March On
On this 76th day of March I’d like to look back on how drastically our lives have changed since February 29th.
March 6th - I was at a church group gathering. My friend, Lauren, spent much of the evening searching for disinfectants and medical supplies on Amazon. She warned all of us that things were going to get hairy. With three, yes I said THREE, nurses in attendance, we all assured her she was overreacting and that this virus was just a bad flu that she had nothing to worry about. We laughed and drank and laughed some more, mostly at Lauren’s expense. Damn, we should have listened to Lauren.
March 7th - Spent the afternoon at an end of season basketball party with seven other families. Played doubles ping pong and drank and shared a buffet of snacks. After that party, I sent Harry to a birthday party with every single boy from his class while Ollie and I headed to my godson, Tyler’s, birthday party with 20+ people. Little did I know after all this socializing a week later I’d be foraging for toilet paper.
March 12th - Harry turns 10. His special treat for the class, donuts from Miss Shirley’s Bakery, was sent sent back home because they decided it wasn’t safe to pass out food. I spent the day researching coronavirus and writing a policy and strategy for work. I learned all the scary stuff in like a 5 hour timeframe. Meanwhile, I had people coming over for dinner, including all four grandparents who are in their 70’s. I considered canceling the party, but I already had $100+ of Chipotle ordered.
March 14th - After local governments start mandating restriction and TP was in short supply, I spent the evening in Kroger trying to stock up on some essentials. The lack of food and supplies was bone chilling. I managed to get most of what I needed, but went home and tried to process the current situation.
March 16th - Went to work for the last time. Worked until 7pm making sure everyone had equipment needed to work from home. Headed to Meijer, on a hot tip they had Lysol wipes, to pick up some groceries for my parents. They didn’t have Lysol wipes but they did have 6 loaves of bread in the entire store. I was only able to get 4 out of 15 of the items on my mom’s list. Ran into a high school friend who seemed to be having just as difficult a time processing everything that I did. Hit up the liquor store in my way to my car.
March 17th - Work from home and non-traditional instruction started. Quickly realized this was going to be challenging.
March 18th-76th - Too much junk food, too many tears, not enough crafts, long hours of work, video conference calls for hours, Tiger King, too many hours playing X-Box, not enough coffee, more memes than seemed possible, and far too little sleep.
It appears we’ll be leaning into this staying at home until at least April 97th. I guess we’ll eventually adjust to this new calendar. March on my friends, march on…
