Pandemic, Week 15 (Home Sweet Home)

The President suspended H-1B visas until the end of the year. The White House denied that the President was briefed in March regarding Russian bounties for the murder of American soldiers in Afghanistan. Protestors in Madison, WI mistakenly brought down a statue of Hans Christian Heg, an abolitionist who fought for the union in the Civil War. Police occupied Lincoln Park in response to calls to remove Emancipation, the statue showing freed enslaved man kneeling before Lincoln. The House of Representatives passed HR51, which would grant statehood to the District of Columbia. The EU moved to ban entry of Americans. Segways are being phased out.

The number of total COVID-19 cases in the world hit 10.1 million with 501,000 deaths. The U.S. hit 2.6 million cases and 128,000 deaths. Texas and Florida re-closed their bars after an explosion in new cases. Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced it would withdraw funding for testing sites in five states.

We came home, but kept our expanded bubble. The kids hung out at the Telfair-Chas on Monday and Tuesday (we joined them Tuesday night for dinner and a Little Women viewing party). On Wednesday and Thursday we hosted and made cinnamon rolls and ice cream and broke out Rock Band. Friday, Allen and Megan joined the kids for a bike ride (after Nora had her book club with Ms. Wertheimer and the SWS Class of 2020). Then we said our goodbyes as the Telfair-Chas begin an extended family quarantine, and we had dinner at Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's with special guest star Uncle L (Katherine was busy expanding her own bubble in Florida).

It was all very lovely, but made us think that we may need to bubble-expand again soon -- this time to Iowa.


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

Pandemic, Week 14 (In Deep)

This week the President's request to block the publication of John Bolton's tell-all book was denied by a federal judge.  Trump's campaign rally took place in Tulsa the day after Juneteenth, but attendance was closer to 6,000 instead of the predicted one million, supposedly due to a bunch of TikTok, K-Pop fans requesting tickets and not showing up. Attorney General Bill Barr attempted to fire the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, in order to replace him with the SEC chair, only to find Barr lacked the authority and the President didn't want to back Barr up (eventually Berman resigned once he was guaranteed his deputy would replace him). The Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protections against employment discrimination by sex includes protections for gay and transgender people and that the DACA program could not be ended. Quaker Oats is dropping the Aunt Jemima name for its syrup.

Meanwhile, the world hit 8.9 million COVID-19 cases and 467,000 deaths. The U.S. had 2.3 million cases and 122,000 deaths.

As for us, we enjoyed our second week of co-quarantining with the Telfair-Chas -- this time in Deep Creek, MD where we had access to a large dock, beautiful views and some amazing wifi (which was a bit of a double-edge sword for the kids). We kayaked almost everyday (at least the adults did -- the kids refused to go out in the rain...), roasted marshmallows, made cupcakes, hot-tubbed, hiked (well, they did. I had to work...), watched movies, played pool, biked, speculated about the secret life of ducks, engaged in some strange wrestling matches, ate a lot of good food, enjoyed some lovely cocktails, and just generally had an amazing time. A few brave souls jumped into the water. And we got to enjoy Owen and Nora's DCYOP concert remotely (Owen can be found at 12:48, Nora's supersized concert can be view here).

In addition, Nora lost two teeth, Owen and Gabriel got haircuts and Mirabel slept a lot.



It was really hard to leave our little island and return to our real lives. We're going to at least let the kids continue to enjoy a wider bubble with some additional playdates this week, but sadly it's back to the grind for the rest of us.

Though we are talking about heading to Iowa soon...

(To see all of the Deep Creek pictures, click here.)

Pandemic, Week 13 (Not So Socially Distant)

George Floyd's funeral was held in Houston. Mitt Romney joined a Black Lives Matter protest in DC. The military offered to remove the names of confederate officers form their military installations (such as Fort Bragg), but Trump demurred. Instead, Trump announced a rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa, home of the Race Massacre of 1921 (he's since decide to delay the rally one day so it doesn't correspond with a holiday commemorating the end of slavery). The administration is also eliminating protections against discrimination in health care of trans-gender people.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 raged on. There were 7.8 million cases in the world and 430,000 deaths; for the United States the numbers were 2.1 million and 117,000. Cases have risen 207 percent in Arizona. Hospitalization have also increased in Arizona, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

But we were all pretty removed from that in our mountain-top home. Nora rose each day to participate in the first two hours of Virtual Play in a Week where she played Minerva in Fatally Spagettified, but otherwise the kids mostly lounged, played games and swam in the pool, though they did take some time out for Owen's virtual 8th grade graduation. The adults spent the mornings on work-calls and other responsibilities, but then adjourned to the pool with cocktails before dinner and puzzle-time (and more cocktails). There was the occasional sunset concert featuring viola and cellos, sour cherry pie, homemade mayonnaise (if you like that sort of thing). But mostly, we just relaxed an enjoyed the company of not just our household unit.

It was kind of amazing and just the sort of psychic break we all needed (though maybe not what our collective livers would have preferred). And now we get to do it all again for another week with the Telfair-Chas in Deep creek, MD.

(To see all the pictures, click here.)

Pandemic, Week 12 (BLM)

Things got a lot worse this week. On Sunday, a day of peaceful protest ended that night with a small fire at St. John's Episcopal church across from the White House and some looting. On Monday, peaceful protests in Lafayette Square continued during the day, DC issued a curfew of 7:00 pm, and the President informed governors and mayors that he would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and deploy federal troops if they didn't quell the protests. Then around 6:30 pm that evening, the President decided that he wanted to walk over to St. Johns for a photo-op of himself holding a bible (which when asked if it was "his" bible he responded, "It's a bible"), leading to officers in riot gear using tear gas and rubber pellets on the crowd to clear the area.

Armored trucks and reservists were brought in. A fence was built around the Square (which was quickly decorated with Black Lives Matter signs). On Tuesday, DC had its primary with voting lines circling blocks (though voters were excused from the curfew).  The curfews eased to 11 pm by Wednesday. Friday morning, the mayor closed 16th street in order to paint, "Black Lives Matter"on the newly renamed "Black Lives Matter Plaza (protestors painted "Defund the Police" on an adjoining street). On Saturday, thousands more descended on DC to protest police brutality throughout the city (there was even a kids' protest in Lincoln Park) and in satellite protests across the U.S. and around the globe.

Meanwhile, there were 7 million COVID-19 cases in the world and 403,000 deaths. The U.S. hit 1.9 million cases and 110,000 deaths. The jobs report came out suggesting 2.5 million jobs were added in May (though that was partly due to a misclassification of laid off people as on leave). The President was so excited that he exclaimed, Hopefully George [Floyd] is looking down right now and saying, 'There's a great thing that's happening for our country.'"

Nora played "Jeff" in this week's podcast, The Box in the Bedroom. Owen worked on Khan Academy and some Harry Potter essay questions.

Amid it all, we left town on Friday. We had planned to decamp from DC once school was out for a few weeks, to give the kids a break and ourselves a change in scenery. We'd arranged to go with the Telfair-Chas so the kids would have friends to hangout with while the adults continued to work remotely. And we found a house on a mountain-top with a pool and several acres so that we didn't have to worry about other people.

(Mind you, we still had to worry about trees, as a fallen one impeded our access to the house and in our zeal to move it (and in the failure of the chainsaw provided by the owner) we reached out to some helpful neighbors and inadvertently started a home-owners association war (apparently our Airbnb isn't sanctioned), though we did make it to Lost Mountain Manor.)

We all felt a little guilty deserting the city amid the protests, and not joining our voices to the calls to end police brutality and the persecution of people of color. But I suspect there will still be a lot of work left when we return.