Quarantine

Having driven from Florida to New York, we are now on our 3^rd day of mandated quarantine.  We have received an official document laying out all of the whereases and therefores, we have had multiple calls from the contact tracing department, and we have been told some contradictory things.

There is a $10,000 fine for violating the quarantine, but supposedly no one is checking up on us except for daily texts.  I have been told that we cannot leave the confines of our apartment, which affords no opportunity for exercise.  It has also been suggested…off the record, of course…that I could get away with a walk at 6 AM.  However, we live in an apartment complex and we have a car with Florida plates, so I think we are obvious, and I don’t want to risk any “good citizen” reporting us.

One of my daughters has been delivering groceries, so that is taken care of.  The contact tracer asked me if the washer and dryer were in the apartment.  No….they are in a common area.  The area is only available to 6 apartments, two of which are vacant.  Most of the folks here work, so I could sneak down to the laundry when no one was around during the workday.  One contact tracer told me that would be OK if I sanitized the equipment after I used it.  Another one said, “No….you can’t do that. Don’t you have a friend who could do it?”

Ummm….gee, lady…I am 75 and most of my friends are my age.  I’m not asking another old lady to do my laundry!

I have a teenage granddaughter who can do it, but her family does not have a vehicle.  She is in walking distance of our apartment and a laundromat, but she would have to carry the laundry and detergent, etc.  I finally thought this morning about putting the laundry in a rolling suitcase.  That should be doable.  Of course, the laundry detergent is in the storage closet in a common area, and there is a combination lock on the door.  I guess one of us will have to sneak down there avoiding other tenants.

I was also informed since there are two of us in the apartment and there is only one bathroom, we should be sanitizing the room after each use.  Good grief!  We sleep together and routinely snuggle up doing it.  We kiss (gasp!).  Sanitizing the bathroom between uses is a ridiculous waste of time and Lysol.

But, my main complaint is the lack of exercise.  In our community in Florida, I swim nearly every day, and when it isn’t too hot to do so, we walk around the island every day.  Combined with trips to the pool and the garden, I typically walk at least 2 miles a day.  So now, I am pacing the floor in my itsy bitsy apartment.  The Y pool is about a block away, but of course, I can’t go there until I’m out of quarantine.

Hey…at least I’m alive, and the sun is shining, and we have a little balcony I can sit on…AND…my fellow inmate is a very pleasant guy.