Everyone’s lives have been turned upside down because of the coronavirus.  From not being able to physically go to the office to having kids learning from home, it’s been a change for all of us and it’s taken a while to get used to it.  Some may never get used to it.  And I know from recent “protests”, many have lost their patience.  If they had any patience to begin with.

From my personal perspective, there’s many things I’m actually liking about staying home.  First of all, I’ve always been a homebody.  My entire family is.  So to us staying home really hasn’t been a big deal.  I was already working from home three days a week and my husband was working from home two days a week before this all began.  So working from home for us is just another day at the office.  Bonus:  no traffic!  Love it!  I can’t speak for my husband, but do I miss the social interaction of work?  No.  Because I wasn’t socially interacting much with anyone to begin with.  Even within the office, if someone needed something they would email me.  Even if they sat right next to me.  Now when they email me, it’s because they really have to.

My daughter has handled doing her school work at home much better than I anticipated.  In fact, she’s actually doing her work, instead of not going to her classes, like she would so often do in school.  I think it may do with the fact that she doesn’t have to start school at 7:30 a.m. and can work at her own pace.  She’s even done extra work, which is not something she would do when in school.  Several years ago we briefly tried home schooling with her.  Maybe that happened to eventually prepare us for this.  Although this is a walk in the park compared to actual home schooling.

Do I miss going out?  Sure, it would be nice to say, okay, family, let’s go see the latest XYZ film at Cinemagic, which we would sometimes do, depending on what was playing.  And a lot of good movies were scheduled to be released this year.  But going to the movies or mall and maybe, in warmer weather, to the zoo, was about all we did, aside from the occasional actual vacation every other year.  Sometimes the only place I would go in an entire week was to the store.  Which I’m still doing.  So in that retrospect, not much has really changed.

The main thing I’m missing is being able to see my autistic sister.  Before the pandemic I was visiting with her twice a month and although our visits consisted of lunch at Subway and going for a ride to wherever, that time with her has always been precious to me.  She’s loving staying at home, however, because she really dislikes her day program and loves to be at home.  So to her this is a good thing.

 

 

 

“….We’re tired of not being able to buy the things that we need…we need to open our businesses”

This is part of a quote from one of the nuts in Michigan who thought it was a good idea to “protest” Michigan’s stay-at-home orders.

My question is:  what things that you need are you not able to buy?  Food?  I know for a fact that your supermarkets are open, because I have friends and co-workers in Michigan who have had no problem finding food.  There may be a problem with supply, but right now it’s the luck of the draw.  Toilet paper may be another story.  But that’s a nationwide problem.  Even with that, you are able to order it on Amazon.  I know because I have.

And newsflash:  even if all your businesses opened tomorrow, guess what?  You’re not going to have any more supply than you do now.  It’s going to take MONTHS for the supply to catch up with the demand.  Look how empty shelves were when this pandemic began.  We weren’t even on stay-at-home orders yet and toilet paper was flying off the shelves like everyone had a bad case of the shits.  One week you would shop and there would be a few things left on the shelf, the next week you would shop, and there’s nothing.  For the first time last week, I actually saw toilet paper stocked on the shelf.  Two whole packs containing four rolls each.

These “protesters” say they need to have their businesses open.  Which businesses?  The hairdresser?  The Coach store?  The casino?  Because right now the essential businesses that you DO need (supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies and even restaurants) ARE open.  These are what you DO need RIGHT NOW to SURVIVE.  The only people who DON’T have a large quantity of WHAT THEY NEED RIGHT NOW are the healthcare workers slaving to save lives.  They’re the only ones who have a right to bitch and complain.

As for any state that decides to open the floodgates and throw caution to the wind, go for it.  You can be the test dummies.  Emphasis on dummies, because there aren’t any tests.   Just stay in your states.  With any luck these states won’t have any illnesses.  But when they do, they better not come crying to the rest of us who are still following stay-at-home orders.  Maybe they can cry to SHITHOLE.  Not that it will do them any good, because he doesn’t give a shit what happens to anyone except himself.

When the owner of a football team provides more medical help to a country than its own “president” does, you know your country is in trouble.

Like many other parents living with school-age kids through this lovely COVID-19 event, lately I’ve been wearing at least two different daily hats:  my work hat and my teacher hat.  I’ve come to realize I missed my calling as a teacher.

In the past week I assisted in making a Rube Goldberg machine, had a refresher in chemical and physical energy, realized I remembered more about Algebra than I cared to remember and got to listen to some of the classic hits of 1962 while we learned all about the events of the year.  This week we’re making musical instruments for STEM class.  The projects have become our ritual Saturday night family activity.  And my daughter has to write a comparison essay on “Ender’s Game”, comparing the movie to the book.  That will be a weekend project as well.

Two years ago we briefly participated in home schooling.  By choice.  Never in my life did I think we’d be doing it again two years later.  By necessity.

My daughter has never liked going to school.  Today she said that when this is all over, she’s never going to look at physically going to school in the same way ever again.  I think she may have gained a new appreciation for the institution.

 

Ten things I’m reflecting on as we roll into 2020 and the next decade:

10. We all got a year older

9. Tom Hanks rocks. I knew this already.  I just wanted to say it.

8. You can learn so much from staring at an Abbey Road poster for a half-hour once a week

7. I never knew I could cry so hard in reading a book or seeing a movie trailer, but I did.

6. People on the Autism spectrum truly amaze me every day. Again, I already knew this.  Just wanted to repeat it.

5.  What we carry defines who we are.  Going to make a T-shirt that says this.

4.  Children care more about the planet than adults do.  Yeah, Greta!

3.  Shitty people also die.

2. Mr. Rogers wasn’t perfect, but he was pretty damn close

1. Guns suck and the assholes who use them to kill innocent people suck even more

On that note, I bid you a (hopefully) peaceful, blessed new year.