Last night was New Year's Eve. We don't go out, but ate junk food and made noise when the ball dopped. Cilla was able to stay up instead of being sent to bed and sneaking downstairs. I think that was more fun. But what wouldn't be?
Today we had Aunt Pooh's hot dog buffet and sauerkraut.
Aunt Pooh's Holiday Smorgasbord, August 15, 2018
Thanksgiving and Christmas “Didn't
suck too bad,” as Josh said. Maybe that's what the Cratchit kids said. I told them it was all right to complain as long as you were thankful for what you had and asked God to forgive you.
There was still turkey, pumpkin pie,
cookies, snapping crackers and presents. I missed live church, but was grateful for
Zoom. Cilla was put out because this year she would have been
allowed to go to the midnight service. I told her they'd be doing it
on Zoom, but she just sighed and said, “It's not the same.” I
think she expected a churchlady argument, because she looked
surprised when I just said, “I know.”
Of course there wasn't anything going on at school and I missed the office silliness of Secret Santa and going out to lunch. I told myself it would all be back next year. I wondered what joy we got out of trying to guess who everyone's Secret Santa was and fussing about which restaurant to go to, anyway. But we do anyway.
We had Janet and Kate over for both days and had as good a time as possible while wearing masks and not being able to sing carols. Karen and Nikki and I talked on the phone a lot and told each other how grateful we were for everything after complaining for fifteen minutes.
The School Board canceled Trick or Treat, so we just had pizza for dinner with Halloween candy for dessert. Cilla put candy corn and and pumpkins on hers on top of the pepperoni. I put some on mine, too. Josh said, “Now we have another tradition,” and got some of the Halloween Peeps, bit off their heads and put both the heads and bodies on separate slices. I took pictures.
The grade school and middle school let the kids wear costumes. The high school didn't, but the kids all wore black and orange and appropriate accessories like cat and rabbit ears, witches' hats, and devil horns. They couldn't wear tails, though.
I went up to the attic to see if I could find any old costumes for Cilla. (Josh was a vampire, his favorite). There was an angel from a Christmas pageant, the usual witches, the wig Betsey had worn as Kim Kardashian. (Betsey had been able to wear the dress (short and black) later, as she always reminds me, although I didn't let her wear it to the Christmas Eve service). Finally, we chose the dress I'd worn as Amy the year Aunt Pooh decided to do Little Women. Fortunately for Jim, I could always fill in for him when Aunt Pooh did themes. That year, he was Boy George.
School has started. All summer we had been hearing about the different options, but it wasn't until September first that the school board decided to go live. Of course, they said they could always go back to video and home schooling.
That hadn't worked out too well for us. We got everyone a new laptop (an early Christmas present). Ed fussed they would be back in school by Easter. I reminded him of all those wars that were going to be “over by Christmas.”
Fortunately, Ed and I could both work from home, so we could “help” with the online classes, Ed with math and science and me with English and social studies. Unfortunately, Ed and I have different philosophies. Mine is “Isn't this fun!” Ed's is “You have to learn, so you can go college and get a good job and make a lot of money. So suck it up!”
Josh wanted to know what Jesus would do, since “money was the root of all evil.” Ed told him that he would have more money to give to the poor.
Betsey, who is planning to be the AOC of her generation, (She got AOC glasses when she needed a new prescription. Fortunately or unfortunately, she already had AOC hair.) said that was classist. Ed snorted. I said she was right, but the more you know, the more you can help people. He snorted again.
They gave us two weeks to get ready. We did back to school shopping online, and for a while it was like Christmas every day with new packages arriving. When we dropped the kids off at school, it was like Halloween, with everyone wearing a different mask, animals, superheroes, cartoon characters.
I don't know what's going to happen for Halloween. I ordered some Scary Shapes candy (candy corn in shapes of bones and bats and so on), but the purple skulls had melted all over everything, and even though we managed to pull them apart, they still didn't taste good.
Of course this could all be over by Halloween. Good one.
Looking back, I think the time before the lockdown was like one of those horror movies that shows everyone going about their business before everything hits the fan. I had to take Cilla to dance class in the morning. (She has added hip hop to ballet, so that's two hours a week, not counting transportation.) In the afternoon, I took Betsey to the Mall. We picked up Ilse on the way, and Nikki walked to the car with a bag of books she was getting rid of. I said “Terrific" (an English major never turns down books), but I was going to clean out all the drawers and closets and maybe even the attic. She said, “I don't think it's going to last a year,” and we laughed.
Ed, who is very practical and likes apocalyptic and dystopian literature, has always insisted we keep a stock pile of paper products and canned food. We have an overflow of canned chili, and I thought I might as well pick up a few bags of tortilla chips and jars of salsa (all strength as well as pineapple and watermelon), but the parking lot at the supermarket was packed and people were rushing to their cars with overflowing baskets. (Karen told me she had put in an order on the computer, but at 5:00 the store told her the order had been canceled.)
I went to the drug store and got the chips and salsa (although they only had hot and mild. Hard times.) We were waiting to hear what would be closed. There was the feel of waiting for a snow day for the kids. Ed and I would both be working at home. The kids were delighted when it was announced that schools would be closed. What they hadn't thought of was that they would be home-schooled and that locked down means you are locked in your house, and so is everyone else.
Josh called the isolation “solitary confinement” and “house arrest.” Betsey said that lack of human contact makes people crazy. I asked them what was their family, chopped liver? Josh said Ed and I were the corrections officers and the girls were his fellow prisoners. Probably at the instigation of the others, Cilla had made an ankle bracelet out of Legos and duct tape.
I said “good one,” and, as I do when they fight, I told them I had wished for siblings all my life. I would have even prayed for them, but I was a Unitarian. The Only Child Card may get old for them, but never for me. Cilla looked sympathetic. Betsey rolled her eyes and Josh told me how lucky I was to have all that extra money spent on me. Betsey said I hadn't had to put up with anybody getting in my stuff or walking by and hitting me on the back of the head. Josh said he just tapped.
Ed happened to be walking by on his way on his way to the kitchen, He said anybody who had siblings would say I was neurotic. I said maybe that was what made me that way. Not to mention being raised by two scientists/and having most of the family named after writers or literary characters, including an Aunt Pooh.
