Working on the Parkway

Drove out loaded up 15 bags, drove home, unloaded 15 bags, and made coffee – all before starting the work day. Not too shabby.
Drove out loaded up 15 bags, drove home, unloaded 15 bags, and made coffee – all before starting the work day. Not too shabby.
Liz, taking notes and trying to find a path forward in Obduction. I’ve since gotten frustrated as it seems like we’ve exhausted all possible paths/clues. So I wasn’t playing, but Liz was jotting down things n the notebook she has specifically for the game.
On arriving, Liz put up the note.
After talking with Julie a few minutes on the phone, I was given the signal to knock on the front door.
Liz and I had a house day today. The weather was fantastic, and while Liz worked outside I was on the inside clearing up a lot of the front office.
Tonight was supposed to be house night, but I ended up doing work work while Liz suited up and continued working in the basement.
The really great thing about Chicago: many services now offer curbside pickup. Binny’s has a thing where they’ll bring you alcohol out to your car (10aM – 12PM). Vanille offers curbside pickup, as do several higher end restaurants (all run through Tock).
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think that for Liz, she needs to keep active and to do things. It helps her, to keep her mind focuse on other tasks. For me, diving into ordinary chores and tasks is incredibly difficult, due to the dissonance between the mundane thing I’m doing and the world outside my window.
My sense is that we’ll be isolating ourselves for more than a few weeks. A few months is my guess, and possibly even through the fall. By the time the coasts get a handle on things, my sense is that that is when Middle America will start to larger numbers in terms of infections and death.