It’s Getting Weird In This Room

The whole family is here. Pop is here! Lola is here! Covid is here…a little souvenir L brought with her from London. She has been locked away since her arrival Monday night and I joined her Thursday morning after my test showed that stupid second line.

The good news is that neither of us has been very sick. The bad news is that we have this one small bedroom as our territory in an attempt to keep from spreading the plague to the guys. Even though I’m an introvert, I’m terrible at being cooped up. Aside from the fact that I’m on this trip and yet can only travel about five feet to the bathroom and back I have many complaints. I hate not being able to get my own beverages and clear my own dishes. I hate that I can’t look out at the piazza to see what’s happening. I hate that Felix is whining and I can’t help Robert deal with it. We missed lunch in an orchard Wednesday, Prosecco with friends Thursday and bottle feeding baby goats yesterday. Robert is spending his vacation taking care of us and waiting to start feeding sick any minute. I’m very boo hoo, poor us.

The up side is that my daughter has the same stupid sense of humor as I do. Just a few hours into this isolation we started taking pictures of our feet.

And a few hours after that hilarity we came up with an idea for a movie about eating Pringles in a seductive way. What’s that, you say? Okay, picture this scene: Two ladies with Covid sit in front of a table fan because the room is so damn hot. Their hair is billowing around them. We, I mean they, are sultry with their rumpled pajamas and sweaty foreheads. The younger Covid patient pulls a can of Pringles out from under the sheets of her unmade bed as ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ plays in the background. It’s clear these Pringles have spent the night pressed up against her lithe, feverish body. She licks the chip with her germy tongue while staring into the camera. She tries to place the chip gently between her plump lips but she can’t fit it in her mouth. The chip shatters, she coughs. After she recovers from her coughing fit she selects a new chip and nibbles the edge with a come hither look in her eyes. The boys come running…

Other great Covid activities to do in a 100 square foot room include: Pacing. Triple Yahtzee. Learning Italian swear words (“Porca miseria, che cazzo fai?!” “Vaffanculo! Sai un stronzo brutto!”) Watching the less interesting side of town from the window. Obsessing about belly fat and then doing five crunches. Trying, and failing to get the new TV to work. Reading an Italian cookbook about fried foods. Writing blog posts. Shopping for towels online. Solitaire. I can’t believe I have three more days of this.

And then, more pictures of our feet. For some reason I keep finding it funny. This is how truly bad I am at being isolated and unfortunately for you I’m going to share it.