Life These Days, summed up in a single photograph: Actually, that's not quite right. The lack of giant visible dust bunnies around the baseboard means this photo doesn't fully capture our current *~*~quarantine aesthetic~*~* (All I do is sweep! And vacuum! And then sweep and swiffer some more! Why is everyone in my household suddenly shedding hair and dirt and dust, including, apparently, the human beings? I'm tempted to dangle everyone out a window and shake them out like rugs.) I asked Jason if he took any interesting photos this week, since I...really didn't, since nobody is particularly cute/well-groomed/camera-ready in general these days. Surprise, everything he sent me involved food. BEHOLD THE COLLAGE OF CARBS Going a little overboard on the comfort foods there, aren't we? Top row is mushroom ravioli in pistachio cream sauce (and bread), pizza, and Oreo macarons. Middle row are two shots of the pork/sausage/meatball Sunday Gravy I made on a Wednesday (and bread), followed by the Thursday Meatball Grinders we made from the leftovers (and bread). Third row is linguini with ramp pesto (and bread), more pizza, corn cakes, and finally a mushroom and asparagus ancient grains risotto that we technically made ourselves, but we... Read more →

We had kind of a Wild Animal weekend, both literally and figuratively. First, a fledgling baby bird appeared in the hedge outside our front window. And I, being both an idiot and absolutely desperate for outside entertainment and distractions, immediately called all the kids over. After about 75% of the words "HEY GUYS WHO WANTS TO SEE A BABY BIRD" came out of my mouth I realized what a potentially grave error I'd made. Yes, children! Come get invested in this small, pathetic creature's fight for survival! Come see firsthand how cruel nature can be! (Last night at the dinner table, Ike offhandedly said something about how 400 whole people have died of coronavirus. His brothers were like, yeah, but don't worry, children don't die from it! Children and babies are totally fine! Then everybody looked at us, the fully adult grown-ups in charge, because that's right, Mom? Dad? Isn't that right? Jason and I just sat there with mouths full of meatloaf staring at each other and mentally playing a game of NOT IT NOPE NOT IT.) Anyway, the bird did survive the night and by the next morning was hopping from branch to branch and taking short little... Read more →

Hey, so on the bright side, thanks to homeschooling, "Friday" actually means something again! The concept of time is BACK, baby! Two whole days off from pretending my children are actually learning anything via a patchwork jungle of videos and apps and more videos! (And also from pretending that I can find Japan on an unlabeled map or do ANYTHING fraction related without cheating with my phone.) I sense that Ezra feels similarly. His teacher responded that yes, yes, it is indeed all-caps ANNOYING but alas, the only way through it is through, 15-20 ANNOYING minutes a day, until... until... Yeah, there's still not really an end for that sentence. Ike is currently completing his Health class assignment, which is an animated video about washing your hands featuring a robot. That seems unsafe! Especially considering that Ike accidentally microwaved a metal spoon just this morning! And two nights ago I had to remind Jason to unplug the toaster before using a fork to dig out a stuck piece of sourdough! And an alarming portion of the country has decided that masks and a lack of dine-in brunch options are violent assaults on MAH FREEDOMES! SCIENCE IS REAL, PEOPLE! DON'T PUT... Read more →

The three worst words in the English language: "Mom, something happened!" The code for the Google Meet isn't working. The Zoom call froze. The video isn't loading. I can't hear anyone. No one can hear me. I can't find my headphones. I tried to unmute myself but accidentally hung up instead. I hit submit on my quiz too soon! I wasn't done! It says to search in MackinVIA for "marshes and wetlands" but nothing is coming up. How do I find PebbleGo? Or DreamBox? Or Lexia? Do I click on Modules? Or Assignments? Where's Discussions? It says "Access Denied." The computer says there's no printer connected? The computer says there's no internet? How do you attach a photo? What's an inbox? Sigh. Let me see. You probably copy/pasted it wrong. Open a new tab. Hit refresh. Enable audio. Click join with video. Check your volume. Check the basement. Click rejoin. Message your teacher. Let me see. You typed "morshes and wetbands," sweetie. Click this for the text-to-speech thing, wait, hang on, let me see. First go to this site and then click that and then scroll down. It depends on the teacher, which Canvas square is your math teacher again?... Read more →

Obligatory Food Related: For Cinco de Mayo, Jason made us queso and homemade Crunch Wrap Supremes. I've never actually eaten the real deal -- no shade to Taco Bell; I'm just more of a late night drive-thru chicken nugget variety drunk person -- but I feel safe declaring his version superior. And dangerous, because I could eat this drunk OR sober. And like, for breakfast. The margaritas were passion fruit margaritas, made by me, from a kit we ordered from our favorite local wine shop. Last weekend our new neighbors held an impromptu happy hour on their driveway and made everybody a round using the same kit. And lo, they were delicious, and a fine trade for the loaf of sourdough, half-batch of blueberry muffins, AND chocolate chip cookies I left on their front porch in the dead of the night before running home while screeching NO BACKSIES! NO BACKSIES! *** Does anybody else go through this cycle where you feel pretty good and okay a few days and then suddenly there's a day where your mental health just kinda NOPES out on you? And you're just inexplicably exhausted and cranky and on edge and can't figure out if you... Read more →

What am I even doing here? I have nothing to say! There is nothing to write about! Everything is strange and stressful and disorienting and yet utterly, mind-fuckingly boring. Since I last updated here, I reorganized our pantry. I planted some flowers that should be growing by now, but aren't. I made cookies and ravioli and garlic ginger paste. Jason spent like three days making an insanely complicated, beautiful ramen. Afterwards the kids begged and begged for Domino's pizza until we caved and ordered them some frigging Domino's pizza. I learned that Oxi-Clean and boiling water will make the inside of a trashed-to-hell Le Creuset Dutch oven look practically brand new. (I also learned that I had zero concept of how much money I'd actually spent on said Le Creuset Dutch oven, sweet merciful jebus, what was my life even. Once I realized how much it would cost to replace that sucker I was going to restore it to some semblance of its former glory even if it took hours of scrubbing, an entire box of baking soda, and half a layer of my finger skin. But I forgot to take before-and-after photos so like, why? Why am I even... Read more →

Last week, Jason splurged on mail-order cheesesteaks from Pat's. He wouldn't tell me how much they cost, told me to stop asking, and mumbled something-something about the "priceless" experience of giving our children their first authentic taste of Philly during a lockdown. It's not just a cheesesteak, it's world culture! Geography! Social studies! We're EDUCATING them over here, okay? (Or in the local language: This is a Homeschooling, Whiz Witout.) We ate cheesesteaks for dinner two nights in a row, and the kids begged us to order them again, immediately. I, the killer of joy and fun, told them no. These were a fun treat, but too expensive to be a regular thing. When we can, though, we'll take a trip to Philly and go to the actual restaurant! Maybe do a taste test with Geno's and Jim's! Wow, remember when we could just...do things like that? But never...did? Gah. Anybody not gonna finish their cheesesteak? Can I haz it? Jason, who is basically surviving this experience one ambitious Food Experiment Project to the next, was all MY CHILDREN DEMAND CHEESESTEAKS. BY GRABTHAR'S HAMMER, I SHALL DELIVER CHEESESTEAKS. He worked all week on perfecting the rolls and tracking down ribeye... Read more →

Our school district finally started distance learning this week, and I can already confidently report that there is exactly the same amount of "learning" happening now as during the previous four weeks, which is to say, NOT MUCH, BOB. Instead, it's mostly kids getting distracted by their own faces and each other's pets on video calls, teachers struggling to unmute their own microphones, and super-challenging homework assignments like "practice writing an email" and "watch this video and then comment with the answer to the question I ask at the end, and/or just type the same answer that 30 other students have already commented with." (Two. The answer was two. I didn't watch the whole video either.) On Friday I got the (not entirely unexpected) news that the already-very-slow badging process for federal jobs has officially slowed down even more due to...well, you know. All Of It. So the timeline for Mah New Jerb has been pushed back from "I dunno, hopefully soon" to "I still dunno, but probably later." On Saturday my prepaid debit card from the unemployment office arrived, at least. So that's fun and humbling. I took Beau to the vet yesterday, as he's managed to lick and... Read more →

I had to go to Target yesterday to pick up a prescription, but first I had to wait out a fucking tornado warning. It's official: Do not go outside! Outside is bad! Outside is code for out to get you! The kids gathered up the cats and their stuffed animals and hid in the basement, later declaring themselves incapable of doing any chores or online learning because they were too stressed out over the tornado, which did not actually materialize in our area. (I know many other parts of the country were not so fortunate yesterday, but forgive my children's naive, sheltered privilege; they don't read the news, don't want to hear about the news, and keep stubbornly insisting that "the coronavirus is going away on April 24th." They should probably be on a presidential task force by now.) Anyway, I left for Target after the tornado warning expired, but forgot about the severe thunderstorm warning that was definitely still in effect. (The saddest part of this photo is that box of rosé wine does not actually contain any rosé wine. Or wine of any kind! It is empty, like my sense of purpose and meaning and whatever the fuck... Read more →

Ike, Ezra and I made faux stained glass with glitter glue (procured from Amazon, probably price-gouged), food coloring (procured from a friend, as a barter for sourdough starter), and glass from some old photo frames. They came out great! Everybody had fun! And it took up some time! Noah did not create An Art, but he did swing by to talk to us about our lord and savior the USS Enterprise. Ike and his best friend had a Zoom call for their dogs. I made a fruit salad. Everybody was really excited about the fruit salad, and insisted we document the fruit salad. We also had a couple nights of nice-enough weather for the fire pit, the tire swing, and a star-gazing app. And outside bedtime stories. (Jason's reading of Dog Man wasn't quite as entertaining as Dav Pilkey's, but this week the boys learned that their Absolute Favorite Author has both ADHD and dyslexia. Ike ran around the house shouting "BEHOLD MY SUPERPOWAH!" for about 20 minutes straight afterwards.) We did it! We survived another week. I hope y'all did too. Read more →