The novel virus now has a proper name

Virtual schooling begins....WEEK 1 VIRTUAL LEARNING

Ah yes, March 16th 2020 - first day of virtual learning and also first Monday of school that we are allowed to sleep in. The sense of foreboding did not sink in fully. I had always thought that the school might be closed for 2 weeks maximum or at least until the Easter Break.

My boys had their school work come in via See Saw or Show My Homework online platforms - they went smoothly. I even did a yoga session - thought of myself as Zen, calm and centered. virtual schooling? Nothing to it!

I even wrote a list of things I could accomplish or spend time on during this upcoming potential free time that I had on my hands.

The list :-

1. Temper my temper

2. Repair what’s broken with Jan-Farris and Martin

3. Closer to God

4. Work that telescope (Birthday present from Martin - still not used since I didn’t know how to align the damn thing)

5. Lose weight and get to a size 36 (hardest of goals to reach I would find out later)

6. Puasa  (Fast)

7. Master Spanish

8. Walk every day

9. Start Face Yoga

Very ambitious but raw and honest - no?

Only the days wore on...the workload started to come in and I realized quickly that my youngest son needed some supervision to set up the first Zoom call, to download folders and documents for him to work on - I got frazzled pretty much by the 4th day.

Around us, cases of the Covid-19 infections were inching its way into Harris County. By this time, New York and California had a massive spike in new cases as well as deaths. The government started to take notice - I guess even Trump rolled out his fat, orange belly to stand up and give a fuck.

We were cocooned in a lovely house in a nice community with a lake. We had a pool, full stocked pantry, a lake view and a park just outside our community - this is paradise!

Only I realized that having the kids as well as Martin home meant that now snacks and lunches were my responsibility - no longer the cafeteria’s. The shit hit the fan pretty quick then. My kids were constantly ravenous and starving. Yoga mornings were abandoned because my sleep was anything but restful. I would wake up - tired and sluggish as before.

Fuck this virus.

Fuck Covid-19.

WEEK 2 - VIRTUAL LEARNING

Uneventful - still staying above water with all the schoolwork and deadlines. I even squeezed in some sporadic yoga sessions.

Harris County began reporting some cases and for quite a few days there were nasty rumours about how the National Guard were brought in to enforce a lockdown in Houston. These fear mongers were real assholes hyping everyone up like that.

The Texas Governor Abbot left it to the various counties on how they choose to enforce the restrictions. And so, on the 24th March, Judge Hidalgo enforced a stay-at-home order for Harris County - effective until end of Easter break. So it began. Took some getting used to (albeit a relief to not have to go out for groceries anymore - opting instead to have them delivered). Martin had a tiny hoarding mentality because he would still go out to buy groceries - usually on a Sunday and would return with more toilet paper (!), kitchen towels and lots of frozen pizza. Our freezer was filled to capacity and we were worry free - food wise.

We would go out for walks now and then. The boys would play football, go out cycling -  I joined them for walks sometimes but realized that I got worried and apprehensive each time we met others along the tracks. The track is narrow enough but we would distance ourselves as much as we could (short of flinging ourselves into the bushes) and act like it was a perfectly normal thing to do and not because I was-terrified-that-you-were-harboring-the-virus. It was odd. I started to just stay home instead. I would lounge by the pool, gaze out into the lake, meditated etc - it was enough for me.

If I was anxious- it was not obvious. We all took it as a chance to take a step back to reconnect with our family, be at one with nature and slowing down the pace of life. There were inspiring images on how a normally filthy Venice Canal turned pristine clean and clear, how clean the air was in the big cities in China - Mother Nature was healing, humans were the culprits who were now being locked up. This is going to turn okay in the long run if you ignored the massive number of deaths in Italy, New York and California.

My bedtimes were normal enough and I even had an extra hour in bed as there were no more school runs to make. But I would wake up each and every time absolutely exhausted - like I was fed through a meat grinding machine. Every inch of my body ached.

It was only during a phone call with a good friend of mine that shed light on the possibility that perhaps our sleep was not restful because deep down we were anxious and terrified at the sweeping no-mercy fatal power of the virus. I worried about our mortality and the mortality of my mom so far away in Malaysia.

If I get sick in the US, where do I go to get tested? Can I even get tested? It’s allergy season in Texas - every running nose, or sore throat would be for me as a sign of imminent doom. I was asthmatic - I would never survive if I were to get hit by the virus.

 America was so unprepared - a President so callous, uncaring and a con man. No reassuring words came out of his mouth - just self promotion and attacks on the press. I was so fed up of living here! Is it any wonder why anxiety came knocking on my door?

These are strange times

It started innocently enough - in China -In a story sensationalized by the Daily Mail and with just a squeak of a mention in CNN, if at all. As Daily Mail is my first go to source of news every morning, the darknet of the Corona virus was giving Wuhan a bad name and had shed spotlight on the supposedly disgusting wet market of all exotic meats under the sun that the Wuhan residents seem to be so fond of.

As days went on, things started to change - little by little but the no of infections started to spread and the number of deaths were rising. Here in the USA, the virus’s namesake was the source of many jokes - most notably how some dumbos were emptying all Corona beer bottles into the sink. We smiled and laughed then. Thinking back, maybe it was nervous laughter.

This was back then in early January....Wuhan was still the epicenter of the outbreak and Hong Kong as well as Taiwan were reporting their first few cases. We seemed to be insulated from them being so far away  in Houston. Folks were getting the Chinese New Year celebrations ready and school life carried on as usual.

My first cause for alarm was when Martin was about to go on a business trip in mid February and I was asked to get some disinfecting spray as well as gloves for his plane ride - just in case. The pharmacies were out of them and on Amazon, you could not get them in stock unless you were prepared to pay an arm and a leg. At about the same time, a friend from school had an acquaintance who could get surgical masks as well as N95 masks. The word got around the Malaysian/Singaporean community in our school and we promptly placed our orders. I think at the time, we were having the first inkling that this was not going away and our sense of urgency and preparedness set in.

Slowly but surely, I started to buy the disposable gloves, disinfecting wipes and since hand sanitizers were clearing off the shelves, I bought the ingredients needed to make our own sanitizers i.e rubbing alcohol, Aloe Vera gel by the bottles - always trying to anticipate and staying a step ahead. Within our community, we would inform each other if a supermarket or store had hand sanitizers in stock, or we would show each other our pantry to see if we had missed out on the essentials. Letting the panic slowly overtake my senses, I started placing orders for Germicides, Chlorox as well as disinfecting cleaners. Martin was already in Germany at this point in time - and must have wondered about the huge charges on this credit card.

I also started to buy pasta, rice, canned food, toilet paper, bottles of water ( the big gallon bottles were all sold out, so I bought loads of smaller drinking bottles). Our garage was slowly filling up with goods, the pantry was filling up.

Then one picture of a lady in Singapore who had loaded her cart full of instant noodles hit the internet and this struck a chord with me till today. It was not the toilet paper hoarding that would be the sign that this virus was upon us but rather this instant noodle lady. In Australia, the toilet paper hoarding had begun. Germany began reporting a spike in the number of people being infected. Alarmingly close to where Martin is.

In school, we were seeing hand sanitizers being in installed everywhere and the mantra about washing your hands for at least 20 seconds to the tune of Happy Birthday was being implemented. Some cases were appearing in the USA but the sense of urgency did not yet arise.

Martin arrived back from Germany on the 6th of March and I remember being apprehensive as to whether it was safe to kiss or hug him. Martin thought at the time that wearing a mask was overrated (me thinks that he was too embarrassed to wear them) and we went out to celebrate my 51st Birthday at a fancy steak house in City Center. Little did we know that that would be one of the last times we would be patronizing a restaurant for a long time to come.

A week later, Martin who had ignored all my pleadings to remain at home due to the virus now appearing in Brazos Bend County (not too far away from our county) appeared at our doorstep around lunchtime because HR had sent a memo asking everyone who had travelled abroad in the last 2 weeks to go straight home. It was about 200 folks sent home that day.

It is hitting closer to home. Some feeling of uncertainty has started to swell up in me and everyone. We started to take a step back with the normal way of greeting. No kisses on the cheeks with my Latina friends. During a house viewing for example, Martin preferred to not shake the realtor’s hand - just to be on the safe side. On the same day, Marc-Harris had a play date with a bunch of friends at a trampoline park and I remember feeling very uneasy at the large number of people there.

School carried on but now posters were appearing everywhere advising the kids as well as the parents that clinking shoes or touching elbows were the better way to greet each other. I found both methods off putting preferring to Namaste them instead or to greet them with my right hand placed on the heart and bowing my head down slightly - the Islamic appropriate Malaysian style of greeting. Nevertheless, our school carried on much to the chagrin of some moms. Public schools decided to extend the mid term break for an additional week - making our private school a safer place to be.

One of the last lunches I had was with a good friend at Phat Eatery - normally crowded but this time, we could get a table straight away. My days were spent stocking up again and again - to the point of exhaustion.

Alas, the school succumbed to the pressure and decided to close the school starting on the 16th March. That Friday 13th was then the last day of school, I attended the parent choir and we video recorded our efforts singing Sweet Child Of Mine. It is a bittersweet memory now to me because unbeknownst to us, we would not be singing together again till the end of the academic year.

Back home, the realization has not really sunk in - felt like we were just home for the weekend, we even went out for pizza! How careless we were...

And so, virtual learning begins......