This morning I went to Trader Joe’s and found a line. Outside. Each person was carefully waiting six feet behind the next. They were only letting us in as someone else exited. It made shopping at Trader Joe’s feel as spacious as a normal store. Thankfully, they’d overstocked the shelves,…
Yesterday the boys did a new Black Panther YouTube workout. They yelled, “Mom, Mom come here! Black Panther is fat!” Of course I came running. I’m proud to report that Black Panther was simply promoting realistic body images for little boys. Mid-morning, I did my first streaming class with my…
It’s been one week since Friday the 13th. Things are very, very different just one week in. We’re sheltering-in-place. Work is really stressful. I mostly live in my new office in the barn. James is Chief Learning Officer. The boys have to run laps across the yard and around the…
The days really start to run together if you don’t write them down in some way. Now we know why certain retired grandparents are expecting weekend-level responsiveness on Tuesdays. Yesterday I started the day with conference calls on the Bob Jones. My key fob was nearly dead. Just twenty-five pulls of…
Today I woke up early to the sound of a lot of heavy equipment coming up our hill. It was just our neighbor Julian. But then around 8, more heavy equipment showed-up. And it parked in our driveway. James got a little hot under the collar. Seems the tree trimmers…
Yesterday the boys went on a walk on the Bob Jones. They took the football and ran into Coach Tom from the Chiefs. Apparently Nate gunned the football over Jake’s head into a thicket of poison oak. Jake went in, since he seems impervious to this poisonous plant, despite his…
12:38PM: James “I’ve been home schooling these people for three hours and I can’t take it anymore. We should be paying teachers billions.” 12:48PM: Jacob Whimpering… “I really wish I was at school right now.” It’s Day 1 soldiers! Buck-up and wash your hands.
Yesterday I decided to go to the grocery store first thing and it was a crazy zoo. I was going to make Trader Joe’s orange chicken for Jacob’s Coronavirus Birthday, but locusts had descended upon the freezer section. All manner of asian delicacies were gone, though the kale gnocchi was…
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…
As my mom tells it, my first slumber party was around third grade for Esther’s birthday. And I would spend the following day as grumpy as, quote, “a little wet hen.” As I grew as a connoisseur of the sleepover soirees, I mostly remember being the primary target of the…