Pandemic Miscellaneous

It is my parents' 39th wedding anniversary today. Wow! Such a long time to be with someone not related by blood. They have spent much longer time being with each other than not knowing each other. Both of them are retired from work now.

                                                        

This got me thinking about my retirement plan. Anuj and I had been thinking about it sometime back. We would keep no help then. We will cook and clean on our own. This will make us spend time together and also "spend" the time.
Well this Pandemic has kind of already showed us a trailer of our retired lives. No help was coming over. So we were managing the work FROM home and work OF home all by our self. The idea of being together 24x7 sounds just like work retirement era. But does it?
Initially we struggled. Waking up on time when we know we do not have to go to office, was a challenge. It still is. We realized cooking sounds simple, but eats up a lot of time. While Anuj turned out to be a great cook, I proved to be disastrous with cooking. And my sister never stopped showing off her culinary skills. 🙄
When I was sticking to weekly ritual of sweeping and moping the floor. It made me wonder if we could make do with 1 room. We are probably underpaying our help.
To avoid distractions, we were locked up in different rooms while working. I could still hear Anuj loud and clear in the other room, since on calls, he talks at the top of his voice. Initially it was annoying but now I have learnt to ignore.
Slowly, we are getting to terms with this new lifestyle. Surprisingly, even though we are together all the time, and dealing with office and tedious household work, we had absolutely no fight. Well there was one instance of exchanging blows and kicks, but it was resolved rather quickly. That's a milestone. There were some fights though. The Air Conditioner was installed but not connected to power. Dealing with mosquitoes during power cut and this heat. Refrigerator broke down.
There were certain new experiences too. My ma bragged about giving papa a haircut. That's when Anuj became insistent but I was reluctant. The results were surprising. Good surprising. We have a new found interest. Midnight ludo. Yes, we actually got up at 1 in the night to play ludo for almost an hour.
We have a new found love these days. Home-made lemon iced tea. Jaggery does taste good in it.
There were certain changes too. Both of us put on weight. While I managed to lose it quickly, Anuj is still struggling with his cravings. Driving for about 6-7 km was also a pleasure after more than a month. Gardening for me was meditative. The hobby that I have picked up from papa. I managed to plant quite a few kitchen needs. Lets see if they survive. The living room got a make-over twice. Don't know how long will this one last.
I think retired life wouldn't be much different. And if we can survive this pandemic, I hope we could meet the milestone of 39 years and counting.