Quarantine Week 20
1st of August, Saturday
As of this writing, the confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country is barely a step away from reaching 100,000. I’m getting a bit tired of saying this, but I can’t believe how time seems to sitting on the fast-forward button and I am STILL TOTALLY surprised how it’s been 40 days since my last quarantine diary entry on the blog. We’re on Day 140, Week 20 and the local transmission of the virus seems to be speeding up.
Today was a full day attending online business meetings and hosting our online community event and so I’m attaching my milestone from yesterday to add to this entry.
Quarantine Diaries: Day 139
This day had the feels of the movie 2012, the part near the end where they step out of the arks, still floating in the calmer waters after the cataclysmic deluge. Today, after 139 days quarantined in our city of residence, I excitedly took a drive to the province to finally visit my parents! The threat is real, but the waters have calmed a bit today to come out and see the outside world.
While we talk on the phone and have family video calls almost daily, it has been exactly 145 days since I last saw Daddy & Mommy within the same zip code. It was a Monday on the last week of school, and they have slept over to visit the kiddos. Classes were suspended as the first 5 of confirmed cases in the country emerged mostly from our city. I am grateful for today’s holiday; the traffic on the road was light and cloudy skies offered shelter from the usual blinding heat that triggered my migraines. I was up extra early to receive deliveries of newly arrived Menzi pomelos and preparing other things to bring to my parents, much akin to packing a balikbayan box of pasalubongs for my parents. Parang OFW lang pero so near, yet so far.
I have been putting together a care package of sorts: face shields
, boxes of masks 
, headphones 
, personal air purifiers 
, drain cleaner 
, personally-made breads 
, 2 kilos of fresh cherries 
as natural gout remedy, 5 kilos of pomelo, and crinkles and lovenotes 
from their grandkids.This virus has taken from me the comfort of being in the presence of my loved ones. I second-guessed every urge I’ve had to visit and having to tell the kids, pleading to come-with and vacation at Lolo & Lola’s, that we can’t for now. But seeing them today, I am comforted by how healthy they are. How their plants are thriving. And how they never forget to cook the food I crave for every time I am away for a bit (usually ginisang mais, but this quarantine, it’s adobong pusit bisaya). While waiting for Daddy to cleanup files of their old laptops that they are sending to the kids for online distance learning (swerte, 3 laptops!), I gave him a crash course on Zoom & Google Classroom for his online graduate classes. I admired all of Mommy’s beautiful plants. Syempre yung pinapahanap ko na Song of India, meron na propagation for take home! But we had to wear masks, keep some distance, no hello kisses, and goodbye hugs.
