Monday, March 23, 2020
Today was like any other new day in the COVID age, a weird one.
Get up, make coffee, feed dogs.
Laze around a bit, ice the shoulder that's angry from all the wallpaper removal we did yesterday and the day before.
Walk the dogs. Admire a decent day, little wind, not too cold. A good long walk.
Come home and I watched some of the public forum from Madison College. I email my students with what will go down when "classes" "resume" on March 30.
I heard Jim scrape-scrape-scraping again at the small bathroom and finally came down to help.
He said, "Did you hear that Gov. Evers is going to shut down all non-essential businesses?"
Ugh.
And also, "Hey, what paint colors are we going to pick?"
Good point, as the paint store is probably going to be deemed non-essential today. Hardware stores, for all the other paint roller bits, will stay open.
They were doing curbside pickup, so we bungled through the WORST EVER paint brand app and picked some colors that we truly hope are not awful together. Point of fact, I think I got to choose the wall color, and Jim chose the color to cover the wainscoting. Fine. We will call it a happy catastrophic compromise and we will live with it.
Much work was done today on those walls, thanks to Jim and the razor gizmo.
I called in the paint order and went solo to pick it up. Definitely curbside. Definitely some other yahoos had not yet gotten the memo and expected to just walk in. Nope.
Got my paint order loaded into my trunk, and I'd realized on my way over that my car was telling me I needed an oil change. Well, what else does one do on the eve of an apocalypse? One changes one's oil. If I were fancy, or less fancy, I could probably do it myself. But as I sat at the Valvoline (waiting forever, but not without reassurances from their kind manager that they were down to a skeleton crew), I realized that we had a full oil-catcher full of oil from our bikes that I wish I'd taken in. And as 3-4 more cars piled up behind me, how lucky I was to have the time and the means to have someone do this mundane task for me.
All of this as the whole world of "non-essential" businesses just freaking crumbled.
I missed a call from my essential "non-essential" employer, who was trying to soften the blow of an email I'd get with my pay stub, talking about unemployment insurance. She'd had to close up shop as a "non-essential" business, and not without tears and heartbreak. She loves her work, most days, she'd tell you. It hurts to think what she's going through, will go through, for who knows how long. Until.
What all of us, go through, will go through, for who knows how long. Until.
I've started a wish list of things I want to do when it's safe or "normal" again. Like, this is what it might look like to have normal again:
Go out for a beer or a meal or both.
Sing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Sing or make music with other people in real time.
Have a big-ass party that celebrates anything, celebrates the stop of this ridiculous virus.
And even before it's safe or normal:
Make stupid videos for myself, my family, my students.
Make food videos for my students, even if/though they are food insecure. Connect them with resources if they are having a hard go of it, having lost their jobs in a quick minute.
Figure out how my weekly videos to them will go, what to say. It will be harder to improvise than it used to be. Shit just got real, y'all. Germany is down to gatherings of no more than TWO.
FaceTime with family and friends.
Read stories to each other.
Do those things that are important, whatever they are, here and now, that ease the burden of fear and uncertainty and "Don't Know."
Like VOTE. I got my absentee ballot today, and though I have a decision to make, I know for whom I will NOT vote. You've got till April 2 to request your absentee ballot, as I'm not convinced they'll let us vote in public this time: https://myvote.wi.gov/en-US/VoteAbsentee
Find your light at the end of this tunnel. Stay home until it's time to come out of a late-ass, illness-enforced hibernation. And then let's live it right the Eff Up. Love and light to you all.
Get up, make coffee, feed dogs.
Laze around a bit, ice the shoulder that's angry from all the wallpaper removal we did yesterday and the day before.
Walk the dogs. Admire a decent day, little wind, not too cold. A good long walk.
Come home and I watched some of the public forum from Madison College. I email my students with what will go down when "classes" "resume" on March 30.
I heard Jim scrape-scrape-scraping again at the small bathroom and finally came down to help.
He said, "Did you hear that Gov. Evers is going to shut down all non-essential businesses?"
Ugh.
And also, "Hey, what paint colors are we going to pick?"
Good point, as the paint store is probably going to be deemed non-essential today. Hardware stores, for all the other paint roller bits, will stay open.
They were doing curbside pickup, so we bungled through the WORST EVER paint brand app and picked some colors that we truly hope are not awful together. Point of fact, I think I got to choose the wall color, and Jim chose the color to cover the wainscoting. Fine. We will call it a happy catastrophic compromise and we will live with it.
Much work was done today on those walls, thanks to Jim and the razor gizmo.
I called in the paint order and went solo to pick it up. Definitely curbside. Definitely some other yahoos had not yet gotten the memo and expected to just walk in. Nope.
Got my paint order loaded into my trunk, and I'd realized on my way over that my car was telling me I needed an oil change. Well, what else does one do on the eve of an apocalypse? One changes one's oil. If I were fancy, or less fancy, I could probably do it myself. But as I sat at the Valvoline (waiting forever, but not without reassurances from their kind manager that they were down to a skeleton crew), I realized that we had a full oil-catcher full of oil from our bikes that I wish I'd taken in. And as 3-4 more cars piled up behind me, how lucky I was to have the time and the means to have someone do this mundane task for me.
All of this as the whole world of "non-essential" businesses just freaking crumbled.
I missed a call from my essential "non-essential" employer, who was trying to soften the blow of an email I'd get with my pay stub, talking about unemployment insurance. She'd had to close up shop as a "non-essential" business, and not without tears and heartbreak. She loves her work, most days, she'd tell you. It hurts to think what she's going through, will go through, for who knows how long. Until.
What all of us, go through, will go through, for who knows how long. Until.
I've started a wish list of things I want to do when it's safe or "normal" again. Like, this is what it might look like to have normal again:
Go out for a beer or a meal or both.
Sing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Sing or make music with other people in real time.
Have a big-ass party that celebrates anything, celebrates the stop of this ridiculous virus.
And even before it's safe or normal:
Make stupid videos for myself, my family, my students.
Make food videos for my students, even if/though they are food insecure. Connect them with resources if they are having a hard go of it, having lost their jobs in a quick minute.
Figure out how my weekly videos to them will go, what to say. It will be harder to improvise than it used to be. Shit just got real, y'all. Germany is down to gatherings of no more than TWO.
FaceTime with family and friends.
Read stories to each other.
Do those things that are important, whatever they are, here and now, that ease the burden of fear and uncertainty and "Don't Know."
Like VOTE. I got my absentee ballot today, and though I have a decision to make, I know for whom I will NOT vote. You've got till April 2 to request your absentee ballot, as I'm not convinced they'll let us vote in public this time: https://myvote.wi.gov/en-US/VoteAbsentee
Find your light at the end of this tunnel. Stay home until it's time to come out of a late-ass, illness-enforced hibernation. And then let's live it right the Eff Up. Love and light to you all.
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