Orange County Reg­is­ter — North County News-Tribune; Date: April 23, 2020; Sec­tion: News; Page Num­ber: A2

WHAT A DAY

What to do when every day is today

Does any­one know what day it is? Hav­ing shel­tered in place for over a month now, many of us no longer have a set sched­ule, although I think most of us have devel­oped new routines.

For the first cou­ple of weeks, I let life slide by. When I wasn’t at the sta­bles look­ing after my horse, I was in my paja­mas, watch­ing a lot of old movies, and snack­ing con­tin­u­ously. Then one day, as I was chang­ing from my day paja­mas to my night paja­mas, I decided it was time to pull myself together and act like I had a plan for the future.

Or at least the next 24 hours.

Now I awaken each morn­ing and won­der what day it is. Some days, I look at my cal­en­dar to find out. Other days, I just pro­nounce it Blurs­day. There are a lot of Blursdays.

At least I can’t over­sleep, not with two dogs want­ing to be fed. They don’t nag at Dale for their meals, and only come to my side of the bed. At 7 am, the short one woofs and the large one shakes her col­lar at me. They are persistent.

When Mar­cus watches them, they let him sleep until 10 or 11. Don’t tell me that’s not favoritism.

Once I have fed the dogs, I spend some time med­i­tat­ing and exer­cis­ing before break­fast. Don’t be too envi­ous of my discipline—I’m only exer­cis­ing because it’s phys­i­cal ther­apy for my back. At this point, I have two choices: stretch and strengthen my hips, or walk like a 95-year-old cripple.

The dogs need me to bend down enough to put their food bowls on the floor.

After break­fast, I shower and put real clothes on. I also put on makeup. At first, part of me scolded myself for wast­ing it, since no one was going to see me. To jus­tify the use of mas­cara, I recorded some videos for social media, talk­ing about books and writing.

Now I’m won­der­ing if eye­shadow could be a busi­ness expense.

Even though I’d rather not go into stores at the moment, I also make gro­cery lists and pre­tend I’m going shop­ping. I’m just using a home-delivery app instead. I like the one that gives me my shopper’s name and I can text them while they shop for me. So far, I’ve had Roge­lio and Gizelle as my shop­pers. They were delightful.

I’m think­ing we should exchange Christ­mas cards.

Dale still ven­tures out to the big-box stores, for his mother and us. The last time he went out, he asked if we needed any­thing. With­out think­ing it through, I told him, “Easter candy.”

Hint: unless you have a fam­ily of twenty, do not shop for Easter candy at Sam’s Club. I needed one chocolate-peanut-butter egg, not two dozen. Remem­ber a few para­graphs up, where I was snack­ing continuously?

Choco­late in the house is not a deterrent.

Like every­one else, I’m find­ing new ways to do old things. Meet­ings can be held over the phone, or face-to-face via the Zoom app. It is awk­ward, but I’m get­ting used to people’s voices being out of sync with their mouths.

It’s a lit­tle like watch­ing a dubbed for­eign film.

It fas­ci­nates me to see how we adapt to our mod­i­fied lifestyles, and whether we’ll keep some of the changes. When this is all over, will we add Blurs­day to our calendars?

Long­time Pla­cen­tia res­i­dent Gayle Car­line tracks those moments that shape her days as a wife, mom, com­puter whiz and horse­woman. E-mail her at [email protected].