I do enjoy the home stretch (both going home and stretching)
Sure, I love adventures. I like to try exciting and new things. If there’s a wacky food to try, I’ll take one. I am an explorer of new places and a social butterfly, meeting new people. If we want to go somewhere and aren’t sure if we should walk or get a ride, I rationalize it by thinking of the Appalachian Trail. One day, Kim and I will hike it. We can surely walk three miles to a night market if a person can hike from Georgia to Maine. On the other hand, I also love being home, just hanging out. My active side that likes to see how many steps I can take in a day is rivaled by the side of me that doesn’t want to put on a bra or move far from the couch. When I think of the home stretch that awaits after adventure, I am always relieved and ready!
What I wanted to do?
You might know that I love to sing. If you did not know that or forgot, please stop reading for a second and check our Facebook page right now. I also love simple things, so when there aren’t many words in a song to remember, I’m a happy crooner. Second verse, same as the first? Great! Occasionally I like a simple life, too, so this quarantine thing, with two weeks of the exact same schedule, hasn’t been that bad so far.
Friday the 13th marked my halfway point! One week down, one to go! Time is not consistent; sometimes it crawls and other times it flies. It’s hard to believe one week ago, I lugged all my bags into this room and tried to establish a little order before decompressing. First I used a translator app on parts of my welcome packet for a basic understanding of what I needed to provide and when. I noted when meals were delivered (breakfast from 8-9AM, lunch from 11AM-noon and dinner from 5-6PM.) Temperature checks would happen twice a day, around 11 AM and 1 PM. At some point I would pay 120CNY (around $18 US) for a Covid test. I should put my trash in a bag in the hallway by 6PM each day for collection.
What I needed to do
This was the only structure I absolutely needed to abide by. The rest of my days and nights were up to me. With my freedom, I knew I had things I personally needed to do, for my own sanity, like creating some art and writing this blog. For a little financial stability, I would continue to work for a company called PalFish, where I teach little English lessons to even littler English learners. It’s an app on my phone, so I can do it easily, anywhere.
I needed to scan into a hotel WeChat group for communication purposes and answer a questionnaire to put outside my room for the doctor to read. After completing these things I jumped in the shower. Then I unpacked a little. Kim packed me a small suitcase of quarantine clothes and a larger suitcase of snacks and other every day necessities (toothpaste, bars of laundry soap, my Neti pot… .) I set up some things, then flopped on the bed to flip through the mostly-Chinese channels on the TV. I took a nap.
Write a little order into this chaotic time
The first week I incorporated a little structure into each day. It suited me well and I’ll continue a similar structure the second week. The room curtains purposely remain open so the sun can wake me up. I’m usually up around 7:30 AM, ready for coffee! Breakfast is almost always delivered early, so I retrieve it from the hallway and go to my “office” to catch up on Facebook and the blog.
I work out. Kim found a great personal trainer named Kylie. She made us a bodyweight workout just for quarantine but she does so many other things, like a focus on fat loss. Here is her free guide to fat loss. She is on Facebook and her amazing website is here. Before I left, Kim and I followed Kylie’s strength program together. I thought I could work out barefoot on this amazingly soft and cushioned carpet, but apparently I drag my big toes too much when I do burpees. Socks and my workout shoes help tremendously.
Long distance teamwork
The first week challenged me but not because of quarantine and the isolation. I mentioned researching and planning Kim and Booker’s travel. Research is not my forte. I want an answer quickly and am apt to go with the first website I see because I can be easily discouraged and impatient. Kim, on the other hand, can spend hours hunting down a single detail. Her brain automatically asks questions that mine doesn’t fathom until it’s five minutes too late. My babe’s research game is strong.
Then there’s planning. While I do like to have an idea what’s going on, I am physically incapable of planning long-term. My mind races with too much information. I am an overthinker, which sometimes cripples me. Kim is proactive where I am reactive. You can read how she planned my solo trip here, here!
To facilitate a peaceful mental state, Kim’s been assigning me short-term tasks. Babe, call China Eastern airlines and ask about their pet policy. After that, can I call Juneyao or maybe send them an email? Have I checked with China Southern yet? Maybe I could call them again. Is there another email address? Kim is skilled at handling me when I need it. Sometimes I don’t even recognize when it happens.
Not knowing exactly how or when they’re getting here has been a little taxing. (If you think I look tired in any videos or pictures I post, this is why. It is most certainly NOT because I have a king bed with four down pillows and fluffy down comforter ALL TO MYSELF. I woke up my first morning here and realized I slept completely sideways.) So it helps having small tasks to tackle and complete. They distract me from worrying about and overthinking logistics.
What stress? Let’s have a snack
Speaking of eating my feelings, I’m pleased to report my food stash is still relatively intact. Two things I would absolutely run out of fast if I didn’t MAKE myself put them down are my mixes: I have a “party” mix of peanuts, peas, spicy cracker things and rice crackers. Deliciously crunchy and salty, it is a party in my mouth. I’ve mindlessly munched through a couple handfuls watching Netflix before I remember to save some for later. It will be gone in two days.
My other mix, my FAVORITE, is a trail mix Kim made me from opened bags of various things we had in our Thailand home’s cupboard: raisins, cranberries, chocolate chips, almonds and walnuts. I’ve loved trail mix my entire life and this one tastes especially good because it tastes like love. When I eat it, I imagine her taking time from more urgent obligations, standing in our kitchen amongst all the open bags, mixing and shaking and resealing. Just so I’d have a snack.
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The hotel food can’t get any better, unless they start serving wine. (I will leave a Yelp review of my quarantine stay, believe me.) Far from the ideal Chinese meat eater here, I do not like chewing around bones. I hate culinary surprises, especially ones that could chip a tooth or choke me. Despite this, I have no complaints about the food. If I see a bone, I skip that part of the meal.
There’s always ramen, the perfect blank canvas to incorporate parts of what is served to me in. Every morning I get a hard boiled egg. Breakfasts are big enough that I can save that egg for later, and it provides great protein in a bowl of ramen. Before I left we found these great reusable plastic containers with lock and lock lids, which are perfect for sealing in heat to make ramen or oatmeal. So far I have made both of these comfort foods a few times and I am so happy we got these containers.
Looking inside my heART
An important part of my day revolves around creating. No agenda, no deadline, no time limit. Maybe I feel like singing. Maybe I feel like writing. And sometimes I just want to color or draw. I found some really cool watercolor brushes at an art store in Chiang Mai: they are hollow plastic made to hold water. You give them a squeeze when you press them against the watercolor cake and go to town. They are a lot of fun. Third grade was the last time I painted with watercolor! I probably painted these trees then too, and they probably looked about the same as they do now. Mrs. Bartell would be so proud of my progress.
I do all my own housework now
A few days into that first week I felt supremely proud of how clean I managed to keep the room. I hung my wet towel up promptly after using it. If I saw a crumb of food fall, I picked it up immediately. Proactive tidiness wins over reactive cleaning. Housekeeping doesn’t service the rooms during this time, so I need to manage my living quarters on the daily.
One night I sat in my office chair to use some colored pencils, silently congratulating myself on a consistently clean room. Then a pencil point broke. I sharpened it and then I lost IT. My perfect streak of squeaky clean, gone in a second. Disbelief washed over me. I stared down at my free hotel slipper and its sprinkling of shavings. (Surprisingly, pencil shavings clean up relatively easily with bare hands.)
The laundry facilities are unavailable. Unless I want to travel with dirty laundry, I need to wash my clothes in the room, hence the bars of laundry soap. Every other day or so, I wear my quarantine clothes into the shower. I lather up with the laundry soap, scrub, and remove. Then I shower. Before I leave the bathroom, I rinse and wring. (I’m happy to report that hand-wringing clothes is a great forearm workout.) The shower has a clothes line in it, so I use that overnight. In the morning, I open the screen to my window and carefully hang whatever fits out there to catch a breeze. I’ve always loved laundry hung outside, where it can catch some sun and fresh air.
Bad things happen but challenges we encounter as adults can be solved remembering experiences we had as children. I saved my blue shirt a la “Barrel of Monkeys.”
Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
John Lennon said that. As I sit here at the beginning of the end of quarantine, still uncertain about when I will see Kim and Booker again, I know things will work out. They always do. And if they’re not quite worked out, yet, I just need to wait and not worry. It might not be okay now, but it will be. I’m on the home stretch!
