Here’s our roundup for the past couple weeks. I’m writing this on Sunday, but probably won’t get photos added till Monday. Maya started distance learning on April 6th. The teachers have organized a grid for each week. In each of five subjects, there is a “must-do” lesson and several “can-do” lessons. I’m rapidly learning which subjects Maya loves and which are met with indifference. She also has weekly assignments to complete from her art teacher and her music teacher (and possibly her PE teacher? Idunno. All this has been kinda vague.)

Maya also has a Zoom meeting with her whole class on Monday. And then we schedule her for a small-group Zoom meeting sometime during the week. So far, we’ve only been late for one meeting, so I guess we’re doing ok for two adults who are trying to do their full-time jobs while caring for the kids. Thank goodness those kids have each other. Sure, they fight a lot, but they also spend a lot of time playing together.

If you look closely, you can see a little beak poking out the birdhouse doorway.

We spend some time doing non-school-related things as well. We had one of the most amazing experiences week before last. As you may remember, Maya painted and built a little birdhouse a few years ago, and we hung it off our back porch rafters, not really expecting much to come of it. Earlier this year, two little birds were busily loading it up with all kinds of small sticks and dried grass and things, clearly working on nesting. We tried to identify them using a Cornell Lab bird app on my phone and believe them to be Bewick’s Wrens. Starting in March (I think), they started bringing all manner of bugs and worms to the birdhouse, presumably feeding their newly hatched babies.

Where this birdhouse is positioned, we can see it really well from our kitchen table. We had started seeing the little birds poking their beaks out of the “front door” of the birdhouse to receive the creatures their parents brought them to eat. One day during lunch, I warned the kids that probably those birds were going to leave their nest soon. Maya was convinced that she had seen one of the babies on a stone wall behind the birdhouse. She justified her assertion by explaining that she even saw some gooky stuff from the egg on its feathers. I figured this was wishful thinking and proceeded to explain to her and Ian that the odds of us being in the kitchen at the same time the little birds left the nest was pretty unlikely.

And then, right as we were watching, one of the little birds moved tentatively out onto the perch by the doorway of the birdhouse. It half-fell/half-flew down to the floor below. We watched for several minutes as it wobbled around and tested out its wings with hesitant little 2- and 3-foot high flights before it finally found a low enough spot on the stone wall that it could fly up and wander away. And Maya was right; it did look like the bird had a bit of leftover egg crud on its feathers. We watched one more wobble out onto the perch and fall/fly over to the stone wall before I had to give up and get on a call for work.

If the kids had been in school, they’d have missed seeing these baby birds, which had hatched in *their* back yard, fly for the very first time. Heck, I’d have missed it too – I usually eat at my desk. I’m not sure that’s worth a pandemic, but it’s better than nothing.

Apparently, we have a John Prine mural in Austin.

Then John Prine died on April 7th – the same day we saw the baby birds leave the nest. I knew he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in late March. I knew he was an older gentleman and a two-time cancer survivor to boot, and that probably the outlook was grim. I was still heartbroken when it actually happened.

I can remember being maybe eight or nine years old. Dad and Carol had given me a little boombox type radio as a gift, and I loved it. It was the only thing we had in Mom’s house that would play cassettes, and I had a great deal of fun recording my favorite songs from the radio. At that point, my brother Jade and I were visiting Dad every other weekend, and Mom had asked if I’d record some of the John Prine records to cassette so we could listen to them at her house.

Dad showed me how to operate his stereo for recording. Showed me how to carefully clean and handle the records. Again, I loved it. Loved flipping through all the albums, looking at the covers, checking out the track lists. He had a handful of Prine records. I suspect I went in with a list of Mom’s preferred tracks and did my best to record those particular albums. While I’m sure I’d heard them before and certainly would have heard Mom singing some of the songs around the house, I’d never really listened to them before I had hunkered down in the basement of Dad and Carol’s house setting those albums to cassette.

He was twangy, which I didn’t care for since I was certain I didn’t like country music. His voice was memorable in the way that Bob Dylan’s or Tom Petty’s voices were – not traditionally crowd-pleasing perhaps, but certainly able to deliver on an emotional level. His words though. The man had a brilliant way with words. His unfussy lyrics could bring tears to my eyes and have me chuckling all in the same song, even as a kid. He had a way of sneaking in nuggets of universal truth into the story-songs he spun. I’m not sure I had ever heard (or noticed) such raw and honest verses before.

Anyway, I promised myself I wouldn’t go on and on. It’s just hit me so much harder than I expected it to. Maybe with everything else going on, the loss just carries more weight than it should.

About the time that Maya was lamenting the fact that the Bewick’s wren babies had left and the parent birds seemed to be through with her birdhouse, a hummingbird came to our feeder. We think we’ve identified it as a female Black-chinned Hummingbird, though it’s tough to tell – they move pretty quickly.

One of the things that seemed to sustain the kids through all they have had to give up for this coronavirus mess was the upcoming Easter holiday. Grammy and Grandpa sent them each some legos to work on (which is PERFECT), and Lolli and Pop send them these cute headphones that are built into soft headband type things. They’re called Cozy Phones and especially Ian loves them.

Decorating Easter eggs!

Sean was smart and had bought all the easter candy, eggs, and egg decorating things pretty early, so we had a respectable supply. The kids had a great deal of fun dying eggs. He had also bought some chalk eggs and it seemed like they enjoyed prettying those up as well. We left everything on the front porch for the Easter Bunny to hide, as we do every year. Then Sean and I surreptitiously loaded up plastic eggs with candy and Sean assembled their baskets.

The kids had taken some pains to make sure E. Bunny knew which basket belonged to whom. And Sean chose egg colors and whatnot that would match the correct kid’s preferences. Then Ian promptly woke up the next morning and chose the wrong basket!

Sean Easter-bunnied outside in the sprinkling rain, while I ran interference with Ian. Maya has almost fully adapted to her later schedule since she no longer has to be at school at 7:45 in the morning, so Ian had to actually wake her up to tell her excitedly about the Easter baskets. She was just as thrilled as he was with the candy and stickers in hers.

Don’t they look pleased to be having their photo taken before they’re allowed to hunt eggs???

We had them get dressed up for the egg hunt, because when else are they gonna dress up right now. And then they went outside and happily hunted for their eggs. The black chalked eggs were particularly devilish to locate, but all in all, their baskets were full and they seemed to be very happy.

I had promised the kids we’d try to make chocolate-flavored roll-and-cut cookies, so Easter afternoon, we decorated those. I let them have full reign over all the decorations we had in the house from rainbow sprinkles, to colored sugars, to miniature chocolate chips. They took their time and carefully decorated their cookies, often coaxing eyes and feathers and fur out of the various creatures they had cut from the cookie dough.

Maya and Ian arranged for the parents to have an Easter egg hunt that evening. They had spent all week stuffing eggs and stockpiling them in their rooms so they’d be ready for the big moment. I love it that they were thinking about us!

Coolapeno – a jalapeno without the heat. I personally don’t get it, but the kids seem happy.

The next week, we were delighted to find that our “coolapeno” plant had already produced a pepper! Way before everything was locked down, we had made a run with the kids to Home Depot to buy some flowers and herbs to plant in the back yard. I don’t remember which kid, but one of they seemed really excited about this plant that was supposedly going to produce peppers that were jalapeno-flavored, but without the heat – coolapenos, see?

Anyhow, Maya now has an elaborate plan for some kind of soup that will use every herb she can think of plus the coolpeno pepper. I’m a solid recipe-preparer, but not much of a recipe developer, so we’ll see how it goes.

Sometime during this past week, we learned that Texas schools would be closed through the end of the school year. Good thing too, since we had no intention of sending Maya back to school even if it opened. I hear talk of them slowly “opening things back up” here in Texas. People have been allowed back to beaches in Florida. Photos have been popping up in the news of happy beach-goers basking in the sun, mask-free and in close proximity. I guess we’ll start to see how all that pans out in 2-3 weeks.

Folks have been protesting the closure of businesses and whatnot with our shelter-in-place, social distancing mandates. Given that Austin is the capitol of a very independent-spirited state, it’s not surprising that there are protests here too. I guess from the rarified air that I breathe, where I am “stuck” at my comfortable house with my healthy spouse and two healthy children working my not-yet-erased job, I can’t fully understand the situation. On the other hand, I see photos of people crowded together demanding to work, some of them wearing their N95 masks, and I can’t help but wonder where the disconnect is. I get that we’re choosing between two shitty options. Cause economic strain and hopefully control the spread of this virus or let people go to work and presumably allow it to spread more freely, sicken (and kill) more people, overwhelm the hospitals. But with the virus still spreading so freely (and with such a death rate) and no vaccine available yet, staying home seems to be the most logical choice.

The kids looking a little disheveled after having to sit for an entire music recital via Zoom.

Just this past Saturday, the kids had their first Zoom music recital. It actually went better than expected, in my opinion. I was worried they wouldn’t take it as seriously since we were just in our house like always, but they both did great. Everyone was respectful, and while the sound quality may not have been the best ever, we were able to hear everyone perform their pieces.

I’m not going to comment on the numbers today, just lay them out so I have them recorded. For Travis County, last Sunday we had 774 confirmed cases and 19 deaths. This Sunday, we have 1108 cases and 25 deaths. For Texas, last Sunday we had 13,748 cases and 286 deaths. This Sunday, we have 19,408 cases and 500 deaths. For the United States, last Sunday, we had 559,409 cases and 22,071 deaths. This Sunday, we have 764,177 cases and 40,591 deaths. And hey, I don’t think I’ve noted worldwide numbers yet. Why not complete the horror. Last Sunday, we were at 1,846,680 confirmed cases and 114,090 deaths. This Sunday, we have 2,402,076 cases and 165,106 deaths.

There’s something about Sunday nights, especially now with all the quarantining and home schooling and so on. I’ve always been annoyed with myself because I have a hard time enjoying Sundays because they really always feel more like pre-Mondays to me. I’m wasting half the weekend dreading the coming week.

Ian and his much-beloved new rainbow sheets.

Anyway, all that to say, my week-in-review is again coming during the following week. Last week was kind of a doozy. It started off innocently enough on Monday. Ian proudly made crowns for both himself and Maya from an activity in one of his High Five magazines. “I made coronas,” he said, because corona means crown in Latin. Both the kids seemed proud of their coronas.

The kids and their “coronas”

Wednesday was a shit show. Sean wound up having meetings all day, so it was nearly impossible for me to make any progress at work. There were repair folks here in the morning working on our AC (yes, in Texas, that constitutes an essential repair). When it was time to pay up, the guy left his clipboard on the truck along with a pen and a pair of disposable gloves and walked away. I put on the gloves, signed the paperwork, and read my credit card information to him from several paces away.

That same morning, Nox the cat started vomiting. First it was just pile after pile of clear spittle barf. Then it turned bloody. Given the situation, we hesitated to take her to the vet right away. We were hoping it was just irritation from repeated vomiting, and so we decided to wait and see. After it happened twice more, I scheduled her visit for that afternoon.

She is super-thrilled to be at the vet’s office

In the vet’s office, I did my best to touch as little as possible. I didn’t sit down on the furniture. I kept my hands clasped in front of me so I wouldn’t touch my face. (I am sooo bad at not touching my face; seriously, I am one giant fidget.) I tried to stay back from people as much as I could, but it just wasn’t possible. The vet wanted to show me the x-rays (which were thankfully clear). I needed to pass the cat back and forth to the veterinary staff. I had to hand my credit card to the person behind the desk. After getting out to the car but before loading up, I swabbed down with hand sanitizer as best I could.

Nox has been doing great. They gave her a steroid and some medicine to suppress her urge to vomit. She’s back to eating and drinking and playing. She regularly sits in the kitchen, stalking birds through the windows, making a chattering/chuffing kind of noise. The kids think she’s hilarious.

The meow wolf and the cat-o-pus are playing chess

Sean has decided to teach the kids how to play chess. Individually though, because otherwise, they’ll just fight. By all indications, the kids are enjoying their lessons so far. I keep finding the chess board set up and various stuffed animals sitting around it getting ready to play.

Groceries have been … confusing. But attainable! We have a curbside pickup scheduled with our local HEB grocery store for April 11th. I spent some time Friday putting together a theoretical list so we could put in another pickup order for April 18th. Pickup schedules had been so full that we were trying as hard as we could to schedule them well in advance. Shortly after I put my list together, Sean noticed that they had just opened up a bunch of pickup times for the very next day. So, I quickly assembled a tide-us-over list to cover some of our fresh food requirements until we could get our pickup on the 11th.

Sean didn’t like his picture with the makeshift mask

By this point, the CDC had finally bitten the bullet and recommended wearing a mask. Save the N95 masks for the healthcare workers, but for the love of Pete, cover your face when you can’t maintain social distancing standards. Sean had two options for his curbside pickup: 1 – use an old N95 rated mask that he had purchased years ago (I think) to snake some oogy pipes or 2 – wear one of my old bandanas which could be fashioned into a mask with the help of a couple of pony-tail holders. I joked that he could choose between looking like Darth Vader or Jessie James. He chose the latter.

Had we not ordered beer, he probably wouldn’t have needed the mask at all. He pulled into a parking spot, texted the number for his parking spot to let them know he’d arrived, and they brought the stuff out and loaded it into our trunk. He had to sign to verify he was over 21 since we had added beer to our order. Otherwise, it would have been a completely touch-less handoff.

We were issued one notice from our school district this past week (I think) that schools would stay closed till May 4th. And then we were issued another notice that said they would be closed “indefinitely.” It’s still up for debate how they plan to handle grades for the remainder of the school year.

Things continue to look grim. Adam Schlesinger died from COVID-19. He was in a band (Fountains of Wayne) that was part of my 90s teenage years, but only tangentially. John Prine has been hospitalized with COVID-19 complications. This one hits much harder. He’s inextricably part of growing up for me, between Dad’s records and Mom’s singing. His funny and sad songs have always hit me just so. Plus, he always reminds me of my mom.

As of screen captures I took on Sunday night, Travis county had 484 reported cases (6 deaths). Texas had 7231 cases (138 deaths). And the United States had 336,958 cases and 9,626 deaths. I keep thinking it might be smarter to stop looking at the numbers so closely. Stories of overrun hospitals compete with stories of better and faster testing becoming available. There are so many places trying to get ventilators manufactured to meet this new overwhelming demand.

In the mean time, the economy is a wreck. New jobless claims were 6.6 million this past week. The week before they were around 3.3 million. The previous record had been in the 600k range. Around 10 million new jobless claims in two weeks and the news reports indicate that people are still having a hard time getting through overtaxed systems to make their claims, so those numbers seem likely to continue increasing.

Finding “Stephanie’s chicken”

There’s a lady who lives in our neighborhood that I used to work with. She and her husband live just around the corner from us, essentially. She has started leaving this ornamental chicken sculpture in various places in her yard so the kids can try and find it when they walk past. The kids LOVE IT. We’ve been by twice now and they’ve been happy to locate “Stephanie’s chicken” whenever they walk by.

The wren babies in the birdhouse in the backyard seem to be growing up. We now see their beaks poking out trying to grab at the worms and bugs their parents bring them nearly non-stop throughout the day. Sean has placed a large, thin corrugated cardboard box beneath the birdhouse just to soften the blow in case some of the babies have trouble with their flying lessons, once those happen. That concrete would make for a rough landing.