When I started working from home nine month ago, I wanted to go aqua jogging after work every day. But the water in the unheated outdoor swimming pool was too cold. I had to wait until spring for temperatures to warm up. And then everything—including swimming pools—shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.
That was four-and-a-half months ago.
Santa Clara County, otherwise known as Silicon Valley, re-opened outdoor swimming pools with social distancing rules. I’ve been aqua jogging every week for the last month. Learn how my “gated community” re-opened the outdoor swimming pool.
I cut off my unmanageable naturally curly hair with the electric clippers two weeks ago. A failed attempt to grow out my hair. I haven’t had a haircut in the six months since I started working from home for my government I.T. job at a three-letter agency. My haircut—or lack thereof—didn’t matter much to my virtual coworkers. We all had black tape over the webcam of our work laptop to protect our privacy. If I were to give myself a bad haircut, there wasn’t a better time than the stay-at-home pandemic.
Since my haircut with the clippers turned out uneven and splotchy, I had to finish it off with shaving cream and razor blade. My newly shaven scalp felt raw like a rubber inner tube from a bicycle tire. I searched with my free hand for rough spots to shave with my razor hand. A smooth scalp all the way around made for a consistent haircut. That, and looking good as a man, made shaving my head bald worthwhile for me.
The only other hair that I had on my head besides my caterpillar eyebrows was my sideburns and no mustache beard, which started and ended at the indentations of my glasses at my ears. A pair of scissors kept my beard nicely trimmed to avoid interfering with wearing a medical mask in public.
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You have often heard stories or seen videos of Amazon packages being stolen from a porch by a random package thief walking off the street. That is nothing compared to what goes on inside an apartment complex. The porch is the doorstep to your apartment, the street is your building hallway, and that random package thief is most likely your next door neighbor. And packages disappear all the time.
If your leasing office does accept packages on your behalf, their business hours are often the same as your working hours and you will have to wait until the weekend to pick up your package. Beyond using Amazon Locker for Amazon packages, sending packages to a FedEx or UPS store, and renting a post office box for everything else, there are few alternative solutions for apartment residents.
