One week ago yesterday was what turned out to be my last day of work for who knows how long. I wish I’d brought home more library books.
This weird suspended animation is getting me fully back into blogging. Can we all get back into blogging? OLD-SCHOOL BLOGGING RESURGENCE/REUNION??
Now that we are at least temporarily canceling our housecleaners, I am trying to clean one extra thing/area per day, plus maybe another extra thing if I feel up to it. I know that’s not a lofty goal, but that’s what I’ve got. The day before yesterday, I cleaned a bathroom sink. Yesterday I cleaned half the kitchen floor. Today I used a dustbuster to vacuum the stairs, and I cleaned our tiniest bathroom floor (it’s not even 4’x4′ and takes about six spritzes of 409 plus two paper towels). My goal is to make everyone else in the family participate in this, too, but right now that concept requires more energy than I have.
Things that have made me weepy recently:
1. That thing they’re doing in some countries where at a certain time each day everyone opens a window / goes out on a balcony and claps/cheers/whistles for healthcare workers, or sings a song together, or whatever.
2. Reading that our town is temporarily stopping recycling because of all this.
3. My friend’s daughter was doing a semester overseas, and with much scrambling / canceled flights / just trying to get her to ANY airport in the U.S., they got her a ticket to an airport only an 8-hour drive from home, and her flight went as scheduled, and she is back in the country, and her parents have picked her up.
4. While out on a walk, exchanging a “This is really weird, right??” smile/wave with someone else out on a walk.
5. An email sent by the middle school principal to all the middle schoolers, saying how the school misses them and isn’t the same without them, and how he is learning some new things during this unexpected time apart and he hopes they are too.
6. Healthcare workers not having enough masks. Obviously our government should be taking care of this, but they are not, so We The People have to do what we can to stand in for them. If you have masks you bought in advance of this crisis, would you consider donating them to a facility where people just like us are living through this just the same as we are except that they are also directly caring for people who have Covid-19? Like, I had masks in an online shopping cart; I didn’t buy them, but if I HAD—what a great way to contribute to a situation where mostly it’s other people making the real valuable contributions while I sit here playing Candy Crush and waiting for it to be over. Maybe take out a mask or two for yourself, for grocery-shopping, and then donate the rest. What a huge impact! If we’d KNOWN there would be such a shortage, we could have bought the masks ON PURPOSE in order to donate them!
7. Some of the kids’ teachers being so upbeat online, like “Let’s deal with this new adventure together!” and so forth.
8. An email from TJMaxx saying they’re relaxing their return policy so that the 30 days doesn’t start until after stores re-open.