QP#14 (15) Quarantine, Day 14 (15)

Getting out won’t feel surreal. It may feel hyper-real. Brown Owl says that for the first time she’s feeling a little reluctant to leave. We’ve all felt like prisoners at one time or another. What is astonishing to me is that Jack and Wizard have accepted the situation meekly, all this time. 

We play a lot of ball today, but the children are unfocused, continually collapsing any structure into wrestling and silliness. I sense their tension. I share their tension. Our nerves are stretched, as we wait. 

Wizard and I manage to complete a Beyblade tournament, only because I look into his eyes a few times and remind him that I’m not the one who is making him angry right now, and that I really do want to be able to finish the tournament for once. He declares a draw between the final two beys and I creakily pull myself off the floor, feeling satisfied. All this yoga and PE with Joe has been amazing, but I’m feeling stiff and a little sore this afternoon. 

Throughout the day, I potter around putting things slyly into garbage bags and sorting stuff. I have bags of stuff to pass onto 3 different families in the hotel, all labelled. I hope this goes smoothly, as I am required to leave the hotel before returning with the bags. 

We have so many masks it seems ludicrous, and we wonder what it’s going to be like to wear shoes for the first time in 2 weeks. Gradually, the room retracts into its emptiness. It’s not sad, or stressful, as it was in leaving Red Deer. We are all excited. We chatter continuously about how it’s going to be, what we are going to do, where we want to go… but none of it seems quite real yet. 

We come first in the hotel quiz today. There were several questions we got wrong, and a couple that we guessed. Jack supplies us with Gordon’s number: 4 (Thomas the Tank Engine). Wiz has picked up on some of the political and social goings on in the USA, and brightly enquires what it was all about. Brown Owl tells him that T#^%p has finally accepted that he lost the election. 

I hear from Guitar Hero that although he won’t come to pick us up in the morning, he will visit us soon. I am so happy to hear that, because I miss him very much. It will be wonderful to see people and hug them. My mother and my brother will collect us and all of our burgeoning belongings. 

We have a long chat with Brown Owl's folks, trying not to make too many travel plans, but unable to avoid wistfully wondering whether we will be able to go to some of the places we want to. 

We sit around watching TV for what seems like a very long time until the dinner knock. We have pizza for dinner, and bags of popcorn. Unfortunately, there’s no vegetarian pizza, although there are 3 chicken pizzas and one gluten free pizza. Brown Owl calls the kitchen staff, who deliver her a vegetarian pizza within 10 minutes. 

We adults select a movie that we’d like to watch with the children, but in the end we get them showered and hair-washed and just watch the usual two programs before reading and putting them to sleep. 

I have a hard time getting to sleep after finishing Pachinko. I lie awake for three hours, then get up and take some melatonin and water. I still can’t fall asleep. Wizard has come into our bed, sleepily complaining that he wasn’t able to sleep all this time, as well. I doubt that, but retreat to his bed where I finally fall asleep. 

I dream that I’m about to go swimming in ice water. I am with Laurie, whom I met in Red Deer, and a few kids. To reach the place to get into the water, there are two options. One seems too difficult for me, but everyone else manages it. I opt to climb up an icy incline which has been created for beginners (like me) and, apparently, the Royals. I struggle to the top, to find there’s a lip that bends the wrong way, and I am unable to climb over it. I slide back down, feeling stupid, but try it two more times before the others return to find out what’s happened to me. For the expedition I am kitted out with a hand saw. There’s some talk about needing to attack before being attacked (by fish?). I’m not sure I ever made it to the icy water. 

I slowly and reluctantly rise out of sleep, eventually hearing Brown Owl announce to the children that she is about to get in the shower. I’m confused, because the sound of the cooler and the sound of the shower are very similar, but I’m also relieved that it’s not too late in the morning. Brown Owl tells me that Jack and Wizard woke up at 5am, crowing that we all get to go home today!