Weekend Recap: Quarantined

My weekend unfortunately did not start off well. A few minutes after I woke up, J let me know that his son had a sore throat and wouldn’t be going to school. Although J’s son’s school is closed, J and his ex have chosen to keep their son in an optional program where he goes to school every day and does his online learning from the school cafeteria with several other kids, all masked, and then they can play together outside during breaks. J and I don’t see anyone outside of the kids, but we have long known that the kids are our weak spot in a COVID defense. Since I didn’t really have much choice, I just kind of ignoring the risk, but having J’s son wake up with a sore throat really freaked me out – and I jetted out of there and to get tested.

I have friends who work in healthcare and need to get tested once a week, and they’ve been going to Waterworld. (Yup, the local water park parking lot has been repurposed as a drive up COVID testing facility.) They made it sound quick and easy, so although I was pretty stressed, I wasn’t freaking out when I pulled up at 7:59am for an 8:00am opening. I joined what seemed like a long line of cars, but assumed it couldn’t be that bad… until I got toward the front and found a police officer directing everyone to leave. He said they were already full for the day… and then, all the stress got to me and I broke down in tears. I asked him where else I could go, but he didn’t have an answer 🙁

So I headed up the street, parked my car, and started Googling, eventually finding another testing facility in Boulder – where, fortunately, I had no trouble getting tested in less than five minutes. It wasn’t even painful, as some people had described; I found it more like really mild discomfort for a few seconds, kind of like when you need to sneeze and can’t. I definitely have no idea what people are complaining about with this test!

But the hard part was not the test; it was telling my (high-risk) mom, and figuring out what to do next. After first calling a few of my best friends for advice, I steeled myself up to call my mom, but she was much calmer than I expected. I was prepared to have her say she didn’t want me to come home, in which case I’d put a mask on and come in long enough to pack up a few things, then head up to my mountain house for a few days. (My roommates there had already let me know they were going to be out of town.) But she surprised me by saying she wasn’t too worried, and that we were probably being overly cautious. She said she’d be comfortable with us still living together but just staying in our own separate parts of the house (her in the basement and me on the second floor), and then wearing masks when we needed to go on the main floor where the kitchen is.

I honestly spent most of my work day moping around pretty upset, but at 4pm, finally dragged myself out for a run. I didn’t feel like doing it, even though I knew I’d feel better when I did, so I told myself I just had to do a three mile loop. But I kept adding more and more (hooray for culs de sac and side streets!), and enjoying the afternoon more and more. I ended up staying out till well after dark and doing 10 miles! I was really proud of myself, particularly since I averaged just under a nine minute per mile pace on the neighborhood hills.

When I got home, I took a shower and finished up work, then had a call with a government colleague about COVID. When my colleague mentioned he was picking up pizza for his family, I got hungry for that too! So for dinner, I popped a frozen pizza into the oven, and Mom and I had that for dinner along with broccoli and a vanilla protein shake.

Although we kept our masks on and sat on couches across the room from each other (and with the window open and fans on), we spent the evening watching the first episode of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. I absolutely loved it and can’t wait to watch more.

The next morning was my first full day of quarantining from my mom. On my run the night before, I had really turned my mood around, and was looking at quarantine as a positive thing – a chance for me to focus on working out, cleaning up my house, reading more books, and all the other things I was doing in March and April but had neglected over the summer. However, Saturday ended up being a bit of a bust – I couldn’t motivate myself to go for a run in the morning, and only did a 20 minute core class as far as workouts went.

I ended up spending most of the afternoon playing Among Us – have you played this game? J’s kids taught it to me, and I’ll be honest, I became a bit of an addict on Saturday! It’s pretty fun, especially when you find a good group. I hosted a room and ended up piecing together a great group, where we ended up playing for three hours together – yikes! Not a great use of a weekend afternoon, but it was a nice little escape.

In the evening, Mom and I made grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and then watched the next episode of Queen’s Gambit. We are both loving this show so much! I especially like that it’s an hour – it’s long enough that we don’t consider watching a second episode in one night, but short enough that it’s doesn’t feel like we’re wasting the whole night watching TV. Especially when I hadn’t really done much all day! Haha.

The next morning, I started my day with an hour-long yoga class as soon as I woke up, which was a great way to set the tone for the day. However, in spite of that, I didn’t end up going out for a run, deciding to have breakfast first. I figured out how to use my Instapot to make chai steel cut oats, which were absolutely delicious, and I enjoyed them on the couch with my mom and a cup of coffee for each of us 🙂

I kind of lazed around a lot of the morning, but did get a bunch of work and blogging done. And then in the afternoon, J called me with great news – he and his kids got their test results back, and they were all negative for COVID! Although my results didn’t end up coming back for another two days (testing is certainly not consistent), that made my mom and I feel better enough to stop quarantining from each other.

I went for a walk with my friend Chris around the neighborhood in the afternoon, and the fresh air helped perk me up even further. Then when I got home, I discovered that a massive Amazon order had arrived – dozens of hats in various colors and styles, so my mom could try them all on and see what she liked best now that she’s losing her hair. We had a blast trying them all on, even the goofy ones 🙂

Finally, I got motivated to head down to my gym (which I could now finally use given the all-clear from J!) to hit the Peloton for an upper body bike bootcamp. It’s funny – normally I love running outside more than biking inside, but tell me I have to quarantine from the Peloton and I’m all woe-is-me that I can’t bike! But it was also nice to be able to do a weighted bootcamp instead of the bodyweight workouts I had been planning without gym access.

For dinner, I made coconut curry kale lentils, in honor of Diwali. My mom pronounced this one of the best meals I’ve ever cooked for her – high praise! I was just so glad that we could be together again. ❤️