Fourteen Days In Quarantine

14 Days In Quarantine

It all sounded simple at first.

The Canadian government in an attempt at cutting down on infection rates is currently requiring the very few foreign visitors it allows into the country to quarantine for fourteen days. Even though the wife and I have been separated for eight months, it was still a requirement.

We talked about this for a while before I flew up; Canada doesn’t have a lot of low-end rentals. The town my wife was staying in was, for the most part a tourist destination and doesn’t have many Motel 6s or Red Roof Inn, no Holiday Inns, no Quality Inns, mostly upscale resort-type places. Fortunately her son works at one and could get us a significant discount so it was decided I would stay at the resort for fourteen days.

The rules are Big Brother-simple. Can’t go anywhere. No walks around the neighborhood. Can’t go to the grocery store or even to the vending machines down the hallway. No visitors, period. I am quite simply confined to my room. Since the room has a kitchenette and a fridge, her family would bring me food and leave it outside the door then call me and tell me it was there. No physical contact with anyone. What the hell; it’s a nice place. The kind of resort my former boss would stay at if he was vacationing here. I should be able to do this standing on my head.

And after the plane trip I took (three connecting flights with two long layovers) it actually made sense. The first leg of the flight (DFW to Phoenix) was a covid nightmare; everyone crammed on the jet like sardines with zero social distancing. Oh sure everyone was wearing masks but we’re still sitting mere inches away from each other. The next two flights (the first Phoenix to Calgary, followed by Calgary to Nanaimo) were much better with lots of space between the passengers but if I got infected anywhere it would have been on the first flight, so the whole business of quarantine started to make more sense.

I wasn’t apart from my wife and two dogs for eight months just to jump through those kinds of hoops and then try to cheat and get booted out of Canada; I was determined to do this right and play by the rules. There was a phone number I had to call every day and answer a bunch of Push One for Yes and Push Two For No-type questions, which I did religiously every day before I had my first cup of coffee.

I was grilled at length by the Customs agents in Calgary; four of them in fact. They wanted to see my ID and asked me numerous questions. I showed them a physical copy of my wife’s passport as well as a copy of our marriage license and they more or less waved me through. By the time I got to Nanaimo I was brain-dead from being on my feet and sleep deprivation. I checked into the resort at almost midnight. I left a trail of clothes between the door and the bed. Sleep came rapidly.

Day One

I woke up startled; had a really bad dream. Don’t remember what it was but it was bad enough to make me wake up and look around and get my bearings. Put on a pot of coffee and made my way to the glassed-in shower stall. The hot water felt good running down my body. Dried off, put on a fresh pair of boxers and a clean pair of socks. There were two white robes hanging on the wall; I put one on and walked over to the curtains and opened them wide. The view was beautiful: beach below at low tide, seagulls flying by, the ocean and mountains in the distance. There was a wooden boardwalk that ran the length of the beach and even though it was really early in the morning it was crowded with people walking dogs, riding bikes and just strolling along without a care in the world. Poured myself a cup of coffee and stared out the window. A bald eagle flew by. These fourteen days were going to fly by fast. Or so I thought.

I quickly figured out how to hook up the WiFi to my laptop and cellphone. Called my Mom. Chatted with the wife. Poured another of many cups of coffee and did some writing on the laptop. My wife’s family had stocked the fridge with prepared meals I could heat up in the microwave. Poured myself a second cup of coffee and called the number for the Canadian authorities to check in for Day One of my self-imposed confinement. Answered Push One for Yes, Two for No to a series of questions. That was it? This was going to be a cakewalk.

Sipped coffee and looked out the window. Ate lunch. Drank more coffee. Looked out the window some more. Before I knew it, it was dinnertime. Heated up some more food, brushed my teeth and took a couple of melatonins and fell back into the cushy king-size bed. Quarantine wasn’t so bad; I was going to do this standing on my head. Sleep came quickly once again.

Day Two:

Woke up and put on a pot of coffee. Called the 1 800 number and answered the same set of questions.

Ate a bowl of oatmeal, drank coffee and strolled around in my white bath robe feeling like Ray Liotta in that last scene of GOODFELLAS. What was the point of getting dressed? Couldn’t go anywhere. No one was going to see me. Threw open the curtains and once again stood in awe of the jaw-dropping view I spent the previous day taking in. Despite the temperature hovering at about 40 degrees and a lightly drizzling rain a steady stream of hearty Canadians strolled down the boardwalk, some on bicycles, others walking dogs just like the previous day. I was slightly jealous; I wanted to go do some walking myself. Oh well. Quarantine, remember?

There were two televisions in my suite, one in the front room and one in front of the bed. I discovered the batteries were obviously dead in one of the remotes but the other remote worked both TVs so no problem. I explored Canadian television for a while. They had AMC, Fox “news” and National Geographic. SpongeBob Squarepants was a comforting and familiar face. There were channels broadcast in French (if you’ve never seen PAWN STARS in French…..) and they had their own counterparts to American Pickers called…guess what? That’s right CANADIAN PICKERS!

Looking out the window made me wish I had packed a pair of binoculars, especially when I spotted sea lions cavorting around just off the shoreline. In fact I found looking out the window more interesting than what was on TV. This wasn’t going to be so bad. Get some writing done. I had plenty of coffee and food. Why did I need to leave? I was determined not to let this quarantine thing get to me.

Being winter the sun went down early each evening. I tried to stay up as late as I could but wound up going to bed early anyway. Sleep the third night wasn’t as easy as the previous two; I kept waking up every few hours. I would pop a couple more melatonins and go back to sleep. Someone in the next room sounded like they were either rearranging the furniture or having industrial-strength sex; lots of thumping and bumping from the other side of the wall. What the hell?

Slept on and off. Had a series of dreams; some of which were genuine nightmares. The one in which I woke up from I was being chased by the cannibal family in Texas Chainsaw Massacre; I even had a pistol with me but the had sawed off my trigger finger and couldn’t shoot. Woke up in a cold sweat. WHERE does stuff like this come from?

Day Three:

Began the day with what would be my daily routine: put on a pot of coffee and then call the Canadian toll-free number and answer the same set of questions while the coffee brewed.

Threw open the curtains once again and turned on the electric fireplace. Guzzled coffee as I waited for the sun to come up and ate a bowl of cereal. Stared out the window; no sign of the sea lions today. The tide was WAY out there and the beach was busy with beach combers despite the early hour. I was just a little jealous of them, but dammit I was determined: NO CHEATING. I was in the room for the duration, no matter what. Taking a walk wasn’t worth getting put back on a flight to the US.

Besides wishing I had packed binoculars, I was also regretting not bringing some DVDs; the front room had a disc player. Canadian TV had a pretty limited selection of viewing. The cable system in the resort had about forty channels. Some were in French; there were also channels for the visually impaired that had a narrator who would explain EVERYTHING you were watching. I found one series my wife and I enjoyed (SCHITTS CREEK) that had such narration (“Daniel turns to the left and says nothing”) There was even a station or two that catered to Asian viewers and were broadcast in what? Mandarin?

The Border Patrol show held my interest for a while; then I watched Spongebob for an hour or two.

By mid-afternoon my choices got down to Dr PimplePopper and Sesame Street. Back to looking out the window.

The sun came out at one point for a few brief minutes. This was the highlight of the day so to speak. Although the temperature was still hovering at about 40 degrees I wanted to take a stroll but resisted. Not supposed to leave the room. Okay I get it. Don’t leave. Quarantine, remember?

I pictured myself walking down the boardwalk with bacteria and germs spraying from every pore and orifice of my body like some sort of germ warfare lawn sprinkler. “Unclean! Unclean!” A typhoid Texan.

Okay now. Breathe. Take a deep breath. It’s okay.

On one of the news stations they were talking about the covid-19 rate accelerating in the United States.

A million cases in Texas alone. Yikes.

And although I wore a mask the entire trip and touched as little of anything as possible, I couldn’t help but wonder how many times I was exposed to covid-19 on the way up here.

I was being quarantined for a reason. Time to grow up and accept it.

But I didn’t FEEL sick.

A welcome break in the afternoon happened when my wifes daughter and her best friend came by and left some food by the door as well as a cup of McDonalds coffee. Compared to the coffee I was drinking it tasted like hot cocoa; I savored each sip as if it were liquid candy.

The sun began to set eventually. I heated up some dinner in the microwave and ate as I watched the light outside turn to darkness. I had gotten through Day Three. I flipped through the TV channels; the “info” button wasn’t working, so I had to guess which movies were on AMC. Did some writing on the laptop and called it a night.

Day Four:

Slept for a few hours but woke up early. Too early. Peeked through the curtains but couldn’t see much yet. When the Canadian coastline goes dark, it’s REALLY dark. Only a few lights on some other resorts on the coastline were on, otherwise it was a black void out there. Okay.

Took a hot shower and put on some coffee. The McDonalds coffee cup from the day before was still on the counter taunting me. Oh MAN was that a good cup of coffee.

The stuff I was drinking wasn’t bad mind you. My doctor in Texas had told me to stop drinking coffee because she was afraid of what it was doing to my heart. In an effort to compromise (ok cheat) I had started buying whole decaf beans and mixing a 50/50 blend of decaf and regular coffee in an attempt to cut back on my caffeine consumption without losing that holy precious sacred coffee flavor.

Give up coffee? I’ve quit tobacco, drugs, alcohol; without coffee I might as well convert to Mormonism or just go Amish.

Before leaving Texas I went to the store and bought a pound and a half of whole decaf Colombian beans and used the grinder in the store to grind them into a pulp that resembled wood chip shavings. I then mixed a 50/50 blend of that and regular coffee before brewing. It tastes like coffee to me. But man that McDs cup….THAT was coffee.

Funny I paid way too much for coffee at a couple of airports on the way up and neither of them was anywhere near that good.

Ate a variety of things for a morning-long “breakfast”: a bowl of cereal, a bowl of oatmeal, a couple of warm slices of pumpkin bread. For lunch I tried a bowl of spicy chicken noodles followed by a last cup of coffee and then my stomach started doing flip flops. Thought I was going to get physically sick. Took a couple of Tums and it didn’t get any better. Drank a can of ginger ale and every time I burped I felt a little better but the underlying feeling of nausea was still there. Laid on the couch for a long time, several hours in fact before I could stomach the idea of food again. My wife sent her son over with some nausea pills which I held off taking until bedtime because they make you sleepy. After a few hours I made a sandwich, kept it down and fell asleep on the couch. Got up a few hours later and took one of the pills my wife sent over and went to bed. Slept like a rock until 4am, got up. Looked around and decided it was too early to get up and went back to sleep.

Day Five:

Friday the 13^th.

One of my least favorite horror films and a date I’m supposed to be scared of.

Slept late today. Okay 7:30 am but for me that’s late.

Felt a lot better than the day before and woke up wanting coffee asap; I knew I was better just for that alone. Scrambled an egg mixed with sliced ham, a slice of bacon and some hash browns followed by a bowl of chocolate TimBits cereal which is as tasty as Cocoa Puffs were when I was a kid.

Spent the day attempting some writing and watching TV. I have watched more TV in the last five days than I have in the last five months, and this is coming from someone who has been unemployed since July. Watched a heavily censored version of GOODFELLOWS followed by MY COUSIN VINNY which I confess I had never sat through all the way before.

The news was disturbing; even more covid19 cases than the day before in the US and numbers are rising in Canada as well. I’m “safe” in my room. No one can expose me and I can’t expose anyone else.

Then I just get to worry once this is over about being exposed to anyone who might have it.

We are living in scary times.

Day Six:

I tried to write today but the window keeps drawing my attention. Seals were visible in the water from my window; their heads popping up from time to time. I really regret not packing my binoculars now.

Only nine days of quarantine left; can’t crack now but it’s getting tougher.

I can’t even go to the vending machines down the hall.

There is a Chevron across the street I can’t visit. I’ve been craving (among other things) ice cream but I can’t visit the McDonalds just a few blocks away. I miss my wife; I miss our two dogs but I still have to wait a week to see them.

Been trying not to watch TV but it’s a toughie. The news is only good for raising my blood pressure.

There was a Million Moron March in Washington DC in support of our Mobster In Chief who drove by and waved at the crowd on his way to his weekly golf vacation.

A 100,000 people without masks marching in 32-degree weather is support of our modern-day Nero; one can only wonder how many new cases of Covid 19 this will be good for spreading?

For the second day in a row AMC was running a heavily censored version of GOODFELLOWS and MY COUSIN VINNY again followed by TWISTER.

They have two channels devoted to poker championships. Another channel is running STORAGE WARS all day long.

Back to the window…

Day Seven:

Try to write but the window calls.

I looked out at one point of the day and off in the distance was a rainbow coming from the sky and disappearing into the ocean, framed by a series of rain clouds. I snapped a photo and went back to writing.

A little later in the day I just happen to look up and see an much larger rainbow only a full arc this time stretching from the west horizon and going all the way to a park off to the east of the resort.

I tried to photograph this one and it was so large I couldn’t frame it in one shot on my camera even with the fisheye setting. Nature was certainly putting on a show today.

How am I supposed to get any writing done with a view like this?

Maybe I should pull the curtains shut.

Day Eight:

Worry comes in waves sometimes; today it washed in like a tsunami.

It just kind of hit me all at once; I was taking an incredible chance here; sixty-two is kind of late in life to try and start all over again.

A new job, looking for someplace to rent, living in a new country. What was I thinking?

Have I gone mad?

Negativity likes company. And I suddenly became awash in negative thoughts.

Panic started to set in. The beginnings of a migraine came crawling into my head.

I called my wife and damn her ever-perceptive hide, she knew something was wrong.

“What’s the matter? I KNOW something’s wrong or you wouldn’t have called. What is it?”

I started to spit out the words “I’m scared” and froze.

Started to say: “I’m nervous” That wouldn’t come out either. So I did what WAS easy; I lied.

“Oh nothing dear; everything’s just fine”

My pants were so on fire I felt like I was sitting on Burger King’s griddle.

She KNEW I was lying. And as always she knew exactly what to say to me to make me feel better.

“Relax. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She knew exactly how to swat that weight off of my shoulders.

I took a couple of melatonins and went to bed; sleep came soon after.

Day Nine:

The phone rang and I noticed the area code was local so I picked it up.

It turned out to be a woman from the Canadian government calling to check on me and my quarantine progress. She had a pleasant voice and it was nice to speak to someone, anyone after a week and a half of isolation.

She asked me a garden variety of questions I could tell she was reading off of a form.

How was I? How was I feeling?

She wanted to know where I was at and if I had had any contact with anyone. How was I getting food?

I answered her questions truthfully and told her exactly what was going on. I reassured her that I was feeling fine, hadn’t left the room for a the last eight days, hadn’t visited anywhere and was having food delivered to my door. Told her I appreciated the phone call because I was worried that maybe there was something I was supposed to do that I wasn’t doing.

She reassured me that it sounded like I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing and that all was well. She told me to have a nice day and the line went dead.

Regardless I felt better; it was a relief to know I was crossing the Ts and dotting the Is correctly.

Day Ten:

Woke up to another rainbow out on the water; was hoping this was a positive sign of …something.

Wish it was something better on TV. Happy Gilmore on three channels at once? Storage Wars all day long on another channel. Spongebob Squarepants seems to be very popular here in Canada; he’s on here a LOT. This may be a sign to do more writing. Finally figured out a way to get more to that done; close the curtains! The view from here is pretty counter-productive, especially when the sun comes out.

Day Eleven:

Got a few pages of writing done and then couldn’t take it anymore and looked out the window…

sure enough I could see a seal’s head bobbing around in the water and doing full body flips obviously looking for fish. They are difficult to photograph; they only stay on the water’s surface for a few split seconds and by the time I get zoomed in on them and focused they are back underwater.

I wore out one set of charged batteries once this week trying to photograph a seal; trying to get a decent photo of one is a trick.

No less than twice I’ve seen one actually come up on land. Today I saw one waddle up on the beach with a fish in his mouth and disappear under the wooden boardwalk. Kept watching to see if he would come back out but he stayed put even as people walked over him, some with dogs on leashes.

Saw a rainbow today for the fourth time this week; I’ve seen more rainbows here in the last week than I saw in the last year in Texas.

Day Twelve:

So close to being done with quarantine. I knew as long as I had TV, wifi and a coffee maker I could do this standing on my head and so far I haven’t cracked. No cheating allowed!

I haven’t even snuck down the hallway to the vending machines; not as much as a foot out the doorway.

Three flights and two long layovers and this two-week quarantine were the price of admission and I haven’t gotten this far just to get kicked out of here. Going to see this thing through and play by the rules.

The hardest part so far is watching people walking by on the beach sipping out of Tim Hortons cups. It’s a long hike down the street to the nearest Tim Hortons; the McDs is much closer but dammit I am sticking to Terms Of Conditions. So close and so far but I am going to see this through.

I want a cheeseburger; I want fish and chips but I have to wait; that’s all there is to it.

AMC hasn’t been much help; wish I could get Turner Classics instead but Ifs And Buts were candy and nuts we’d ALL have a Merry Christmas, wouldn’t we? Speaking of Christmas AMC has been showing almost nothing but Christmas movies as if going stir-crazy wasn’t tough enough. Actually sat through SCROOGED the other night all the way through; not my favorite Bill Murray flick but it had been just long enough since the last time I had seen it to remind me of the long-forgotten memories of the crush I USED to have on Karen Allen decades ago. Such a sappy film; gawd we were entertained easily back then, weren’t we?

And then NATIONAL LAMPOONS VACATION came on afterward for the umpteenth time this week.

I remember my late friend Tom and I smoking a cone-shaped fatty and guzzling beers onto the way to see this cinematic turd at the theater Way Back When and YES we were the only two people in the entire theater laughing at it. Watching it sober today was a good reminder of how badly booze and drugs can distort your sense of perception; how could a movie with both Eugene Levy and John Candy be SO terrible? It takes a really lame script and a really clueless director to fuck up a film so horribly. It wouldn’t be until ARMED AND DANGEROUS was later produced to equal such a waste of their collective talents and come up with yet another such laugh-free 90 minutes.

Downloaded the Tubi app on my phone; it has a pretty good selection of movies and TV sitcoms you can watch for free; the downside is they interrupt them with commercials but at my age it’s just a bathroom/ cup of coffee break anyway.

Just TWO MORE days!

Day Thirteen:

This is IT. I got through this quarantine process without going nuts, without cheating. Two solid weeks in the same room but I did it. Just ONE more day; although after looking at the news maybe I’m safer here than anywhere else. Maybe I’ll just stay here and refuse to leave for safety’s sake.

My chances of being exposed to covid shrink to absolute zero if I’m not around anyone else.

Heck I was practicing Social Distancing before it was a thing.

But two weeks of isolation are finally over; I get to finally reunite with my wife and two pups tomorrow after months of being separated. Cheeseburgers, fish and chips and ice cream await at the end of this tunnel as well.

Day Fourteen:

Two weeks of quarantine was finally over. Someone was supposed to drive to the resort and pick me up but I was going stir-crazy and couldn’t wait; I had to get out of that room.

Even though it was roughly a 45-minute walk from the resort to where the wife and pups were staying and the weather was chilly, I got bundled up and walked over.

It felt good to get outside and breathe fresh air and walk down the road that connected us.

The streets were clean and free of debris unlike the trash-filled streets back home. The ONE piece of litter I did see was a brown plastic lid from a McDonalds coffee cup.

As I trudged along I wondered to myself if the dogs would remember me after eight months.

This morning was an early Sunday morning; I walked past a church with only a few cars out front and past house after house with few if any signs of life. In one yard I spotted two large black rabbits and in another yard I saw a furry black squirrel scrambling around in the limbs of a tree. It was a little chilly

but I didn’t mind since I had a thick coat on. I rounded a corner and walked past a RCMP building which closely resembled an American police station and kept moving.

As I rounded a corner I could see the house they were staying at; our Nissan was still in the driveway. My wife was standing in the door with an ear-to-ear smile; I could hear the dogs yapping in the background. The perceptive little dogs knew SOMETHING was up. We hugged as I could feel one of the dogs clawing on my leg demanding attention; our other dog Sophie was stranded on an ottoman around the corner whimpering. She could hear me come in; someone lowered her to the floor and she bolted around the corner with her tail wagging furiously. I picked them both up and my face was instantly glued with dog slobber as the dogs both licked my cheeks, happy to see me.

I took off my coat and sat on the couch as the dogs both assumed book-end positions on either side of me, refusing to move.

It was good to be back.