Isolation

Like much of the rest of the country, I am busy staying away from other people. Consider it a shared experience with about 150 million or so others who I will never meet.

Yet, in a lot of ways, I am luckier than most.

First, I am married. Happily married. That means my wife is sharing my isolation, and she is really good company. She doesn’t complain on the days I don’t shave. When I garden in my favorite old ripped shirt, she just nods in a condescending way. Which I richly deserve.

And it’s not that we don’t see our kids. We just look at them through a car window, from six or eight feet away. The other day, she made a lot of soup, and we went on a grocery run for a couple of hours, giving it away to family and friends.

Of course we kept the soup in an insulated cooler for the trip, and called when we made the delivery, so it would be put away quickly. We got a couple of smiles, which made it all worthwhile.

Now my wife and I have been married for decades, and we have been in our house almost since the day we wed. We’ve changed it over the years, moving a door, taking down a wall, making the den into a dining room, and the dining room into an office.

Now I am getting much more intimate with our house. Tapping the banister into place because it has pulled a half inch away from the wall. Leveling the round concrete patio blocks in the back yard that mark a path into the woods. Filling up the holes in the dirt made by the dogs who refuse to use the path, and just race back and forth alongside it. There is a laundry to be wallpapered and some molding to put up, a job I have been putting off since Jimmy Carter was President.

Our dogs are another thing I have been watching. Two delightful standard poodles -  about 60 pounds each - who eat together, bark at neighbor’s dogs together, and have their favorite places to hang around with us.

When I call them in, the younger one always gets to the door first, then barks at the older one as if to say “I’m in charge of the door.” The older one, who is a little bigger, simply pushes him aside. Every time. They like the game.

They do it three or four or five times a day. Every day. Something dependable and predictable. That’s nice to have in an uncertain world.

I am also teaching them to play hide and seek, which they are really good at. They can smell me out, but they get a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Share the joy, I always say.

Then there are the cats - four of them, each with their own personality - who have their own hobbies. Two like to go out on the front porch and watch the traffic and the birds. Sometimes, they sit on a rail just enjoying the fresh air while keeping out of the rain.

Often, we will have two cats and two dogs in our bedroom at night, each with their own corner of our bed. They keep their places when we come in - no fighting or growling - and the 12 pound cats have no trouble pushing a poodle out of the way.

It’s their own arrangement. They made it in a shared, wordless inter-species agreement.

Sometimes, one of the cats will lay on a dog, which starts a game of musical chairs with no music - 16 legs in motion, going around until they reach an accommodation about who gets to sleep where.

Our bedroom is a kind of Switzerland, a neutral place where cats and dogs never fight like cats and dogs. Don’t ask me why. They just like it. The same way we find one or two cats and one or two dogs sitting together looking out the back door at birds eating seed from a feeder. What a nice, innocent hobby - bird watching.

Other times, they run around, dogs chasing cats and never catching them. One of the amazing things is that when a cat jumps up on a table, I never see the motion. They just go from the ground to the table top.

Other times, when they leap across the room, you can see them tense and spring and fly through the air. A different kind of jump, I guess.

If all of this sounds like a circus, I can assure you they are generally well behaved and that - as with all pets - I get much more pleasure from them then they charge me in aggravation.

I recognize that my self-isolation is probably more comfortable than many others are facing. I have a big house, a back yard and lots of things to do. I also have an addiction to television court shows, although I have to admit that a lot of the addiction is trying to figure out what cases the production staff picks and what kind of audience the sponsors are trying to attract.

There is a big conflict here. Economic demographics do not line up neatly with audience demands. So, if you are selling an expensive product, you will likely attract a different audience than if you are selling one that costs less. But we are also socially mobile. Wealthy yuppies or get Xers watch professional wrestling, or MMA. People driving cars that don’t offer a seven year pay-off are watching nature shows on BBC America.

So, how can you tell what audience the production staff is shooting for? Watch the commercials. Every advertisement for low-cost insurance means one kind of audience, while every advertisement for insurance that will keep you protected and risk-free (they rarely use the term high-end) goes after another group.

So, one judge will be hearing a case about a boyfriend who got drunk and smashed up his girlfriend’s car, while another will be about someone seeing their pool maintenance company.

But, as usual, I digress.

The point I was getting to is that I am finding little things are becoming a lot more interesting. The way clover has seeded in some of the flower pots by the front door, or the way the leaves are starting to open on the lilacs and hydrangeas. This week, the first asparagus shoots started coming up, and in a little lotus pond - actually a small plastic decorative pool - the first leaves can be seen curled up close to the pot under a foot of water.

We ordered a food delivery from a local farm stand, and it came with a bag of grapes. We already had a couple of bags, and - just for fun - I went on line looking for recipes that use grapes, figuring I would get fruit salad and jam.

Well, it turns out there are scores of recipes, more than anyone would ever want.

And, that’s my point. If you work at it, you can find something interesting almost anywhere you look.

It reminds me of an old biology teaching tool. Take a square foot of dirt in your back yard, and report on what you find. The first report will be dull, and the observation superficial. Then do it again, and again - three or four times during the class.

By the time you finish, you should have a 20 page report on weeds and soil condition, rain and a pH test, observations on ants and worms and the kinds of rocks you find - - the harder you look at anything, the more you can find.

So, how come all the politicians talking about Coronovirus seem to be saying the same thing every day, and a lot of reporters seem to be covering the same story, just changing the numbers.

But, I digress again.