We Were Never Really Normal to Begin With

It's the first weekend of the Quarantine and well, things are not great. My friend's son spiked a very high fever that wouldn't come down but they had a hard time getting into the ER. (He's okay. It wasn't Corona.) My mother is sewing hospital masks for where my sister-in-law works because people who don't need the masks are hoarding them. There's a war on between keeping our economy afloat and keeping our hospitals from being overrun, and I'm not sure if there are any winners to be had in this situation. I'm anxious about all of it, and having stress dreams.

But also, things are not that bad, either. I mean, we cleaned out the fridge, and J continued his massive "re-inventory-ing of all the games*" project. My parents have downloaded videoconferencing apps and we'll all get to talk to them tomorrow, and our usually very blasé teenager-y kids are really excited about it. I'm still working on blogging more and getting in some exercise every day. Today's exercise was going out for a walk in the 40 degree weather. Yesterday it was 72 at noon, and we walked around Prairie Oaks at 6, when it had dropped into a chilly, windy 50s. Still, as we headed back to the car, the whole park was filled with the sound of peepers, who I guess had been fooled by the 72 degrees into thinking that spring had arrived. The kids had never heard anything like it, I think. DD described it as the "same sound that little wooden frog the music teacher has makes when you rub the stick over the bumps." So hey, score one for accuracy for the woodcrafters.

While we were walking around both days, it was clear that little bits of spring are poking up. Our neighbors had fully blooming daffodils! We have some struggling crocuses that keep trying and then getting sucker punched by 30 degree drops in temperature from day to day. There are sprouts at the base of our perennials, too, which reminded me that I need to find our clippers since I never cleared away last year's twiggy bits from them as part of fall cleanup. Nature just keeps going.

 China's air quality is the best it's been in 30 years. Pollution levels will probably drop everywhere that factories are shutting down. It's not all beer and skittles, though, because there are monkey gangs in Thailand fighting over food since there are no tourists to drop any. We impact the earth in ways we don't even realize. I wonder what is going on with pigeon populations and other urban food webs that are suddenly without people. The urban-animal scientists must be going nuts over this.

We're all trying to find the new normal here, and it's slow going. I think about Little House in the Big Woods and how the Ingalls were practicing social isolation and didn't even know it. I've been planning to do a read-aloud for my students, and maybe I'll choose that, just because it *is* about spending pretty much all your waking time with just your family, but there's no wi-fi, indoor plumbing or central heating.†

J mentioned that some of his colleagues are still fairly fresh out of college, and living with roommates and not loved ones. And some folks are having to weather this truly alone. As much as we can aggravate each other, I'm glad to be surrounded by my family. I mean, four really is a good number for boardgaming.

So no, things are not so bad. We've got each other and the rest we can figure out as it goes.

Peace.



*If you've ever seen our game collection, you know this is no small task.
† See kids! Things *could* be worse!