Blue-Footed Musings

So many things have changed in my life since COVID-19 came to town. I’ve talked about many of them already, and I’m sure I’ll keep talking about them. In fact, I’m going to talk about some of them right now.

• My credit card is on my desk, near my computer, instead of in my purse, because the only shopping I do anymore is online. I’m not 100% sure where my purse is, now that I think of it.
• I have no idea where my keys are. I haven’t used them since early April, when I went to the doctor’s that one time.
• Even if I knew where my car keys were, they wouldn’t do me much good, because my husband keeps parking me in. But I don’t care, because I have no plans to go anywhere.
• Overall I’m feeling more depressed than usual, because the situation in the outside world is so bad, but I’m less anxious, because sheltering in place has freed me from so many of the things that were making me anxious.
• We still haven’t gone through that roll of kitchen paper towels.

Yesterday I wrote a to-do list that was entitled “Saturday To-Do.” After tackling most of the things on the list, I sneakily scratched out “Saturday” and replaced it with “Weekend.” That means I’m virtually done with chores for the weekend. Hooray!

But, though I feel like being a lazy slug today, and though I gave myself permission do it, I know I’ll be happier later if I get some additional tasks done now. So, first I must do all the things on my daily to-do list: make bed, do dishes and laundry, write a blog post, play piano, sit in the sun (if possible) for vitamin D, take a walk, and do anything required to keep children alive and well, such as feeding them.

After that, I’d like to clean my office, by which I mean…

• Finish folding and putting away laundry.
• Put away wrapping paper, craft things, and art supplies.
• Gather everything on the desk into one pile, then go through pile.
• Pay bills.
• Organize closet.
• Rearrange desk area.
• Vacuum and dust.

So, first things first, this post is my blog post for the day. Next I will make the bed and throw a load of laundry into the washing machine. Then I will head outside for some sun. With any luck, I’ll feel motivated enough afterward to continue crossing items off the list.

I wish everyone a happy, productive, and sunny day today.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the coronavirus has revealed the terrible inequities and cruelties entrenched our systems (cultural, financial, legal, educational, healthcare, etc.). Anyone who was paying attention already knew that those problems existed. What the virus has done is to make us pay a steadily increasing price in blood (nearly 100,000 lives and counting) for our collective failure to correct the problems.

It’s a harsh price, but the pain is temporary. It will wear off, likely sooner than any of us would care to admit. As a nation, we’re used to injustice. We’re used to gun violence. We’re used to corruption, greed, and mismanagement in our government. We’re used to poverty. We’re used to the rich glutting themselves while we fight over their scraps. Give us time, and we’ll get used to paying this new price, too.

We got a phone call from our school system this evening. It was a poll. They wanted to know…

1. If school were to open for the fall, would we need busing?
2. Given the pandemic situation, would we refuse to send our kids to school under any circumstances, send our kids to school if enough safety precautions were taken, or are we undecided?

The first question was standard business. They’re always eagerly searching for any students they can cross off their bus list. Eliminating even a single bus would save them a ton of money.

But question #2 was a shocker. To think we are living through a time when such a question even needs to be asked! It’s hard to imagine refusing to send our kids to school, even though we almost did that very thing earlier this year.

We’re months into this pandemic, but I’m still struggling with normalcy bias. And whether it was the normalcy bias that made me do it, or a lingering ember of optimism, I answered “undecided.” I doubt there’s anything they could do to make school seem safe enough, but I’m not ready to give up on the idea.

I am grateful to all the previous generations of human beings that caught and subsequently softened the common cold viruses into the mild diseases that they are now. Novel viruses are a bitch, as we are all learning now. Being first isn’t always best. When it comes to viruses, you want one that’s old and worn down.

Our day started a little earlier that usual, because my husband had to go to the school to return some books and also to pick up the stuff our kids had left there. It’s sad that the kids didn’t get to go back this year. It’s particularly sad for Marshall. That school was such a huge part of his life for so many years, and he didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to it. Most likely Livia will return, if not for 4th grade then for 5th, but Marshall will most likely never set foot in the building again. No time is a good time for pandemic, and all the kids have missed out because of it, but I think the situation is toughest for the kids in transitional phases, the ones who had just started school and the ones just about to finish.

Tonight I finished the book I’ve been reading for a while, Greenglass House by Kate Milford. The pace at the beginning of the story was painfully slow, but after a while I realized that part of the problem was that I was being painfully slow to read it. I was only reading a few pages each night before bed. You can read a book that way, but it takes forever, and it’s hard to become invested in it. If you want to enjoy a book, and particularly if you want to enjoy more than just a few books per year, you have to set aside time for reading. You have to turn off the TV, and the computer, and stop playing piano or whatever else it is you do when you’re not reading, and pick up a book. And read and read and read. Anyone who really loves reading knows that. Sometimes they just forget.

Some of my book orders came today. I will have to wait to look at them, though, because they’ve gone to quarantine, as most things have to do when they arrive. We also finally got the pulse oximeter that my husband ordered a while back. I’m glad that we have it, but I hope we will never need it. Excepting the arrival of those packages, the day was completely unremarkable. I suppose that’s a good thing, even though it’s dull.

I did almost nothing today. Doing nothing is starting to become the norm for me on Sunday. Some people might say that was a good thing, calling it a “day of rest,” but you only need a day of rest if you worked your butt off during the rest of the week. TBH, I haven’t been working my butt off. My butt’s still all there, and then some.