Day 11 - California Reopening Plan - Phase 2
8:30 – 9:30 - It’s a miracle, but the dog has finally stopped barking in the mornings. I go downstairs and she is still asleep. I rub her tummy and say nice things to her – then we go outside. Cheese. I move upstairs and get dressed. I’m going to work today.
I drink my water while I get ready and listen to The Daily. No shower, but I pack my make-up bag so I can do a full face in the car. I wear army green-colored pants that I bought at Goodwill, right before the pandemic, and a silver tank top, layered with a cropped black cardigan. I accessorize with a large white belt, complete with a wooden belt buckle, and orange square earrings that my Mom bought for me in Italy on one of her trips. I undo my braids – it takes forever.
9:30-10:30 – I pack a lunch even though I don’t expect to be at work for a long period of time. I make a salad and add green beans, tomatoes, blocks of cheese, egg yolks, bacon pieces, EVOO, and sea salt. I also add a piece of chocolate b-day cake and my Greek yogurt-apple-walnut-honey mixture, along with my spork. Almond butter goes wherever I go and I add a few miniature candy bars just in case. I make my coffee, fill my Hydroflask and load my state vehicle with my work and lunch bags. My personal vehicle is parked in the drive-way so I have to move it, but all of the street parking is full. I have to park a half-mile away and walk back to my garage in the rain – it’s drizzling out but I have an umbrella.
11:00 – 12:00 - I leave and the further I get, the worse the rain gets until it feels like I’m in a monsoon. The car slips twice so I slow to 40 mph and put my hazards on. If I get in a car accident, or die, this close to retirement, I’ll be pissed. I can’t believe this is the day I pick to go in. I’m extremely tense and anxious – it takes an hour to get to work.
12:00 – 1:00 - Although I park in my office’s underground parking garage, I never take the elevator up. This started well before Covid. Instead, I take the side exit and walk up 4 flights of stairs to get to my office – it continues to rain, but I have my umbrella. I enter and see that the only person masking is our medical consultant and she’s in her early 60s. I’ve been to a few stores since California entered Phase 2 and all of the employees are masking, but in our office, it’s as if my colleagues believe they’re in some sort of safety bubble. They don’t take it seriously and they say as much. I’m 50 and the next oldest colleague, who was also my last trainee, is around 36. Although she’s a single mother, she’s still young enough to feel invincible.
As usual, I get more done at home. One by one, the staff approach my cubicle to talk. Most of this is due to the fact that my birthday just passed. I don’t mind and it’s my practice to give each colleague my undivided attention but I’m conscious of the time slipping away and my risk of exposure.
There’s been some office drama recently and my trainee and I had arranged to meet today and talk about it. We hash it out and her concerns about a recent turn of events that transpired are valid. She was assertive and advocated on her own behalf; I’m really proud of her.
At one point during our discussion, she mentions that the country has to move on and we can’t continue to live like this with so many people out of work. She thinks that even with a vaccine our elders will still be immuno-compromised and she can’t believe that we shut the country down for Covid-19 when we have more cases of the flu every year. We finish our conversation and I think she feels better.
My supervisor stops by my cubicle and says that he secretly believes most of us have already been exposed to the virus, and we’re all just asymptomatic. I would like to believe this as many of my college and high school students were extremely sick, crammed into classrooms and sitting on top of each other, talking and coughing directly in my face the entire month of February. I actually recall thinking, “Wow, this is the sickest I’ve ever see my students during the winter season” and even mentioning this to L. The last week of February/the first week of March, several of my students had started wrapping scarves and bandannas around their faces…at the time, I found this so odd…
Although my supervisor is in his 60s, he is not masking and social distancing for him is around 3 feet. In fact, 3 feet appears to be the norm for all of my co-workers, although some of them stand right next to each other as they’re talking. I’m non-committal and say nothing about the virus.
Another co-worker comes by to chat and, shockingly, daycare is open for her 3 and 1-year-old; they are there every day, the entire day. I don’t begrudge her this AT ALL, but I’m startled by this information since it was announced last week that all CSU schools are closed for Fall Semester 2020. One of my community colleges where I work will also be closed for Fall Semester 2020. How is it that toddlers can maintain social distance and follow Covid-19 protocol, but not college students?
Ironically, two hours after I arrive, our Supervising Investigator II emails that another office of ours, in Northern California, was closed [the third so far] due to an employee contracting the Corona virus. This employee was in the office 3 days straight and the ‘brass’ is furious because all employees are supposed to be ‘staggering’ their shifts when they come to the office and even then it is only to drop things off or pick things up. I haven’t been at my office for almost 3 weeks…but my colleagues come in everyday and spend hours at the office.
1:00-5:00 - I get to work. There is something to be said about knowing how to do your job and doing it well, so well in fact that I know exactly what needs to be done and how to streamline each task. I mean I’ve been there 18 years. I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but last year, at a Supervisor’s meeting, I was tasked to give a presentation on time management as I was the top producer for Fiscal Year 2019. That was very meaningful to me.
Before Covid 19, a huge part of my identity was forged on time management, productivity, efficiency. I prided myself on the number of tasks and the amount of work I completed on a weekly basis. But, it wasn’t just work – I did interesting things on the weekends as well.
For example, just before the Corona virus, L. and I saw a local performance of Sweeny Todd , in Pasadena, as well as the play, Arsenic and Old Lace, at La Mirada Theatre, the last two weeks of January. The first week of February, I saw a one-act play called The Water Tribe through the VS Theater Company in Venice. Two weeks later, L. and I went to a cool restaurant, Toast, in Hollywood, before seeing a Law and Order musical at an intimate black-box theater. The last two events I saw before the ‘Arts’ died and the economy was destroyed were during the first and second weekends of March: 1) a troupe specializing in Eastern European folk-singing from the Balkins, Romania, Ukraine, and Georgia (their singing was so beautiful and had I known it would have been one of the last performances I ever attended, it would have taken on new meaning; and 2) a cellist with piano accompaniment, at Chapman College, who was so good I actually cried quietly in the back tier.
All of this, in addition to working my state job, teaching four classes, taking a French literature course, and driving 4 to 5 hours a day to my various endeavors, while still running a household and taking care of L. and I. And doing all of it well. Really well. See how amazing I was? Look at me.
This is all gone now and my identity, the fact that I was the epitome of productivity, took a huge hit as I tried to rediscover a slower me and what that would mean. Of course, the frenetic pace I just mentioned was unsustainable, which is why I decided a year ago that I would retire from my state job on August 1 – I haven’t truly slept in years. But, I wanted to retire so I could take the time to savor and enjoy musicals, plays, chamber music quartets, the Huntington Park (which I love and am a member), independent book stores, coffee houses…these places are all gone now and I see that my tendency is to fill the void with ‘work’ or ‘productivity’, although I enjoy doing some of these activities, especially gardening and going to the park.
Most of the time, I’m just sad…as are most people, I’m sure. Will I ever hear a concert again? Streaming a chamber music concert that was filmed ‘live’ four months ago is truly not the same. Will I ever see a play again? A musical? I can’t actually complain because I was always just the ‘audience’, not giving my time, passion, and energy to the genre itself, like the actors, dancers, and singers and all the supporting staff - musicians, costume designers, choreographers, set designers, etc... But, the artists did it for the audience, right? I was part of that synergistic relationship…and it’s over.
Now, my weekends largely consist of sitting in my backyard or going to a park, which is nice – I’ve reclaimed my backyard and transformed it into a beautiful oasis – but this is not what I planned on doing with the rest of my life. I feel very hollow and empty inside…but guilty, too, because I recognize that so many people have lost their jobs…families are going hungry…90,000 Americans have died…and I’m simply depressed.
5:00-6:00 – I drive home and it stopped raining. There was an accident and a traffic jam.
6:00-9:00 – I put everything away and ‘massage’ my class as the students take the online Final. Some of them are panicking again, once their Finals are automatically graded and they realize they’re a few percentage points short of where they want to be. Here come the negotiations.
10:00-12:00 a.m. – I received a few texts from L today. She and R. were going to Dave’s Hot Chicken in Hollywood and then Carpinteria Beach. These two locations are so far apart, it’s seems like bad planning to me. I don’t hear from her again, until 8:30 p.m., when she says they are leaving the beach – L. is doing all of the driving., which is fine, but leaving the beach this late? When someone says they’re picking up chicken and going to the beach, I assume they’ll be home around 6:00/7:00. There is nothing after 8:30 p.m., so I text her at 10:00 p.m. to make sure she wasn’t in a car accident. Now, she says, they’re at Pacific Crest Park – a park, at 10:00 p.m.? This seems very dangerous to me. - what about muggings? By 12:15 a.m., on a Monday night, L. is still not home and has not texted me since I reached out to her at 10:00 p.m. I find this rude and disrespectful and text her as much, suggesting that it would be less stressful for me if she moved out - then, I wouldn’t have to worry. Apparently, she decides to come home, but doesn’t truly arrive until 1:00 a.m. Recall that she is driving - as I said earlier, what if she’s in a car accident, bleeding on the side of the road? I’m extremely irritated. Also recall, that L. just turned 18 in January and R. is 25.
1:00 – I do my nighttime routine and go to bed.