Sheltering in Place Day 4: Friday, March 20, 2020
The Monterey pine had been removed from the lot below our house. Our view had opened up significantly. The work done, I peered though the limbs of our own, beloved old cypress tree. The San Francisco Bay glistened now in the distance. But what was that down there on the water? Something bigger and more graceful than the low-slung freighters that usually ply the scrap of bay Jon and I see from our house. What was it?
It was the Grand Princess cruise ship, of course, graceful and calm, anchored in the center of the bay, its quarantined crew, waiting to succumb, or not succumb, to the COVID-19 virus.
It was a good-news-bad-news kind of moment. Jon and I had a splendid new view, thanks to the work done over the previous day or two by, I’d been told, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Yet what we were now seeing out on the bay was the disturbing handiwork of a deadly force of nature.
A Grand Princess Surprise
After dark that first day of enjoying our new view, Jon and I walked out onto our half-built deck to take in the view by night. And there it was, the Grand Princess, all lit up and as pretty as a Christmas tree.
My mood shifted from coronavirus doom and gloom to mischievous glee: I envisioned the cruise ship crew, normally confined to the grim lower decks of the ship walking the forbidden upper decks, taking in views of the San Francisco skyline, Mt. Tamalpais and maybe our own neighborhood up on the hill.
I imagined the quarantined crew invited to gather, cautiously, around one of those decadent cruise ship chocolate buffets. Or indulging in a Princess lines’ Chocolate Indulgence Body Treatment, complete with chocolate exfoliant and chocolate body mask.
It’s a nice thought, and I’m going to let myself enjoy it.
More about cruise ships at “I’m Back. The Writer in Me is Back.”
