Birthday in Quarantine

Today our youngest turns 18. Wow. We’re here. This is where we are. We’ll have cake, ice cream, root beer, and pizza brought from far away since it must be Special Pizza. My husband will drive about 90 minutes round trip to have a Chicago Fire pizza popped in the trunk for our lad. We have a handful of small presents, a sweatshirt, a couple of books, and some expansions for a card game he has. The plan is to game tonight with our one virtual guest, a friend to all the kids who we include in our family games. I feel really bad that he won’t get any of the cake and pizza and such. That just seems monumentally lame.

We’ll be running Pathfinder Age of Ashes and I think we’re finishing the second module tonight, with any luck. It’ll be fun but it’s a weird birthday with no one coming over. I’m sure my mother will be upset that she can’t come, it’s one of the things she does, she shows up to important events with food and gifts. Normally, this kid would invite a few friends from school and they would play games and goof around. This year, and such a big year, he’s stuck with an immediate family party. I want so much more for him. But this is what we have.

He chuckled when I said I was afraid his birthday might be a bit lackluster. He said something like; “Gee, I don’t know why you can’t get me everything I could want in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. It’ll be fine! ” I might have previously had moments where I was afraid we might have spoiled the lad, not anymore, he’s so incredibly kind. Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet son. I wish for you a happy, healthy, wonderful life in a peaceful, healing world.

Thursday Thoughts

My son’s birthday is coming up. He’ll be turning 18 in quarantine. I’m doing what I can, got him a few presents and they arrived and are hidden. They aren’t much but they are what I can do under the circumstances. A few books, a sweatshirt, and I got him a special quarantine birthday banner and cake topper which should get here in time. Kind of an insane indulgence really, but he’s turning 18, I want to decorate and make it as special as possible. I’ll be making a cake and hoping to be able to get some ice cream too. He wants a certain kind of pizza and getting that will just depend on whether they do curbside pick up or not. We will be playing an RPG that day as per my son’s request. I will do whatever I can to make sure the snacks are epic. I really want to try to get the lad some Virgil’s Root Beer, it’s his favorite. We’ll see if I can manage it.

We’re having warm days and cool nights lately and we’re keeping a lot of windows open. That means the cats are now obsessed with bird watching. All winter they ignored the birds, pretty much, but the birds are more active now and the cats can hear them better and smell them. So now they are glued to the windows chattering at the birds. The dog is even more vigilant about defending our borders now too. She doesn’t like people walking down the sidewalk across the street, or being out in their yards, or other dogs existing. She pretty much hates all living things, really, so she barks out the window now whenever she sees dogs or people. At least she’s started ignoring the rabbits and squirrels for the most part.

Work is starting to ramp up for me as we scramble to try and pull together some kind of activities for summer reading. I’m doing ok, it’s just weird trying to plan to do a bunch of stuff with no in person programming. I’m trying to set up virtual book clubs, take home craft activities, and put together materials for those who want to take part in the fairy tale and ghost story writing contest I’m hoping will actually happen. I’m supposed to come up with prizes somehow too. EEEEEEEK. That’s definitely a tricky bit. I think I need to go hide in a video game for a bit.

Mother Issues (etc.)

74 days of isolation and all is well at our house… or at least relatively so. We are all covid free as far as we know, all still at home, still able to get food and water. We are very lucky.

We’re still gaming a lot. Preparing to add more games and more players to the mix going forward. Lots of fun to be had there. We’re preparing to face decisions about going back to physical workspaces relatively soon as the state opens up. My Director just mentioned having the library actually open in some fashion by mid June. Color me terrified/skeptical. If we open and the spike in cases comes later I am naturally extremely reluctant to be exposed to this monstrous disease or have my vulnerable family members exposed, at the same time I doubt/hope it won’t happen that we won’t open then because the spike comes in time for us to change course on that. If I just babbled some kind of incoherent nonsense, I apologize, my focus has been suffering lately.

Last night, as I was gaming with some distant friends, my sister started texting me about how our mother has been ripping her down about her adorable little craft business. WTF? I have so many objections to this treatment of my sister. #1. Who does that? Who wants to just rip someone down over their art that they enjoy? It is so the worst sort of Jr. High viciousness #2. Who does that to their own daughter??? #3. WHY??????? WTF???? Ok, I have a pretty good idea wtf: jealousy. Our mother started behaving in a competitive manner toward us as soon as each of us approached puberty. When we started looking like attractive young ladies she clearly freaked out internally and started treating us like crap. (In new and exciting ways she hadn’t tried before!) If we, as teenagers, dressed attractively, wore any makeup, talked to or about boys, etc etc. she would call us “whores” and other choice words, accuse us of sleeping around, restrict the hell out of us, etc. I remember her flirting with boys we brought around, putting us down as we were just not as good as her, as popular as her etc. It was ridiculous. So, my sister is better educated than our mother, has more money and success and that sort of thing, which is not my sister’s focus but is probably why our mother is digging at her.

See, the thing is, my mother and her husband run a successful online business that has supported them for more than several years. They ship worldwide, they have a showroom that people occasionally come and peruse, (not often, it isn’t really public) but they sell tons online, more so now in the pandemic because those who can still afford to shop are doing it online. So my sister, who has a great job already at like a company, started making these terrific crafts and a local place or two near her started selling some, and she made so many she started selling them online. She did it more or less on a lark, maybe as a little experiment. She loves making these things, they are lovely, so she put them out there. Knowing she can afford to do this experiment who wouldn’t be encouraging of her hobby/business? That’s right! Our mother. My sister can’t say anything about her little fledgling business without our mother shitting all over it and bragging about how much money her business makes…. and our mother asks and asks about it so she can get her digs in! If my sister responds with any kind of ‘hey, wtf, don’t pick on me’ all of a sudden mother dearest cannot understand WHY Sis is so upset or angry? “why are you mad at me?” So Sis needed to vent, needed a little TLC from someone else who regularly receives such bullshit abuse and understands the horrible bind one is in when being tortured by a narcissist.

Sis? 100%: I feel ya! We got through our childhood alive. We somehow all grew up and eventually chose good, loving husbands. We managed to raise kids who are all wonderful in their unique ways and we LOVE OUR KIDS and SUPPORT them. We are fucking superheroes! We have grown kids, almost grown kids, and a few younger kids, and all of them are good, kind people who still love us. With any luck they will bitch in their like spaceship voice logs or whatever about how we moms all bother them with space-care packages too much, or how we sometimes interfere with grandkid’s homework because we want to talk to them every day. But they will never, Never have to rant to each other or cousin to cousin about how we tear them down, insult them, manipulate them, or make them feel like shit. Our kids won’t have that to deal with because we are goddamn amazing phoenixes rising from the ashes and ruin we were subjected to, and we have all fought hard to be good moms and we have succeeded. I don’t know, maybe our mother is jealous of that? Jealous of the happiness we have each found in so many ways so she wants to damage it, drag us down, make us as miserable as she is? Whatever her damn issues are, they are not ours, and I’ve got your back. Bitch to me whenever you need to. I get it, girl, I hear you.

I have Questions

Things are so uncertain. The news is full of insanity like a president recommending citizens inject bleach or cleaners to cure a virus or crazy people demanding the right to go back to normal so we can all risk a horrible death. The news is terrifying when the CDC and WHO warn us that those who’ve had this nightmare disease may well be able to get it again or that people in their 50, 40s, and 30s who get it and don’t even show symptoms can develop a terrible clotting disorder and become utterly disabled or die of massive strokes brought of a type normally reserved for the elderly. So I wonder about a lot of things. When will it actually be safe to go back to work? What will normal even look like whenever we can start rebuilding it? Will covid-19 kill my husband, even if we manage to keep him from contracting it, by making it impossible for him to get the asthma medications that keep him alive?

But I have other, more immediate, questions: Since it’s the apocalypse how much do I have to clean the house? I have all this time now so why am I still unable to relax and read? With all this time how am I finding it difficult to plan a GURPS game for my family? How late is too late to sleep in? When is it too late in the day to remember to shower? I mean, If I don’t remember until after 7pm, does it even count as showering for that day? If I cook 3 meals for everyone one day, my usual now being fend for yourselves for breakfast and lunch but I’ll make a decent, sit-down, dinner, can I take a day? What if no one else knows how to cook? What does it say about me that I had a dream that we got a mad amount of take out from Wendy’s and I was over the moon about it? What day is it? Will I ever be able to buy baking powder again? (It’s really tricky baking without it) Is it Mother’s Day or something? Isn’t that soon? What is all this doing to my son who’s about to turn 18? What about my 20-something daughters? What about my husband and me? I even heard this is all taking a toll on our pets so there’s that to worry about too.

I think this is day 50 of isolation. How are we doing this without going insane? Or are we insane now? Would we know?

Fraying Around the Edges

The stupidest thing is eating at me. I’m tearing up as I try to type this. The groceries we ordered March 22nd still haven’t arrived. On the site our order page says both “arrives by Sunday afternoon” and “arrives by Tuesday afternoon.” The order costs $140 and the note at the bottom says our credit card is temporarily authorized for $90. I have zero freaking confidence this food will arrive, ever.

This isn’t an emergency, it isn’t, it’s just I’m living with my 3 adult, and near-adult, autistic kids and my youngest has always had issues with food. Wrong textures sicken him and his range, despite MAJOR progress, is pretty narrow. My younger daughter has acid reflux and has lists of foods that help keep the acid down. The order isn’t critical, it isn’t, there’s still food everyone can eat, I just want to be able to give the kids the things that… make life seem normal, sort of. I feel like I’m failing them which is insane because everyone is doing their best. All the parents out there are agonizing over everything and at least we have food. I would have stocked the cupboards differently if I’d known my youngest hates rice and that rice causes acid. (??? I had no idea)

Gods, I’m such an ungrateful jerk. We have food, we have a roof over our heads, we aren’t sick, probably.

3 Weeks in.

My husband figured it out, I think I’ve been in denial, we’ve been inside (mostly) for 3 weeks now. I did make a couple of surgical strikes on the grocery stores early on. I was still dropping K off at the community college early on, and we do still have to take our trash to the transfer station. (where we wait till we can do it with zero human contact and without touching anything) We’ve had 2 small Instacart deliveries of groceries but our last order got cancelled and now there is no way to place new orders. Peapod also delivers in our area but they are full too. Shit is getting real for me now.

We’re ok. Just stressed. The Schedule I made of activities hasn’t taken off and it needs to, that’s clear to me now, I made it for a reason and NOT doing it is proving how much we need it to stay sane. So, today, I’m going to bake a nice B-day style cake, we’re going to play Pathfinder, we’re going to try ordering a whole bunch of pizza, maybe I’ll pop some popcorn and put on some music. We’re got to fight the GLOOM.

Normal nods yep, normal…

The new normal is weird. We’re probably all thinking about ‘when things get back to normal’ but I’m not sure that’s what will happen. The virus seems to be changing things more than I thought it would, I never imagined having to actually avoid all human contact outside of the people I live with, and … how does this ever go back to the way things were? I’m not sure I will ever regard surfaces as innocent, harmless things again. I’m not sure I will ever hear a cough or see someone who is obviously ill and not have a reaction of anxiety. I’m not sure I will ever be able to believe that symptomless people are safe to be around. Will we have loads of people with a kind of PTSD-like reaction to crowds, coughs, stores, etc?

I took part in some webinars recently, having to do with my job, and there was a repeated theme of ‘our jobs are, right now, fundamentally changing and we shouldn’t think that this will be temporary because it probably won’t be. I know my boss is or has been thinking that things will just revert to normal, last I heard she was hoping w/in 2 weeks. (!!!) There is no way that is a safe timeframe at all but I hadn’t thought about things not going back. We’re shifting the materials budget more into ebooks and other digital content, we’re coming up with programming to reach people at home, to interact online. There is a lot of worry over the digital divide which is suddenly even more of a problem. How can we serve those who need us most if they can’t access our services from home? Yeah, I don’t know. I’m seeing a lot of experts saying things aren’t going to be safe anytime soon. Summer Reading is in serious question right now. Everything we’ve been planning is in doubt.

And there’s all these kids and teens at home trying to go to school online. They are having no face to face contact with peers or anyone outside their households and it’s important that they don’t. But what is that doing to them psychologically? Keeping us all healthy, protecting our communities is obviously vital and the top priority but how do we keep this from scarring our kids? I know we’re all trying, we’re all doing our best, but the situation right now is NUTS and it’s scary.

Day by Day

We all check emails for work and school, attend virtual meetings, and work on anything we’re assigned.

What is your daily life like? How has it changed? How are you and yours coping?

We’re doing ok here so far.

Our alarms still go off every morning, though they are now set for 7am rather than 6, and one of us gets up and gets breakfast for the 2 of us. (1/2 a bagel and a cup of tea, hummus and Earl Grey for him, cream cheese and Yorkshire Gold w/milk for me) We shower or don’t. Sometimes we sort of get dressed, mostly we wear PJ pants and T shirts, bathrobes are the new sweaters. We get the boy up and tell him to walk the dog and get ready for school. He considers ‘ready for school’ to mean; out of bed and slightly finger combing the wild tangle of full-on muppet hair he’s sporting and shrugging. The girls get up and K feeds the birds, I does dishes, they take turns with the video games, do chores, chat or game online with friends. T, the boy, gets into the mix when he’s done with classes.

Breakfast and lunch are usually forage for yourself kind of affairs but sometimes I make pancakes for breakfast or whip up a pot of homemade soup for lunch and we all eat together. Dinner is always as a family and I’m struggling to keep any kind of variety going. I thought I was prepared for this, and I did do my best, but varied is not exactly what I’d call our diet. Pasta and rice are the base of nearly every dinner and just NOW I find out my son hates rice. He hadn’t ever complained about it to me, my daughter let it slip a few days ago and my son was clearly deeply frustrated that she had. Sweet of him to want to pretend. How many ways can I find to make pasta seem different? We’ve had mac & cheese, pasta with marinara for everyone else and some weird tomatoless sauce for me, noodles with cheese and butter, there were meatballs once, we had cheese ravioli early on, … I could make a tunafish casserole maybe, if I can get some milk. Ok, this is a little depressing.

SO, on to the good news! I’ve been seeing some good stories emerging from the chaos so I’m going to post some links in case you need something positive to think about.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/coronavirus-national-cathedral-donates-masks-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/videos/style/2020/03/26/fashion-designer-christian-siriano-coronavirus-mask-support-bts-cpt-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus/

And here’s a message from The Doctor to all of us who are worried here on Earth. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/entertainment/jodie-whittaker-doctor-who-coronavirus-trnd/index.html

Living the New Normal

As of today we are under further restrictions here. The governor asked everyone to shelter in place. He didn’t make it an order but I cannot tell you why not. We have got to all stay home as much as possibly possible to try to contain this thing and keep it from destroying our entire health care system. I mean, the health care might suck here but imagine if it was GONE. I have no idea what that would be like and I am trying my hardest NOT to imagine it.

I buckled down today and made and printed up lists of chores/expectations for each other offspring and made a chart of the week showing what each of us has on our schedules, (classes, work from home, skype therapy etc) plus suggested evening family activities. I posted it all on the fridge and put in in a binder along with any special rules and suggestions for life here during the quarantine. (Don’t open the door to people, never flush sanitizing wipes even if you wiped down the toilet with one, suggestions for exercise, etc.) The binder now sits on a side table in the dining room so everyone can check it if they want to. Having 3 autistic kids means I need to create some kind of schedule and specific expectations, as well as outlining procedures they can follow if they get overwhelmed. I put some camp furniture and an airbed in the empty apartment along with a tv and dvd player so anyone can go down there and be alone for a bit if they get overwhelmed or annoyed. I think we’ll add an old game system and some light refreshments and other small comforts. There’s a full bath too so long breaks will work well if any of them needs one. Or if the hubby and I need one!

My boss asked for an accounting of what work I’ve done from home and when and in trying to put that together for her I realized my little notes to myself SUCKED and were completely disorganized. I came up with a new system for tracking my activities for her that will work much better. Bullet Journal to the rescue! (again) If you’re having trouble staving off the chaos during confinement, or anytime really, I highly recommend bullet journaling. It’s simple and completely adaptable to whatever your needs are and you change it up in an instant absolutely whenever you need to. There are some great books on it, the original is by Ryder Carroll: The Bullet Journal Method, and that’s where I started. My current favorite book about it is Dot Journaling; a Practical Guide; by Rachel Wilkerson Miller. It’s very visual and a lot less intimidating than some of the information out there, less overwhelming and more reassuring. I’m using one of her examples of a “daily spread” to track my work from home activities.

Thursday marks 23 years of togetherness (not marriage we’ve only been married 16 1/2 years) for my husband and I. He asked me a month ago what I wanted to do to celebrate, we celebrate everything like goofballs, and I said I didn’t know. Maybe dinner and a movie? I think we had a movie in mind but I can’t remember which one was supposed to come out around now and we probably would have gone out for Indian food as it’s a heavy favorite with us. Our options have narrowed a touch, what with the isolation and all, so we’re going to stay home, watch a movie on Netflix or something, and eat whatever I come up with for dinner that night. Neither one of us even had the chance to buy a small gift for the other. I probably have a card stashed somewhere if I can find it. We also didn’t remember, what with the state of the world and all, to order anything in time. I told him to look over the offerings on STEAM and order a cool game but I don’t think he’s going to. He’s busier working from home than he was working at the office. It’s ridiculous. I’m really proud of him though, he is kicking ass getting everything together for distance learning for when the kids “return to school” next week. Everything depends on him. I know he’s stressed but once everything is up and running, and the staff and kids get trained in it, I think he’ll be able to scale back and take a small breather.

2020 day 3

I have read every day of 2020 so far. I wrote a fair bit yesterday, blogged here, started a recommended Tarot Journal on paper. Also started learning about Tarot reading, so double duty there. My reading is also doubling as working on learning to garden properly. I feel so efficient! ~_^ I managed to work in a little crafting yesterday, I ate pretty healthy, and failed to make progress on any other fronts, which is fine, I need to pace myself and be realistic. Fighting my instincts here. This is day 3 of just kind of winging here, on the goals, I may need to set an actual structure up at some point.

I’m currently reading a gardening book and a mystery novel. Our first Book Boot Camp is going to be Mystery so I should really get cracking on that sucker. My TBR pile is ridiculous.

Reviewing my goals this morning I realized that I have no professional goals listed. I need to think about it for a bit but I think I should have some of those. Right off the top of my head, one basic goal is just to have my programming planned out and publicized at least 3 months in advance, beyond that I need to figure out what else makes sense. Maybe to try to take in one seminar a month or something on professional development? I should have goals, some kind of plan, or vision for my job. That seems awfully grown up.

Oh, hilarious development yesterday, it turns out my youngest had school yesterday and I blithely let him sleep until 1 pm thinking he didn’t go back till Monday. Ha ha ha! I am such a bad mom! Oof. My husband thought so too and, apparently, so did lots of other parents from our kid’s school… the one that prides itself on communication but is really bad at it. Yeah. I just don’t feel too bad about it. I mean, it ate up one of his allowed sick days, but I think the school must have been pretty unclear about this winter break. If it was just me, sure, my fault, but the school was, reportedly, a ghost town yesterday so I’m not taking it on. My kid wasn’t exactly broken up about it either. LOL

I’ve got a new trick for getting him out of bed now! My old method involved loud, poor singing, bright lights, and getting the dog riled up. Now I bring him tea or food. How civilized! I should have thought of it sooner. I bring my husband tea, and occasionally breakfast, in bed every day. He used to get breakfast in bed every day, if you can imagine. That fell apart at some point, I think 18 years ago when I was pregnant. It’s been sporadic-to-rare ever since. Maybe I’ll start that up again? Add the boy to it and bring up tea and breakfast on weekdays. Hmm, maybe I will, it always made for easier mornings for my husband, and it made him feel super appreciated, loved, and looked after. I suppose I worry about spoiling the lad and giving him insane expectations which his future partners will hate me for. Hmmm, maybe we’ll try a limited test of it?