Just me, Sweat Pea and a date with Stanley
How a work Lockdown Day unfolds.
7:36 am: Sweet Pea, who sleeps on me all night, wants to get up. She sticks her face in mine and lets out a single high-pitched mew. She has bad breath. I pull a pillow over my face and pet her head like a snooze button. It is not. 7:48 am: A small paw reaches under the pillow and pokes me in the face.
8:03 am: Balancing my laptop, phone, a water glass and a wine glass, I head downstairs. Pea is helpfully weaving between my feet, a skill all cats are taught when young, like we are taught to say please and thank you. 8:04 am: I open the basement door because Cairo sleeps down there. If I leave the door open, she doesn’t come up. She’s like a prisoner who holds the key to her cell but can’t figure out how to use it. Cairo is quite stupid.
8:05 am: Kettle on, change cats’ water, line up bowls to feed them. They refuse to eat the same thing, costing me a lot of money and hassle. I plunk down their breakfast, and they immediately switch bowls before going back to their own. Pea has two bites, then runs to the living room and starts yelling. She wants the fireplace on. 8:19 am: Start my computer to see what happened overnight without me. I am still not over the PTSD from doing this for the past four years and expecting, always, that the world ended without me knowing. The sense of relief is coming, but I still don’t trust it.
8:35 am: There is a cupboard full of mugs, but I only like three, in descending order. I forgot to turn on the dishwasher. I have to use a mug I don’t like. My day is ruined.
9:06 am: Part of my job is rounding up provincial auto news every day. I scan police releases and small-town papers, hoping for a car hung up in a tree or a drunk who mistook his living room for his garage. I don’t like it when people get hurt. I do like it when they get caught.
9:10 am: Oh, there is a Stanley Tucci article in Vanity Fair ... no. Tell myself if I get my work done by 4, I can read it then.
Leave the tab open where it taunts me all day.
9:47 am: Nuke last night’s garlic mashed potatoes for breakfast.
10:30 am: Kettle goes back on. I do the same three things every morning, all morning long: read dozens of news sites, drink tea, and pee.
11:45 am: During a phone interview, my interviewee hesitates and stops talking. “What was that?” he asks. Cairo has jumped on my lap, is face-rubbing my pen, and has just let out a sound similar to a car slowly backing up over a helium balloon. “Oh, nothing,” I respond. 12:22 pm: Get excited when a delivery truck stops here, even though I haven’t ordered anything. It is for Ari. Get unexcited.
1:15 pm: Set up a zoom call by closing the shutters behind me. Start call. Cairo starts opening the shutters. Throw a cork at her, she starts yowling. She then walks in front of the camera. “Was that a cat?” a zoomer asks. “No,” I respond.
3:15 pm: File a column more than three hours late, but I can’t wait any longer on a source to call me back.
3:16 pm: Source calls.
3:35 pm: Hungry. Stare between peanut M&Ms and an apple. My brain does an internet meme, and says, why not both?
4:00 pm: Just me and Stanley Tucci, M&Ms, and apple slices Stanley knows I won’t eat.