only one who managed to generate a puddle of sweat under my bike, and the girl beside me was barely pushing any wattage with each pedal stroke, making me wonder why she even bothered to go. It was not an inspiring atmosphere.

Monday nights though, are a whole different ball game. Triathletes, Ironmen, Olympians and pros come to this class. It’s often waitlist only, and everyone brings their A-game. There is panting and anguish and all the windows open despite it being -20 degrees (celsius) outside. There are visualization techniques and peloton race strategy. Everyone is steaming, and tonight, all the guys with matching kits wore them. It’s a slick kit they all raced in last summer, with a sheen to the material that made them look even faster. A pro enduro racer is helping refill water, handing out tissues for snot, and yelling encouragement from the sidelines. Photos are being shot tonight, in hopes of out-doing the sister studios in the city. Out-do them they will, because I’ve been to the city studios. It’s not the same. The amount of muscle mass in the room tonight is wholly unnerving. I’ll just sit here in the back thanks. I sneaked a peak at the wattage meter for the guy in front of me. His 60% wattage is 30 Watts over my MAX aerobic power. His thighs are also each the size of my torso. I am but a wee weakling. Sigh.

I don’t want to be a doughy middle-aged woman.
One of my colleagues got frozen shoulder last summer, and all she could focus on (besides the pain) was that she couldn’t believe this was happening to her, because it was supposed to be something that only happened to doughy, middle-aged women, and that, she was not. Well, she’s probably in her late forties/early fifties, but she’s not doughy. She’s also slipped me antacids at a party so I could have a few cocktails, because she’s class like that.

This brings me to my abdomen. It’s a bit doughy. I had two kids sixteen months apart at 32, a mere three years from being considered a “geriatric mother” (yes, actual medical terminology). My daughter was almost nine pounds. There is muscle there, which I have worked hard to keep, but there is also a lot of extra skin. I have read mommy blogs and body-positivity blogs and attempted to learn to love my kangaroo pouch, but I just can’t, especially when I’m riding my bike and it pinches between my shorts and waist-belt for my pack. How do you explain to male riding buddies that I must stop and readjust my belly fat because it’s pinchy? So I just yank my chamois up as high as I can in front and sweat into it like a girdle.
So fun.

I have no photos for today’s post, and perhaps for that you should be glad.

Lost the Plot

This photo has nothing to do with what I’m going to write about. I am mostly intrigued by, and a little afraid of, the espresso negroni, which combines two things I vastly enjoy. I also really like the name of Lost the Plot. It looks dangerously good.

A friend sent me this photo while she was out for dinner. This same friend convinced me to go to a bar on new year’s eve where I felt old and over – sequined, and was unfortunately not drunk enough to forget these facts enough to simply enjoy myself.

Has that ever happened to you? It can be some underlying anxiety, or fear, or something, and if you’re not planning on getting blind drunk, it’s like whatever is underlying prevents you from getting to that happy, buzzy place.

I’ve been told I’m a happy drunk. I tell everyone they’re awesome and befriend all the women in the bathroom. My Meyers-Briggs straddles the line for introvert and extrovert, with a slight leaning toward extroversion. Alcohol enhances this, but the withdrawal pushes me the opposite way the next morning.

This whole post could degenerate into drinking stories, but I’m deciding now not to do that to you.

Instead, I have a revelation: I have lost the plot.

I am 39 tomorrow and I have no idea what I’m doing with myself. I have no real goals or objectives or purpose. I should probably start thinking of some, but right now, I am okay with not knowing. Right now, I’m sitting in a cafe listening to Simon and Garfunkel while my son is practicing his printing and my daughter is learning mandarin with a tutor. I went to the gym this morning, and am going to church later. Maybe I’ll go skiing this afternoon. I woke to the sound of avalanche bombs (only here would the sound of bombs in the morning be a sound that incites excitement) as I do each winter. I have to go to work tomorrow. Then I’ll probably go to spin class in the evening.

And then, it will have been another revolution of the orb around the star.

I did not die. We did not die. Maybe that’s the crux of the plot.