Day 10: anosmia, chili, opera

I just found out last night that the lovely friend with whom we had brunch two weeks ago subsequently got sick and tested positive for coronavirus; then I read in the NY Times that loss of smell is in many people the only symptom of COVID19 and hey! guess what? last weekend I couldn't smell or taste anything, which I attributed at the time to having had gum surgery a few days earlier, but now of course I'm adding it to the constellation of phantom psychosomatic symptoms I have also been having since the whole bloody thing started, and thinking, well, shit, I think I need to try and get tested. So, instead of going to work today, I'm going to ask if I can do all my telephone visits from home (daft not to be doing this anyway, really) and in between phone calls see what I can do to get myself tested. Getting past the fierce barrier of triage nurses to get a test is going to look a little bit like this I suspect, but following the standard public health testing formula of
legit specific symptom + known positive contact + healthcare provider = asymptomatic NBA star
I totally deserve a test, and, if there's any justice, a spot in next season's draft as well.

My shift yesterday was slow, slow, slow - everyone without respiratory symptoms is staying home, and anyone with respiratory symptoms is being turned away at the door by the Urgent Care Sphinx and sent to the coronavirus triage tent, which I haven't worked in (yet) but imagine as being kind of like the tent in the Great British Baking Show, where you have to compete in front of a judging panel made up of Paul Hollywood, Mary Berry, and the head of your county's Public Health Department to see if you deserve the accolade of this week's Star Convincing Coronavirus Patient.

Afterwards, I came home and finished the pot of chili which has got me through the last weekend (had madam been with me she could have helped me determine whether my sense of smell has completely returned or not...) and watched the first half of Tristan und Isolde courtesy of the New York Metropolitan Opera, which is streaming a different opera from their archives every night for free. It is the first time I have ever felt properly sad about not having a huge bloody great flat screen TV, because it was fantastic - they had set it in a very dark and gloomy modern naval ship/submarine, with black & white waves tossing outside & a huge glowing green submarine sonar hanging over the stage endlessly circling in a way that suggested CERTAIN DOOM - and the singing was seriously luscious. At the risk of sounding like an uncultured slob, I gotta say I have trouble with Wagner; it can get a bit soupy, and it's not always obvious what the melody is, but still, absolutely great and I might well watch another one tonight, since my music-making date got cancelled due to impending inclement weather. Fiddle-playing friend and I have coined the term "active social-distancing": we were going to sit six feet apart playing our respective string instruments so badly as to actually repel anyone who might be in the vicinity. If the police get overwhelmed in the coming weeks trying to enforce shelter-in-place orders, they could use us to dispel inappropriately-gathering crowds. It's a public service we're providing, people.