By Jack Houvouras
HQ 110 | SUMMER 2020
For most of us, the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic in the United States was sudden and unexpected. Had we been listening to Bill Gates and other forward-thinking world leaders, maybe the virus wouldn’t have been such a surprise. But, hindsight is 20/20 and like many of you I was unprepared for how quickly life would change.
In March, I was in Florida with my girlfriend Tracy and her daughter Courtney who was on spring break from the University of Kentucky. That’s when things really started to heat up with the virus. Just two days into our vacation the beaches, pools, stores and restaurants were closed. We quickly found ourselves with not much to do in the Sunshine State. But, in the days that followed I found my two roommates to be a great source of entertainment. Mother and daughter are very much alike with Type A personalities and an endless supply of energy. Watching them in action was inspiring.
I looked on as the pair shopped online for groceries — since both are health nuts, it seemed like all they talked about was food, food, food. When they weren’t running to the grocery store or cooking nutritious meals, they were exercising indoors. Every afternoon they would turn on the TV to watch a “Shaun T” fitness video and then hop around the living room like a couple of jackrabbits. The poor people in the unit below must have hated us.
Since Courtney is the student body president at UK, her days were filled with an endless stream of Zoom conference calls to deal with the health crisis on campus. Then, every day at 5 p.m., she would make us tune into Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s press conference. Watching “Uncle Andy” calmly reassure the citizenry became part of our daily routine. I can still hear him now: “We will get through this, we will get through this together.”
As per Uncle Andy’s directive, when we flew back to Huntington, Tracy and Courtney were required to quarantine for two weeks before they could return to their home in Kentucky. That meant the dynamic duo would have to stay at my home for the next 14 days. This gave me even more time to observe them in action. When they weren’t grocery shopping, cooking or exercising, they took it upon themselves to rake out a mountain of leaves in my flower beds and trim all my bushes, hedges and native grasses. With those tasks completed, they proceeded to power wash my two decks. Their hard work probably saved me $1,000 in landscaping and labor.
On their own, they decided I was paying too much for cable and internet. So, they called DIRECTV, canceled my service and signed me up for a package deal with Xfinity. That move saved me another $1,000 annually.
When the sun set, they pressed on. On most nights you could find them baking somewhat healthy almond flour cookies or assembling an enormous jigsaw puzzle. The dynamic duo never stopped. The only time I saw them sit down was to eat. (Just in case you’re wondering, I wasn’t a lump on the log while the two women labored in vain. I’ll admit I can’t match their physical energy, but I was busy trying to keep my business afloat after ad sales plummeted in the wake of the epidemic.)
Looking back, my three weeks with these two industrious women was a real eye opener. What struck me the most wasn’t really how productive they could be, but how they interacted with each other so seamlessly. I never once saw them argue. They spent hours chatting about every topic under the sun and never tired of each other. I had always heard that you can’t be friends with your children, but watching this mother and daughter team for three weeks made me wonder if that old adage was wrong. Then again, maybe Tracy and Courtney are an exception to the rule. I’ve always thought they were special, and our home confinement in the midst of a global pandemic only further enhanced my respect, admiration and love for them both.
