For the past 48 hours, my never-ending refrain has been, “Where’s the cat?” in an attempt to manage and halt his revenge peeing. Since our previous pee control attempts to banish him to the outside during the day and then crate him at night didn’t work (because our dog, Micah, kept letting him back in the house — seriously, our pets are so weird), my new approach was to give the cat tons of space, free reign of the house, and NO TOUCHING, but keep a close eye on him in case he was in a pissy mood, both literally and figuratively.
So far so good. We’ve been tiptoeing around the cat like he’s royalty and he has rewarded us by giving us bored yawns and keeping his pee to himself.
The king on his throne.
On cat watch patrol.
Yes we have a fancy, fussy cat. Zeki is an indoor/outdoor cat who comes inside to use his litter box (or Camille’s blanket, as the mood strikes) and he also takes a shower with Caleb almost every morning. Oh yes he does. He has loved water since he was a kitten and comes running when he hears the shower turn on. One of the ways that quarantine has disrupted his life is he’s not been getting his daily shower because Caleb has been rolling from bed to school and then showering later in the day when Zeki isn’t around.
wet rat cat
Yesterday morning I knew I had regained favor with the cat when I was taking a shower and he pushed his way in and sat on my feet. Of course then I had to step around his wet body as I was trying to wash my hair, but it’s a small inconvenience to endure in exchange for pee free belongings.
And I fell upon this timely quote that sums up my life these days regarding all the living creatures in this house:
I’ve had a few requests for a blog post this week and wow, it’s nice to be wanted! I specifically haven’t been writing because two weeks ago I started a draft that was just a big old whine of . . . well, here you go:
The weekend is exactly the same as any other day in these Times of Corona. If I were wise I would stay off all social media because I get annoyed when I see things like “day 11 of lockdown. Going crazy.” And then posting photos of themselves wandering in the woods or on an isolated beach. It’s completely unreasonable and based in envy and discontent. And I’m . . .
And then I stopped myself because none of that matters. And who am I to be complaining? So what if things started kicking off here at the end of February and we’re 6 or 7 weeks into the disruption while other people are only on week 3? Big fat deal. If we are playing the “who has it worse?” game, I would certainly lose. Boo hoo, I’m stuck in my big house with more than one computer per person, multiple TVs, plenty of food, exercise equipment, and a husband who is still employed and working from home.
So what does our lockdown/quarantine look like? For starters, we are all home, all the time. I think Josh went to the grocery store a week ago. Oh, and Caleb went to the grocery store to get whole wheat flour to bake bread. But maybe that was the week before. The days blur one into another. And Carter walks the dog up and down the street every now and then when I remind him. Other than that . . . we are inside Bayt Chartier 24/7
We are all up late every single night as our Chartier Plan for Success went out the window during week one of quarantine. Also gone are most limits on gaming/screentime. Basically if I ask them to help clean up an area of the house, they are supposed to do that without complaining, other than that they are staring at screens until their eyes bleed. I don’t really care because what else is there to do? Caleb even built a computer this past week so now all 3 of them are on and yelling at each other to “go here!” “No! over there!” in whatever game they are playing at the moment. Caleb and Camille are on Fortnight with their California cousins and Carter plays some sort of shooting game like Call of Duty with his friends.
Putting it together
it works!
With no set bedtime we end up going to bed whenever Josh and I decide that Camille has been up late enough. Usually by 11. Any earlier than that and she spends the next 2 hours texting us from her ipad:
Then we go to bed, watch something on the computer and hopefully I fall asleep by 1am? Usually Camille wanders in once or twice because we are out of Good Day Chocolates and can’t get them here so that’s 2 strikes against us. Josh is usually asleep before me, but he also has to get up for work phone calls and meetings most mornings. The boys get to stay up and play as long as they can get themselves up for school by 9am. So far I think Caleb has only slept through class once.
It might sound like I’m abdicating my parenting responsibility and I might be, but no one wants to be micromanaged when we have to be together 24/7. I’ve decided that school is their job and helping to keep the house clean is their other job and as long as they can accomplish those things and not irritate me by fighting over technology, then it can be a free for all.
In the Win Win Win category, gaming/computers without limits means that no one wants to talk to me all day long so I can craft to my heart’s content. A week ago I got a bag of scrap fabric from a friend and have been creating this quilt ever since. This project was brought to you by all 8 seasons of Monk, my strained lower back muscles, and my poor abused thumb and forefinger (from pushing and pulling the needle through layers of fabric). There’s a reason Josh used to joke about my sweatshop, because once I get on a roll, I don’t stop and time passes without me even noticing.
sorting scraps
all pieced by hand
next step — embroidery
As far as lockdown goes, it’s been my most contented week yet. I felt productive, creative, and inspired. It probably also helped that sewing and streaming TV kept me off of Facebook, Instagram, and Mumsnet (a British forum that I find endlessly entertaining). No chance to compare anyone else’s life with mine and no consuming other people’s complaints meant I was free to enjoy my own life in a vacuum.
Pandemic: The Cure — we haven’t found a cure yet
The one thing we’re doing that I’m proud of is Forced Family Fun every evening. We started this about 2 weeks ago when I became worried that we were going to go days at a time without speaking to the kids — other than when they show up in the kitchen for food. I told them that we were doing a mandatory hour of togetherness and they voted for games. I don’t do games. They got me.
I can confirm that the end of the world is near since I’m now playing board games every night: We did a 3 night run of Stranger Things Monopoly, then moved on to Carcassonne (Gold Rush and Winter), Pandemic: The Cure, 7 Wonders, Exploding Kittens and Sushi-Go. I won’t complain about Carcassonne and I might actually secretly enjoy it.
It’s now almost midnight and Camille is gaming away with her brother, cousin, and uncle with no sign of being ready to stop. We have church tomorrow at 10 and I had to wake them up for it last week . . . I better set my alarm for 9:15 so I can get vaguely camera ready. We meet for online church and then we “host” a fellowship group immediately after the livestream where we catch up with various people, talk about the sermon, and share prayer requests.
some of our Abu Dhabi family
All in all, the Chartiers are surviving and maybe even thriving in quarantine. The one outlier is Zeki, our cat, who is royally irritated that we are home all the time and invading his space. So he has taken to angry peeing on Camille’s comforter. Most likely because she loves him so much and wants to carry him around all the time, lock him in her room with her, and contain him like her prisoner. I was joking that she was like Kathy Bates in Misery and the poor cat was going to be loved to death, and I guess the cat felt the same and started retaliating. Bless, just what we need, to be trapped with an angry wizzing cat. Stay tuned to see how this saga unfolds.
school’s out for-evahhhh! That would be true in all respects as the Ministry of Education just ordered the closure of all schools in the country (nursery – university) for the remainder of the school year. Of course we’ll continue with distance learning, but as Camille said, “there’s not really a point to it now, is there?”
I mean, of course there is for her and lifelong learning and creativity and all that and she’ll be going back next year and continuing on, but for Carter, it’s the end of his road. Now, we might say it’s fitting for a kid who wanted to be homeschooled since the day he started school to end this way, but even he is disappointed to be missing all of his senior year fun and celebration.
He has one friend already planning to leave the country next week as a result of the news, moving back to his home country where he’ll take his entrance exams for university (cancelling the year means no exams here). I’m sure others will begin to pick up and go as there’s nothing holding them here any longer. Whenever they can get a flight, as there are no flights leaving or entering the country for another week at least. But since we are locked down in our houses (except for people who still have to work) there’s no chance to say goodbye.
We are in the fines and arrest phase of lockdown: basically the government has published a list of fines for anyone caught violating various restrictions during this time of quarantine. Every night for 10 nights we are on a hard quarantine from 8pm to 6am. Nobody is allowed to leave their homes for any reason except by government permission obtained in advance (you have to text them for a movement permit). They push alarms to our phones every night at 7pm and then 3 times at 8pm reminding us that now no one is allowed out. It sounds like “EEEEEEEEeeeeeeee!” A loud shriek of a thing that sounds like my phone is being murdered.
During the day we are required to stay inside “except for buying necessary groceries and in case of emergency” (or those who are still required to work). If you are out and don’t have a good enough reason, you could be fined 2000 AED ($550). Basically we are to stay home. We can’t even go outside to exercise — though the boys have been walking the dog up and down our street a few times a day.
With child raising I like to say that the days are long, but the years are short. I am having to amend that saying for this period of time to “the hours are long, the days are longer, and the weeks are an eternity.” Partly because it all feels so pointless and indulgent. What to do? Wake up whenever. Eat food. Clean the kitchen. Sit on the couch. Sit at the kitchen island. Do some laundry. Clean the kitchen. Watch Netflix. Watch Tiger King so I understand all the jokes on Facebook. Maybe exercise. Maybe bake something. Clean the kitchen. Try to predict what food we will need 5 days from now which is the soonest we can get grocery delivery. Zoom meet with church friends. Clean the kitchen. Clean the kitchen (put that one on non-stop repeat).
How can I complain? I’m living my dream life right now. But they say even lobster starts to taste like soap if you eat enough of it. And I have filled my gut with all the sedentary activities that I possibly could and am now sick of them. Mostly because it’s without purpose and life must have purpose to be meaningful. I’m not looking for answers, just self-reporting. I’m sure I can find purpose in what we’re doing or not doing each day, but that would take effort and doing nothing is sucking up all of my physical and mental energy.
Gotta go clean the kitchen. At least 2 more months of this . . . Ackkk.
I thought this week things would settle. At the beginning of it Josh and I were looking forward to a week of “normal” within this COVID19 world. Alas, each day we have woken up to news of something that has changed overnight. One morning it was that all malls have closed, another day it was that all flights in and out of the country have been halted for 2 weeks. Then it was a stay inside order, unless you were going to work. But then it was unclear if you actually had to stay inside or if solo exercise was OK. Then it was official from the Ministry of Health: Stay indoors (unless you have to work) and if you get tired of the view inside, you may step outside your door briefly and then go back inside (that’s literally the instructions that were given). This morning we woke up to the most restrictive order yet: Lockdown from 8pm Thursday evening until 6am Sunday morning as the city is being sanitized and doused with chemicals over the weekend to halt the spread of the virus.
But like everything else this week, the guidelines haven’t exactly been clear. It was first all flights grounded, then not, then back to grounded again. Then it was all malls closing for 2 weeks which caused a run on groceries, even though grocery stores remain open for the next two weeks. It hasn’t made much difference in our day to day, but it causes a lot of stress, trying to judge what is essential and what is not (can we walk the dog?) in a culture where things are black and white, but rules aren’t always evenly applied.
They are taking this very seriously as our number of cases were low, but have started to creep up over the past week: 30 new in one day, then 45, then 50 and then 85 which is what generated the mall closure for 2 weeks. Next will be everyone ordered to stop working — currently it’s up to the companies that are allowed to remain open whether employees work from home or not.
We were originally scheduled to go back to school on April 5th, but once they closed mosques for 4 weeks beginning last week it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. My most favorable estimate would be the 1st week of June, after Ramadan and Eid, if at all.
The past two days I have taken a CoronaNap where I’ve unintentionally fallen into a deep hole of sleep for several hours in the middle of the day and then wake up, not knowing what planet I’m on. We aren’t doing much physically, but mentally I must be in overdrive.
Even though we’re in the same house, we haven’t been spending much time together the past few days. I think we’re all tired of each other’s faces. We eat, I call out various names to clean up parts of the house, _______ unload the dishwasher! ________, move the laundry from the washer to the dryer! _________, that is not clean — come finish the job!
In-between food and work everyone does their own thing. Camille has her google chats going on with her school friends when she finishes her work for the day, the boys are on their computers or on the x-box, Josh has been working on the 3rd floor, and I go between the computer screen, cooking some sort of food in anticipation of the next wave of hunger, or exercise/nap depending on the day.
Best friends separated by a virus. How Romeo and Juliet.
Back in February (less than a month ago, which feels like a year ago) when I made this joke about our vacation plans for the summer:
I had no idea that it was going to explode globally the way it did and that scenario would end up being reality rather than fiction. Oops.
UAE registered its first case at the end of January and things really kicked off here the last week of February, causing event cancellations, school closures and encouragement to restrict movement. So even though official “lockdown” starts tomorrow, we are entering our 4th week of low/no activity, remote schooling, social distancing, quarantine, or whatever we’re calling it.
I’m not complaining as I watched my friend go through it in China for about 6 weeks before it came here. They’ve been locked in their apartment for about 9 weeks now. At least we have a small patio that we can use to keep active and get outside for a bit. The worst in China has passed, but they still aren’t back to normal. I’m watching their progress to gauge how things might go here.
So what have we been doing? Kids are in their 3rd week of remote school and haven’t left the house at all except to walk the dog or go to the gym with us (as long as it stayed open). They are gaming their hearts out each night in the evenings with their CA cousin and Canadian friend who wake up and get online with them. I gave up trying to put limits on it or restrict it since there really is no point. There’s enough hours in the day for them to do school, walk the dog, do any housework that needs to be done, and still game until their eyeballs fall out.
We have been cooking and baking, watching Netflix, having Zoom meetings for church planning/small groups online, and catching up with friends via Marco Polo, Zoom, Instagram and FB. I have spent WAY too much time online looking for new things to read and information to consume. Josh is working from home as of two days ago and I’m not working as of two days ago. Last week there was only a skeleton crew at school and all I was doing was managing book distribution for kids who put in digital requests. As I imagined, it was a heavy load week 1, less week 2 and now week 3, nothing.
So here’s a snapshot of what our days look like here:
