pariah

So I'm basically a pariah in my own house because I'm trying to walk a fine line between being sensitive to the needs of others and, at the same time, doing what I need to do to keep my job and keep eating. I'm not breaking any lockdown rules (at ALL, I haven't even been inside any store for a month, I'm certainly not socializing, I haven't been in another house and no one that I know has been to mine) but I'm not living my life the way others would like me to. Interestingly enough, most of the things I'm doing, they are doing too but I guess it's only ok when they're doing them. Let me tell you, getting groceries delivered is NOT cheap with the delivery fees and having to add a tip; it's no wonder I got an alert from my bank a few days ago that I only had $22 left in my account. Thank goodness that was after I'd just been charged for a grocery delivery so I could still eat over the weekend.

I also got a little lecture about the proper way to wear and care for masks and gloves...as if I haven't been here living all of this quarantine stuff right with everybody else and following all the rules. Maybe  I'm just too old to absorb all that information so it needs to be mansplained to little ol' me.  Believe me, I have a 4 letter word for that.

One of the great advantages of being a pariah is that I had the whole pool and back deck of the house to myself all weekend long since apparently nobody wants to share the same air. So I got a chance to sit out, read, swim and eat my meals just as if I were living alone in the house again.

Mostly that was great except sometimes it gets to me like Sunday evening when I went to my room and sobbed almost uncontrollably for 30 minutes. That was fun.

Want to see my new home office? I was using the dining room that week I had to work from home exclusively while we were waiting for my tenant's COVID test but that wasn't an ideal situation as I had to spend the next week at my office (which is very isolated - just me and my boss and we sit at opposite ends of the building in our own private offices and speak to each other over video) catching up on all the stuff I couldn't do at home or fixing all the mistakes I made because my "desk" was often the site of tea parties and it's damned hard to concentrate on work when you're also attending a tea party. Accounting was not made for working at home with kids who are bored.

So here's my new "desk" in the middle of the walkway between my couch and bed. Don't worry, I'm making a mental note to clean up my bookcase; that will be next weekend's project.

It's a much less distracting place to work especially since nobody comes in my room anymore. I participated in my staff meetings, more video chats with my boss (ok, we do those mostly for fun and because we keep each other sane), and worked on all those projects that don't require me to be at the office. I really wish I were living alone right now, working from home would be SO much more fun and I wouldn't have to do it trapped in my room but I'm glad I have the option because the alternative would be unemployment.

Over the weekend, when I wasn't monopolizing the pool, I tidied up a roll top desk in the kitchen so that I can display MY NEW PINK MICKEY PLATES! Yes, I broke down and offered the seller on Ebay a deal to buy all 4 plates and he went for it. I'm so happy to have this design back in my life, I never thought I'd see it again and these plates are pink which I didn't even know was an option back in the 20th century when Taz and I bought our original plates.

The larger pink plates and the bowls are ones I already had but had stuffed them into the little bit of cabinet space that I have so it's nice to have them out where I can see them and they're easy to use. The roll top desk belonged to my mother and Taz and I rescued it from her house when she was moved into Assisted Living back in 2017.

I had some other pink plates that Taz bought for me at a yard sale but they were sent to live in the garage a couple of months ago and I'm not sure where they are. One day I'll spend some time out there to find them and my cast iron pans which also got shunted out there in the great kitchen purge in February.

I figure I'll do one project per weekend to make myself feel like I'm not wasting this time and then I can lay around like a lounge chair potato the rest of the time with no guilt...not that I usually feel guilty about that kind of thing anyway. 

So I will continue to soldier on, one project at a time, one day at a time, doing my best to have care and concern for others but also staying true to myself. I'm not going to hand over my pen so that others can write my story.