A China Cat Sunflower kind of day

It is a gorgeous day out.

Absolutely flat out delightful. I went out onto the porch to enjoy coffee and my favorite online game that is an absolute time suck, Best Fiends.

About 4 minutes into my peaceful reverie the neighbor across the street catty corner to us started cutting up his driveway with a cement saw.

A couple weeks ago they moved two giant bushes to the other side of the yard, it was delightful to sit on the porch and watch 6 men and a Ford Bronco with a rope tied to it try to pull these things across the yard to their new homes. Miraculously, they got the bushes moved, but they aren't leafy so I think they killed them even with all their effort.

I wondered what they were up to, and now I believe know. I think he is going to try and self-build additional parking on his front yard. There are a lot of people living in this house, and usually 4 cars crammed into the 2 car driveway, with other cars parked on the street in front and beside the house.

I personally would have hired contractors to do this, and also I have no idea if this guy called Dig-Safe or the county to make sure this is safe. But whatever, it's his property. As long as he doesn't strike hidden gas lines (I do not think he's digging deep enough so ... hopefully that's not going to be an issue) or electrocutes himself with some age old live wires from a former front lawn light post, then he can have at it.

It has been fuck all hot and humid here for a couple days, so sitting out on the porch was sort of miserable since about Tuesday. Today we finally get a break, find ourselves in the upper 70s with like no humidity at all, and this happens.

Thanks dude.

Back porch office chill space was no better because there was no escape from the grinding. I retreated back into the house where Doug's Pandora station is streaming away, many songs I love but at this point am sick of hearing over and over. I never need to hear "Wild Horses" by the Rolling Stones ever ever again.

But I'll always take a little Grateful Dead ditty like China Cat Sunflower or Scarlet Begonias. Dylan, The Band, The Byrds, Stevie Ray, Dwight Yoakam... 

Ooooh wee, Ride me high. Tomorrow's the day my bride's gonna come... 

Speaking of which, June 1 is Monday. It is our 29th anniversary.

As I think I mentioned, we had planned a nice trip to West Virginia.  Doug is still thinking that it may be possible but we'll only take a day trip tomorrow and go as far as Elkins, stopping at maybe Seneca Rocks, see if there are places to eat even if we have to eat in the car, and come home.

On Monday, I'm trying to convince him that we should just go up to Baltimore for early dinner/late lunch at Jimmy's Famous Seafood, they have a deck and outdoor eating starting today, and as the weather is supposed to hold all the way through so sitting out and enjoying a great meal will be as nice a gift as we can give ourselves.

As long as no one starts running a concrete saw.

Doug and I talked about how number 30 will have to be what we put our planning and intention into, and just take 29 as an easy day.

We will see how that goes.

Also, I remembered I had this light up sign that we got back in November (Linda and I were drunk shopping for a house concert at a friend's house, and I couldn't resist it). I keep it out in the back porch and every day I'm trying to think of fun things to tell myself. 

Initially it said "I (heart) Fun Party Porch" and then I changed it a la Fawlty Towers' sign... also before Doug could see it and change it.

I guess I think I'm funnier than I really am. At least I entertain myself.

Puzzling Moment

I am not a puzzle person. But, here we are.

I was having a socially distant chat with our neighbors Betsy and Tony (and the baby and the cat) and we all agreed we are "so over" this whole thing with staying at home. I confessed to them that I'm happy in most respects but I am bored a lot. 

The little projects of Operation Yoga Pants are mostly keeping me busy and entertained but I've sort of lost steam on a lot of them. I'm sick of TV. I read, but only get a few pages into any of the three books I have going before I feel bored with them as well.

All the laundry is washed. The dishwasher is loaded and unloaded frequently. The basement cleanup could be revisited but again... Meh.

I had posted on Nextdoor that I was looking for a puzzle to do, and Betsy saw my posting. Ironically, my nextdoor neighbor had to see on a neighborhood app that I was looking for something to entertain the brain. 

She brought this over and damn if it isn't the dumbest thing I've ever done, but I must needs do it because she brought it to me. 

I hate this puzzle. I hated it from the moment I opened the box and started sorting through the miniscule pieces for the edges. I hate it. 

That said. I'm still doing it out of the obligation of the Neighbor Code, she brought it out of the kindness of her heart, and ... well. Yes. 

The boy is also working on the puzzle, which is giving me joy. When he was little, the hell on wheels child that he was, he did enjoy puzzles but would lose pieces and get angry or frustrated with them. 

Now that he's much older, he's very careful and is doing a great patient job with this. 

We sorted the coke bottle pieces out, and the red logo circle into another pile. We found the edge pieces, mostly, and are focusing on building it from the outside in. Once we get to a certain point with the edges and their neighbors we'll start on the coke bottle. 

I already found the pieces for the bottom edge, almost all of them, and we have those pulled aside together. 

"I spent way more time than necessary looking for one piece," he says to me this morning. I told him I was looking for the same piece. It was a woman with a sailor's hat on, holding a bottle of coke in her left hand. 

The piece itself has her hat but not her face, so both of us were doing the same strategy - looking for hat and face. I found it by accident because the hat was against a black background that blended with the piece beside it. 

Still can't find her dumb face. 

But we're making progress, and I'm happy to see him poking at it. 

"It isn't a race, honey," I said to him. "And to be honest, if we never finish it that's okay too. It's just here to keep us busy and doing something other than watching television." 

He liked that answer. We both sipped glasses of wine and sorted the edges in silence. I kind of like this activity even if I hate this stinking puzzle.

Parenting in the Time of Pandemic

I am so lucky right now.

My kids are grown. I have a lot less to worry about than some of my friends do.

I worry about Jess up in Massachusetts even though they are (going to be very soon) 28. Will there be layoffs? How much do they have saved, their roommate, the roommate's girlfriend who just moved in with them a month ago after getting furloughed from her job? Can they make do? Can I send them a couple hundred bucks? No? Hold onto that, ma. They tell me they're alright.

They are an essential employee at the company - order fulfillment in a warehouse that does medical supplies and aerospace materials. There are still orders coming in. Orders have to go out. Boxes shipped. Labels printed. A small raise for the essential employees, huzzah. But several have been furloughed or laid off. And the company is wondering how long this can go on.

I worry about the introvert who initially rejoiced in this shut-down of just about everything. No pressure to go out with the few friends they have, when they just don't want to. Because no one is going out. But the distance from the people they actually want to spend time with, even infrequently, feels insurmountable.

Geoff is 23. Long time readers, all 2 of you, know what a challenge it was once upon a time to be his mom. He really put us through the ringer.

Literally this is the best picture to choose for this as I think about the "little devil" he was in first grade.

I think that if this was 2004 and we were in a pandemic, this would not have worked out cool for my family for sure.

6 year old Geoff, 8 year old Geoff, junior high school Geoff, well. It would have been hard.

But maybe not. Maybe? I look at this boy and I remember what a joy he actually was a lot of the time. For school, not so much. But once we got his learning disability figured out, his education got a lot easier.

I think of how Jess was an easy go of school, and using a computer to learn things and check in, get the homework done, complete assignments, Jess would have been okay and would probably have thrived. I should ask what they think about it.

Geoff, maybe if he had my undivided attention (ie: I didn't have to work) we could have seriously made a go with distance learning. It sure would have removed the horror show of the social aspect of how his education was. 

I always had such a great time with Geoff when we were doing learny things in unlearny situations.

His love of the outdoors, his ability to identify plants and trees, learning to use the handheld GPS for geocaching. His extreme curiosity about wanting to know all about things the way kids do. If we could have had that time together in this situation, without fear of money or the stress of me having to work maybe it would have been okay. Maybe we could have done it.

I'm watching several of my friends dealing with stressful situations with their kids and school. The kids don't want to participate in the online learning. The kids want to just stop - they've had it and it has only been like a month or 6 weeks for them. The parents are getting calls and emails saying "your child has not turned in their work," when they know damn well they did because they helped and they oversaw the process. There are unreasonable scheduling demands and if you have more than two kids it can be a nightmare. Meltdowns, fights, panic attacks.

The process that is in place, I'm not sure that it would have worked for Geoff and me, or Geoff or me. But the concepts of someone letting my kid just come home and learn, with me driving, well that may have been great.

I often think of Geoff from 15 years ago and I wonder if we made right decisions for him, for medication or therapy, or school or anything. I don't like to think "what could have been," because to be completely honest, what I have with him and the person he is today, damn. I love this guy.

I loved him then, even if it was a bit of a challenge. And I can say that with a smile. Yup. Sure did.

So I won't even entertain the idea of what it would have been like to have second grade Geoff home on lockdown. Instead, I'll revel in the fact that in July he's starting an academic program that he put in 4 semesters of prerequisite work for and has done such a great job pulling this all together and getting it organized with very little external guidance from Doug or me.

And I'll watch from a distance as my friends walk their walks with their kids in this really weird time in our country's history and the history of parenting.

All the good music out there

Last week we had two nights of freeze. Today it is in the 80s. And humid.

Thanks, Maryland. Way to skip spring all together.

We had our heat on Thursday night and the AC on Friday.

I kind of wanted to sit out and actually enjoy the porch, but it's been too freezing to like actually sit and enjoy. And now it is brutally hot.

We were up early this morning because our smoke detector decided to let us know the battery was low. Can't just tell you once an hour, has to be every 30 seconds. I thought for sure we'd get ourselves pulled together to do something, go somewhere, but Doug is on the couch reading a book and dozing. I am going to go take a nap, I guess.

Speaking of sleep, Brodie woke me up at 2 to go outside, as is her wont. I was not able to fall back asleep, per usual, for a long time. Once I did, right before the beeping alert from the danger detector, I had a crazy dream.

I was working in an office building that was partially under construction, and several desks and cubes had been dismantled throughout the area. My friend Mark was there working and let me know someone was bringing a delivery of donuts to the office for everyone. He said that these were the greatest donuts ever and that even though I am not eating carbs, I really should have one. Way to lead a sister to temptation, dear brother.

Justin Timberlake worked in the office too, which was weird, and he was very excited about the donut delivery, and was clearing off counter tops that were strewn with blueprints, saw dust, and detritus from the construction.

Bruce Springsteen was there too, maybe he was the person who delivered the donuts. He asked me about my favorite music, and I knew he was Springsteen but I think he thought no one could tell.

So I told him all about Guster and how just downright amazing they are, and how much I love them. Gushed like a fangirl. He asked if I primarily preferred bands with male vocalists, as opposed to female. I thought about it and replied  "well, yeah I guess I do. I mean, I grew up on Allman Brothers, CSNY in all configurations, Yes, Genesis, Rush, Jackson Browne was my hero for many years where I spent myself locked in my bedroom listening to music. I love unique voices. I love Neil Young, Geddy Lee, Ryan Miller for sure, Peter Gabriel, Jon Anderson, Bob Dylan, Colin Meloy from the Decemberists. I love Ben Folds, more for his piano playing than his vocal styling though. Recently I've been digging Jason Isbell, and am crazy about Frank Turner. There are so many more. I don't really get into female vocalists. I respect them, but my preference is for sure towards the guys.

"Oh and I like some guy named Bruce Springsteen. He's pretty great too. Love his early work, and the whole E Street band and Clarence and all that. Great energy. My favorite phase of his illustrious career."

Springsteen seemed slightly amused, we enjoyed donuts with a wry smile.

Justin Timberlake was energetically directing people to come over to get donuts and letting them know the pool on the rooftop deck was open (obviously not my office in real life but that would be so sweet).

"What do you think of that guy?" Springsteen asked, gesturing to Timberlake.

I thought about it for a minute and then realized wow. I don't know any Justin Timberlake songs. At all. I know about some of them, like people talk about Bringing Sexy Back, but honestly have no idea how it goes. I shrugged my shoulders and said "he is a really nice guy. He's great here in the office. I love working with him. He's a lot of fun. Glad he's here."

And then I woke up.

So I have no idea what the point of this dream is, what my brain is working through. I liked the line of questioning about bands I like that Dreamsteen posed to me. Made me think about all the good music I love so very much.

Speaking of great music, Guster released their Omaha Symphony recording. Here's a video of Come Downstairs and Say Hello.

the Orchestra just blows this one out of the water.

I would have been in Massachusetts last weekend to see them with the Boston Pops, in a different world, under different circumstances. I'd planned to stay through the whole weekend, see my parents, see Carrie, see Jess, see the local sights and things. So listening to the music styled very much in a way that I would have been enjoying it is important in helping soothe my soul. Anyone looking to grab the recording, it's available for digital download. And I highly recommend it.

Maybe Springsteen will listen.

What we are doing on a Saturday

Geoff has a final next week. His last homework assignment is due on Monday, and then anytime after that before Friday at midnight next week, he can take the final at his own leisure.

The college he attends has been doing good distance learning, although they have not had any labs. Considering we're paying for a lab fee, I don't know what exactly they are giving the students for lab time. Geoff said they've got it under control.

He applied for and was accepted to the certificate program he really wanted, so his Orientation for that is on May 15th, online, all day.

I am not sure what they'll be doing all day, I can see in person it taking all day because you get a tour of campus, and you get lunch. But he said, again, they've got it all under control.

He sits at the dining table to do his school work, and comes in fits and spurts with the things that don't require a computer. He keeps his laptop downstairs, so he will do the online work in his room. This morning, he came up, studied for a while, did some work, left. Came back, made more coffee, left. Came back, got coffee, studied for 40 minutes, left. Came back, studied, now he's making lunch.

It is sometimes distracting for me that he does this, and doesn't just sit for like 90 minutes or something, but his learning disability has always had him working in shorter stretches over longer periods of time. He knows what works, and, like he says of the college, he has this under control.

Doug is sitting across the living room from me, he's on his computer looking up jarrariums which is something I've never heard of but I think he's looking to have a Little Project of his own to do.

He spends a lot of time on Reddit, so I think that's where he got the bright idea. He will dive in whole hog, and we'll see how successful he is with it. He even has a jar he has chosen - a large pickle jar that still has pickles in it. I guess we'll be eating pickles for a couple of days or he will move them into a ziplock container to hasten this along.

I wish he'd get a new aquarium. We had a fantastic 55 gallon tank back in Massachusetts that he did not want to move down here. We'd kept it going for years, through two other moves. Great fish, we even had fish have babies which were so cute.

They'd come and swim to the edge of the tank, all of them, when I would come in the kitchen in the morning, and I'd sit and talk to them after feeding them. On a beautiful morning, when the light was streaming through the back porch, sitting with a cup of coffee by the woodstove and chatting with whatever these things were.... this is a good memory.

He just stood up and declared he is not going to make a jarrarium after all. "It's stupid. I can go look at moss in a creek or whatever. I suppose if I lived in a 60 floor apartment building in Hong Kong this would be a good thing to do but.... meh."

Okay, that phase is over before it got started.

This morning I heard my laptop making all kinds of email notification dings, so I picked it up to see I was being notified that my manager was editing a document I started last week. We need to pull together documentation, fully, of everything for the new Content Management System. I started an outline and asked for contributions from those who are swimming in the product more deeply and regularly than I am for their how-to guides, and, if they didn't have any, to start writing them.

He was going through and redoing my content with suggestions - not editing/erasing anything but just putting comments. He should have just redone the document because now it is mostly his, not mine. But it is good work and we'll dive in next week and get the full download on the how-to and then I'll run it by a colleague to test everything we have written.

Since I can't do laundry I guess I have to make a trip to the 'mat today at some point. Geoff needs things washed, he's held off this week, and my sheets that were in the washer when we had the flood managed to get drained and rinsed but they smell bad. I will probably go later on. I'll see if Doug or Geoff want to go with me. I don't want to go alone. The world is too weird out there. And I don't want to be out and about solo.

We may have to sit in the car while things do their washing, it's way too cold to take a walk around town.  Maybe we'll drive around and catch Pokemon or something.

I bought Sir Michael Palin's book "Erebus," because I own most of what he's written and I do love how delightful he is. I'm thinking of going and taking a big nap, and seeing how many pages into the story I get.

All I wanted to do was wash my sheets

I took a vacation day today. I have a lot of hours to use, and want to get a bunch of them off the books so over the next month I've got a vacation day here or there. I had plans.

Sleeping in is a plan. I slept happily until 10am. My body loves 10am. Just naturally, that's the time I like getting up best when left to my own devices. I could have gotten up earlier. Brodie had to go out at 5, so we went and for some people it would be up for the day, but I snuggled into the guest bed, listened to the birds, played with my phone, heard Doug get up and I fell back asleep.

Brodie couldn't get up off the hardwood floor, she won't sleep on the blanket I gave her but sleeps beside it. Dope. Flopping around, nails scraping the floor, I knew she needed a hand. We were both up then.

I started playing with my phone, I have a game I play that kept giving me renewed life energy so I just kept going. I got an emergency page for work as I'm on call. I tried to pass it off on 3 of my coworkers but none of them were free so I helped the lady. It was not an emergency, and she should have just submitted a helpdesk ticket, but whatever.

Geoff left for work and I realized it was 2pm. Yikes. Gotta get something done today!

Taking the sheets off my bed, I realized the top sheet of our other set had ripped, so I didn't have a replacement set to put right onto the bed. That's okay. I will just put these back on fresh from the dryer.

It was feeling like a great day.

Started the laundry, came upstairs and loaded the dishwasher, and played some more on my phone.

That's where things went wrong. The washer started draining, and I looked into the utility room to see the floor drain bubbling up. This happens a lot - but usually just the utility room gets wet. The drain catches up. We've had a plumber out here twice, and they can't find anything wrong. But there is something wrong, guy.

I only had the sheets in the wash, didn't bring the huge basket of laundry down, figured that could wait. The washer was set to "precise fill" so it was a small load and I didn't think it would be a big deal. But the water kept coming, leaking under the wall to the finished section of the basement. Geoff's cables for his video games were submerged, the power cords plugged into the power strip - everything. Lower drawers of his bureau. I called Doug to come down to help and he started plunging the drain. I recorded it for my property manager.

All I wanted was clean sheets, and here I am mopping the floor and not making any headway against the water.  My next door neighbors have a shop vac, so I got that from them and tackled the flood.  I guess the fun fact is I've never used one, so chalk that up to a life achievement? Maybe?

My property manager is looking to get a plumber out here immediately, and wants to get the water/sewer company out to see if we have a collapsed pipe or roots, or something. This shouldn't happen like this. A little bit, maybe. I can live with a little bit. But this was catastrophic almost.

I'm glad I went down and caught it, and it could be worse, but this is not what I wanted to do on a vacation day. I kind of feel like taking tomorrow off since the last 3 hours of my vacation day time were trashed, but ... there's a lot to do at work and I want to keep doing it.

Tomorrow is another day. Not sure how I'm going to drain the washer, need the plumber to come so I can recreate the disaster for them.

It's gonna be May... well, it is

Brodie dog is experiencing much discomfort as of late and I feel for her. Watching her trying to get comfortable, or lie down, or just try and stand while eating is giving me sympathy pain.

She's a poor bean.

Doug and I talk to her all the time, so we've been referring to her as our co-worker. We invite her to meetings, and if we're taking a call in the bedroom, and need to close the door, she gets frustrated and paces, so the person not on the call ends up opening the bedroom door to let her in.

And then, once she is in, she wants out.

She is an annoying coworker.

If nothing else, during this pandemic I'm glad to have so much time with her that otherwise I would miss out on.

I do not love taking her out at 2 in the morning but, I'll do it gladly as long as she is willing to be mine. And she sure is lazy all day while Doug and I are both working so hard. But at the end of the day when it is naptime... she sure is happy to join in.

Things here carry on. We're starting a new month, and right now we're all operating fine. Both of us are still employed, but both hearing our companies talking about reduction in work hours and pay to get through the situation. No one has had the "f" word - furlough - thrown at them yet but I will not be surprised to hear it. Nor the "l" word of layoff.

I have friends who have been laid off or furloughed, I had to look up the difference between the terms. In fact I have a set of friends who both work for the same company. She got furloughed, he got laid off. His position in and of itself will not exist after things start coming back. She's in management, so initially she took a pay cut starting at the beginning of April, and now she's furloughed and her job is waiting for her when they call her back. She said she is still working, because there is no one to do what she was doing, and things can't just stop - people need supervising, she has staff who literally are lost without her calling for advice or guidance.

He's mad, because he loved his job and the fact that it will not exist any longer really bums him out.

He's also mad because unemployment rules still require him to look for/interview/find another job. Rather than suspend that part of things because, oh, there are no jobs right now, he still has to spend a good chunk of time trying to find work and proving that he's trying to find work. So it is just irritating him. Can't say as I blame him.

I just put in for 3 vacation days, because I'm way over the allotted "you can keep X but you lose whatever is over X at the end of the year" amount. I have 22 days worth of vacation, and at this point on the calendar, I would be safely under the threshold of the amount of hours you can roll over into the next year.

Being unsure if I'll ever get to take a vacation and travel anywhere this year, I don't want to lose the time I have earned. I also am not sure if I get laid off that I'd be able to collect the total amount or lose so much of it.

I'll be taking two Thursdays and my wedding anniversary off, feeling kind of bummed on that last one because I was scheduled to take 7 whole  days off to go away with Doug to West Virginia  and then  up to Pennsylvania for his Aunt's memorial service. I don't even know if that is getting rescheduled to a later date.

I'm kind of running out of steam with little projects. I still have a checklist, but I find I don't really care right now. I'll need to re-up my purpose over the weekend. I basically unloaded one box of books a day all week long, and then stopped because meh.

Not much else to say. I think my coworker wants to go outside.