Month: June 2020

This is something we have come to say a lot in these days of a pandemic. School is out. My daughter is home. My husband and I are both still working from home. Camps are mostly online. I had a fleeting thought of putting my child in one, but she wouldn’t know any of the kids. We have very tentatively opened our circle to two friends and their kids. My daughter has a friend in each of these families. One an only child like mine, the other the eldest of three. Both sets of parents are rather conservative about our interactions with others so we have felt pretty comfortable. We actually had one family over and the kids all played together while we sat and chatted. It was wonderful to look at people face to face.

Meanwhile my Mom, who turns 96 this July, is under house arrest of sorts at her retirement community. The community has instigated rules that require anyone who goes out to quarantine in their apartment for 14 days afterwards. I understand it as her community of 300+ are those most vulnerable. The management doesn’t want someone getting sick and killing off a quarter of the residents.

We have tried to convince my mother to make a hair appointment (she misses this most apparently) and then my brother or I could come get her. She could stay with us for a long weekend. We could make her some meals that she might enjoy (she isn’t a fan of the food at her facility). Then we would take her back and after the socializing, she could shut down for two weeks. She doesn’t want to go for it. My brother and I think it makes sense but she currently likes to be able to interact with her fellow residents in the confines of the facility. They go for walks around the various terraces, and can meet up, socially distanced of course, while picking up mail.

Additionally my Mom’s doctor who, still seems to make house calls, is concerned that my Mom isn’t eating enough. She has lost weight and my brother and I are concerned but need to find a solutions Mom will agree to. My brother is working on arranging bringing in the occasional dinner via Door Dash from restaurants my Mother has gone to in the past. While she has agreed, we have yet to be able to make this work.

I have an Aunt as well, who is in a board and care near where I live. I manage her affairs and she is not in great shape. She has dementia from Alzheimers. She gets a bit belligerent and stubborn. She doesn’t sleep much at night and hasn’t been eating well. It really is time for her to move on, to be honest, but apparently her body isn’t ready yet. She keeps saying she wants to be with her two sisters who have pre-deceased her. Her world has become so small. I used to take her to church once a week, but haven’t been able to since March. I don’t think she really understands what is going on. She needed blood-work done recently and we had to have someone come to the facility to do it. I then had a video appointment with her and her doctor. She didn’t understand who I was talking to. It is quite sad. I feel bad but there isn’t much I can do. My brother and I are her only living relatives at this point. She actually is a cousin of my father’s. Never married. No children. I’m happy I can help in the little ways I do, but I still think it isn’t enough.

Then there is work. My hours have been reduced during the summer. It beats being furloughed or laid off. The college I work for is opening in the Fall. They have to. Students living on campus are the main way to get revenue to keep the college going. The college is working with the county to maintain social distance among staff and students. It will be interesting in late August to see if it works. They will have in person, hybrid, and totally online classes. I don’t know how long I’ll be working at home. Right now I go in once a week for half a day to do the things I can’t do remotely. It is nice to see three or four people, but the mood is… anxious. As with everything these days you can’t look too far ahead because when you do, your mind starts to play games in the “worst-case-scenario” way.

Meanwhile, I’m safe with my husband and daughter. I’m grateful we all like each other. I haven’t been working out as I should. I had tried to run, but that didn’t work. I’m trying to “intermittent fast” these days but can only seem to get up to 14 hours between dinner and breakfast. I’m not really losing but I’m not gaining weight. I have at least tried to walk every few days for an hour. It burns off the stress. I either go in the morning around 7:00 AM or in the evening after 7:00 PM. The days have been warm so this makes it bearable.

My family and my brother’s family have rented a house with a pool in Kenwood near Sonoma, the first week of August. We are hoping that the county will lift the rules long enough for a change of scenery. It would be great to see my brother and sister-in-law, along with my niece and nephew. The kids could all play together too. Fingers crossed it works out. Otherwise, just trying to keep going. One day at a time.

Please share what you are up to in the comments if you made it to the end.

Stay well. Stay safe and wear a mask. The sooner we are all on board wearing masks the sooner we can get through this.

My daughter finished school on June second. She is now a middle schooler. We have no idea how the Fall will go for her. I’m hoping for some in person classes as we are all weary of interacting online.

We were finally able to get together with some friends in our backyard. It was very low key with the kids running around while the adults chatted. We are trying to figure out how to educate our kids about #BlackLivesMatter. The unrest hasn’t affected us directly other than a few nights of curfews since there is always some group who has to take advantage of peaceful protesters especially when they are people of color. I know I’m tired from all the news but I don’t have to live that. I am very aware of my privilege in this situation.

I am heartened though to see so many protesting. Especially so many younger people. I feel like my generation, GenX, has failed. But I see hope in the future with so many protests organized by high schoolers. There was one in San Francisco that was organized by a 17 year old. How incredible is that?! Then another set of teens did a protest on the Golden Gate bridge. Just remarkable stuff.

Meanwhile all I do is tweet (#acme707) and write this blog. Not huge, but baby steps.

It has been a couple of weeks since I last wrote here. I have actually tried to write something multiple times. There have been lots of things going on in the world and with my little family in the last week.

Big things in the world are the continued pandemic, and more recently continued amplification of the racism that infects our country. I am not an expert in those big things. I only know that both are horrible and when we had a different president in this country, the one my daughter was born under in 2009, I had much greater hope around the world she was being born into. Lately though, that hope has been deeply deeply shadowed by the bigotry and racism that still infects this country. Being white, I can’t express the challenges people of color experience. I do see it though. I know I have to be an ally and am trying to find ways to do that. I know though that there are others in this world who are much better voices to listen to. So I try to learn and teach my child of the inequality that is still in this country so that hopefully in her lifetime if not mine, we find a better way.

Small things in our world were the celebration of an 11th birthday including a parade of her friends and family in cars. This was such a success she hopes to have another in the future. I hope next year though we can actually have friends over.

I deleted my Facebook account. I was spending WAAAYYYYY too much time on it and it wasn’t doing anything to improve my mind. Rather it was being an echo chamber to my own beliefs and confusing when others disagreed. The problem with social media is there is very little nuance that you might find from just having a conversation with someone. Oh I do love the pictures of babies, graduations, and various other celebrations. Unfortunately there was so much other stuff. More marketing, and politics that didn’t give nuance. That word again I know. It just became tiresome.

I decided on my blog I could write in a longer form and maybe people would really share their thoughts in comments here. We shall see if it just becomes a smaller echo chamber.

I do have many other things to talk about, but honestly, you are probably experiencing them too. Things like worries about friends or families who are affected by the pandemic be it due to illness, lack of work, lessening of work, or just wondering how you can juggle kids and everything else especially with school out. Or maybe you are struggling with mental health, family issues, domestic abuse, marginalization due to race, ethnicity or religion. There are a lot of things out there right now that have been there for a long time. My only hope is in my small (very small) way, together we can find little answers that hopefully lead to bigger answers. Ghandi marched so that India would be free from British rule 17 years before India found it’s freedom. That was to make salt from the ocean which the British Government didn’t allow. People of peace and justice need to find our salt. Racism, lack of leadership, taxing the rich, these are all very complex issues. I want to find something simple like salt. Maybe just feeding the homeless. It is such a simple yet powerful act. Marching as has been done for George Floyd should also be a simple act, but opportunists on both sides of the law often time don’t make it so simple.

For now I have to think. I will be writing more. My job at the college I work for has been scaled back for the summer. I hope to use some of that time to write more and listen. I hope you will help by asking questions and possibly giving me some ideas of what you want to see.

In the meantime, please stay well, stay healthy. Remember empathy for your fellow humans as all have burdens, but not all are shared.