FTS, Rest, and Behind the Mask

I was talking to my friend Ellen the other day on the phone. The weather was beautiful for Seattle -- sunny and warm. I was sitting on my balcony and she was taking a walk. We were talking about how we have been cooped up, and how the spring weather was such a very nice change.

"When are people going to say FTS?" Ellen said. "People can only be housebound for so long before they start going crazy and need to go on a picnic with all of their friends."

Even the most civic minded of us can find ourselves wanting to "Fly! Be free!" It was relatively easy to be housebound in March, when it is cold and dreary. April? Stay inside when the weather is starting to get nice and pleasant for being outside? Fuck that shit.

Thursday* night, I was picking up a carry-out dinner from the Old Stove Brewing, a place in Pike Place Market that I used to go for happy hour after work. The beer is good and the view is breath-taking. The restaurant overlooks the Puget Sound and with a view of our Ferris wheel and the Olympic Mountains.

Thursday night was perfect weather, and the place was naturally and tragically empty.

Even though I am ready to say FTS to this "stay-at-home" order, I will comply, albeit begrudgingly. I don't want our hospitals overburdened or people to die before their time.

I wonder if the stay-at-home order has made people overall healthier, if this period of extra rest has made everyone's life less taxing and stressful, and therefore more healthy.**  Generic influenza and rhinovirus (aka common cold) rates have gone done, but has the extra resting and decrease of the busyness of life made those who have a sub-clinical or surreptitious case of COVID not become actively ill from it? Maybe because for the past month we weren't running errands, going to work, exercising at my gym, going to restaurants and not getting enough sleep all increased our resilience and made it easier for our bodies to fight the virus that it might have been harboring? Just a thought.

I made my own mask and have been wearing it in public. I went on an epic adventure yesterday to Pike Place Market to buy fruit, vegetables, meat, milk and bread, and then on to Metropolitan Market to buy Triscuits, cocoa powder and garlic paste (which I could not find.) Most of the vendors at Pike Place Market were wearing masks or scarves. Since I have lived downtown, I see the same people over and over at the market, and I realized that I miss seeing people smile. Likewise, they can't tell if I am smiling. The good news is that can't tell that I am not wearing make-up or if I've brushed my teeth. They can't tell if I've gained weight and it is all riding under my chin. Throw on a pair of sunglasses and a baseball hat with the mask, and I look like Jennifer Aniston.

"But Lauren, you look nothing like Jennifer Aniston..."

I know, but with a mask, sunglasses and a hat, you can't tell.

* Or was it Wednesday? Tuesday? Seriously, I have no idea what day it was.

** For some people, living with their family and only their family could be more stressful, not less.