People of Rochester - Tony and Jazmin

Tony and Jazmin are married. When I met them on the lawn of the Memorial Art Gallery, they were wearing masks, and for most of our conversation they kept the masks on. Tony said that he wears glasses, but they get fogged up when he wears his mask, so he doesn’t usually wear his glasses when he's wearing a mask.

Jazmin (pronounced Hahs-MEEN) is from the Dominican Republic, and had received a scholarship to study at RIT. She began her studies at the same time as Tony. They met on Tinder, the week that Jazmin arrived, and dated steadily until they got married.

They seemed to be in good spirits, and they laughed several times during our conversation, especially Jazmin, who has a robust, hardy laugh.

Tony and Jazmin own a home and have been spending most of their time in or around the house during the lockdown.

Jazmin works for a construction company. At first, all of the company's operations were considered essential, and Jazmin worked from home. But later, the company had to shut down all of its operations, and she was furloughed for about six weeks. When I interviewed them, on May 17th, Jazmin said she's just going back to work. When I asked her if she feels safe going back to work, she laughed and said that she's the safety manager for her company.

She maintains social distance from people at work, and part of her job is to ensure that everyone at the construction sites is complying with safety guidelines. She drives to construction sites and inspects the locations to verify that employees are adhering to safety guidelines.

Tony is still working. He started working from home as a graphic designer, last November. One of Tony's clients was his former boss before he became self-employed.

Tony and Jazmin rent out part of their house, and they encounter their housemates in the kitchen. They don't hug their housemates, Jazmin said, but if this was the Dominican Republic, she'd be hugging them.

When I asked them if they'd found anything about the quarantine that is positive or beneficial, without hesitation, Jazmin said, "Not spending money!" and they both laughed. They temporarily lost income while Jazmin was furloughed, but because they weren’t going out to dinner, or doing anything socially, as they usually would, they saved money, and "it wasn’t that bad."

"We're doing less laundry," Jazmin said, and again she laughed heartily.

Tony said that with Jazmin being off work, they've been able to spend more time together.

I asked them about their grocery shopping experience. The couple don't have a car, so they were already using Instacart, but the service got overloaded. Tony said, "We used to be able order groceries and get them the same day, but with the quarantine, we might have to wait a week or more to receive the groceries, and by that time we needed more groceries." So they started walking to Wegmans and taking an Uber back home.

The first time Jazmin went to Wegmans after the pandemic started, she felt  uncomfortable and worried, because whole aisles, or whole sections of aisles, were bare... no baking flour, rice, toilet paper, napkins, etc., for example. Now there are more supplies, and you're required to wear a mask. There's hand sanitizer everywhere, the isles are one-way, and the cashiers sanitize the conveyor belt at the check-out station, so "it's okay," she said.

Tony doesn’t mind the one-way aisles at East Avenue Wegmans, but he said half of the customers are ignoring the markers on the floor, and they're weaving in and out through other shoppers and ignoring social distancing. "If everybody does it, it works, but if even a few people aren't doing it, then it doesn’t work," he said.

A typical day for Tony and Jazmin starts with working out at home, because, for now, they can't go to the gym. Then Tony goes to his home office and works. While she's furloughed, Jazmin has been preparing lunches and dinners, and the couple dines together. After dinner, Tony does the dishes. Jazmin does most of the cooking. "I love to cook," she said.

"And she's a great cook," Tony said.

When she's not cooking, Jazmin spends time calling her mom, talking to her friends, playing her ukulele, reading the Bible, and praying (Tony and Jazmin are members of a non-denominational Christian church, and they regularly read the Bible together. They're involved in a project to read the Bible in a year).

If the weather is nice, they go for a walk after dinner, then return home and watch a couple of TV series. Before going to bed, they read the Bible and pray.

For recreation, they go out for walks and play Pokemon Go on their phones. They've been watching more movies lately. Tony and Jazmin used to play board games, but haven't been doing that lately. Jazmin likes to play her ukulele and sing.

I wondered whether they've met any friends outside. They said that other than their tenants, then haven't seen anyone.

Tony and Jazmin miss going out to eat, working out in the gym, and going to church. Jazmin misses hugging her friends. Tony smiled and said, "She's the hugger."

They used to go to Bible study on Wednesdays, and now they do it on Zoom. "But it's not the same," Jazmin said. She likes to bake cookies and bring them to Bible study to share with friends.

After the pandemic is over, Tony and Jazmin don’t think their daily life is going to change much. "I was pretty solitary before," Tony says. For his graphic-designer job, Tony was sitting at his computer for a good part of the day, and that really hasn’t changed a lot.

He says, "It feels like we were already getting prepared for it before it happened. A few months before the pandemic, I started working at home; we already didn't have a car, so we were always going to places we could walk to, or ordering food..."

They got "phased into it gradually," and the lifestyle change hasn't been that disruptive for them.