There’s virtually a whole world of ways to have fun
How about enjoying a virtual cocktail hour or game of quarantine bingo with friends?
On Day12 of pandemic isolation, my dog had enough.
The pet who, once upon a time, suffered from extreme separation anxiety if I dared even leave the room, who destroyed the house on several occasions when I left for work, who had to be distracted with food and toys and toys stuffed with food whenever I walked toward the front door, was totally over it.
If I was in one room, she would lounge in another. If I dove in for a snuggle mid-task, she seemingly rolled her eyes and tolerated it. And yes, I have been showering. Y’know, when it’s necessary.
My point being that even my previously-separation-anxiety-ridden dog wants some distance between us at this point. And while so many of us adjust to this new reality of being housebound homebodies, we are searching for meaningful ways to connect with our friends and family with whom we don’t share close quarters. Because let’s be honest, it’s nice to connect with someone who isn’t completely and totally sick of you at this point. Enter, virtual cocktail hour. I don’t know about you, but the short commute from my home office to the living room couch has been a total blessing. So, when I had to cancel dinner plans with a friend who lives in Toronto, we decided to FaceTime instead. In fact, so many of us are getting together over FaceTime, Zoom, Google Hangouts, HouseParty and so on, that you can now find about a gabillion virtual games for your virtual Saturday night house party. Or mid-week hangout. Or whatever you want to call it.
Sure, you can host a virtual pub trivia night on Zoom for teams scattered all over the world using questions you have invented. You’ll feel like an all-knowing being while total strangers bask in your seemingly-infinite knowledge of important things like Kardashian trivia and sports stuff. If that’s the route you’re going, anyway.
Personally, I would opt for ’90s-tv-sitcom subject matter, but that’s just me.
You can also play virtual charades on virtually any virtual video conference app, according to every list of cocktail hour games out there. Just act out the thing or person or … I don’t know. Just do on video what you would normally do in real life in a charades game. For those of you who play charades games. And while I get the novelty of playing charades over Zoom is fun for five minutes, at the end of the day it’s still charades.
Or you can play my favourite suggestion of all: quarantine bingo. Because instead of numbers and letters on the board, you fill the squares with issues to which we can all relate right now. In fact, you might be yelling “bingo” if you get even a few of the following quarantine bingo card suggestions: Ate all the quarantine snacks Googled symptoms after sneeze and/ or cough Took a shower Didn’t yell at kids and/or spouse Forgot what day it was Wore a business shirt with pyjama bottoms Ate a weird dinner Worked from your bed Cut your own hair Didn’t drink before 5 p.m. Unlike charades and trivia, quarantine bingo is a game I actually have a shot at winning. Ate all the quarantine snacks? You betcha. Googled symptoms constantly? Obviously. I’ve also never been far from a thermometer these past two weeks. Ate a weird dinner? Goes without saying.
I haven’t actually worked from my bed YET. It’s obviously coming, but it’s a slippery slope into never getting out of bed except when absolutely necessary. So I’m still trying to get up extra early every day, change from pyjamas into loungewear (ie. elevated pyjamas), and keep up my personal hygiene.
I mean, we do still have video conference meetings at work so I can’t go full greaseball.
And we wait for the light at the end of this long tunnel. But at least we have tools to make the ride as fun as possible.