This Is Us During Covid-19

I walk anywhere from one to ten miles a day.
I walked twenty-seven miles over a three-day weekend.

Christian is quickly checking things off “The Project List”.
We are totally on top of yard work. 
 
I think it is nice that everyone is home.
I think it is annoying that everyone is home.

 I am a natural at social distancing.
 
Henry has a new mountain bike. 
Christian, Henry and Emlen mountain bike a lot.
They are mountain biking at this very moment.
Emlen had the biggest crash ever on his mountain bike. He is OK.
 
I almost finished spring cleaning the house.
I did not finish the spring cleaning because we got puppies.
We now have pack names: Queenie, Hook, Rick, Boomer, Fang, Pen and Gutes.
 
We watched all of Silicon Valley. We laughed a lot.
We watched Tiger King. We felt dirty.
We watched Schitt’s Creek. We want to dress like David.
We stopped watching TV because we got puppies.
 
I had my first Zoom girls night in.
 
I found a vitamin supplement that has extinguished my hot flashes.
 
I can never remember what day it is.

Henry grew an inch in three weeks.
 
Henry and Emlen have started playing Dungeons & Dragons.
Henry tried to beat Grand Theft Auto as a pacifist. He was unsuccessful.
Emlen reached level 382 in Rocket League. 
 
Emlen learned how to take apart and put back together a bike hub.
Emlen discovered that he likes taking things apart.
Emlen discovered that putting things back together is not as much fun as taking them apart.
 
Henry started an art project and found his inner artist.
 
Henry has a six-pack.
 
I switched from drinking coffee to drinking espresso.
Henry started drinking espresso.
We bought a twelve-cup stove top espresso maker. 
We are installing a second sink in our kitchen for hand washing, puppy feeding and espresso drinking.
 
I grocery shop two to three times a week.
 
We learned how to prepare Beef Pho. 
We learned how to prepare Korean Short Ribs. 
We learned how to prepare Pot Roast.
We learned how to prepare Pork Belly Adobo. 
We learned how to prepare Dry Rubbed Spareribs.
We learned how to prepare Bacon Sloppy Joes.
We grilled some part of a cow every Sunday night.
I am considering becoming a vegetarian. 
 
Emlen has become a master at making pancakes and sandwiches.
 
Emlen turned thirteen.

We bought and tried every flavor of Oreos.
We even deep-fried Oreos.
 
Emlen grew his first armpit hair. 
 
Henry announced, at least a hundred of times a day, his plans for his pandemic hair. 
Christian grew his hair back.
Emlen cut his hair.

I bought an epilator.
I found out that epilators hurt.
My eyebrows have not been this thick since the eighties.
I miss my hair removal lady.
 
I coordinate my masks with my outfits. 
I enjoy wearing masks. They hide my resting bitch face. 
 
Christian and Emlen built a wall of empty seltzer cans.
We now refill our Soda Stream cartridges at home from our very own CO2 tank. 
 
Christian started a new gig at Takeda.
I spent two weeks, on the phone, organizing all of Emlen’s meds with our new insurance plan.
 
I started taking CBD oil.
I am not sure CBD oil does anything.
I am unwilling to stop taking CBD oil, just in case it is doing something.
 
Henry helped with the laundry.
 
We changed over most of our fluorescent bulbs to LED’s. Our house is very bright.
 
Christian finally ordered his welder.
 
We had to cancel our trip to the Netherlands.
 
Henry and Emlen are swimming in small group clinics at The Thoreau Club.
Henry and Emlen participated in their first virtual swim meet.
 
We order take-out every Saturday night.
 
Christian organized his wood shop.
 
We cleaned the sunporch.
 
We went to New Hampshire, the only place we can travel to, three times.
We bushwhacked to Ballou Camp.
We explored Gates Mica Mine.
Henry caught two fish.
We taught the puppies how to swim.
 
We forgot to have the Toyota inspected. 
 
Christian never showers. 
Henry showers all the time.
Emlen started showering all the time too.
 
The puppies drove away the woodchuck. 
The puppies have done nothing about the rabbits. 
I bought the puppies a leather rabbit chew toy to train them to drive away the rabbits.
The puppies prefer old dish towels, cat toys and ice cubes to leather rabbit chew toys.
 
I am never alone.
 
Henry sent his paper driver’s permit through the laundry four times. 
I discovered that paper documents are not repairable after they have been laundered four times.  
We went to the RMV to replace Henry’s paper driver’s permit.
I like appointment only RMV’s.
 
We learned where the puppy ER is. 
 
Henry beat his friend Charlie at one on one basketball. 
 
We cut down a lot of trees. 
We have bench in the front yard.
We laid a pea stone path in our front garden bed.
We installed posts for the hammock.
 
Henry said that being at home all the time with no real responsibilities made him feel like he was seven years old.
 
We enjoy “bring your own chair and drink” driveway socials. I wonder what Frank Lloyd Wright, the proponent of the fireplace and hearth as the center of the home, would think about the driveway as the new social space. I wonder if this new scene will change driveway design.
 
We quickly figured out that remote learning sucks. It sucked this spring and I suppose it is going to suck again when the kids “go back” in the fall. Emlen is choosing the remote learning only option for obvious reasons. Henry is considering the hybrid learning option, 2.5 days in school and 2.5 days remote—especially after the email we just received from the Superintendent explaining that some teachers will teach from home, which is totally understandable, but means that if you are sitting in a classroom on campus, socially distanced from your peers, there is a possibility that you will be lectured to, via Zoom, from a home teaching teacher and it will vary everyday—because he thinks it is going to be a “shit show” and will provide endless hours of amusement. I think the learning platform will shift to all remote pretty quickly. And it will suck.
 
I am tired, so much so that every once in a while, I have to crawl into bed at six in the evening  completely exhausted. I watch Netflix and pass out around eight. I had to on the day we decided to postpone SWIM to FLIP CF. We had been working on it non-stop for three months, designing the registration platform, inventing logos and graphics, re-learning Photoshop, discovering that my Photoshop software was so old that it did not work with new printing techniques, researching, purchasing and learning—again—new Photoshop software, ordering swag, spending hours drumming up sponsors, starting a new LifeLineRacing Instagram account, figuring out Hootsuite, organizing volunteers and finally nagging swimmers and friends to sign up. I was tired for days.
 
We are up and running again. SWIM to FLIP CF is now virtual. It seems to be going well. Virtual events are a lot less work than one-day-in-person events. Emlen did his non-stop two-hour swim last week. He swam 5,850 yards—3 1/3 miles—and raised over $5000. Pretty good for a 13-year-old with cystic fibrosis in the middle of a pandemic. 

Collage by Henry Lease "Emlen's Swim"  8/09/2020

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