March 28, 2020: Durango or Bust (staying home)

Who needs to eat out?

I'm not sure how many days have gone by with our daily lives changing. I have seen many people noting their number (i.e. Day 24 of Isolation). For us it has seemed more like a slow burn.

Garrett and I were already well acclimated to working from home, so no big change there. Larry was always a bit of a home body. Zeke is still getting the same amount of walks and runs. He just doesn't understand why people aren't as friendly in their attention to him.

Every day there has been a new restriction or business closing. Stay-at-home orders now seem like a common term in our vocabulary. The things that have changed have seemed subtle as one by one, businesses have closed and the rules of our daily life have become more stringent. It's amazing how one can be shocked with a favorite store closing then days later be equally surprised to find one still open.

A new normal.

The biggest loss for Garrett and me was losing our date nights and our gym. That was our old normal. Randomly finding a new hole-in-the-wall in Downtown Durango to solve the world's problems and share our busy days was a favorite. Now we need to leave the world's problems to the experts and instead have conversations with Larry over the kitchen table.

The gym has been replaced by daily runs with Garrett, me and Zeke. Although this has been a recent norm for me and Zeke, Garrett is new to this party. It's been nice. I used to see these outdoor outings as a chore. A necessary to 'check the box' of exercise for the day. We now look forward to these outdoor outings like a date night of the past.

Larry misses our Durango routines that have now become warm memories of his past days here. We used to enjoy one activity outside the house each day. Top of his list (based on my observations) were 1) visiting with friends at The Tavern 2) trips to the library and 3) the grocery store runs that included choosing a freshly made pie. Although I still buy the pies and the library leaves books on the curb for me to pick up, Larry is following stay-at-home orders.

I give him an A for effort and attitude. As I am working away in the loft, I hear Larry laughing on the phone conversing with old friends and relatives. I've gotten him back on FaceBook (although we still need some more training there). And he takes short walks outside the house or sits on the back patio for fresh air. He definitely has perfected the act of making the best of a bad situation. And he loves his grand-dog which is a win-win for both of them.

Being the cook of the house, I find myself busier than ever these days. With missing ingredients on store shelves and limited grocery shopping trips, I do have to get creative at times. We definitely went out to eat more than I would have acknowledged pre-virus. Daily meals made in our kitchen and eaten at our table is our new normal. Picking up carry-out to support local restaurants is only an occasional treat.

What I am finding is that our new normal isn't too far off from how I lived as a young girl. Our evenings of today are giving me flashbacks to those of the 1970's, sitting at the table to home-cooked meals while conversing on our days. Like the 70's, we are also sitting in the living room after dinner to watch television together. Today we choose to binge watch the old Cheers episodes (275 in total so will keep us busy). This helps us not miss our trips to The Tavern as we reminisce over 'the place where everyone knows your name' in the early 1980's.

As a young girl, we rarely ate out. It really was only for special occasions. Even birthday meals were at home. We got to choose our full meal and birthday desert on our special day. Never did it cross our minds that we were being slighted in any way by not ordering off a restaurant menu. My brothers and I can still name the exact meals each of us favored on our birthdays.

Mom's kitchen always smelled of the wonderful scents of delicious food. Although I wasn't introduced to a drive-thru until my early teens, my mom did add a huge freezer to the utility room for food on the run. She would make big batches of homemade runzas and her own version of the newly popular TV dinners. They would be stacked in the freezer at our disposal. Along with the use of our new microwave oven, we were in food heaven.

Cleaning the kitchen and washing the dishes always followed a good meal. Our portable dishwasher came later. Depending on the night of the week, we had memorized our limited choices on what to watch on the television. The playing cards would inevitably come out next.

After watching a show or two and completing a few hands of gin rummy, Dad would make a batch of popcorn. Not the kind in the microwave or out of a prepackaged container. He would pop it in a pan by simply pouring oil over the kernels. Then there was lots of salt added to the finished product.

We were not bored. And we weren't looking at any other form of technology or gaming other than the television set and our hand of cards. If The Walton's or Happy Days weren't our thing that night, we had other choices in how to spend our time. Reading a book, shooting the basketball on the garage hoop or joining Mom in her sewing room topped my list.

And then we all went to bed. We were happy, clueless that there could be potentially better options to fill our evenings in future years. I think fondly of these years past as we now complain of closed restaurants and gyms (Do note that my dad and I did take up running after dinner in the 70's. We wore corduroys during our early outings).

Our lives are very different these days, but it's not so bad. We will survive. We don't know how long this pandemic will last or what life will look like when we emerge. But what I do know is that I am very grateful to Larry for a freezer full of deer meat. If the food supply dries up in Durango, we are in good shape.

I am mainly grateful to have Larry moved and with us in Durango instead of alone in Indiana during this isolation time. I am equally grateful to have my brother with my parents in Arizona. Although we all miss socializing with the people in our lives outside our now homebound little circles, we are not alone.

I will end this blog with a virtual 'cheers' to all of our friends and loved ones. Cheers to your good health, good company (on-line and with those you are cooped up with), good books, good meals. And some good vintage TV isn't a bad thing either.
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Isolation pictures...

Cheers Season 1

Going back to one of my favorite activities of youth...
letter writing daily! Do you want to be my pen pal?

Garrett approves of the homemade scones

Buddies and good companions

Larry doing his part to help with dinner

We asked for a new book at the library and they gave
Larry this stash of books. Per librarian "I picked
out a variety I thought my own dad would like."

Puppy is our constant companion on outings

A puzzle is always going on the table