The Coronavirus Chronicles -Three Strikes You're Out

[Gone in 60]

I've found that I am not enjoying riding near my home as much as I thought I might. After a month of lockdown, while traffic in general is greatly reduced, freeway repair projects are running at full speed to take advantage of fewer cars on the road. And, construction projects are also churning away. So, unless I want to putt-putt around the neighborhood, I need to get on a highway to do anything useful, like check in at my office, ride along the coast, etc. With all of the projects going on, it seems like half of the vehicles on the freeways around me are double-trailer gravel haulers, dump trucks, and heavy equipment haulers, and they're doing 70+ with the low traffic. I can feel myself getting pelted with whatever is bouncing off of them, and am not enjoying it.

At home, my wife and I have gone though an interesting transformation. She has taken over our guest room as her office, and is working full time providing telemedicine. She's talking through the computer to her patients, which means if I'm in the house, I need to be quiet. Most of her patients are elderly, so she needs to speak loudly.

So, to keep myself busy, when I'm not working in my friend's shop, I'm working on engrossing projects in the garage. I spent two weeks reviving my Father-in-Law's old car to sell. My old garage door was getting very rotted, so I tore it down and built a new one. It's an exact duplicate of the original, and in our official HOA colors, so I won't get in trouble with the association.

Being in the garage in a small, dense condominium complex has put me in closer passing contact with neighbors, who have taken an interest in my efforts and drift by to see "Whatcha doing in the garage today?"

In doing so, many of the neighbors have been passing on their dissent about what their neighbors are doing. During normal times, everyone is gone during the day, but now, during the lockdown, people are in close quarters with everyone else all day long. This means we're all seeing and listening to everyone else much more than we normally do.

In my driveway conversations, I'm hearing "I don't know if you've noticed, but so-and-so listens to their TV too loud." "Hey, did you see that so-and-so walked their dog with no leash yesterday?" "That lady over there sneezes a lot...I swear she must have the virus!"

It makes me wonder what the neighbors say about my wife and me. "Geez, that dude is so poor he can't afford to buy a new door, so he spends all day banging away with a hammer making one." "That lady spends all day in her room yelling at herself... you can hear it in the streets!"