Floating around my house somewhere is a little hand-drawn gift tag my mom made for my twelfth birthday. It has a sketch of a fault line with the words “Earthquake Birthday!” written on the front. That was the year my presents were buried in a closet somewhere. We had to hastily move to a motel in Scott’s Valley where I had egg flower soup for my birthday dinner at the Harvest Moon, and watched Inspector Gadget every morning on TV. I’d never had Nickelodeon before.
Today is Friday the 13th and it may go down in history as Jake’s “Coronavirus Birthday.” Things have snowballed rapidly since yesterday afternoon. First flag football practice was cancelled. And then the whole season postponed. Then baseball. Then the variety show at school. I got home last night and had about an hour’s worth of Covid-19 emails to read. I read a little bit of news, including an article where four states had shut down their school systems. One for three weeks. I couldn’t fathom what we’d do if school was closed for three full weeks.
Based on guidance from our CEO, roughly half the office was working from home today. Late in the day I saw a flash of a Slack message. Something about a month.
As Nate and I are driving home the gray clouds hang just a little lower. A little darker. I see a lot of crows. Are there normally this many big black crows?
We make it home and the earlier emails and Parent Square notifications are finally sinking in. School is shut down for a full month. Till April 13th. I just can’t seem to process this information. In the barn, I notice last weekend’s slumber partiers have carelessly left a Halloween skull and femur on the floor.
I think the last time I was having this much trouble processing what was going on was exactly eleven years ago, on Friday the 13th, when I had just turned in my final MBA paper for the quarter. I was really pregnant. And I was profoundly looking forward to a girls’ dinner in the city and ten days of vacation before “motherhood” was scheduled. Dr. Antsy came to pick me up to drive to the city. And then she said I was going to have the baby. That very night.
Oh Friday the 13th. You crazy crazy day you.