The funny thing is that this is about how long I was outside: just long enough to snap a photo, and then back in.
I got a phone call from the folks who showed up for the work, stepped outside to the porch, waved, and that was it. Minimal contact, minimal conversation, minimal time out of doors.
To change up the games we’ve been playing lately, Liz and I broke out a game that I got last Christmas: a “Choose Your Own Adventure” board game titled “War with the Evil Power Master.”
Liz has had medication waiting for her at our local Walgreen’s. And knowing this was a need that would require us to leave the house… we decided to lump several other tasks on the same day. If we were going to be out and about, we may as well try to get all the things done.
Liz has been a lot more motivated than me of late, in terms of working on the house. While I had some momentum setting up the washer and dryer, I’ve since settled from that motion.
Maybe I’m just trying to switch things up (see what I did there)? Maybe I just want a small change to my work routine, just so I can feel alive.
We changed up our usual game, and broke out Ticket to Ride. I’m used to this game being one that involves a lot of people, but was surprised that the two of us could play fairly easily.
One thing I wasn’t expecting: long periods of card drawing and hoarding. And then a flurry of activity. I was a bit more aggressive in trying to preemptively block routes, and am wondering if that’s a good strategy or not, with just two players on the board.
We’re about five weeks into staying inside, due to the Coronavirus. So what if it’s snowing outside?
Really, what does it matter? What are days anymore? What is time?
Next up was the hardest bit: removing the existing gas line. Originally, I had intended to just pop off the cap. I struggled with this a bit, and decided halfway that it would be better to remove this length of pipe entirely (which connected to the gas shutoff valve).
“Araujo had a crazy idea, and he shared it with his friend Sebastián García Bolster. This was a few years after the botched Ramallo heist had lodged itself in Araujo’s brain. It would be crazy to rob a bank but not leave, he mentioned to Bolster. To disappear through a hole. Bolster had been friends with Araujo since high school, and he agreed: That did sound like a wild way to rob a bank. But he assumed it was just some lark; his pal Araujo smoked a lot of weed.”
Had a fun chat wiht Liz, as she’s been trying to measure the impact that the Coronavirus has had (and will have) on DePaul’s students: tracking current students, new students, and what it all means for the DePaul, both this year and the next.
The laundry has been piling up. And under normal circumstances, I’d be going to the laundromat. But we’ve had a washer/dryer combo sitting in the basement for some time now, waiting to get hooked up.
We’ve punted on setting these up, choosing instead to focus on the first floor of the house. It was a conscious choice, and the bulk of our efforts have been on getting the first floor a bit more in shape, a bit more habitable.
Phineas has always been a fairly bold bunny. And despite him slowly transitioning into an old man, he’s still ever curious and ever the explorer.
“Olive: focused, relentless, tasting absolutely nothing…”
“Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there.”
The weather was really something today, with us hitting a high in the upper 70’s. As a result, Liz threw on some garden clothes and went outside to tend to our garden boxes.