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.)