Holed up in your house gives you time you never had – those extra hours not spend commuting, nor running the kids around, nor out and about. How do you fill those hours? For me, it has led to introspection, and once those five minutes were up, puzzles.

More seriously.

Before the lockdown, I worked mostly from home, leaving for meetings with clients every few weeks, but mostly alone with my tech. You can see 2 of my 3 computers in the photo on the right. My days were filled with conference calls, working sessions, and enough time to crank out the documents and videos I’m paid to produce. My constant office mate is pictured to the left. Meet Fiona.

But still, I would be out of my house…the 5 am run to Starbucks most mornings. The shopping trips, the political events, the family gatherings….I even have friends, who I hug when I see them. Or used to. My husband is working from home now, too. And we still eat dinner at 6, and we take Fiona out afterwards.

Tim and I are lucky, we have separate office space in the house. If we didn’t, we’d never survive. One thing I’ve learned from the lockdown is that even though it can be lonely, private space and private time are necessary. And I’ve learned what I like to do with that time and space. Some are things I always want to do, and never have time for, like taking bubble baths, and some are things I never knew I’d like, but I find absorbing, like puzzles.

This weekend, I am going to try something I’ve never tried before. Well, not since I got my first computer in 1989, and when I got my first cell phone in 1995.

I’m turning off my screens for a couple days. Well, actually, I’m going to try and see how it goes. Maybe you will consider doing that, too. It’s my tip for the weekend, and I’ll be trying it with you. (Generally, I try things before I recommend them.) If it works, I’ll see you Monday morning with a new tip — if it doesn’t, I’ll see you Sunday morning.

But because I have the time now, I’d like to share some thoughts with you, and let you know what I’ll be doing with my weekend. I’ll also tell you what I would normally do with my weekend, because maybe, just maybe, I’ll make you laugh a little. And perhaps you’ll feel a little connected.

Normally on Saturdays, I run my errands. I often start out at the grocery store, while Tim goes to the produce market. This really works for us because I buy food, and Tim buys ingredients. Let me give you an example. I went to the Costco (in normal times) and bought one of those already cooked chickens, and some pre-made salad. A fancy salad. I put the chicken in a roasting dish, stuck it in the oven on “keep warm” and placed the salad in a serving dish. I tossed the evidence. When he arrived home about a half hour later (I had PLANNED!) and I announced that dinner was ready, he knew immediately that I hadn’t cooked the chicken. It was neither burnt nor falling apart, a dead giveaway.

My next stops are to do my banking. I keep my checking account in one place, and my savings account in another. I take cash from checking and deposit it in savings. Why? Because then it’s a pain to go GET money that I’m saving. I know all the tellers by name, and they know me. We chat. I tell them an Alexa joke. It’s not just money, it’s social. I miss banking.

Often on Saturdays I do something political. I will say to Tim “I’m going to have lunch with <insert name of man he’s never heard of>” and without missing a beat, he’ll say “Oh, what office is he running for?” (Everybody’s got a hobby.)

I spend one hour cleaning something on Saturdays. I hate cleaning, but I like a clean house. I suck at cleaning, but I put in the hour and clean something — in the interest of full disclosure, I own several vacuum cleaners. I love vacuum cleaners. Not so thrilled with actually vacuuming, but I like the machines.

Tim bakes bread on Saturdays. Tim is serious about bread. He has a true relationship with his sourdough starter, which involves some amount of interaction to keep it going. For about a year, he’s been working on a German sourdough rye. A crusty, delicious smelling rye. I’m always asking for him to make monkey bread, but alas, he doesn’t consider that a “serious” bread.

This weekend, Tim and I are going to give Fiona a bath. This is not something we do. EVER. Fiona goes to the groomer, an excellent dog whispering groomer. Somehow, this is not an essential service, and Fiona has a penchant for rolling in mud puddles. So, here’s how it’s going to go. She already knows that something is up, but we’ll be able to corral her and get her into the bathroom. We have these fancy suction cups on leash material that clip onto her collar and then hold her in the tub. We have a shower head with a hose. We have the special dog shampoo. We will be wearing bathing suits, surrounded by all our beach towels. Once she’s clean and we let her out, we’ll need all the towels. For us…sigh. We tried this once before.

At some point this weekend, I’m going to apply to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to become ordained. This is something I’ve wanted to do ever since my brother did it about 10 years ago. He’s got a wallet card. FINALLY I have time. And while I’m at that, I’m going to fill out the rebate form for Fiona’s flea and tick medication. I don’t understand how that stuff got so expensive, but it’s reached the point where you can get a $60 rebate if you can fill out the form correctly.

I’ll spend some time this weekend wondering about things that will never be. For example, the 25 cent wings at Applebee’s. We’ve seen a commercial for them, and I find this fascinating. I want a 25 cent wing. Tim has pointed out that we don’t go to Applebee’s, I’ve never eaten a chicken wing, I wouldn’t like a chicken wing, and I hate sauce. And yet, I’m sorry I missed the opportunity. I have always, ever since I was a teenager, wanted to go to a bar, drink a beer, eat pepperoni pizza, and watch a game of some sort. This to me is quintessential Americana, and I want to do it. There are a number of reasons I have never done this: first, I can’t stand the smell of beer and have never tasted one. Second, I was a vegetarian for most of my life, grew up in a kosher home, and I’ve never tasted pork. Finally, I don’t watch sports. Don’t understand them, can’t follow them….and all I can say about sports people is that I only know them once they run for office. Still, hope springs eternal.

I’m going to add things to my bucket list. Last November, after SEVEN YEARS of trying, I was able to cross off the number one item on my bucket list. My sister in law and I went to Harry Potter Land at Universal Studios in Orlando Florida. This was a spectacular undertaking. It had taken seven years because we had one window each year to arrange this trip, and something came up every year. But we went: no husbands, kids, grandkids, dogs….no computers…yeah okay, we had phones and tablets but no work computers….it was joyous and delightful. We stayed on property and took water taxis between venues. Someday lockdown will be over, and we are going to go again.  That picture, by the way, was taken looking up at the fire breathing dragon atop Gringott’s Bank, and was sitting under it, eating an ice cream cone. FOR BREAKFAST!  I think it pays to keep up with those bucket lists as a paean of hope that this nightmare will end. Perhaps you, too, will put some things on a bucket list and have hope!

I am going to read the salient points of this WaPo article to my husband. I tried to get him to read it, and he IS a reader, but he doesn’t like this sort of stuff. I think it’s important to find ways of being a healthy couple. Not just my insanity of disinfecting everything, but “healthy as a couple”. We are doing okay, so far, and we’ve been doing things we never did before. For example, I asked him out on a date last weekend. We went to the living room, and brought out Trivial Pursuits. Neither of us had played in probably 35 years. And you could tell…the pie pieces had faded so it was hard to differentiate between the orange and the pink, and the green and the blue. The board had faded too. Some of the answers were no longer valid. But we had fun, and it was good. Maybe you, too, will find something “old but new” to do with the one you love. It’s a good objective for a Saturday night.

As I do every day, I will call three people, and send three emails. These go to people I love, but also to people I haven’t seen in a while…I think that keeping connections up is critical at this time. The more connected we all are, the higher the probability that we will be able to emotionally survive the lockdown. Because it’s not just the being in your house, it’s the hugs, and the laughter, and all the other human interactions we have taken for granted all our lives. I hope you will take some time this weekend and reach out to someone, share a piece of yourself. As you can tell from my desire to be ordained by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I’m not a religious person. But I truly believe in the universe – in the idea that we are connected in ways that matter. That there is more that unites us than divides us. We can look at all the other humans as potential infectious super spreaders, or we can say we are all humans, while still maintaining that critical 6′ social distance. We all want to go back to the world where we go to work, come home, kiss the ones we love, eat some dinner, and sleep where it’s safe. Even the annoying ones. I know I personally want to go back to being the person in the car on the highway cursing (from behind closed windows) at that idiot that dives from the left lane across the other lanes to get off at the exit.

So that’s what I’ve got for today (and potentially the weekend). I hope that you feel a little connected and will find a way to connect with others. And maybe stay off your screens, to the best extent possible. A break from the news, and social media. Give your eyes a rest. Be good to yourself, and the ones you love. We are all in this together.