It’s another early start and for once Michael boils the kettle instead of waiting for me to. It’s bacon & egg roll day and they are much better than last week – thick bacon, softer bread and even the egg is a touch gooey. Apparently we can order these rolls pretty much any day at any time for $5. They are made in one of those food vans that I assume parks somewhere near the hotel, and part of the cost is given to charity. When we first read that they were available we thought we would be ordering them pretty regularly but though the quality of meals here is questionable at times there is no deficiency with respect to quantity. Michael still thinks the bacon & egg wraps we make for brekky in EG are superior to this morning’s, other than the quality of bacon that is, the streaky Oscar Meyer stuff from the freezer (that may or not contain actual meat products) is no match for the real stuff.
I’ve got a couple of new exercises to add to my daily routine after yesterday’s call with the physio, so that helps modify the routine somewhat. Doing the same exercises in the same space every morning is becoming pretty tedious. I’m tired of picking long black hairs off my fluorescent green shawl which serves as my makeshift yoga mat. The ugly brown carpet is covered in the stuff and it’s clear that the hotel vacuums are not up to the task which only reinforces my concern about cleanliness standards in a COVID environment. I’m again thankful that I packed that can of Lysol. The window is also filthy, so much that it obscures our view of the outside world. And a fine dust has started to settle not only on the window sill but on our stuff and clothing that’s scattered around the room. Mystified I mention it to Michael who informs me that it’s likely just the build-up of dead skin which has been flaking off our bodies for the past 9 days – inevitable when there’s no fresh air or direct sunlight to displace it.
Despite the clumps of hair I do my cobras and child’s poses on the floor while Michael sets himself up on the exercise bike. My phone rings – I’m still not used to the ringtone and I miss the call. It’s my friend from Mildura – she’s planning to book flights to see us in Queensland while we are back as we probably won’t make it to Victoria. I haven’t seen her for over two years since she was pregnant with her second bub. I’m looking forward to having a few wines together in the Queensland sunshine – it’s been far too long.
We don’t order coffee from downstairs this morning. The kettle has been boiled more than once and the bacon & egg roll definitely has a sufficient calorie count to get us through to lunch. I’ll be glad when this day is over – it’s going to be another long one and I wish I hadn’t woken up so early. After lunch (it’s double quiche today – but we stick to 1 each and stash the spares in the ever-dripping fridge) I sit on the floor in a sunbeam to try and get some solar power while I call my friend in Bright. She just broke her wrist and has to wear a splint for four weeks. She’s at school setting up her classroom for when classes go back next week and we chat for about half an hour. Her dog Penny is with her and is playing with a toy unicorn she found but later moves on to some kind of black, slimy object that my friend can’t identify. She sends me a photo but I am no help.
The afternoons are the hardest – during the lull from about 1.30pm when we have done the crosswords and before I logon to my work laptop. I’m particularly struggling today, the restlessness has taken a hold of my ankle and is pulling on it every other minute. The solar power effect from the sunbeam has already dissipated so I crawl onto the bed where Michael is on his laptop and insert my bottom half under the covers. I’ve been dressing in shorts for the “official” part of every day as I don’t feel comfortable hanging out in our room in my skinny jeans and I feel like wearing my hippy pants all day every day could be a dangerous habit. The shorts are not adequate attire for the temperature of the room however which leaves my legs blue and goose-pimply for most of the day.
I have emails to check, plus a session with my Spanish tutor and then a late work call so there is stuff to do, I’m just lacking motivation to do it. 6pm finally rolls around and it’s Spanish time. I’m particularly rusty today, it’s difficult to find words, I’m struggling for conversation topics and my pronunciation is tainted with a shocking twang. We always find things to laugh about still, probably more on his side as a result of my terrible Spanish. I learn some new vocabulary including “follamigo” which apparently means “fuck buddy.” I’m not sure I have an immediate use for it but learning the colloquialisms is important.
Dinner was delivered a while ago – it’s a chicken stirfry which I refused to eat last Thursday evening. It’s fairly cool by the time we eat it and contains only rice and chicken chunks with peas and tiny cubes of carrots. Apparently we just empty a frozen pack of McCains veggie mix into our meals and call it done – but at least the chicken appears to be cooked today. The sauce which has settled at the bottom does have some flavour at least so I mix that through the white rice. We decide that we’ll order something from the downstairs tomorrow night instead of eating their baked white fish given we’ve sucked up tonight’s offerings without complaint.
I get back into bed in order to stay warm until the work call starts at 8pm. It’s supposed to go for two hours and I am tired. At least Michael has a call tonight too at 9pm so I feel like we’re kind of in it together. At 5 minutes to 9 I can see from his position on the bed that he still hasn’t logged onto his laptop so I send him a text to remind him and contemplate surreptitiously throwing a pack of post-it notes at him. It’s not impossible that he’s lost track of time. My call is still going and I’m trying not to yawn too obviously – I had hoped that I would be able to turn my camera off for parts but unfortunately that hasn’t been possible. I send messages to our friend who’s still in quarantine on the Gold Coast in a hope that he will help keep me focused, or provide me with some entertaining comments, but he doesn’t answer. It’s two hours ahead on the east coast and he’s probably sleeping. My call finally finishes about 20 minutes early so I wash my face and crawl back into bed for a bit of downtime TV watching. I’ve made it through another long workday – one more Friday to get through and we’ll be weekend-ing.
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