Is This Real Life? Or Is It Just Fantasy?

A lot can happen in a week, right? We went from not being able to imagine keeping our kids from being with their friends to OH HELL NO. Thank goodness for Google Hangouts is all I can say about that.

But, truly, anyone of my generation who grew up Jewish feels like we trained for this. We didn't read all those books about kids hiding from Nazis without picking up a few pro tips for being confined to close quarters for an extended period of time, right?

Also, being raised Jewish means having been trained to rate absolutely everything on a scale of hunky-dory (10) to hiding from the Gestapo (1), and this latest blip so far probably only lands at, oh, maybe a 7. I mean, we don't have to keep quiet all day, we can go outside for walks, we're not fighting over potatoes (yet). And washing my hands a thousand times a day beats the heck out of hiding under some floorboards so Nazis can't find me.

So we're good, right? Tell me we're good.

Here, have a picture of spring:

Remember spring? It's here, pandemic or no pandemic. What's more, a friend of mine went to NJ and brought me back something I didn't think I'd see again for months:

The taste of home

So that feels good, too. Even if New Jersey is, for all intents and purposes, now closed. You know, I didn't even know they could do that.

Susie and I have been baking (just like everyone else in the country, judging from the empty baking supplies aisle). Today was a cheddar-jalapeno version of our no-knead bread. It was excellent.

Seriously, you need to make this

I went back out to the store today in yet another attempt to stock up properly for the apocalypse, and I came back with dishwasher detergent, a baguette, and some bananas. I'm not good at this, people, you know that.

Oh, but Susie made sure we went through the ChikFilA drive-thru this evening to get what she considers to be absolutely necessary:

So I guess we're all set.

And Larry - having observed my total inability to provide the necessities for our family - came home the other night with these, mighty hunter that he is:

The equivalent of the Holy Grail, around here

Sigh. He's dreamy.

I've sneezed twice this evening. Am I dying?

Currently, Larry's working from home, and he has made himself very useful by also taking on the job of nagging Rachel to do her schoolwork. Come to think of it, though, maybe the school will just hand them all their diplomas, schoolwork done or not, because nothing makes sense anymore. And, hey, maybe they'll even cancel the graduation ceremony! Bonus!

As part of our isolation routine, I've instituted a morning event that consists of my playing my "Boppy" Spotify playlist very loudly, just to get everyone (well, every teen) out of bed and moving around. I call it "Pandemic Dance Party," but I'm the only one dancing. If this were a movie, there'd be a sort of time lapse montage, with me dancing by myself at the beginning, but after a couple of weeks maybe one teen would be dancing -- albeit reluctantly -- along with me, and then after a month or so we'd all be dancing together in our living room, even Larry, because being unofficially quarantined is such a family bonding experience.

This isn't a movie, though. This is most emphatically NOT a movie. Here, have some tulips:

That feels good, doesn't it?

Feel free to share survival tips, people. Baking, dance parties, and being grateful there's no Gestapo is all I've got.

Yeah, I'm Talking About It

Hmmm, seems to me that the last time we chatted was several weeks ago, in that long ago time before civilization was teetering on the edge, before toilet paper became a valuable commodity, and before there was an inexplicable run on cold remedies.

WHY, PEOPLE, WHY?

Seriously, there's only so much ibuprofen you need to take. I know this, because I was sick for 2 weeks in February (you know, BEFORE it was newsworthy) with the most god-awful sore throat that had me pretty much pouring ibuprofen straight into my mouth from the bottle, and it still didn't run out.

Brian came home for spring break last Saturday, coughing. "It started as a cold," he said. "It's nothing." And then today - TODAY, 6 DAYS LATER - he says, "No, first I had a fever, come to think of it. A headache, then a fever."

So I guess we're all going to die now. I dunno. I just canceled on a friend's birthday outing for tomorrow, because I don't know whether or not I should be near people. I'm not even worried about getting this coronavirus myself, which is odd, considering my hypochondriacal tendencies. I mean, with that sore throat last month, I was waking up in the middle of the night, convinced I was dying of undiagnosed diphtheria. If I cut my finger and it gets at all infected, I assume gangrene. But a global pandemic? I'm good, no sweat.

I'm so sorry I'm talking about this - we're all so sick of this topic (no pun intended). And now schools are closed, homeschool classes canceled, I'm working full time from home, I can only assume Larry's work will close anytime now - I love my family, but that's a hell of a lot of togetherness, you know? I mean, we've got a good thing going here, but let's not push it.

I did try to stock up on food at the grocery store the other day. I came home with a lot of fresh produce and a few other items:

These looked useful, pandemically speaking

Apparently, I'm no better at preparing for a pandemic than I am at preparing for a blizzard. No surprise there, I guess.

But I've got plenty of yarn to see me through, so I'm set, right?