Pandemic Diaries Week #5

14 April 2020

I don't know what other people are doing about their hair.  Just before Peru closed the borders (and airport), I had located the place I where I had gotten my hair cut several years ago.  It took a bit of wandering around our neighborhood to find the spot.

But that was on Sunday, when they were closed.  The next day, Monday a month ago, we awoke to learn of the shutdown.

So it is now it is over four months since my last haircut.  And with hair that's somewhere between wavy and curly, but not curly enough to really be called curly, well, too much length pulls it down and pulls out the curl.

Yeah, time to do something.  I don't want to be too drastic, but it's definitely time.


16 April 2020

I went ahead and trimmed my hair.  Fortunately, layered curly-ish hair is forgiving, because this was an improvised haircut.  

My former hairdresser in St. Thomas would cut my hair in what he named The Gypsy, where each hair was cut to the same length.  Not the same length as in a straight blunt cut.  No, more like every single hair was cut to 4" or something.  So that it was layered.  He said to imagine turning upside down and cutting the hair - the hair on the top of your head would be shorter while the hair toward the bottom of your head would be longer - so it comes out naturally layered.

Well, so I kind of did that.  Lay down on the bed with my head hanging down over the end, and over a big paper bag.  Pulled all my hair into a sort of ponytail and held that in my left hand, while I trimmed about an inch off the end.  Then got up, made sort of a part in the back, and pulled everything to the front and trimmed another inch off the ends, so the back is slightly longer than the front.  Trimmed my bangs a bit as usual - drawing the bangs together and twisting, then just a small trim slightly uneven.  (And all trimming was over that paper bag.)

That was it.  So I sort of have chunky layers, and the whole thing is a bit shorter.  And back to being more curly-ish and less fuzzy! 

YAY!


17 April 2020

As places around the US begin talking about going back to business as usual, I hope the re-openings are slow and careful, based on data for each location.  We were told just today that our hotel is not accepting new reservations nor walk in customers!  We're able to extend our reservation because we're already here, but new people are not accepted.  This decision came from the county government!  So, I guess things aren't opening here in south New Jersey any time soon, if they're making decisions like this.  (And actually, it sounds like maybe there have been an increase in virus cases here, if the country won't let hotels take in new guests from just anywhere.)

Then our sister-in-law contacted us - she's had headaches and a low fever for a week or so.  Said she often gets this with changing seasons, but given the virus she talked to her regular doctor.  She's scheduled for a Covid-19 test on Tuesday, which means results Friday or Saturday.  We talked about it, Richard and I talked about it, and our decision was that we extend our reservation here for another week.  Did that online, not a problem despite the limitations initiated by the county.

And THEN, a pipe burst in our hotel and they called in plumbers.  They managed to repair it, but then a second pipe burst when they turned the water back on again.  So now, we've been told that we're moving to the sister property across the parking lot, and we should pack for maybe two days.  Hopefully that's all it will be.

And I just found out we have an 8 PM curfew here!  I guess New Jersey is seeing a rise in Covid-19 cases!

Crazy sort of a day, huh??? 


19 April 2020

We're moved back into our original hotel, and the room feels bigger somehow.  Maybe because we have a partial divider that separates the couch area from the bed - who knows?

I think I mentioned that the hotel gives us a breakfast bag each morning, with packaged muffins, a piece of fruit or two, and a bottle of water.  The first few days, we received apples that were rather old and withered, and just not something either of us wanted to eat.  I thought maybe I'd chop them up into oatmeal, but never did that.

So today, I took our old apples, walked around our building and into the empty lot next door, and threw them into the forest behind our hotel.  Really, it's just undeveloped sandy soil full of pine trees and underbrush.  I figure there must be deer, rabbits, raccoons living out there.  Squirrels.  Some animals that will appreciate a few apples.

But it was kind of fun tossing apples out into the forest and calling animals to come eat them!  (No, I didn't see any.  I'm hoping the animals find them during the evening or night.)