Four weeks and corona, quarantine and isolation have become new normal. Watching movies and reading books I'm surprised that people are elbowing on the streets, there's no keeping distance with strangers, in checkout people are just breathing on each others necks. They travel and eat in restaurants like there's no tomorrow. I read a book and the author is visiting a doctor's office with urinary traction infection and the small waiting room is totally packed. My first thought was: How is this possible, they can't keep the two meters distance? Couldn't they have consulted over the phone? As first reaction it just seems so irresponsible and unbelievable. By now we go (if we go at all) to the grocery store right before closing time and if someone is already in an aisle, we back out there and go for the next items on our list in the overnext aisle. That we would pick up a package form the locker at 2:05pm doesn't even cross our minds. That we would go for a walk after lunch when sun is shining, is not even considered. We try to schedule our walks for later hours in the day, because then we can at least hope that the rest of the people and mainly bicyclers are home. I'm still uncertain, where were the Tallinn cyclists when Traffic Law was adopted several years ago and the 2+2 restriction implemented now. While it's more or less possible to keep distance with other pedestrians, the bicyclers just speed up from behind so quietly on the sidewalk that you can't notice them until they almost run you over. And then I look at the empty and carless street and wonder why they are on the sidewalk in the first place. Scott, the one of us, who often doesn't keep his opinion to himself, has asked others sometimes to keep the distance and gotten comments like "Seriously?" in response.
They days are spent eating and planning the meals, working, running and planning the running times, walking and calculating the best time for that and scrolling Facebook, Instagram and online shops. Do you remember the underwear we had as kids, the ones with names of the weekdays? Those would come handy right now, at least we'd know, what day it is.
Around 1,5 months ago, when walking to the office I saw some lilacs on the way and its buds so big that seemed to be greening any day now. Well, at the moment, mid of April, they look exactly the same... But at least we have found some pink blossoms that we now check out and take pics of every two days.
Scott wants some sugary cereal. The ones they always have on breakfast buffet in the cheaper hotels (where the night is "only" 100-150 USD) in US. Where the sugarcoating is thick like the caramel on creme brulee and you have to bite your way into the filling through that sweet layer. However, pretty unexpectedly it has turned out that the online stores only carry the "healthy" or expensive gourmet. Offering us muesli made from the oats grown on the Southern Estonian fields with nightingales singing softly on the trees and with freeze-dried berries from auntie Millie's garden in Saaremaa. Or some fake-healthy whole corn flakes from Kellogg's. Anyway, we managed to find a box of Cheerios that was at least covered with honey. In the next blog post I'm going to give an overview of our isolation cooking and gourmet.
Time is otherwise well spent with puzzles, trying to figure out the board games Gerli sent us (Scott is convinced that Gerli was laughing all the way while packing the games for us) and watching movies. We are already so good in assembling the puzzles that currently the last one, Positano on Italian coast we finished within 2 hours and 40 minutes without even getting up from the table. With the 1000 piece Manhattan one we spent way more time and sweat tho.
