Level 4: Five weeks of hermit life at level 4

 September 19, 2021

My flights have been cancelled 3 times since I really thought I was going home.  I suppose they were cancelled many times when I didn't believe I was going home.  I didn't trust anything until vaccines were rolled out to everyone who wanted them in California.  And things were looking very good then.  I scheduled my flight for August 29, decided when to give notice on where I was living, decided to go see my parents in New Mexico, go to Zozobra and my burning man buddy was going to possibly come too.  And so was  my niece and I was going to meet her.  I was going to fly through San Diego because- before the pandemic- I started to get paranoid about getting sick from being stuck in airports.  I've decided Los Vegas is a big no-no (as I got a cold in December 2019 from being stuck in that airport for 4 hours.)  Phoenix maybe.  San Diego- good.  If I get lucky and I'm in that side terminal sometimes it isn't crazy crowded.  And I lived in San Diego for many years, have people I'd love to see there.  So- was going to get to San Francisco and then 2 days later go to San Diego then 2 days later to New Mexico.

Then delta.

My niece, who is too young to get vaccinated yet, cancelled her plans to go to New Mexico.  I voiced my concerns about delta and my coming back to my friends in southern California.  Work extended work from home from September 1 to October 17.  August 9th I messaged my parents and said I was starting to get concerned about delta.  Four hours later I got an email from United Airlines asking me to call them.  They had some story about Air New Zealand changed the time of the flight to Sydney and so I wouldn't be able to catch my connecting flight.  The next flight they could offer me was 4 days later.  So I said I'd wait, as that ruined all my plans for coming back.

I had booked a nice hotel for my last two weeks, thinking this will be the only time I'm not renting and visiting abroad and I'd do a working vacation.  I could take days off or not but I could work and enjoy the nice place I'm staying all day in ways that I wouldn't on vacation.  My flight got canceled less than a week before I was moving out.  I had been stressing about moving for months as moving is stressful and I didn't know that everything was going to fit in suitcases or whatever and I had to go from having whatever stuff I had to fitting in everything I wanted to take in whatever luggage I had.  I was taking trips to donate, I had the donation truck come by, I gave things to friends.  I gave things I liked the most to friends, which made me feel better that they were going to a good home.  I phased out what I was getting rid of.  So- I had the last of my stuff, most of which was going to come back to the US with me, much of which I planned to throw out before I went to the hotel.  Well- that instantly changed.  I decided to change from the really nice hotel to a longer stay place.  I booked for a month and found a place with washer, dryer, full kitchen in downtown Auckland.
So- I move.  It just barely fits in my car, I do everything on time.  I move out and go straight to an "Unf*ck yourself' class taught by my chiropractor, complete with tea and snacks.  This was at the studio of the organizer of the retreat I just went on.  So- I get to see her again and my chiropractor.  I meet a woman who has moved over from Australia whose partner is opening up Costco in Auckland.  We chat about New Zealand culture, what it was like moving over to New Zealand (as we both have done.)  We leave and we say maybe we'll see each other again at another class at that studio some day.

I get to the apartment/hotel.  I have tons of stuff.  I play tetris and get all my stuff on two hotel trollies plus another trip or two to hand carry things from my car.  And I get help!  The guy at the front desk offers to wheel up my stuff.  I get in, have a lovely view of Sky Tower.  And two bedrooms!  One is super tiny, but still; I wasn't expecting a second bedroom.  Jacqueline sends me lists of lovely places I should go and asks me about going out to eat.  I don't really want to go out.  My first night I get pizza at a little Italian hole in the wall downstairs.  Second night I go to my ariel yoga class.  I think I'll get a kabob for dinner but for once in my life I feel like going to the grocery store and getting salad, so I do that.  I make myself go out for lunch the next day but I've been feeling like staying in.  

That was quite a fancy lunch which I think is odd for lunch, but that's what I do.  And lucky I suppose that I did because that was the last eating out for at least 6 weeks.

The heater in my place isn't working.  They offer to move me or wait for the next day for someone to check on it.  I decide to wait.  The guy comes, checks on it, it is busted and they need new parts.  They offer me again to move and said they could come and show me some other rooms.  So- they take me and show me another place that is one bedroom and looks more like the photos and what I was originally expecting.  I hmmed and harred and then he said that there's another room but it hasn't been cleaned yet.  So- he takes me and shows me and this place feels great: lots of space, two bedrooms.  The first place felt tiny and claustrophobic.  He offers to help move me but it would be easier to do it today as there is more staff on hand.  So- I get all my stuff gathered.  I hadn't been there that long but it still took me an hour to pack up.  While I'm waiting for them to come and help me move Jacqueline messages: they have found a case of covid in the community.  They come up to get my stuff and I hear him take a phone call about covid.  I get moved and that night they announce the lockdown.  They suspect it is delta and warn that we will go into a harsher lockdown and quickly if it is delta.

All my stuff gathered to move to the new apartment

So- lockdown.  It is all a blur.  Time is slow and fast and it is always March 2020.  I think we were told we'd be at level 4 for 2 weeks.  The whole country went into level 4.  I don't even remember now when the rest of the country went to level 3 and then to level 2.  But it has been 5 weeks now at level 4 in Auckland.  The first day there was 1 case, the next 10+, the next 10+ then 20+, 50+, up to 70+ before coming back down.  There are new rules in place where we have to scan in or write down our addresses when we go places.  I don't know how they are going to enforce this and how many will follow...  They publish lists of places of interests and times where people have been who have come down with covid.  In New Zealand they are testing anybody who remotely might have been exposed.  I'm thinking New Zealand will be a great study for pandemics for the future as they trace each strain and find out exactly who infected whom.  Delta came in from Sydney.  They still don't know how it got through MIQ (quarantine hotel for people coming into New Zealand) to the general public.

So- I have plenty of groceries for a while, I don't leave the apartment at all I think for 2 weeks at least.  And photos out the windows for you: sunrise and city lights.

It has been towards the end of winter, many days raining.  I finally make myself go outside and I attempt to walk to the grocery store.  I see several other people there and turning around.  Turns out the nearby grocery store is one of the ones that has been closed.  I get to see what the place looks like from the outside and take some walks.  Several weeks here and I finally start seeing where I'm actually staying and what is nearby.

Grocery store is closed but there's a Circle K right next to the place I'm staying.  They have one frozen chicken and some various veggies.  I cook with what I've got: I make a roast chicken for maybe the second time in my life and throw in zucchini to roast because that's what I've got.  Then I make soup with the rest.  At this point I'm really really missing turkey and I'm thinking of the turkey soup I made last November.

Anyway- for a couple of weeks I check the lists of places of interest and I'm silently thankful I haven't been to a fastfood joint in months because that makes ensuring I haven't been to any of the places easier.  And I'm glad that I didn't feel like going anywhere right when I got here.  In fact I haven't been to many places that most people go to, just the one grocery store the day before lockdown.

The day before my flight that would have left me stranded in Sydney comes and I get an email from United that that flight has been cancelled.  I had been waiting to see if my work would extend wfh, but it hasn't.  So, I pick a new flight until the current wfh: mid-October.

So- I'm happy as a clam.  The place I'm living is more quiet than when I lived out in the middle of nowhere.  AND- I can get things delivered!  The place I lived didn't get post and was gated so it made things a bit difficult.  At level 4 there's no fast food or takeaway food but you can still get some things delivered.  Jacqueline sends me a site with a list of businesses open for delivery during lockdown.  I order big boxes of veggies from one shop, bread from bread shops.  And I don't have to go anywhere.  :)  I had just enough staples of salt, pepper, olive oil, butter, etc to last me a little while.  So- weeks of cooking and eating tons of veggies.  I have lots of pictures of food.  A few weeks in I find a site that is selling meal preps from famous restaurants: all the ingredients and recipes to make their famous dishes.  So- I order that as well.

My boxes of veggies and bread

I've been wanting to make pumpkin pie and I still have pie crust in the freezer.  I only have packets of sugar and honey.  I decide to make condensed milk.  I no longer have spices but I have chai tea.  So- I decide I'm making chai tea condenesed milk.  I don't have a strainer but my fruit bowl looks like one so I wash it and attempt to use it to get the tea out of the milk.   It ends up looking like puke but tasting good.   I must have deleted the really gross photos.

 I order more bread than I can eat and the bananas are going bad.  So I decide to make banana bread pudding, using half the "condensed milk" I made.  I tell myself I will eat all the veggies that I've gotten, including the ones I don't like.  My first box has beets and mushrooms.  I have a steak left in the freezer from ages ago and decide that that would be the way to use the beets and mushrooms.

I eventually make my weird pumpkin pie tart using the only baking dish I have and one that I had bought from a second hand store a few months before,

I made some kind of stir fry with the roasted veggies from the chicken and some of the new veggies from the box.  The veggies from the box completely transformed the chicken soup I had: the addition of lemon made all the difference.

I walk past the place where I had gone to the ball just a few weeks before.

I'm out on a walk, texting my good friend who has turned into gratitude buddy #3.  She's grateful for after work drinks on a Friday and I tell her I'll join her soon.  So- I get back to the apartment and put on ice a pre-mixed cocktail I had been saving to possibly have with her in person.  And we get on a video call and drink and chat together.

I tell myself I will start going for walks every day and that I'll know the city by the time we are out of lockdown.  It turns out I only want to go outside when the sun is shining so only a few days of that before there are days of clouds and rain.

Eventually I discover I *can* see the sky tower: from my floor to ceiling bedroom window if I lean into it.  But I'm scared of the window, feeling like I'll fall out into the city.  Over the weeks I work up to looking out the window more and more and feeling safer from it.

I have somewhat a fear of heights and even looking up to take this photo gave me vertigo.  I just took the photo very quickly.

My mother suggested I make my own croutons with some of the leftover bread and the salad tasted tons better with it.  I even craved salad for the next meal just so I could have more of those croutons.  I doctored up a package of basically mac and cheese by adding brocolli.

I get the restaurant meal and I change it up slightly as I have baby carrots from my veggie box.

This meal, gnocchi, did not turn out like the photo and I didn't like it much.  These meals are 2 meals for 2 people so it turns into 4 meals for me.  :D  So- the second night I doctor things more to my liking.  I wanted to learn how to make a rosemary burnt butter I had while out wine tasting and as I looked for a recipe I found tons of recipes for burnt butter sage pasta.  And my box had sage in it!  So I make burnt butter sage gnocchi (photo on the right).  And the burnt butter pasta with kumera mash is above.

I ordered salsa and tortillas from the local Mexican/New Mexican store and got my fix of hatch chile.  I'm thinking about what to do with salsa and corn tortillas and make corn tortilla quesadillas for the first time and they were quite good.  Roasted veggies on the side turned out a fine combination.  No lettuce but the pea sprouts were a lovely addition.

Some days the fog is so thick I can't see very far at all.

My Christmas present from my niece got lost for months but it finally arrives to me during lockdown and it matches what I'm wearing.

I'm on the 27th floor in the building on the right (photo below).  These two photos are from looking down and up at the same spot.  As I'm sitting out in the sun I'm realizing why I've been so resistant to going to the grocery store: nearly everyone in the grocery store has annoyed me by not keeping proper distance from each other.  I've been wanting to yell, "don't you know what 6 feet/2 meters is?" at people.  In fact there is someone I would yell, "Six feet, buddy!" at when attempting to be too close to me during lockdown.  Without the pandemic I don't like people I know standing too close but with the pandemic I'm especially bothered by it.  This lockdown I've completely avoided that, which is partially why I'm enjoying my lockdown/ "free up".  I have given stink eye at any adult not wearing a mask and walks by me, especially indoors, but that doesn't happen that often this lockdown.

Sounds like we'll be moving to level 3 in a few days.  I got a call maybe a couple of weeks ago that my flight was cancelled as Air New Zealand is no longer flying to Sydney.  The only thing they are offering me is flying through Los Angeles which I'm resistant to due to it being the worst wrt covid in California.  I know this because I look at the covid numbers every day and I have friends in Los Angeles who have told me what it is like there.  I figure I should just wait until delta is no longer surging.  I'm vaccinated and I think I'll be relatively safe health-wise but I could still get sick and be sick for a couple of weeks or my flights could keep changing on me last minute and I could get stuck somewhere.

So- I don't know when I'm going back but deciding to attempt to be relaxed about it, see how the world changes and go with the flow.  Today I told myself I should start making new plans or at least thinking about that.  So- it turned into my writing the blog as that is a way to reflect and assess the situation somewhat.  But I still don't know much except maybe it is time to order another veggie box. 

A few days have passed since I've written the rest of this blog.  We have now gone to level 3 as of a couple of days ago.  There are apparently very long lines at McDonald's and coffee shops.  My big thing is that the power was fixed by a "sparky".  The fuse box kept getting tripped and luckily it went to completely unusable (just computer + oven got the power to trip) on the first day of level 3, so finally got it fixed.  I had trouble with the power on maybe the second day and so they gave me the keys to the apartment next door.  I was constantly resetting the fuse box.  They had asked if I still needed the second apartment after a few days and I said no.   Not really sure what has happened but people have moved into two of the apartments that I know were empty when level 4 started and I thought we weren't allowed to move under level 4.  Only thing I can think of is people being let out of MIQ.  Anyway, it has gradually gone from more quiet than when I lived out in the middle of nowhere to some more activity.  Walking around the city has been kinda like pretending I'm in The Walking Dead.  First day of level 3 is the first time I remember hearing sirens or much of anything outside.  I suppose that will keep changing.  I'm hoping to have at least some time in the city at level 2/ level 1.