Saturday, April 11, 2020

On Pause


 Well, we are still quarantined/"on pause"/sheltering in place/self-isolating or whatever term you want to use. :)

The boys have adapted pretty well to the situation. They have some online schoolwork, but they are generally able to get it done pretty quickly, which gives them more time for their preferred activities such as watching The Simpsons. :)  One of their teachers is doing a short online meeting with them on Mondays, but mostly it's just more self-directed activities.

The weather is slowly improving, which is nice -- it's generally been in the 50s or so, although we had a sprinkling of snow on the ground in the morning on Thursday or Friday. That's not unusual for Buffalo, but everyone was grumbling about it nonetheless!

We've been playing games -- Scrabble was okay, the kids/adults Trivial Pursuit is pretty good, but Apples to Apples is the kids' current favorite.

Mike got a small weight bench for the basement to try to keep working out, although it's not the same. James has done very little gymnastics-related activity -- I think it's going to be a disaster when he goes back!

We have some cloth masks now that people are supposed to be wearing them. It is probably a bit unnecessary since our neighborhood isn't that crowded -- except on the very nicest days when everyone is out, it's easy to stay more than six feet away from other people (across the street, etc.).  I don't particularly like wearing the mask -- it fogs up my glasses -- but better safe than sorry, I suppose. Mike is stubborn and refuses.

The cases continue to rise in our county (1506 confirmed as of today, and that's with still a pretty severe lack of testing, and 57 deaths).  But they're rising at a slower rate now and they think that as long as people keep staying home as much as they can that the hospitals will be okay and have enough capacity.

I've been listening to Governor Cuomo's press conferences some of the days. I was not a big fan of him before, but I think he's done a great job with all of this. His calm, competent, thoughtful leadership has really been great to have.

(I had also never heard of the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, before all this, but there are a ton of hilarious memes out there with her telling everyone to stay home!)

We've used Instacart for grocery delivery which has been okay so far -- it just requires planning ahead a little because delivery slots are often several days out. The first time we used it I got lucky and kept refreshing the page and ended up with a same-day spot; this time, I placed the order on Monday or Tuesday for a Sunday delivery. We've also been doing HelloFresh meal delivery -- we almost cancelled it before all this happened because we hadn't been using it very often, but now we're glad to have it!  They send the fresh ingredients for three dinners a week. 

Aunt Nora sent us tiki glasses and kiwi syrup and paper umbrellas so that we could make Green Geckos, one of our favorite drinks from Hawaii (sprite, kiwi, and lime juice), which has made our quarantine much more festive!







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