A few observations from Quarantine Day….#whatever…

It’s interesting living with your family, I mean really living with your family under circumstances like this.  When you don’t have much outside activity (like, other than actually going outside) and only one person in the house actually leaves the house to go to work every 4-5 days, it’s raised all of these interesting observations. Well, at least they are interesting to me – maybe not to you – which is totally fine, you can go back to Netflix or whatever now.

1. Teenagers like to sleep – this I know. But this past few weeks has been kind of ridiculous.  I think my son is a vampire. Without a school bus to catch, he can sleep later and he does. And then after his schoolwork, he goes back to bed. Like, till 3pm. Then he makes an appearance at some point, and says: I’m so tired. What?!
2. College students also have weird hours, and I am respectful of the fact that if Shannon weren’t home, I wouldn’t know any of her sleeping/awake schedule, and she also has no scheduled classes at 8am, so really, I don’t care too much about it, but again, she keeps mostly vampire hours. She comes downstairs after lunch and hisses something, then disappears again.
3. In some ways my kids are like Senior citizens, and their preferred eating time is 4pm.  This is so weird, and I try to fight it a lot of the time, but you know, it’s either that they are eating lunch at 4, and dinner is at 9 (no thanks)…or we just have to go with it and let them eat whatever, and I eat when I would like to eat.  (Which is normally after work.)  I can’t cook the blue plate special dinner at 3.
4. My kids take no interest in cooking. Anything. I would blame myself for this, but honestly, I think I have nothing to do with it.
5. Towels.  I’m not sure how this happens, but I’m washing towels like 15 people live here- well, I should say…at least are showering here. Funny though, I don’t see any rogue visitors come out of my bathroom. I am trying to not get irrationally upset about it, but really,  man, it’s crazy town.
6. I’m taking a lot of walks – not more than I usually do actually, but my feelings are very different about walks during this quarantine. Instead of thinking, oh, how nice, I’m going to take a little break from my computer and get some fresh air…I kind of angrily put my coat on and stomp out the door, look up at the trees and internally yell LOOK, TREES. ENJOY.  After about 15 minutes, I have inhaled and exhaled and definitely feel better, but the minute I walk back inside, there are 3 more towels waiting to be washed…
7. I am not sure I see my son ever without his earbuds in. Listening to music or watching something (Impractical Jokers? Ozark? Tiger King?) on his phone. I have to yell, ask him twice, or jump in front of him waving wildly to get his attention.  Responses are short, usually in grunts.
8. When someone in the house asks me what is for dinner, and I say Gee, what would you like? And then they say, I don’t know….  I want to cut them. (See, walk…..above).
9. My husband built a shed in 3 days. (Great, right?!) But the outside of our house still looks like a butt hole.  He has promised that the shed is leading to fixing the rest of the house. It’s fine.
10. I walk down by the river, where there are very beautiful houses in a little village. It’s very serene and peaceful.  Even after they closed our State Parks, and roped off the canal path, I could still walk on the road, so it was OK.  Until one woman put these huge signs out in front of her house that said: GO HOME. (and stay there!)  At first I kind of laughed it off. Then she literally came out and yelled at people riding their bikes and asked if they lived in Titusville – as if they shouldn’t be there. And then I couldn’t laugh it off anymore.  I worried that people are going a little crazy by feeling the need to put a sign out like that.  I mean, I wasn’t walking within 6 feet of her house, or coughing on her mailbox.  People can walk or ride their bikes on the road, and I’m sure that 99% of us do live in the area. (But so what if they didn’t?)  And now every time I walk down by the river I have to see that sign, which is so awful and makes me sad and worried.
11. I wanted to kick my neighbor’s “Trump 2020” sign over. For real. It’s right at my shin height.
12. Our dryer died yesterday. RIP. I can’t resist the need to call the new one “Corona Dryer.”
13. In my “free time” I don’t really want to clean my house that has 4 people living in it 24/7.

I remind myself everyday that everyone is doing the best that they can. We can all have a little patience and wash as many towels as we have to.  Just go outside and say LOOK. TREES. ENJOY.