Pandemic, Week 4 (Speak No Evil)

This week the world hit 1.8 million Coronavirus cases and over 100,000 deaths. The U.S. now has the most cases and deaths of any country (over 500,000 and 20,000 respectively). The Prime Minister of Great Britain was hospitalized for COVID-19. The democratic Governor of Wisconsin attempted to delay their primary election (which included a crucial state Supreme Court judge election) until June, but the current state Supreme Court blocked the delay and the the federal Supreme Court reversed a lower court's ruling that gave voters six extra days to return mail-in ballots which meant that thousands of Badgers had to brave a reduced number of polling places and risk their health in order to vote.  Bernie Sanders dropped out of the democratic primary making Joe Biden the presumptive democratic presidential nominee. 17 million people have filed for unemployment insurance. The President claimed that antibiotics have been ineffective against the virus because it's a genius (and not, as medical professionals agree, because antibiotics are for bacterial infections).

We, however, forged on. We participated in our first virtual Quaker Meeting – John even joined and introduced himself (apparently he just needed the Friends to come to come to him). Nora actually shared during meeting about the "little ones" – the medically fragile, younger students at her school that the fifth graders had been paired with and which Nora has become particularly close with. Two had been hospitalized and Nora has been really concerned about their well-being (happily we learned later this week that they both were doing better and had been discharged).

We ventured on a new trail for this week's bike ride (the Metropolitan Branch trail), but as the city has been closing more and more parks (there were police and National Guard monitoring Lincoln Park today) to discourage people from congregating, the remaining trails and parks have become really crowded. We'll see how much longer we can keep it up.

Nora continued to participate in Zoom in a Week, though they didn't finish recording this week's podcast so you'll have to wait for next week to meet Gamer_xxx58. Both kids had their lessons as well as DCYOP, we did another Wisdom Pub Quiz (though not knowing the Rock's filmography proved to be quite the handicap), had a game night with the Romans, and an international college roommate Zoom call for me. Nora and Allen participated in "crazy hair day" for SWS (Owen and I weren't quite there yet). We celebrated Grandpa Z's 77th birthday with a virtual party (Dave even sent an ice cream cake). We played the marble game and still like each other.

We also got a lot done. Allen broke out the mini sewing machine that Grandma Z gave Nora years ago for Christmas and fashioned new masks (some essential places now require one for entry  – Eastern Market requires masks and only allows five people in at a time – and Grandpa even donned one to try and convince us to let him go to Costco). Allen had ordered a bunch of pictures and proceeded to ignore all safety warnings in order to hang them in our stairwell. We ordered a pasta maker and made fresh pasta and sauce for dinner. We even made homemade ice cream (since purchasing frozen things at the grocery store is a bit dicey given how long the check-out wait can be). Nora made it through several books and we convinced Owen that despite it not being required for school, he actually does need to finish To Kill a Mockingbird (preferably before he starts, 1984).

Which is to say, we are generally managing the current absurdity that is life in the spring of 2020 well. Sure Owen is resigned that he will never return to middle school and Nora is having a hard time accepting that things are sufficiently dire that masks are a necessary, but we are all healthy, fully employed, engaged in learning, and getting along. Which is all one can really ask for these days.

We hope the same can be said for all of you.



(To see all of pictures from this week, click here.)