Silver linings

It's easy to see all the heartbreak that has come from the pandemic. Instead, I decided it was time to start finding my silver linings.

1. I now have a proper workspace! Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. While I hadn't needed to move from the couch during the first month, degradation in hygiene conditions around the apartment that were beyond my control required a retreat to the bedroom starting in week 5 of the lock-down. And so, lock-down be damned, I managed to acquire a new console to convert my antique school desk into an L-shaped work surface that enabled me to migrate to a less fragrant corner of the apartment, with better posture to boot!

My gorgeous new workspace, complete with the world's most helpful colleague

2. Our cats have learned a new game. New routines have been introduced under quarantine, including a chase/fetch the treat game, through which the cats have been learning all sorts of new rules of physics and spatial awareness such as, when a treat disappears under a door, you can run around the door to find it. And they've also become much more attuned to how to swat treats mid-trajectory to beat their arch-rival. Mars is getting to be unusually dextrous with his food. (I'm wondering if I won't regret those new skills I've been training in him.) Chat has also learned to hesitantly trust my calling her and tapping my foot on the ground, even if she can't see the treat that I'm flagging.

3. Desserts! Now that Nicolas and I are finally eating meals together for the first time since, oh, 2017 (because under normal times, my job feeds me all my meals 5 days a week), well, I can't pretend that I am of any use in the kitchen, BUT I have gotten us into the habit of finishing each meal with a scoop of ice cream topped with freshly sliced strawberries, sliced by yours truly! (Seriously I'm so useless in the kitchen, anything is an accomplishment.) This is one trend I'm hoping we'll take with us out of lock-down.

4. Chat is finally dealing with her over-grooming, despite her best wishes. Now that I'm around to supervise, I have been able to safely dress her and guard her tummy against that enthusiastic, scratchy tongue.

And I really should note that I don't deserve to be "looking for silver linings": Our families are so far all safe and healthy. Nicolas and I are both fortunate enough to still have jobs and salaries, which is making our government stimulus check one sweet bonus, a bonus that we've been preemptively spending to support a handful of our favorite local bars and restaurants. It's frustrating to be spending sums that feel completely exorbitant only to realize what a drop in the bucket they are for our local businesses. The sensation of powerlessness, well, that's certainly not a silver lining. But I'd hate to try to turn the tables on this and list my ability to stock up on fancy booze thanks to the stimulus check as a silver lining-- it leaves me with the icky feeling that I'm somehow complicit with the sleazy politicians and the 1% who are getting rich off of all this economic hardship.