We have an inordinate amount of computer and accessory cords and they are all directly in my path trying to trip me so I break an ankle. And then since I don’t want to go to the emergency room and catch COVID-19, and we’re in the mountains, I’d have to use the available materials and use a tree branch to splint my foot, wrapping it with homemade twine from pine needles. Of course it would heal crooked and I’d need extensive surgery and rehab when this quarantine is done.

I swear, my own computer has a power cord, a mouse cord, and a headphone cord. I used to have bluetooth and wireless versions of these. Where did they go? Poppy’s computer has a power cord and mouse cord as well as a USB adapter thing with a couple of cords I have no idea about (audio? mouse? power? the evil one that serves no purpose except to try to trip you?). There’s Thaddeus’s Chromebook/school device and its cord, and his iPad, Poppy’s Kindle Fire, about 56 e-reader cords, 27 phone cords (although I can never find one when I need it) and a cord to my Remarkable. And the power strips for the lamps and humidifiers.

I mean basically I’m going to be one of those COVID victims who dies of other causes because I can’t get medical attention for my broken hip or whatever.

Poppy is watching High School Musical 2. And then there is apparently a High School Musical series. The Rapture can’t come soon enough.

Homeschooling continues to be an absolute failure. Unless you count High School Musical as a lesson in how not to be a jerk. “Don’t be like Sharpay.” For the love of God, what kind of name is Sharpay?

Cal went back down the hill to home and did the laundry, grabbed the mail and extra Amazon packages (shout out to our next-door neighbors who collect them for us) and hit the grocery store to restock. Now that we have accepted the fact that we’ll be here for a long time, our food stash could compete with Doomsday Preppers. I mean not really, but it feels like that.

This is all so bizarre.

All joking aside, the truth is I’m terrified of contracting COVID-19. I have good reason, but it’s a long explanation, so buckle up and prepare for the ride.

Cal and I got married in November 2001. Three months later, February 2002, I admitted that I couldn’t climb the stairs to our 3rd floor rented apartment. I’d had problems for quite some time–shortness of breath, weight gain, fatigue, weakness, etc. and I thought I just wasn’t exercising enough. I had a desk job and sat around all day–everyone gains weight and has trouble doing things, right?

As it turned out, wrong. We lived in a small rural town outside of San Jose and went to the urgent care there. The doctor was a pompous ass. I couldn’t breathe, so he said I probably had asthma or something. I was convinced I had pneumonia so I insisted on a chest x-ray. The doctor said I could have one “if you want.” Yes, I do want. Good news! No pneumonia! Bad news, the doctor says “your heart is slightly enlarged. You could see the cardiologist if you want. He’s open on Monday.” Well, that day was Thursday so Monday was 3 days away. Also the radiologist who actually reads the x-ray will be in tomorrow. Yay for rural healthcare!

Narrator: her heart was not slightly enlarged. It was very enlarged.

Now it’s late Thursday afternoon and Cal is like “Cardiologist? Monday? Fuck that shit!” and he goes online, looks up our insurance, and starts calling every cardiologist on the list. He finds one that can see me first thing the next morning. Yay!

We had quite an adventure that day but as an aside, when Cal finally came home, he found 3 messages on the machine, from the urgent care radiologist. Message one says please call back as soon as possible. Message two says there is an urgent concern that needs to be addressed, please call back. Message three says please call 911 and take Paige to the hospital immediately.

Of course, I was already in the hospital at that point. Anyway, so Friday morning we go to the open cardiologist. He does an ultrasound. We wait in the room for an answer. We wait for an extremely long time. Like really long. The doctor finally comes in and we can tell from his face that this is not good news. He says “You have cardiomyopathy. I’ve called my colleague at Stanford Medical Center and they are waiting for you. Would you like to drive, or should I call an ambulance?” Also, WTF is cardiomyopathy? Oh man, we would find out soon.

Oh shit.

To shorten the story, it turned out that I was in severe congestive heart failure (CHF). I was put in the cardiac critical care unit. The medicines weren’t working. I spent a lot of time in the hospital. My heart function number qualified me for a heart transplant. I started the transplant process, ended up on the transplant list. And then my doctor, who was absolutely amazing, decided to try an older medicine. It only worked for 15% of CHF patients but what did I have to lose? And guess what? I was one of the 15%. Came off the transplant list. And over the course of the next two years, I slowly recovered.

That was the first two years of our marriage. It was very stressful.

And how did I, an otherwise healthy 28 year old, get this condition? A virus. Mononucleosis, to be specific. I’d had Mono when I was 25. Unbeknownst to me, the virus went to my heart and killed off a bunch of heart muscle. My heart compensated for the damage for 3 years until it couldn’t hold out anymore. My heart was extremely enlarged. It couldn’t pump fully and wasn’t supplying all my organs with the blood it needed. CHF is often fatal.

But yay, I got better! My heart “remodeled” and shrunk back down to a mostly-normal size. The function improved within the margin of error of typical. And it stayed that way for quite some time. In 2008 I talked to a doctor who was both a cardiologist and an obstetrician. She said the odds for a relapse from pregnancy was very low. Gave us the thumbs-up. So we had Thaddeus. My heart was fine throughout the pregnancy but then, at delivery, it all fell apart. The big problem was having a baby over Christmas. Thaddeus was born Christmas Eve and let’s just say the A team wasn’t at the hospital that week. The problem was a 3-day long induction that was completely botched, and negligent post-natal care. To make a long story short, my heart crashed again. For the second time. And luckily, I fought my way back to a typical function. Yay!

Enter coronavirus. I’m reading the evidence. I’m reading the studies. And according to studies, 20% of COVID-19 patients had COVID-19-caused cardiac involvement. Myocarditis. Pericarditis. Congestive Heart Failure. Long-term cardiac damage. In one very small study out of China, 51% of COVID-19 patients with cardiac involvement died compared to the death rate of patients without cardiac involvement, 4.5%. The guidelines posted by the American College of Cardiology indicated a death rate of 10% for people who have cardiac involvement.

The biggest risk factor for COVID-19 cardiac involvement? Pre-existing cardiac disease.

So here’s the thing. What if I do get COVID-19? I still have a 90% chance of survival, which are good odds, but can I really expect my heart to fully recover a third time? Now that I’m 46 and dealing with other problems? And can my body protect my heart while it’s fighting a severe respiratory disease? In an overtaxed hospital surrounded by other COVID-19 patients and probably not getting the individual attention needed to follow this and doctors and nurses do everything they can to save as many lives as possible as quickly as possible? I have a bad feeling about this.

So here I sit, in the cabin. I’d love to go to the store, but then I remember the statistics. I’m holed up like a hibernating bear (and eating like a bear preparing for hibernation), avoiding everything and everyone. I can’t take any chances. It’s so stressful. So that’s where I’m at.

COVID-19 has brought many changes to our lives, but I think the most irritating one is the addition of new words and phrases to our lexicon. I just can’t handle hearing these words over and over and I sincerely hope that once this thing is done, we can banish them forever.

The most irritating: We are closely monitoring the situation.

Closely monitoring the situation? I just rolled my eyes so hard they got stuck in the back of my head.

COME ON. I’m closely monitoring the situation too, and my close monitoring does not seem to agree with your close monitoring. Don’t just check Fox News and Facebook every once in a while. Do something.

Next: Social distance

This one seems like a total oxymoron. Social means being with people. Distance means not being with people. You know when we could really use social distancing? With kids in the car. I vividly remember long car trips with my family sitting next to my brother as we increasingly irritated each other. “He’s in my space! He’s touching me! He’s poking me! HE’S BREATHING MY AIR!!!” I’m not going to implicate Thaddeus and Poppy because of course they’re absolute angels in the car (LOL) but let’s just say that’s still a thing. Kids in cars–complaining about a lack of social distance since cars were invented.

Can someone invent social distancing for kids in cars?

Next: In these trying times.

This one just feels so condescending.

Next: Out of an abundance of caution…

Please. You’re just trying to make yourself look good because you didn’t shut down earlier. We’re beyond an abundance of caution. Have you seen Italy? If we really had an abundance of caution we would have locked down everyone 3 weeks ago. Caution means you’re acting to prevent something from happening. Dude, it’s already happening.

Newsflash: Too fucking late.

There are many more that I can’t think of right now because quarantine. Come join me on Facebook (link below) and leave a comment about what phrases you hate now.

Feels like Saturday! Is it Saturday? Is every day Saturday? Could be, could be.

Poppy asked if she and I could write a book together. Can we write a book together? HELL YEAH. She was very excited when I opened it up in Scrivener, the program professional writers use for, you know, writing. And as it turns out, she’s an excellent writer. With a wicked sense of humor. And that’s gotta be nurture over nature since she’s adopted and didn’t get those writing genes from me. Check out a sample, which was 100% her (except I cleaned up the punctuation and capitalization).

“Oh, is that Fiona your bunny?” said Marley.
“Yeah, I got her for this birthday!” said Verity.
“Right, I don’t care as long as they’re not cats. I’m allergic to cats and they’re vicious,” said Austin
“Yeah we know. You tell us a lot,” said Verity.

Poor Austin. Massive burn from Verity there. Ouch. I’m looking forward to more adventures of Verity, Marley, and Austin. Yay writing! And I feel like that really counts for homeschooling, right? I mean, straight up ELA there. Creative writing. Fiction. It counts.

I think it’s interesting to think about what kinds of unexpected things are coming out of this quarantine. I had a video chat with a group of friends I have known online for 16 years. We’ve supported each other through thick and thin, and I’ve met a couple offline, but for the most part we’ve never had a real time group talk. So we did. And we all said that we couldn’t believe it had taken a global pandemic to finally get on the computer at the same time and chat.

I know a lot of people are playing board games on video chats too. I mean, I don’t think I ever would have thought of that prior to this thing. I wonder what else this quarantine is spawning that we never would have thought of before?

Screen time is a problem. One of my darling children could kind of take it or leave it. Find something else to do? Maybe, maybe not, but put it away? Okay.

The other child has a massive addiction. And that’s not an exaggeration. Getting them off the screen practically causes physical withdrawal symptoms. And that child’s behavior really changes with the amount of screen time they use. So that sucks.

The problem is, again, that child also uses the screen to socialize. Connecting with friends far and near helps improve mood and behavior. So it’s like a see-saw. Happy kid talking with friends! Crack addict kid when asked to stop!

BTW, if you’re judging me right now, just mosey on out and find a new blog.

The thing is, the child on the other end of the line is getting a tremendous amount of screen time too. I know parenting involves a lot of being the bad guy, but nobody wants to be the bad guy. It’s not fun and we’re all stuck in this cabin together and there’s no panic room to escape to.

So I keep hoping that the other mom is going to be the bad guy with her child and make her child get off the computer so I can be like “Gee, I would have given you another 26 hours straight but it looks like your friend had to go, so sad.” And I wonder if she has the same thought about me. Are we playing some kind of screen time chicken, each hoping the other sets the limit so we don’t have to?

And I really like this mom too. What have we come to?

Oh, so first of all I want to make clear that I don’t blame teachers in any way for the workload they’re assigning or the jobs they’re doing. I totally heart teachers. Also I wonder if Poppy’s principal is reading my blog because last night several hours after posting my rant about home education, we got a recorded phone call telling us that we can just relax and do what we can and the most important thing was to play and be safe. So I appreciate that. Is Poppy’s principal really reading this, or is this pure vanity? Just in case, Holla Mrs. P.!!

I’m a social person. I also need a lot of validation from my friends because my brain tends to go off on weird unhealthy directions and my friends ground me. So not being able to hang out with my friends has been a really hard thing.

It’s funny the way that the little things are the ones that break us. Somehow I’m coping with the idea that we’re going to be inside for a long while. Our Family Fun Time is quickly becoming Family Unfun Time. I’m failing at homeschooling, and I will probably know someone who dies from this, but the thing that gets me?

Thaddeus and Poppy’s inability to have a playdate with Pearl and Hendrix.

These 4 kids are closer than close. I met their mom Scrubs (she’s a healthcare worker y’all) when Thaddeus and Pearl were just over a year old and we’ve been besties ever since. It was so convenient when Hendrix and Poppy came along and were the same age too. These kids are more than friends–they’re family. They love each other, they play together, they fight with each other, they camp out at each other’s houses, they hit each other (well, we’ve mostly grown out of that now) and woe upon the person who dares mess with one of the four because the other three are coming and it’s not going to be pretty.

My kids keep asking when their next playdate is. Can we move Pearl and Hendrix up to the cabin with us? When can we have a sleepover? When will we see them? And there’s really no answer. That’s what makes me cry.

I get by with a little help from my friends.

I’m so lucky to have my friends. Last night Krazy Klara instantly decides we need to have a virtual girls’ night out (in?). There’s a video chat. I get on my laptop so it looks like the Brady Bunch, each of us in our own little square holding a drink. Klara is going nuts–she’s the true extrovert of us all, but we love her anyway. Scrubs in laying in bed because she’s on call. Veronica keeps disappearing to put her kids to bed, approximately 200 times. Hang in there Veronica! We group in Grover and we’re all happy to see her. She has a higher alcohol tolerance than Klara because she’s hitting the hard stuff without even slurring her words. Then we add in Kimpossible, who comes on and is like “Yeah, so what’s going on? Grover just texted me and said I needed to join this, but I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”

Also Kimpossible is the only one who still has a baby and she stood there with one of those wrap things and did this ninja Superman lollipop thing that made her baby stop crying and damn, where was she when I couldn’t figure that thing out?

Anyway, so we talked. And talked. About mediocre homeschooling. About needing personal space. About how considerate Klara’s father was for passing away last month so they could actually hold a memorial service for him. Some of us wore telemarketer headphones and informed the group that their conversation may be recorded for quality purposes. There may or may not have been a few tears.

Narrator: there were tears.

How are we going to do this without our friends? How am I going to do this without my friends? And yet we have this video chat technology. Is that going to get us through? I really hope so.

I don’t know about you but my grand plans to restrict screen time have been an abject failure. Social interaction remains a primary factor/excuse. How do we restrict screen time while still allowing social interaction? Thaddeus’ best friend moved out of state last summer and it’s been a tough year for him. He likes to play Minecraft online while chatting on Discord. The problem is that this has to be done on my computer. Mine. Where I want to be wasting my own time. And now my keyboard is sticky. Gross.

How do we restrict screen time will still allowing social interaction?

Well, I don’t know about you but I have completely failed homeschooling. The sad thing is that I am a stay at home mom who was ostensibly homeschooling already. I was failing then too, so this pandemic hasn’t boosted my test scores. I was so excited when people started posting all these things on Facebook about free shit available. Who doesn’t love free shit? And Pinterest? Pinterest: This is your moment! You were born for this! But then I quickly became overwhelmed because how many free resources can you really bookmark in a day? How many can you read through? And the critical question, am I really going to do any of this anyway?

Narrator: She’s not.

Which just makes me feel like an even bigger failure. I mean it was bad enough failing at all of the things that cost me money. Now I can fail at 133,993,698 things completely free of charge!

And then here’s the other half of the complaint–schools that have given students things to do? Surprisingly, despite her mother’s complete and utter failure, Poppy is doing reasonably well at. But honestly, it’s too much. And by that I mean that Poppy is literally sitting at the other end of the table saying, “I feel like I have to do all of this work but it really is too much,” and “Well I forgot to turn this in yesterday so it’s too late.”

With “this” being an online form saying 3 things you learned that day signed by the parent.

So far I’ve been letting Poppy go real free-form on those 3 things. Previous entries have included “it snows a lot in the mountains” and “online learning is really hard.” Okay, I’ll admit the last one was a little passive-aggressive, but it was her idea and who am I to hold her back?

There’s a real conflicting message I’m getting on places like Facebook (and everyone knows that Facebook is absolutely the best and only place you should be getting your information), which is memes and articles that I love that say, “It’s a freakin’ global pandemic, peeps. Parents, just cuddle with your kids for the next 2 decades or however long it takes to get us through this” and “Here’s another free thing for you to feel bad about not doing!!!”

I’m hard on myself. I know it. I even fail at self-care. Ha. Pity Party: Table for 1 now available!

And I know I’m not the only one out there. There is at least one other parent because I talked to her last night and she’s one of my best friends so she I know she is honest. But what I’m hearing is that “too much” is a really popular refrain. Like a bad 90s pop song with a ridiculous hook that won’t get out of your head, it’s too much, too much, too much. Some of it, Poppy is able to do independently and some not, but a lot of kids can’t do any of it independently, and their parents have better and more productive things to do with their time than writing a blog about having too much to do.

These side-quote things are really cool though, am I right?

Let’s start with tests. Actually let’s stop with tests. No more tests. It looks like state testing may have been canceled (the governor has been a bit mealy-mouthed in his proclamations and predictions–let’s just say he wasn’t my first choice for the office), but Poppy’s school still has tests. Poppy took one this morning, and almost cried because she didn’t do well. My aforementioned bestie (who by the way is a healthcare worker so can we PLEASE give them a break at least???) whose son Hendrix is also in Poppy’s class and whose daughter Pearl is in the class Thaddeus was in before we decided to homeschool (using “homeschool” loosely), said that Pearl’s class had to take a proctored test in the middle of the workday, also known as the part of the day when parents are working.

I don’t mean to slag on our teachers. I think they’re doing a great job with what they’ve been given and the parameters under which they’re required to work. But this kind of thing is coming from higher up (I’m not a fan of the Superintendent either) and what I’m hearing from a lot of people is that it is just resulting in a lot of yelling, fighting, and tears. Kid to kid yelling (check), parent to kid yelling (check), parent to parent yelling (well, mine is more like bitchy sniping, sorry Cal), kid to kid fighting, parent to kid fighting, and everyone in tears. Lots of tears. I’m yelling at the stove because it’s an electric instead of gas and these burners stay hot when even when they’re turned off and who thought that was a good idea in the first place? I’m yelling at children for not eating the food I have prepared on that stupid electric stove. I’m yelling at the step stool I can’t for the life of me get to collapse. I’m yelling at the TV because Tyler and Amy on Lego Masters are such smug phonies I can’t even handle it. I’m yelling at the dog, and she hasn’t even peed on the carpet yet which is a personal best for her.

The only ones I’m not yelling at are the rats, lucky guys. Except that I forgot to refill their food bowl and it was empty for like 10 minutes and Pippin is so fat (we call him Sir Chonks-a-lot) he was desperately chewing on the wood ladder in his cage like it was his last chance for survival. Look, it hasn’t been easy, okay?

An earthquake? First of all, how cliche’d. Let me guess, Lenny Bruce is not afraid #eyeroll. But also, large earthquakes are kind of a California thing. I don’t mean to brag, but we really only have one natural disaster and we’ve kind of perfected it. Other states have their tornadoes and hurricanes but everyone knows California has large earthquakes. It’s kind of our secret weapon for population control. Non-Californians say “I could never live in California, I’m afraid of earthquakes” and we say “Oh yes, they’re very, very scary. Very scary indeed.” and everyone’s happy staying where they are.

Earthquakes in California are very, very scary. Don’t move here.

So look, this is for Utah, the New Madrid fault, and all of you living on faults you don’t even know about–leave the earthquakes to us, okay?

But back to the End of the World. First off, I don’t care how you feel about Trump, but calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” is offensive and racist as fuck so don’t do it. Don’t be that asshole. Thanks.

But more personally, we had an exhausting night last night. Our normal bedtime is 8:00 (read: 9:00) but we’ve had all kinds of crazy hours the last few days and I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that we’re not going to go to bed at a reasonable time for the rest of the pandemic.

You know what else I’m not doing for the rest of the pandemic? Wearing a bra. Lockdown may be necessary, but ladies and breast-owning people, there’s no need to lockdown your body. Celebrate the little freedoms!

Celebrate the little freedoms–don’t wear a bra!

How’s everyone doing? Life just seems so weird. I mean a huge part of that is not being in our normal house, which I can say from day 2 was an excellent move (opinion subject to change). But another part is that whole end of the world and quarantine and all that. Our longest stay at the cabin before was probably 10 days, and we mainly lived out of the bags we brought our stuff in, with the food strategically placed in 6 giant Trader Joe’s bags lining the bar/counter area. However, for this time, I’ve decided to fully unpack.

This is not as easy as I thought it was going to be.

First I had to clean out the dresser, which was filled with an inordinate amount of snow suits too small for my actual children and any of our friends. How many 4T snow bibs does a SoCal family really need? How many children under 5 do I actually know? (answer: three, my two nephews and newborn niece, and they’re quarantined in Texas). I should sell these on Craigslist–oh, wait. So all of those tiny snow clothes and adorable little boots and mittens got shoved in the corner of the closet and I unpacked our clothes. It was exhausting and I had a glass a wine and a nap afterwards.

Also I should say that Cal was much more optimistic about this quarantine than I was. From the beginning I said that schools would be out for the rest of the year, and when I posted that on Facebook one of my best friends said “Nobody knows how this will play out. You don’t know everything, Paige” and I corrected her that I do in fact know everything and then the next day Gov. Newson said that school would be out for the rest of the year so I WAS RIGHT. I also assumed that we would be at the cabin longer than the original week and a half Cal thought, so I packed like all our clothes.

And I mean all our clothes like pretty much all our clothes. I was the reverse Marie Kondo. Instead of thanking our clothes for their service and the joy and happiness they brought and then giving them to charity, I rolled them up like I was packing for an extended trip to Europe and said “see you in 90 minutes.” I then went to the freezer and did the same thing. What is this frozen meat in this unlabeled ziploc bag? Well, who knows, but it doesn’t have visible frostbite so into the cooler it goes. I mean, my grandmother had one of those chest freezers in the basement and honestly I thought there was a body or two in there and maybe Grandma was planning to go all Donner Party if necessary. I mean, she did grow up in the Depression. And she did live in rural Wisconsin.

Where there are no large earthquakes but lots of blizzards.

Did Grandma have a body in the basement chest freezer? Turns out, no.

Cal did do a bang-up job getting food. I’ll talk about panic buying in another post, but in our case this was actually pretty legit, since this Small Mountain Community (SMC) only has one tiny little general store, about 1/3 the size of a 7-Eleven, and food offerings are somewhat random. The next closest option is another SMC which has a grocery story about the size of a large 7-Eleven but not as big as those truck stops on the 5 between LA and San Francisco. So let’s just say that groceries are not as easy to get as they are at home.

I know all you people who normally drive like 30-40 minutes to the grocery store, uphill both ways in the snow, are laughing at me right now, but let’s all just validate each other’s struggles, okay?

Anyway, we brought a shitton of food and it’s all over the counter and I’m not sure where to put it. But I’m going to try.

Also I realized this blog template doesn’t have comments which is kind of a bummer because I actually like talking to my readers (all 5 of you–hi Mom and Dad!), so you can chat over on my brand-new Facebook Page here: https://www.facebook.com/Thoughts-from-the-End-of-the-World-101443148166190/

Hi everyone, I’m Paige. Actually I’m not. Read the About Me link above for some basic information for starters. I’d add a link here but this is my first time with this new theme and WordPress has changed a bit since I last blogged, and also it’s 10:30am and I’m already exhausted so I’m not going to spend a bunch of time learning and fiddling around with my blog like I’m 35 with one baby who blessedly sleeps a lot (holla to those who read my old blog!).

So I think I speak for the majority of people when I say that this is not how I thought 2020 was going to go. I figured the biggest news would be the election, where the Republicans would nominate Trump like yesterday and the Democrats would winnow the most diverse field they’ve ever had to the oldest, whitest, male-ist candidate (on track so far!) and then there’d be a tired period of primary debates in which nobody learns anything, a grumpy convention between grumpy old men, then a bizarre spectacle of what apparently now passes for Presidential campaigning, culminating in an election not entirely free of tampering and disenfranchisement in which we all grow more grumpy late into the night only to wake up with some of us relieved and some of us disappointed and all of us girding ourselves for whatever new political reality we find ourselves in.

I mean, that’s a basic overview and surely there would be more fun twists and turns but, you know, basically that.

What is this fresh bullshit?

Then comes COVID-19, which just makes me say: What is this fresh bullshit? First there’s a virus spreading in another country which makes only epidemiologists worry because we’re America USA #1! and we don’t have those problems. Then other countries start, like, entirely shutting down. Like Asian countries next door to the original outbreak, which okay, seems sensible and thank you for that. But then Italy. I mean, ITALY? I’ve been to Italy! It’s full of Westerners with sexy accents and really, really old buildings! How do you close down all of Italy? And that’s where I’m getting worried because Italy is very much like America except with better pasta, and this could most definitely happen here. It’s coming. Like a barreling train. On the eco-friendly high-speed trans-national train system the United States should have but doesn’.

Seriously, what is going on? Now my darling, precious children–Thaddeus, 5th grade age 11, and Poppy, 3rd grade age 8–are out of school (although Thaddeus was already being accidentally homeschooled, but that’s a whole other topic) and we’re all supposed to stay like 3 feet away from other people while the rest of the world stays 1 meter because why aren’t we using the metric system? It just makes sense. But anyway, in an effort to avoid germs, move ourselves to a better mental environment, and have the opportunity to go outside and get some exercise without running over people, we have moved our sunny Southern California selves to our cabin in an adorable Small Mountain Community (SMC) in the snowy Southern California mountains (yes, they exist. yes, there is snow 90 minutes away from Los Angeles. yes, we could go surfing in high tide in the morning, take a short drive and ski all day, and then surf again in the evening. Oh! Southern California! May she live forever!).

I don’t know if this was a wise move or how well I’m going to do here, but as I mentioned, it’s 10:30am on our first day up here as a family and I’m already exhausted. And I woke up at nine. And the cosmically cruel thing that is especially true right now is that my stomach absolutely cannot handle caffeine, which means I can’t even start my day with a cup of coffee.

It’s going to be a long quarantine.