Upstairs/Downstairs

During this time of Covid, I am continuing to visit with my mom who lives with my sister because 1) I miss her and 2) she has an inexhaustible supply of chocolate while my supply has turned out to be quite exhausted.  

Admittedly, one would expect Momma McC to be the poster child of social-distancing.  After all, she was social distancing back when we just called it being a recluse.   However, while she is practicing all levels of protective measures, mom still has a caregiver coming in and she still has to go to her coterie of doctors.   We firmly believe she is doing all the right things to protect herself from any sort of exposure.  Nonetheless, it does introduce a wider circle of interaction than the recommended number of ZERO interactions.  Therefore, Rita and I have decided it would be safer for Rita if we self-quarantined in different parts of our house as long as I’m still visiting mom.  That way, I’m only violating the CDC guidelines a little and not trying to audition for a stint as Typhoid Mary. 

So despite travel being entirely eliminated in this country, Rita and I have still managed to conduct a long distance relationship.

The good news is our house seems uniquely built for this sort of self-quarantining.  So much so that I wonder if Rita hadn’t always envisioned self-quarantining from me?!  I hope Rita doesn’t see this Covid thing extending into 2022 “just to be on the safe side”.  See – we have three floors with a basement that has its own kitchen, full bath, sitting room and exit to the back alley.  I call it the Garden Apartment.  If the ice cream deliverers could find it more easily, I would have zero complaints.  Now...one warning…there’s no stove.  But I’ve gone 40+ years without using one of those, so the absence of a stove is 100% aligned with my lifestyle. 

In addition to not spreading a communicable disease, there are a number of other advantages to the Garden Apartment:

• Rita and I can still have dinner together every single night (for the first time ever!) by dining on the front porch together from six feet apart.  Unfortunately, I cannot assist with either the cooking (nothing new there) or the dish washing.  I just have to sit there and enjoy my freshly cooked dinner with paired wine while not sneezing and I have upheld my end of the bargain.
• The wine cellar (which is…after all….just the utility room with a wine fridge in it) is now my closet. Which is terribly convenient because my 5 pm routine of changing out of pajamas and opening a bottle of wine is accommodated in a single destination. 
• Note that every once in a while, it occurs to Rita that I am quarantined in the basement with all of her French Bordeaux and I have to send “proof of life” photos of the "unopened" Chateau Margeaux next to a video of Dr. Fauci correcting Donald Trump’s latest misinformation (so she knows what day it was taken). 
• With no safe access to the laundry machine, I have to leave my dirty clothes in the stairwell where they are later returned to me cleaned and folded.
• Because I can’t touch the rest of the household’s groceries, Rita must do all the trips to Whole Foods.  I just have to give her a grocery list of items to stock my fridge.  Imagine your average dorm food inventory and get the idea.  Whole Foods wants to know why Rita has suddenly started buying large quantities of lunch meat. 

If you ask me, it’s like an inverted version of the upstairs/downstairs of British manors where the aristocracy live in the basement.