Day 33.

Day 33. I think. Honestly I’m not sure anymore, my math’s not great, and also I’m too lazy to count. So there you have it.

We recently upgraded our 20-year old washing machine and dryer. Our laundry room is right off the kitchen, and the old dryer was LOUD. Really loud (bearings are important, people). Laundry is a perpetual ordeal in a family of six, so the sounds of the machines are the equivalent of white noise. Except the new machines provide a soothing hum instead of the clatter of a threshing machine. Sitting at dinner last night, we all had the audacity to be, you know, chewing our food, which caused Luke to announce that he really missed the old dryer. You could almost see the vein thumping in his neck. (We turned on some music to help retain his sanity.)

There’s a really curious thing happening in our pantry. Someone has consumed all of the m&ms out of the trail mix. I don’t want to name names, but it was Harriet.

Yesterday I took Glamour Shots of Betsy. I tried to get her good side. She really enjoys the water buffalo horn she received for Christmas, and thankfully it only smelled like death and excrement for the first week.

I’m pleased to report that 4+ weeks into this ordeal, only half of the Larson offspring have poison ivy. As plants haven’t even leafed out yet, I think this bodes really well for the summer.

We had a nice Easter. The Easter Bunny wasn’t on quarantine after all (Harriet was concerned). We made it through a holiday without needing to induce vomiting in a dog or run to the emergency vet for untimely chocolate consumption. We also broke out the good china for the first time in a half dozen years and we used the good wine glasses. And then we all ate our fancy meal in pajama pants and hoodies. That’s my kind of celebration.

I spy Myrtle & Gold. That wasn’t intentional.

Be well & be gentle with yourselves!

Day 29.

Day 29. In case you’re wondering how my subconscious is handling all this quarantine stuff, last night I dreamed that I was the Queen of England. As you might imagine, this came as quite a shock, considering I’ve never been to the UK and also since, in my dream, QE2 was apparently still alive and well, and had merely grown tired of all the pomp & circumstance. So she did away with all the lines of succession stuff and notified me via email that it was my turn. They had me living in a warehouse and tasked me with cleaning out a large swimming pool after a swim class of toddlers went, um, horribly wrong. So I don’t think the job is nearly as glamorous as they’d have us believe.

We’ve entered a really fun time of year here in the upper Midwest: Bunny season! Every year, Mama Bunny decides the best place to make her little burrow and have her helpless little babies is on a hillside. Right outside our back door. So between Luna and Betsy “helping” the babies leave the nest, and the babies just peeking out on their own and subsequently tumbling down the hillside, it’s a veritable bunny battle field out there. “OH NO DON’T EAT THE EASTER BUNNY!” is a pretty common plea from Harriet these days.

Shrinky Dinks have arrived! Harriet’s first batches include Homer & Lisa Simpson (“What?? They’re my favorite!” WTF?), a bunch of sad little COVIDs, and “This machine that cleans up dead fish from the ocean.”

This weekend we are foregoing our usual trip to Chicago. It’s unsettling not to spend the holiday all together. So we’ll color eggs and bake and try to make the togetherness (so. much. togetherness.) a little more special. Hopefully we will avoid rabbit carnage in the backyard, just for one day.

Be well & be gentle with yourselves!

Day 27(ish)

Day 27(ish).

“We should enjoy this meal. There may not be mushrooms in The Aftertimes.”
Luke

Hey all you cool cats & kittens, what’s shaking? Junk drawers all cleaned out? Orphaned socks dealt with? Dust beasts vanquished from dark corners?

We’ve been outside. A lot. Muddy Glamour Shots with Harry are all the rage. Also, yes, she is drawing all over herself with marker these days, why do you ask? She has also been giving herself hickeys on her arm. Don’t judge, people. These are unprecedented times.

She has started asking whether there will be a Kindergarten. We read books and we make crafts and we play outside, but it’s just not the same as hanging out with your friends! Her sweet bus driver is a pen pal. She has Ukelele lessons via Zoom and FaceTime playdates. (If you haven’t listened to two five-year olds tell knock knock jokes for 20 minutes, you haven’t LIVED.) But she’s missing her teachers and her friends and her grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and the park and heading to Target to wander aimlessly. The rest of us are missing those things, too. (I’m also dying for a good burger. I thought you should know.)

Desperate times call for desperate measures. 50 sheets of Shrinky Dinks were ordered this week via our Blessed Savior, Amazon (surely this will be deemed an essential delivery?). Also, four more pounds of lentils magically appeared on the doorstep. Let me tell you, the family is super delighted with my love of legumes, especially now during this extended captivity. Years from now, I’m pretty sure it will be their favorite COVID memory.

We did do one online grocery order last week to stock up on produce. For a few blissful days, there was cilantro. Harriet is a girl after my own heart, and has decided that even vegetable curry is palatable if buried in enough of the leafy green food of the gods.

There have been a lot of crafts and a lot of exclamations of, “well, what else is there to do?” You might be almost a month into a Pandemic Quarantine if you find yourself shredding crayons with a pencil sharpener. Also, I’ve had the same roll of wax paper since 1998. I was beginning to think it was infinitely long, but I learned this week that it did, indeed, have an end. RIP, Antique Wax Paper. Thank you for your sacrifice to the cause.

I also broke out the iron for the fourth time in 12 months, this time to melt said shredded crayons between aforementioned sacrificial wax paper.

Now we can make ALLLLLLLL the fake stained glass we want. Charlotte began with a little Hufflepuff-centric window decor. What’s that old adage? Mother is necessitating invention.

Be well, everyone. And be gentle with yourselves.

Day 21

Day 21. Let’s talk music preferences.

I’ve been enjoying the randomness of my iTunes playlists while out on hikes. Everything from Saigon Kick and Savatage, to Alanis and Enya and Toy Matinee and Bruce Hornsby and Steve Morse. Modern technology is kind of cool like that. There have been moments during hikes that I reconnect with a song I haven’t heard in 30 years. Neat! There have been other moments where I pay attention to lyrics I haven’t ever really listened to before. (Billy Greer, you know I love you, but Seventh Key’s Love Train is skirting precariously close to Spinal Tap territory, Mister.)

[Oh Lordy, there’s a video. I’ll just let you google that one for yourself if you are so inclined.]

And then there’s Luke…

I just took this screen grab of the YouTube history on our desktop – as you can plainly see, Luke has been in charge of the selections. How on earth is he my kid? (To be clear, I say this in good-natured jest, but also seriously. It is SO bizarre to me how different each of the kids are. There’s a nature v. nurture tale to be told here.)

Mom, please assure Dad that during this unprecedented time, we are being exposed to adequate daily culture, thanks to Luke.

But maybe DON’T mention to Dad that Walter has decided to grow his hair long.

Our conversation went something like this:
Walter: I think I want to grow my hair out.
Me: That’s fine, it’s your hair. BUT PLEASE BE ADVISED YOU WILL BRING DOWN THE WRATH OF YOUR GRANDFATHER. And also maybe crush his soul.

There was this time back in the early 90s where my Dad took matters into his own hands and, after repeated warnings to get a haircut, used PINKING SHEARS to chop the flowing mane off an unsuspecting victim. (And the victim wasn’t even his own son.) So Walter, you’re on your own for this little endeavor. Godspeed.

Be well, and be gentle with yourselves.

Day 19.

Day 19. “Mama!! You’re so FANCY!”

Today I put on pants with a button and a shirt without a hood.

So the other night, we started watching the Tiger King Netflix documentary. Guys, it is a true guilty pleasure and really fits the utterly bizarre and somewhat unbelievable world in which we currently find ourselves. If you haven’t seen it, boy are you in for a treat. (And by “treat,” I mean a lot of head scratching WTF moments.)

A few weeks in and we seem to be finding our groove. Stuff keeps getting canceled, but at this point the kids seem almost numb to it. There have been a lot of board games (Mrs. McCann, were your ears ringing as they reminisced about learning Mancala in your classroom?), puzzles, baking. Lots of baking. Walter is a biking/hiking machine. I haven’t brought home any new animals yet, so I think I’m pacing myself nicely. We should probably make a point to read more (I don’t think Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones to Harriet count), and there are still some toys I’d like to downsize/organize in the basement.

So. Much. Baking. (This week we’ve moved from Jello to pudding.)

Music has been the one constant – piano and ukulele lessons continue via FaceTime. One of Luke’s horn teachers has started biweekly music theory classes. And Luke’s orchestra has implemented Saturday morning sectionals coaching via Zoom. No, it’s not the same as being able to do this stuff in person, but it’s welcome consistency.

“On Saturdays, we WYSO!”

Betsy is really REALLY REALLY enjoying having everyone home. Lots of time outside on hikes means she’s pretty much comatose by 7pm. Thankfully Harriet builds comfortable nests and the kids make good pillows.

Be well, and be gentle with yourselves!

Day 17

Day 17. I’ve been thinking a lot about how much easier quarantine life is thanks to technology. I mean, there’s the obvious stuff – smart phones and wireless earbuds to tune out all the togetherness (sooo. much. togetherness.), and streaming video services and online trivia games like JackBox to keep us all entertained (sometimes even via FaceTime with friends!). BUT with all of us home all day, every day, let’s be real. The dishwasher is the real MVP, people. That poor machine is getting a workout.

We’ve also been out of bread for a few days, and my carb-lovers were having withdrawals, so I finally broke out the old bread machine. It’s been a few years since I’ve used it and Walter was especially awe-struck by the idea. It was practically a Foodarackacycle moment. (No, he didn’t know the Jetsons, either. I’ve failed as a parent.)

While we’re on the subject, Walter seems to be aging much faster than any of the rest of us. I think he’s grown two inches in the past three weeks. He’s on track to go into quarantine as a boy and come out as a grown man.

Luke and the other kids spent a lot of his weekend outside building new single track. I’m hoping their PE teachers will think outside the box and allow them to log stuff like this toward activity goals while they’re home. (Otherwise I fear we’re in for a whole lot of aerobics videos, and there isn’t enough teenage resolve in the world to get through that, no matter how fantastically horrifying the leotard situation may be.)

Hey, I had another DeepThought over the weekend.

Do stormtrooper helmets have N95 respirator capabilities?
Me

My initial thought was, yes! Of course they must. But I can’t imagine the Empire wanting to spend the extra money to keep a bunch of expendable soldiers safe. So probably not, on second thought. All style, no substance.

Be well, and be gentle with yourselves.

Day 14.

Day 14. I’ve got nothing.

Although… this picture reminds me of the time my folks hauled us kids out West for a family road trip. My youngest brother and I were pretty young and our functional knowledge of tumbleweeds was limited to cartoons and old westerns. (“BON-ZANA!” as my little brother would say.) We didn’t realize tumbleweeds were an actual thing, and not some artistic license dreamed up by a broody cinematographer. As I recall, we even brought a couple of tumbleweeds home at the end of our trip. The trunk of my dad’s old Chrysler was a roomy place.

I think that was the same trip that we had some unfortunate car troubles. When you traveled on Petzold road trips in Dad’s 1968 New Yorker, you kind of expected that there’d be a breakdown at some point. (I vaguely recall abandoning the old AC condenser along the side of a state highway somewhere in the Arizona desert. Those were the days!)

Imagine, if you will, driving along a dark mountainous highway. I think we were in Oregon. We hit a rock… which punctured the oil pan… which rendered us stranded. There were six of us – my folks and four kids. Two of us were small, less than ten years old. My older brothers were well into their teens, more man than child. Not too many people willing or able to help a party of that size/stature, no matter how cute I looked standing at the side of the road clutching my threadbare stuffed animal*. Thankfully a local rancher eventually took pity on us and hauled us to town in the back of his (mostly empty, save the, um… remnants) cattle hauler.

Teddy. On second thought, he may have added to the “half dozen ax-murderers on the side of the road” vibes we were probably giving off.

As I recall, Dad hitched a ride back up to the car the next day (I seem to recollect that there was use of my brother’s skateboard in Dad’s travels back up the mountain, but I’m 99% sure that’s just my brain embellishing the tale) with extra oil that he poured in as needed to nurse the car back to town. Parts were challenging to come by in those days, and as memory serves**, his stopgap fix to limp us to the next town with an available replacement oil pan involved a borrowed garage space & loaner tools, and a chunk of leather belt that Dad riveted to the bottom of the pan to slow the leak. He was kind of MacGyver before MacGyver was even a thing.

Anyhow, be well and be gentle with yourselves.

*Harriet says Teddy looks like he’s close to death.

**Full disclosure: My memory is Swiss cheese. I honestly have no clue whether this happened as I remember or whether it is simply Petzold Family Lore.

Day 13.

Day 13. Feeling superstitious. Should we skip today? Nah. Let’s plow ahead, people.

I’m kind of bummed by the announcement that Tokyo is postponing the Olympic Games until 2021. It seems at once both expected (*everything else* is canceled) and shocking: a really grave reminder about the severity of what the world is facing. (This is intense, people. Heed the advice of health officials.) I know our family has had some big disappointments these past few weeks, but I can’t fathom what those athletes—who have worked their entire lives for this moment—have to process. Disruptions to training; concerns about injuries and qualifying again next year.

Clearly, my deep-seated empathy for the plight of these Olympians is borne out of my own natural grace and athleticism. Just today, in fact, I spent the morning perfecting a new gymnastic move that I’ve dubbed the “Inverted Seraphim.” It’s just like a snow angel, but face-first into mud. Bonus points are awarded if it happens so fast you never even see it coming. You can also add some isometric stretching to this move by crawling around the forest floor looking for the earbuds that burst forth from your skull on impact. It’s a great way to work on your core.

Betsy, my neurotic shadow, is really enjoying having everyone home so much. And by “everyone,” I mean me. She likes having ME home. (“Screw the rest of you, you’re not my mom.”)

I just realized she’s kind of built like a bobblehead.

We’ve been logging a lot of miles outside, and yesterday, she seemed kind of tired (she also did not catch me when I fell, so I was a little upset with her. But also relieved I didn’t crush her.). Around mile three I looped back to let her into the house. Apparently when I do this she races from door to door, whining and moaning and generally being a pill. There’s only so much Pathetic Whimpering Beast that the rest of the family can take, and eventually they let her out, and like a bolt of lightning, she’s off to find me. We have a couple miles of trails cut into our acreage, so she does her best Sherlock Holmes and puts her sniffer to work to find me. It’s a fun game. It also gives my ticker an added workout because there’s nothing quite like having 80 pounds of panting, agitated canine burst forth from the underbrush unexpectedly. That’s some serious cardio.

Be well, everyone, and be gentle with yourselves.

Day 12.

Day 12. I was feeling all smug about how well we were doing through this bizarre process. (This is f***ing nuts!) How nicely the kids are hanging out with one another. How they aren’t throwing too much attitude, all things considered. How well they were exercising self-control & delayed gratification by not touching the multiple packs of cookies sitting on the high shelf in the pantry. “Self,” I’d say to myself whenever that cabinet was open. “Just look at that. Packs of cookies in plain sight, and they haven’t even touched them.” This was generally followed by an internal self-congratulatory parental attaboy.

Guys, those packs were all empty. Those little cretins consumed every last crumb and left the empty packages to throw me off. Shit.

Anyone else getting their craft on these days? I’m finally finishing up Pandemic Crochet Project #2, after getting a bit hung up on a new pattern. Who knew that counting to 87 would be so vexing? I’m also trying to work through a bunch of the projects that I had lost interest in and set aside. Broke out this little guy yesterday. Any guesses as to what he’s destined to be?

I’ve been trying to hike each day. Getting out of the house makes me feel… less rage-y. My mind tends to wander while I’m out (who am I kidding? My mind wanders while I’m in, too.). Deep Thought O’ the Day:

How is it physiologically possible for deer poop and guinea pig poop to be nearly the same shape & size?
Me

Seriously though… HOW? Does anyone have an answer? Our guinea pig is all of 12 oz. An average deer is, what, 150 lbs? Is the guinea pig all colon? I ended up googling this when I got home (because what the hell else do we have to do these days?), and the naturalist answers about deer being ungulates and their fibrous herbivore diet and their digestive tract all playing a role don’t really fully satisfy my inquiry. I’ll have to read some more about this.

So there you have it. Day 12 is when I officially lost my mind and started to write about deer rectums. You’re welcome.

Be well and be gentle with yourselves!

Day 11.

Day 11. Yes, it’s true. This one goes to 11.

Today’s Jello Flavor of the Day is yellow. Lemon, whatever. This ordeal has been good for cleaning out the deepest recesses of the pantry cabinets. If the kids find and willingly use the can of SPAM I have stashed away, we will all have permission to go into full freak-out mode. SPAM in the pantry is my figurative canary in the coal mine.

I tried to be methodical in our prep. In late January/early February, I did my normal grocery runs but doubled up on meal ingredients for the freezer or pantry as space would allow. Except for a couple of items. Oatmeal. We didn’t even purchase any oatmeal, because we already had a pandemic-sized stash of unopened Costco-sized boxes sitting at the house. I’m not even sure where it came from (other than Costco, clearly). I think it’s just always been here, sitting and mocking me and taking up most of an entire cabinet. So we had to buy similar obscenely-large packages of raisins and brown sugar to have on hand in the event we actually have to crack open the Crisis Oatmeal.

Syrup. Four comically large jugs of maple syrup. Not the good stuff, either. The “vaguely maple-flavored, strangely viscous liquid in a fun cabin-shaped vessel” stuff.

Hot sauce. Six large bottles of Cholula. Actually, on second thought that probably was more intentional than oversight; running out of hot sauce would indeed qualify as a National Emergency. That little wooden cap brings comfort in our most desperate hour.

Back in the Good Old Days, before all this [*waves hand distractedly*] quarantine stuff ground most of life to a screeching halt, we spent a few weeks on a remodeling project in our living room. We’ve been without a couch since early January. We have one ordered, but delivery isn’t expected until June (and that was the PRE-lockdown estimate. WHO KNOWS what reality will be? We should start a pool.). It’s not really that big of a deal, other than we are watching a lot more TV than usual and there are six of us and our current seating arrangements are two recliners (lovingly referred to as “the thrones”) and the dog has claimed one of them.

So the kids (specifically: Harriet) have become quite adept at creating “nests.” Well, SHE refers to them as “nests.” *I* refer to them as Squatter Camps. If you pause in one spot for too long, Harriet will cover you with a blanket. I can’t figure out whether it’s a gesture born of love and empathy, or whether she has a future as a medical examiner.