Holy crap, we’re getting a lot of snow here. In April! In Southern California! Don’t you wish you were getting our snow too?

No?

Canadians and anyone who lives north of like Missouri, my hat’s off to you getting your children into snow clothes. I mean, am I unusual in this? It takes longer to put on these damned snow clothes–the bib, the socks, the boots, the gloves, the hats or hoods, the optional ski goggles–than it does to actually play outside.

I keep telling Thaddeus–

Me: “When we move to Canada you’re going to have to do this by yourself.”

Thaddeus: “Are we moving to Canada?!”

Me: “No, but if we were, you’d have to do these freakin’ mittens yourself.”

Thaddeus: “I can’t do them myself!”

Me: “Keep whining and we’re moving to Canada.”

Also tonight we’re having frozen pizza for dinner. Never in my life have I looked forward to frozen pizza more than tonight. It’s snowing, it’s cold, and I’m lazy and don’t want to cook. Frozen pizza basically ticks all my boxes here.

Our lovely little church at home has started the churchiest church thing ever. The Diaconate, also known as committee that takes care of the needs of, like, everyone, has divided up the church membership roll and assigned a Deacon to call us once a week. Since we haven’t been to church in a while, we are getting the call.

The Deacon who drew our name is this wonderful elderly lady I’ll call Dottie. Now let me just say, Dottie is one of the churchiest people doing this churchiest church job. She’s just wonderful and friendly and talkative. And the call comes on Wednesday.

So here’s the thing. Since I’ve lost all sense of time and space, Dottie is the closest thing I have to the passage of time. Once a week my phone rings and the caller ID comes up and it’s Dottie and I think “Oh my word, has it actually been a full week since I last talked to Dottie???”

I’m pretty sure I’m going to look back and count the weeks of this quarantine based on how many calls I get from Dottie.

Yep, I reached the end of my rope yesterday. Cal had gone home Friday morning for some badly-needed supplies so I had the kids all day Friday and Saturday and Sunday until the late afternoon. It didn’t help that the kids insisted on sleeping with me.

I mean, the bed is a king, unlike the queen we have at home, and can I just complain for a minute here as to why the king is so much bigger than the queen? Sure, traditionally the king is bigger and stronger but who’s birthin’ those babies in medieval times? And I’m not talking about the grossly overpriced Medieval Times, Dinner and Tournament (it’s a miss, people).

Anyway so the kids were with me in bed and I’m pretty sure that Great Danes take up less room (Great Danes–get it? Kings? Hamlet? Anyone?). So I didn’t get much sleep Friday or Saturday night. And Sunday, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Luckily my dear friend Klara happened to text me and I’m all being all bitter over text and she’s like “Um, do you want me to call you?” and I’m all like “Yes a phone call would be great except I am fully in charge of these children and even though they are 11 and 8 years old I can’t leave them because their brains were turning to mush on screens!!!!!! And I’m admitting that I’m depressed and lazy!!!” Klara informs me that we’re all depressed and lazy and perhaps a video chat tonight would be helpful?

Also I’m tired of cooking.

Seriously, our Small Mountain Community (SMC) does not have any restaurants and there is no fast food anywhere close, and while I probably ate more fast food than I should have, it turns out that when you really don’t want to cook, it sounds awfully good. I mean, I’m so hungry I could eat at Arby’s! Get it? The Simpsons? Anyone?

I suppose I should be lucky we have food. I mean, did you read The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder? I’ve been thinking a lot about Ms. Wilder and that part where they move into town and all they have is like wheat seeds or whatever it’s called so they grind it in their miniature coffee grinder and then presumably make some kind of bread (obviously not gluten-free) and that’s how they survive the aforementioned Long Winter.

At least we have pasta.

And our flour is pre-ground.

But I would really love food I don’t have to cook. And by cook I’m including “heat up.” Because I feel like if I put any kind of effort into it, even if it’s taking the bag out of the freezer and spreading it on a cookie sheet into the oven, that’s cooking. And I’m done with it.

Luckily, luckily, I have the mom’s chat to look forward to. Just like in my pre-quarantine life, my friends are what get me through. So we get online and while Klara is telling some hilarious story about video conferencing, Ariel is over there drawing phalluses on the shared whiteboard, and we find Cards Against Humanity online (you too can play in group chat!). It takes us a while to figure it out but then Veronica pops on and hooray!

Except Veronica has some kind of weird internet connection that never quite works. She freezes up all the times, and it’s always with the most unflattering expression on her face. Sorry Veronica, but it’s true. I don’t know why her internet is so bad since she lives literally down the street from Grover and Grover never has a single problem.

Get it together Veronica. You do not live in a rural area.

Anyway so Veronica has this bad connection and has to keep positioning her phone to get the right signal, but instead of placing herself in front of the phone camera like normal people, she just points the camera around so we generally see an ear sometimes but mostly a tuft of hair.

It’s a nice tuft of hair, but whey can’t you position yourself in front of the camera like normal people?

Veronica is an artist–a good one. So she’s going to walk us through one of those sip and paint nights. Remotely. I explain that I’m a crafter and not an artist and these two things are very different, and then tell about that time when I had to take “Art for Elementary School Teachers” my second semester in college (like that was about 15 majors before I finally decided on one to graduate) and then how I was so bad at elementary school art that I had to make a self-portrait out of yarn and mine looked just like Jesus. And I mean Jesus Christ, not Jesús the hot guy taking sculpture in the classroom next door. And also how my clay pinch pot was so bad the teacher was pretty sure mine was the one that exploded in the kiln and took out everyone else’s projects. And how I tried so hard in that class I even went in to open studio/office hours to try to do some art and in the end my lovely, compassionate teacher gave me an A because “I tried so hard.”

Who gets a sympathy “A” in elementary school art? Me, that’s who.

Ariel, meanwhile, was pushing hard for a heart design, which she felt represented the pinnacle of her talent. Then she pulled out the one and only sip and paint picture she’d ever done and wonderfully encouraging Veronica says, “That looks good!” Because I think being positive and affirming is a requirement for someone teaching art, but let’s be honest, Veronica isn’t all that convincing. And by Veronica I mean Veronica’s tuft of hair. I decide to say nothing because it looks suspiciously like my own last piece of art. And Klara says, “Is that a… a… sunset? I maybe would have blended it a little.”

NOBODY ASKED YOU, KLARA.

Anyway after a great deal of discussion between Klara, Ariel, myself, and Veronica’s tuft of hair, we arrived on a theme which seems both cute and eminently doable.

Kimpossible, Grover, Pollyanna (My new name for Scrubs) you need to get yourself some art supplies! Unlike me who has to think ahead for all this crap and get it all up the mountain somehow, Veronica can drop it off at your house. Friday night. Don’t be late.

And blend your sunsets.

Nobody asked you, Klara.

I am going to sew. I am going to sew things. I am going to sew ALL THE THINGS! The thing is, I haven’t sewn on a machine in a good 18 years, but it’s like riding a bike, right? You just jump right back onto it and bam, it all comes back, right?

Right???

I didn’t even own my own sewing machine until a couple of years ago when a friend got a new one and generously passed hers on to me. But two decades ago I did do a fair amount of sewing so I’m feeling grossly overconfident that I can do it again.

And teach Poppy too!

Now the CDC has conveniently given me something to sew. Masks! But first I’m going to sew hammocks for our rats to sleep in. These are very easy because our chonky rat, Pippin (also known as Sir Chonks-A-Lot) simply chews through them in a matter of minutes. Therefore, you can’t screw them up! Because even if you do, it’s going to be chewed up anyway! The other two rats don’t do this, but Pip does. Little bugger.

How did we get to the point where we wear masks everywhere? Does anyone else find this really weird?

Also I watching Tiger King. Do not recommend. The people are crazy, yes, and the story is just bizarre, but at the end of the day, even normal people should not have wild animals as pets. Bottom line, tigers, lions, monkeys, bears, etc. are not pets and you should treat them as the non-domesticated animals that they are. Backyard zoos should be outlawed, as should big cat ownership.

I also have come to realize that several people do not like Shaun the Sheep. Since there are no actual spoken words, you could, of course, turn the sound all the way down and listen to your favorite mix tape in the background while enjoying the antics of Shaun, Bitzer, and the Farmer. But hey, your loss.

First some great news! We just found that Shaun the Sheep has a whole new series out!!! So okay, if you’re not an Aardman fan, you need to become one instantly. Shaun the Sheep is the best character EVER. Last year they released a new movie which we recently found–Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon, which is a must-watch. There was an older Shaun the Sheep series which you also need to watch, and now there’s a new one!

The best thing about Shaun the Sheep is that it’s completely hilarious for adults too. In fact, there are quite a few nods to a more sophisticated knowledge that adults have, although no references to “adult” (inappropriate) jokes. Drop everything and watch Shaun the Sheep.

Next, Thaddeus broke last night. He’s tired of the cabin. When can we go home? I hate it here, etc. And I get it. I really do. Cabin fever is real. I just really think that here is the best place to be. Especially for me. I really don’t want to leave. And I also think home would be much worse because we’re constantly reminded of things we can’t do.

But another thing too is that he had had a full day of screens in his face and it absolutely affects his behavior. It’s so hard because the more screen time he has, the worse he is. But the catch is that he is like completely incapable of doing anything by himself. Same with Poppy.

I’m a Gen Xer. We’re the generation who were neglected and unsupervised for a minimum of 5 hours after school. We found shit to do and just did it. We rode our bikes wherever without helmets. We read a ton of books, and rode our bikes to the library to check out more. We made our own food and ate a full bowl of Frosted Flakes without milk and drank a Squeezit to wash it down. We stretched out the phone cord and talked to our friends. We made mix tapes and spent hours getting our bangs as high as possible.

Someone get the Aqua Net!

Thaddeus and Poppy’s generation are just used to being entertained. I know I’ve created this monster for sure. But it’s like, if they’re not on a screen, they want me to participate in whatever they’re doing. I mean, my mother was a stay at home mom and yet I don’t remember ever seeing her after school and I can’t think of a single time she sat down and played a board game with me, unless it was a family game after dinner. And yet, I’m on my 234,593,007,689th game of Uno (Lord, deliver me from Uno). Why can’t they play together? Why me?

Just play together! There’s two of you for a reason!

So when I want to do something or just get a break, the kids get back on the screens. I’m going to have to take the screens away and hide them but this is exhausting.

That said, new Shaun the Sheep!!!

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?