In this podcast episode, we look at a recent day in the life of Sally in the Zen.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hello! Welcome to the Sally in the Zen podcast. I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver taking care of my elderly folks and always in pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome! If you’re not new, and you’re returning, welcome back!
Now today’s episode is going to break away from the last two episodes, where we talk about the life lessons. The Life Lesson series that we have going on, and in all transparency, when I had kicked that off, two episodes ago, I was wondering about the cadence. How often should I do this, and I still haven’t settled quite on an answer for that, but I do know enough that it’s not going to be sequential. I think I’m going to break it up. Now if it’s going to be once a month or once a quarter, I still haven’t put my finger on it because I’m just flowing with it. Going with the flow but today’s episode is going to be a little bit different. And it will not be a life lesson. That shall be continued in possibly the next episode or two, once I figure out my game plan for that. And if you can’t tell most of my episodes are more just rolling with it, what resonates with me and not particularly structured in any sequential way, really, aside from the series I kicked off in the first quarter, the wellness series. But beyond that I’m just flowing with it.
So today’s episode is going to be a light, it’s going to be quick and it’s actually going to talk about a day in the life of my being a caregiver to my elderly folks trying to find a Zen moment in today’s living. If you’re interested, then let’s get started.
So ever since stay-at-home happened because of COVID-19 and that was mid-March, I’m blessed and fortunate that I have a job that allows me to work from home. So prior to COVID-19, in my home office, which I loosely say home office, is just my desk in my bedroom. I have a dual monitor along with my little laptop and on occasion when I need to work from home, I have the setup for that. But normally speaking, before COVID actually happened and the stay-at-home happened, I would go into the office. Fast forward now to COVID, and fast forward further to it being, what, week 18? 18 weeks at home. We’ve gotten used to working from home, working at home. And when I say “we”, I mean me, Zen Master and Zen Mum.
So it’s me getting used to working from home, in my bedroom, behind closed doors and Zen Master and Zen Mum used to me being home, in my closed bedroom, and trying to remember not to interrupt me when I’m working.
Admittedly, working from home, the days do run into one another, and it does have a feel, off and on, of being a never-ending Groundhog’s day.
So in the beginning when I became indefinitely stay-at-home, it was a little bit of an adjustment period for all of us. And I’m also pretty happy to say, truthfully, that we don’t normally get under each other’s skin. Because we’re together, in the same space, same place, 24/7. I actually respect their space. They actually do respect mine, and even if they invade my space in my time and I need a little “me time”, I would just go outside go for a walk for a little bit.
But the routine that we fell into, with me now working from home, is that I would work and during lunch time, I would go walking with them, if the day is good. They’ve gotten used to that. I’ve gotten used to that. And the funny thing about the COVID-19 stay-at-home working from home situation now is that it’s actually brought us closer as a family, as a unit, and it’s pretty interesting to see. We were close before but we’re closer now. So that’s one side benefit of being stuck in our current situation.
So the other day I was on a Zoom team meeting with my group. My manager was on the line. His manager was on the line and I have my phone positioned away from my bedroom door. This is a hard lesson learned where when I didn’t, when it was facing the bedroom door, my mother will walk in and just break into my meeting. Inadvertent. She was just coming to the bedroom because she had a question for me but from that time on, I would just position the phone away from the door so that if she were to come in or if Papa were to come in, my whole entire group at work would not see my parents. And I would usually keep my phone on mute whenever I’m not speaking so that’s pretty much like all the time anyways, as I’m listening to my group, my team.
So, the other day, literally last week, I was in the middle of a team meeting when my mother walks in and her skivvies. Skivvies, meaning, she’s down to her underwear. Because she was changing into shorts, getting ready to go out for walking at lunch time, and she had a question in her head that she wanted to ask me about, so, in walks my mother in her underwear.
And before you say anything, let me just in all transparency and all honesty, they’re up to the point in their lives where they don’t really care. They don’t care at all what people say or think about them. They’re senior citizens. They’re entitled to that kind of an attitude, so, this is all I have to say. When I am at their age and in their shoes, I will have the same unapologetic attitude as well. So, there.
When my mother walked in, in her underwear, she asked me a question, I don’t remember what it was, and I just looked at her. I glared at her and I said “I’m in a meeting” and that’s what she’s like “oh” and she just did a 360 and she walks out and closes my door.
Fifteen minutes later, Zen Master walks in, adjusting his pants, and he had a thought in his head that he wanted to share with me also. He had just gone to the bathroom and he was thinking about something. And after he finished the bathroom, he walked into my bedroom and he’s fixing up his pants. And I give him a glare and I tell him “I’m in a meeting” and he goes “oh” and he does a 360 and walks out the door also.
So this reminded me of that YouTube video – if you haven’t seen it – where the reporter was online from home, from his bedroom, and he’s on camera and his two little kids just come marching into his bedroom until they’re dragged out by his wife. You got to see that – that’s funny. But what just happened with Mom and Dad were reminiscent of that video, which was pretty funny. But it’s okay because nobody saw them. Nobody knew they were in my bedroom. So that’s okay. The last thing I needed was people to see my mother in her skivvies. That would have been a little bit painful.
Anyway, so, last week was pretty eventful Because it was also the same time, besides them walking into my meeting, I started seeing yellow jackets appearing in my bedroom. They started popping out from my ceiling vent.
In all honesty also, I knew I had a yellow jacket wasp infestation in my attic for some time now. No, obviously, I didn’t take any action against them because I kind of was in denial that there’s a nest up there. I think I’ve known about the infestation, them being up there, being my neighbors, essentially, since 2019. And I told Pop about that and we were both in denial. Until last week.
They would pop out of my ceiling vent once or twice a day. No swarm, thank goodness. I had read somewhere, some time ago, I don’t remember where, that if you’re calm, the vibration around your body is pretty calm, and they won’t bother you. But the minute you’re afraid and the minute there’s a change in your vibration, they come and attack you. Don’t know if it’s true but that just stuck with me. I tested that theory and yeah, it worked. For all intents and purposes, they didn’t come over to me, to bother me or to sting me, and I wasn’t afraid of them.
So last week, at least once or twice a day, a yellow jacket would just pop out of the vent and when I see them, I would just open my window, open the screen, and let them out. They would just fly on out. So that was the routine. That was the practice. When I see a wasp, I open the window, let them out. I see a wasp, I open the window, let them out.
We’re getting our roof replaced relatively soon, in September actually. And a neighbor had advised me that I should actually take care of the infestation because you don’t want the roofers to come across and then inadvertently fall off my roof because they’re getting stung by these critters. That’s a valid point. Didn’t think about it, not in that way, but that’s a truly valid point. That’s not drama that I want to have happen.
So what we did was go to Home Depot and get pesticide for them. And we decided that over last weekend let’s just go up there, into the attic and take care of the infestation. And so, me being allergic to most everything anyways – I’m gloved up. I’m hoodied up. I am masked up. I actually had two masks on because allergy very serious, okay? Inside and outside, dust, mold grass, everything, so. But I’m determined to take care of the infestation.
I have layers on, just in case that the wasp sees us, you know, gets upset because I’m attacking their home, and starts swarming around me. I’m pretty confident that I won’t get stung because I’m pretty layered up and covered up and masked up.
So that’s me. While Zen Master’s next to me. He doesn’t have a hat on. He doesn’t have his cap on. He doesn’t have his mask on. He doesn’t have gloves. Instead he’s just sitting in his sweats and his socks, and that’s how he walked up to the attic with me.
We found four fist-sized nests and for all intents and purposes, I think they were already empty because there were only one. There was actually only one critter flying around. And when we located the nests, we sprayed it. The spray that we got was called Spectracide. And we went to Home Depot and got a couple cans of it. It was pretty cheap. The selling point for that product was that besides it working, according to the salesperson, it had to reach a spray reach of 20 ft. And I was okay with that. Spray and run. That was my idea. Spray and run. Run like hell.
So when we sprayed it, the hive acted like a sponge and soaked in the pesticide. And nothing came out. Nobody was at home, so I was pretty happy about that. And then, Zen Mum was like calling out from the bottom to the attic, saying when you see them, make sure you pluck the homes, take the nests out and throw them in the trash. I wasn’t going to go that far.
I sprayed down every single one of those things. Pop did too and we just left it at that. We did look around the attic, though, to see if there were any more, and also where they came in from. And we found a couple of nooks and crannies, sprayed down those nooks and crannies, and just pray that those critters don’t come back anymore.
So that’s the end of our episode today. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or comments, drop on my blog SallyintheZen.com. Click on the Contact page and shoot me a line and maybe, depending on your question, we’ll feature it in a future episode. We’ll see. We’ll see how that goes.
Hope you all are staying safe, staying sound, social distancing. Hope that your summer is going relatively well in spite of all of this. Stay positive, stay strong, and thank you, thank you, thank you for spending a few minutes of your time with me. And I’ll talk to you again soon.
