2020: The year we stayed home. Zoom.

COVID-19 has closed our schools, canceled vacations and made us ration toilet paper in a completely unexpected, unprecedented way. 

But, in the midst of it all, we are so incredibly blessed.  This is what Jeep and i have talked about every day since this all started.....how thankful we can be that we have so much.  Not only do we have ENOUGH - - of everything - - but, we are in our comfortable home, usually in our pajamas, and able to access endless hours of entertainment and our friends and family with all the devices we have here. And, in fact, there are now a lot of new weird adventures at home.

I figured that this time is unique enough that I should probably start jotting some of these memories down, in this LONG-FORGOTTEN (like, truly forgot i had it) blog thing. 

So, here is Memory 1: Zoom calls

One of Jeep's friend's moms asked if we could set up a call.  In 2nd grade, friends are essential, and the boys were starting to go through withdrawal.  So, I sent over a Zoom invite so they could see each other....followed up with another Zoom call with a long-lost CA friend.

Here is what I've learned about little boys and Zoom:

• Sometimes, the invitee will accept the invite 25 times.
• The first several minutes of the call will be filled with the boys realizing they are on camera, then making weird faces at each other, and constantly repositioning the screen so you see the top of their heads, then their chins, then the ceiling...
• Some invitees will hide until they get used to seeing their own face on the screen.
• Once the faces are in focus, they will then start the greetings: 

               "Hi." 
               "HI."
               "Hi."
               "Hi."
               "HELLO."
               "Hi"
           This will go on for approximately indefinitely, until an innocent bystander parent hollers,                     "SAY SOMETHING DIFFERENT!"

• "Do you want to see my cat/dog?" segments are never really appreciated by the featured pet.
• Conversation topics include:  Hilarious book parts, forts, how much pee is actually in a pool, video games and "Would your rather" questions, which no one would rather....
• ...until they discover Chat.  THEN, it turns into the Sloth scene in Zootopia, in which Jeep says, "I have a joke! Wait a minute..." and proceeds to type it into the Chat box: 

              K.

              n.

              i.

             "MOMMY, WHERE'S THE ERASER?" ("Hit Backspace")

             Backspace.

             Backspace.

             "Whoops."

             N.

             o.

             C.....

             Innocent Bystander Parent:  "Maybe just TELL him the joke?!"

             "Almost done....." (he wasn't)

             k..........

             Super patient friend:  "You know, if you get Grammarly, it helps you type really good...."

• There is no counting the number of times the call will accidentally hang up and start again...
• Jeep: "Okay.  I have 3 minutes left then i have to go."  Friend: CLICK. Face disappears.
• Once Jeep realizes there was no proper goodbye, his typing skills will surge as he types in the now empty chat room.  "BYE! Bye.  Goodbye.  YOU ARE MY FRIEND.  PROMISE. Goodbye. g. G. Bye. Goodb"
• Lastly, the calls never really end, because at any time, the invitees' faces might just appear back on the screen....

This is this season's version of a play date.  It might be even more fun to watch than to actually Zoom.

wedding story

this was the first (only?) post/blog i ever wrote, so i thought it fitting to make it the first here.   It is the story of the night before our wedding.  I changed three words.  I can do that, because i’m just stealing it from myself….
==========================

so, it’s the night before the wedding…isn’t this is supposed to be the evening of peaceful contemplation and joyous expectation?

i had everything purchased a couple of weeks ago. It felt like i was done Christmas shopping two weeks early – amazing. There was no last-minute scrambling needed…just a quiet day of getting ready for the weekend, with a small break to get my nails done with my niece. I got pale lavender. Again, peaceful.

back home after the manicure, while in the midst of getting stuff together, my college roomie called. As we were talking, i thought it would be a good time to paint my toe nails. If this were a movie, now would be the moment when the music would go “dun-dun-DUNNNNH.”

the middle schoolers had gotten me some metallic blue nail polish for my Something Blue, so my plan was to paint my toes with it (one benefit of having no audience for your wedding is that your toe nails can be any color they want). They were fun, and i was pretty happy…until i noticed metallic blue on one of my pale lavender fingernails. Trying not to freak out, as i was still on the phone, i tried to wipe it off. Lacking nail polish skills, i was unaware that the two colors become one the instant they meet; apparently, there is no wedding ceremony in the nail polish world. The panic slowly started to settle in as we hung up the call.

thinking that i had the dexterity to wipe off only the blue part, i got out the nail polish remover and tried. Instantly, half the color was gone. I then started desperately looking thru my polish drawer for a light lavender, thinking that if i painted it on quickly, it would blend into the existing color like a water color. Not so much. Not only did it not blend, but none of the colors i had even remotely matched the one on my finger. I tried color after color, wiping each off on the palm of my hand when they failed. I ended up with one multi-colored nail, 9 lavender ones, and a palm full of nail polishes…after a minute of trying to wipe them off with remover, i gave up.

deciding that i was going to go insane and waste hours trying to find a match, i figured it would just be faster to jump in the car and go to Walgreens. Forgetting i had wet metallic blue still on my toes, i slipped on sandals, ending up with blue streaks across the tops of both my feet. i was now pretty much covered in nail polish.

this was the first time in my entire shopping life that someone at Walgreens has truly asked to help me. i’m thinking the pajama top/raincoat combo, along with my makeup-less face, might have tipped her off that i was in trouble. Trying to maintain some social decorum, i blurted out, “i’m getting married tomorrow and i got blue on my finger when i was painting my toes and i tried to fix it and now i need to find purple because my finger looks like THIS,” kind of flipping her off with my mis-colored index finger. Of course, they did not carry the type of polish the salon had. In fact, pale lavender, which is available in lip gloss, eye shadow, shampoo bottles, jelly beans and Easter eggs, is apparently only a nail color at the salon. The closest we could come up with was a pale pink and a light blue. Based on my earlier experience, i figured they would just mate and i’d end up with something close enough.

i grabbed a few more things (by this time, i was in serious need of some ice cream) and got to the register, where i noticed that it was pretty blurry. Thinking that was odd, i started looking around and soon realized that the store itself wasn’t actually blurry, but my contact had somehow folded itself in half. After winking at the cashier thru the entire transaction, i then stepped aside to fix my contact.

this might be a good time to refer to an earlier part of the story, where i had poured nail polish and remover into my palm. Remember that part? Yah. Well, unfortunately, i didn’t….thus, when the contact went back into my eye, it was covered with an amazing assortment of little pain-inducing substances.

after a tiny bit of screaming (i did wait until i got back into my truck), i called daryl and told him the story in one continuous sentence that lasted the entire 5 minutes home. He was encouraging, both in telling me that he wasn’t worried at all about what my finger looked like and in assuring me that i had actually gone kind of crazy. Once finally getting home, i anxiously tried my new blue/pink combo. It worked great. Perfect really…except, the blue i’d bought had this surprisingly shiny glitter thing going on. So, for the most memorable day of my life, i will have nine nice pale lavender fingernails and one purple disco one, which required 20 minutes to dry…thus the time to write this note with the non-trouble-making fingers. On the plus side, maybe disco-finger will be able draw attention away from my now bloodshot eye. It should be lovely.

boys reading this might wonder why i didn’t just take all of the polish off and avoid this whole maniacal thing…rational people might wonder why i didn’t just try to go to the salon in the morning. i’m just chalking the whole thing up to wedding brain. And, now that i’ve had some time to sit down and think for a few minutes straight, i have realized something a little disconcerting about myself: i will use ANY excuse to justify eating ice cream.

conclusion to story: once this note was written, i re-looked at the nails, removed all polish, and started again with white. i ended going to bed at about 2:30 a.m. with my hands straight in the air. Whatever…it all worked out = )