Steven Harper's Blog, page 46
April 19, 2020
The Plague Diaries: Masks and Dinosaurs, With a Basket
A couple weeks ago, I wanted masks for going out in public. The CDC, for whatever reason, wasn't encouraging people to wear them yet, and I couldn't imagine why. They would certainly catch saliva and mucus from people coughing, and thereby slow or even stop the spread of the virus. Even if it turned out they didn't help at all, they wouldn't HURT. It seemed stupid not to wear them.
But of course, you can't buy masks anywhere.
I set out to make some. I'm a rotten tailor and hate sewing, but there are ways around that. First, I tried ordering some big handkerchiefs online to make into masks. When they arrived, I washed them, and they shrank and were too small. Hmm. Next, I sacrificed two old t-shirts by cutting them off just under the arms and then cutting the seams apart so I had four large pieces of cloth. I also cut the elastic top off some older socks. I folded the cloths the long way twice and threaded the sock tops through them and, with a little folding, created a perfectly serviceable mask with comfy stretchy cloth that fit over my ears. The only problem with these masks is that they're heavy and they tend to slip.
Today on an online community bulletin board, I saw a notice from a local seamstress. She was willing to make masks for $5 each. I texted her and ordered six. A couple hours later, she texted back to say they were ready. So that we wouldn't have to see each other face-to-face, she gave instructions about the hand-off.
I drove to the address. Her house was easy to find because on the front porch was a six-foot-tall Jurassic Park velociraptor. It was wearing a huge surgical mask, and over one of its arms was slung a basket. Inside the basket was a plastic bag containing the masks and an envelope. I put a check into the envelope, took the bag of masks, and left, feeling like I had just run a drug deal via ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
These masks are nicely-made and neatly pleated, with strong ties. They're currently in the washer, just in case, and then they'll be ready to go!
comments
But of course, you can't buy masks anywhere.
I set out to make some. I'm a rotten tailor and hate sewing, but there are ways around that. First, I tried ordering some big handkerchiefs online to make into masks. When they arrived, I washed them, and they shrank and were too small. Hmm. Next, I sacrificed two old t-shirts by cutting them off just under the arms and then cutting the seams apart so I had four large pieces of cloth. I also cut the elastic top off some older socks. I folded the cloths the long way twice and threaded the sock tops through them and, with a little folding, created a perfectly serviceable mask with comfy stretchy cloth that fit over my ears. The only problem with these masks is that they're heavy and they tend to slip.
Today on an online community bulletin board, I saw a notice from a local seamstress. She was willing to make masks for $5 each. I texted her and ordered six. A couple hours later, she texted back to say they were ready. So that we wouldn't have to see each other face-to-face, she gave instructions about the hand-off.
I drove to the address. Her house was easy to find because on the front porch was a six-foot-tall Jurassic Park velociraptor. It was wearing a huge surgical mask, and over one of its arms was slung a basket. Inside the basket was a plastic bag containing the masks and an envelope. I put a check into the envelope, took the bag of masks, and left, feeling like I had just run a drug deal via ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
These masks are nicely-made and neatly pleated, with strong ties. They're currently in the washer, just in case, and then they'll be ready to go!
comments
The Plague Diaries: More Kitchen Time
I'd spent the last several days at the computer, working either for the school or on a book. (Where's all the binge-watching I'm supposed to be doing?) Today, I said, "Enough!" and headed to the kitchen.
In the Instant Pot, I made bean soup for lunch for Max and me. Then I made some piragi (Latvian rolls stuffed with ham and onions). And this time, I updated my technology.
For Christmas last year, Aran gave me a dumpling press, and today I tried it out. It's a round, flat metal thingie with a cookie-cutter edge on one side, a hinge in the middle, and a zipper-like rim around the back. You use one side to cut out a round section of dough, then lay the circle on the other side with the zipper rim. Then you drop a dollop of filling into the center of the dough, fold the whole thing over, and press. The zipper rim crimps a perfect half-circle, and it's way less labor-intensive than doing it by hand.
It also occurred to me that the pasta roller I bought for my stand mixer years ago would be excellent for rolling dough out evenly. I decided to try that, too.
The pasta roller was awesome! I ran a ball of dough through it, and presto! Perfectly flattened. The dumpling press made short work of the cutting, and the crimping was easy and uniform. It made for some BIG piragi, though. Usually piragi are a half-circle about three inches in diameter. These were five or so. But more to love!
They came out of the oven, hot and fresh and full of hammy goodness.
comments
In the Instant Pot, I made bean soup for lunch for Max and me. Then I made some piragi (Latvian rolls stuffed with ham and onions). And this time, I updated my technology.
For Christmas last year, Aran gave me a dumpling press, and today I tried it out. It's a round, flat metal thingie with a cookie-cutter edge on one side, a hinge in the middle, and a zipper-like rim around the back. You use one side to cut out a round section of dough, then lay the circle on the other side with the zipper rim. Then you drop a dollop of filling into the center of the dough, fold the whole thing over, and press. The zipper rim crimps a perfect half-circle, and it's way less labor-intensive than doing it by hand.
It also occurred to me that the pasta roller I bought for my stand mixer years ago would be excellent for rolling dough out evenly. I decided to try that, too.
The pasta roller was awesome! I ran a ball of dough through it, and presto! Perfectly flattened. The dumpling press made short work of the cutting, and the crimping was easy and uniform. It made for some BIG piragi, though. Usually piragi are a half-circle about three inches in diameter. These were five or so. But more to love!
They came out of the oven, hot and fresh and full of hammy goodness.
comments
The Plague Diaries: Migration
The governor's shelter-in-place order prohibits unnecessary travel and forbids people to leave town in order to go to a second home, such as a vacation cottage. Darwin and I have been bending that rule. I go to Albion sometimes and he comes here sometimes. But I don't go anywhere in Albion--just to our house--and I don't interact with anyone in Albion. The same is true for Darwin here. So it's like we have one giant house with a door in one town and another door in another.
I was rather hoping that one silver lining in this cloud of plague was that Darwin and I could see more of each other. After all, I can work easily enough in either house as long as I have Internet, and so can Darwin. But Max is in Wherever, so I can't just move to Albion for the duration. And Darwin has a bunch of physical materials (giant notebooks of regulations to consult, papers that require his physical signature) in Albion which makes it awkward for him to work in Wherever. So we still shuttle back and forth for a few days at a time.
I just came off a couple days in Albion. Later, Darwin will come here. I don't like being separated like this, but we're coping.
comments
I was rather hoping that one silver lining in this cloud of plague was that Darwin and I could see more of each other. After all, I can work easily enough in either house as long as I have Internet, and so can Darwin. But Max is in Wherever, so I can't just move to Albion for the duration. And Darwin has a bunch of physical materials (giant notebooks of regulations to consult, papers that require his physical signature) in Albion which makes it awkward for him to work in Wherever. So we still shuttle back and forth for a few days at a time.
I just came off a couple days in Albion. Later, Darwin will come here. I don't like being separated like this, but we're coping.
comments
The Plague Diaries: School Time!
At my teaching job, the great debate was raging: how do we grade student work and assess their learning? There are a lot of issues to consider:
--Not all students have equal or easy access to online learning. Although the district is loaning Chrome Book computers and wi-fi hotspots, some students live in areas with bad connection, or they're competing for computer time with other family members, or they're special education students who have difficulty with a computer, or . . . or . . . or . . .
--It's difficult to administer traditional tests
--Students and their households are under a great deal of stress. Yes, for many students, their main problem is fighting off boredom in a well-appointed bedroom, but for a bunch of them, life is more difficult. I have students who are taking care of family members who have the virus, or who are sick with it themselves. I have students who live in health care families, and the adult or adults are gone twelve hours a day, every day, leaving the kids to run the household, and everyone is worried the virus will come home. I have students with family members who got the virus and now the family is trying to decide if the kids should be sent away. Students in these situations aren't in a position to deal with schoolwork at home.
--The state initially said not to grade student work after March 13, the last day schools were open. Now the state has given the go-ahead to assign grades. What do we do with the work students completed between March 13 and now?
--Will the students be given credit for this year, or will they have to make up the lost time over the summer?
--Grading these days is generally divided into two categories: formative (often for homework or in-class practice) and summative (stuff like tests and projects that are a summary of student learning). Many schools also give benchmark assessments, or BAs, which are basically unit tests. In our district, formative grades are 20% of the card marking, summative grades are 50%, and BAs are 30%. Can we give summative and BA grades during the crisis?
--Under the original calendar, seniors only have five weeks of school left. Proportionately, they've lost a lot more time than the other students. Do we extend their school year?
--Speaking of seniors, what about prom? Senior activities (my school hosts a senior all-night party a week before senior finals, along with a senior breakfast on cap and gown day, a senior slideshow, and other activities)?
Last week, we teachers spent all day Thursday and all day Friday on Zoom. Seriously--the whole freaking day. We met as faculty in a large group, we met in departments, we met by grade level. It was all working on figuring this stuff out. It was exhausting.
In the end, the district hashed out a grading system, but also said it was subject to change.
--No summative grades! No BA grades! Everything will be formative.
--The grades the students earned up to March 13 will be 50% of the semester grade. Everything earned afterward will be the other 50%. No final exams!
--Teachers are expected to teach one concept per week. Each high school subject should require no more than 2.5 hours of student work per week, more or less.
--Work assigned between March 13 and April 19 is not to be graded. (There's some controversy over that one!)
--Seniors will end school on the usual date.
--Graduation, prom, and other senior activities are all canceled. HOWEVER, the district is hoping we could hold a graduation ceremony in July. Fingers crossed!
Truly, I've put in more time as a teacher now that the schools are closed than I have when I'm in the classroom. I can't just upload a worksheet to Google Classroom and say, "Now do this one." I have to create brand new material that's usable during online learning, or convert existing material. Almost nothing works as-is. I have to record and edit videos, which is enormously time-consuming. I have to answer a bazillion more emails in a given day than I ever have before.
And I miss being in the classroom, seeing my students every day, watching them learn, talking with them, watching the seniors get more and more antsy as we get to the end. I miss being able to discuss literature. (Zoom is awful for large-group literary discussions.)
I hope this doesn't become a new normal.
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--Not all students have equal or easy access to online learning. Although the district is loaning Chrome Book computers and wi-fi hotspots, some students live in areas with bad connection, or they're competing for computer time with other family members, or they're special education students who have difficulty with a computer, or . . . or . . . or . . .
--It's difficult to administer traditional tests
--Students and their households are under a great deal of stress. Yes, for many students, their main problem is fighting off boredom in a well-appointed bedroom, but for a bunch of them, life is more difficult. I have students who are taking care of family members who have the virus, or who are sick with it themselves. I have students who live in health care families, and the adult or adults are gone twelve hours a day, every day, leaving the kids to run the household, and everyone is worried the virus will come home. I have students with family members who got the virus and now the family is trying to decide if the kids should be sent away. Students in these situations aren't in a position to deal with schoolwork at home.
--The state initially said not to grade student work after March 13, the last day schools were open. Now the state has given the go-ahead to assign grades. What do we do with the work students completed between March 13 and now?
--Will the students be given credit for this year, or will they have to make up the lost time over the summer?
--Grading these days is generally divided into two categories: formative (often for homework or in-class practice) and summative (stuff like tests and projects that are a summary of student learning). Many schools also give benchmark assessments, or BAs, which are basically unit tests. In our district, formative grades are 20% of the card marking, summative grades are 50%, and BAs are 30%. Can we give summative and BA grades during the crisis?
--Under the original calendar, seniors only have five weeks of school left. Proportionately, they've lost a lot more time than the other students. Do we extend their school year?
--Speaking of seniors, what about prom? Senior activities (my school hosts a senior all-night party a week before senior finals, along with a senior breakfast on cap and gown day, a senior slideshow, and other activities)?
Last week, we teachers spent all day Thursday and all day Friday on Zoom. Seriously--the whole freaking day. We met as faculty in a large group, we met in departments, we met by grade level. It was all working on figuring this stuff out. It was exhausting.
In the end, the district hashed out a grading system, but also said it was subject to change.
--No summative grades! No BA grades! Everything will be formative.
--The grades the students earned up to March 13 will be 50% of the semester grade. Everything earned afterward will be the other 50%. No final exams!
--Teachers are expected to teach one concept per week. Each high school subject should require no more than 2.5 hours of student work per week, more or less.
--Work assigned between March 13 and April 19 is not to be graded. (There's some controversy over that one!)
--Seniors will end school on the usual date.
--Graduation, prom, and other senior activities are all canceled. HOWEVER, the district is hoping we could hold a graduation ceremony in July. Fingers crossed!
Truly, I've put in more time as a teacher now that the schools are closed than I have when I'm in the classroom. I can't just upload a worksheet to Google Classroom and say, "Now do this one." I have to create brand new material that's usable during online learning, or convert existing material. Almost nothing works as-is. I have to record and edit videos, which is enormously time-consuming. I have to answer a bazillion more emails in a given day than I ever have before.
And I miss being in the classroom, seeing my students every day, watching them learn, talking with them, watching the seniors get more and more antsy as we get to the end. I miss being able to discuss literature. (Zoom is awful for large-group literary discussions.)
I hope this doesn't become a new normal.
comments
April 8, 2020
The Plague Diaries: It's Nice Out!
The last couple of days have been beautiful! Sunny, warm (60s), a bit of breeze. The flowers are coming up, the buds are on the trees, and the birds are back, filling the air with their songs.
I cleaned out a chunk of the garage. (My goal is that every week I fill my big garbage bin with stuff we don't use. Eventually, the house will be clear of clutter.) So much more room in there now! Then I cleared off the giant front porch. Swept it, hosed down the outdoor furniture, cleaned off the tables, set up the water fountain.
The last couple of days for my second round of daily exercise (the first is a half-hour run when I get up), I've been going on a nice long bike ride on the nature trail near my house. It's been delightful--and crowded. Lots and lots and lots of people on it, even at four in the afternoon. People jogging. People biking. People with dogs. People with kids. And sometimes people who are obviously not members of the same household walking in a large group. I want to punch them, but I'd have to get close for that, so I don't.
Also during the day, I've been on the front porch with my laptop. Writing. I really do love writing on the porch. As I've said before, the ambiance of the sunlight, the cool, shady porch, the breeze make me remember the little milkhouse on our farm that my mother converted into a playhouse for my siblings and me. I used to sit out there when the lilacs bloomed and write stories on lined paper with a big pencil. It made me feel cozy and creative. The porch does this for me now.
Anyway, I've been productive at the new SF book. My agent wants at least 60 pages to send to editors. I've been doing eight to ten pages a day, and today I reached 60. But I need to end the samples in a nice cliffhanger to make the editor want to see the rest, so I have to keep going for a bit. I'm enjoying it.
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I cleaned out a chunk of the garage. (My goal is that every week I fill my big garbage bin with stuff we don't use. Eventually, the house will be clear of clutter.) So much more room in there now! Then I cleared off the giant front porch. Swept it, hosed down the outdoor furniture, cleaned off the tables, set up the water fountain.
The last couple of days for my second round of daily exercise (the first is a half-hour run when I get up), I've been going on a nice long bike ride on the nature trail near my house. It's been delightful--and crowded. Lots and lots and lots of people on it, even at four in the afternoon. People jogging. People biking. People with dogs. People with kids. And sometimes people who are obviously not members of the same household walking in a large group. I want to punch them, but I'd have to get close for that, so I don't.
Also during the day, I've been on the front porch with my laptop. Writing. I really do love writing on the porch. As I've said before, the ambiance of the sunlight, the cool, shady porch, the breeze make me remember the little milkhouse on our farm that my mother converted into a playhouse for my siblings and me. I used to sit out there when the lilacs bloomed and write stories on lined paper with a big pencil. It made me feel cozy and creative. The porch does this for me now.
Anyway, I've been productive at the new SF book. My agent wants at least 60 pages to send to editors. I've been doing eight to ten pages a day, and today I reached 60. But I need to end the samples in a nice cliffhanger to make the editor want to see the rest, so I have to keep going for a bit. I'm enjoying it.
www.facebook.com/photo.php
comments
April 6, 2020
Party Like It's 2020
It's Spring Break, coronavirus style.
I already created and uploaded my lessons and materials for next week, so I have no teaching work to do.
So this week, it's . . . well, I don't know. I suppose I'll run and bake and write and play with the cats and clean parts of the house that get overlooked.
You know--partying like it's 2020.
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I already created and uploaded my lessons and materials for next week, so I have no teaching work to do.
So this week, it's . . . well, I don't know. I suppose I'll run and bake and write and play with the cats and clean parts of the house that get overlooked.
You know--partying like it's 2020.
comments
April 3, 2020
Trump's Xenophobia
I've seen this a lot lately:
Trump Dumper: "You know, Trump put a travel ban on China on January 31, and Democrats called him xenophobic. Now Democrats have the gall to criticize Trump's bad handling of the crisis?"
The order was absolutely xenophobic, and it was worse than useless. The January 31 order ONLY applied to Chinese people traveling from China. It temporarily barred entry by foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the previous 14 days, with exceptions for the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Americans returning from China were allowed back after screening at select ports of entry and for 14 days afterward--except "screening" at that point was checking for a fever. If you were a white American who showed no symptoms, you were immune from the ban. If you were Asian, you were banned. Xenophobic and useless.
Just like Trump.
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The Plague Diaries: Week Two
It doesn't feel like it's only been two weeks since Michigan's stay-at-home orders began. It feels more like two months. Every time I need to go somewhere, I double-think. Can I avoid it? Can I put it off? Am I endangering the household?
I realized that there'd be no commencement for Max, and that got me extremely upset. It's been a struggle to get my sons through school. School has been a continual source of stress and frustration and even anger. This stress has been a part of my life for nearly twenty years now. This last year, however, has been so much easier. Something clicked in Max, and he's been a more dedicated student who solves problems on his own and gets his work in and keeps decent grades without constant supervision from me. I've been so happy for him, and I was so much looking forward to seeing him get his diploma. I was waiting so much to hear his name and see him walk across that stage in his cap and gown, and then celebrating afterward with the family. But, no. That's been torn away, and it's hard to describe how crushing the disappointment is.
The weekend was yet more frustration. It was rainy and dreary and chilly out. Everyone says we should go outside as much possible for exercise, fresh air, and a break from the relentless sameness of four walls. But the weather wasn't playing nice, and we were stuck inside.
I also made a grocery list for pickup, only to discover that all the pickup time slots were taken, and the first one available was a full week away. Frustrated, I tried a different store. Their first slot was two days away, but a bunch of the stuff I needed was out of stock. More frustration. Everything has become a chore, even simple grocery shopping. I'm so tired of people panic-buying.
I settled on a strategy. Stores let you modify the order until a couple hours before pickup, so I placed the order at the first store and accepted the week away time slot. Then I accepted the two-day time slot at the second store, missing stuff and all. Later, I'll go into the first order and modify it with what I need at that point. I'll also add groceries for a the following week so I don't have to shop so often. Hey, our pioneer ancestors went to the store two or three times a year. I can handle twice a month, right?
Over the weekend, I did get a chunk of writing done on a new SF book. My agent says editors are accepting submissions. I'm currently about 10 pages away from the necessary 60 for a submission package.
At least the three of us are getting along. We aren't getting snappy or snarly with each other, like you might think would happen. Instead, we're all being careful not to annoy each other.
Monday, I followed my new routine. I got up and ran for half an hour on the treadmill, showered, and hit the keyboard. It takes an enormous amount of time to create lessons these days. Normally, it takes me two or three hours a week to put together lesson plans and materials because after 25 years, I pretty much know what I'm doing and I'm tweaking stuff and only rarely creating brand new stuff. Nowadays, the format is so wildly different, and I'm creating from scratch. I settled into work.
I'm also one of those teachers who wants everything lined up and ready to go for the entire week. This means normally I start making lesson plans on Tuesday so they'll be finished (theoretically) on Thursday, which gives me one more day (Friday) to cope if something goes wrong. See, I never, EVER leave the building on Friday after work until every lesson is planned out, all copies made, and all materials laid out, ready to go.
Things are different now. It takes me a LOT longer to put materials together. Then I have to upload and schedule them so they pop up on Google Classroom by 7 AM each morning. On Monday, for example, I spent the entire day on just English 9. I was making response sheets, tracking down reading materials, converting documents. It went on and on. In between, I answered student emails and checked student work.
Darwin, meanwhile, has closed city hall entirely. All employees would work from home. Still, he wanted to be in Albion in case there was something he needed to be on-site for, and he was going back Monday evening. I decided to go with him for a couple days. As long as I have Internet access, I can work anywhere.
Monday evening, my good friend Steve had arranged a Skype birthday celebration for his wife--also my good friend--Michelle. A bunch of us logged in, but a number of the participants couldn't get Skype to work right, so the gathering was a lot of, "Can you hear me?" and "Why can't I see you?" and "Are you muted? I can't hear what you're saying." Life with COVID-19.
I did pop out to the small local grocery for stuff we were out of. (Albion has no large grocery store.) Their shelves were hit-and-miss, some full, some hit hard, some empty. There was one lone roll of paper towel left in its section, huddled in the corner like a PTSD patient. At the register, the store had put duct-tape Xs on the floor six feet apart, and people were mostly following the protocol. I did encounter a group of four women all laughing and chatting close together with separate baskets under their arms. I gave them a wide berth. If they were willing to violate the six-foot rule this way, they were more likely to be carriers. The store had installed plexiglass barriers between the register and the customers, which I was glad to see. But in the car, the first thing I did was hit the hand sanitizer I keep in the cup holder.
Tuesday morning, I got up and tried a workout, but it didn't go all that well. At the Albion house, we have Darwin's exercise elliptical instead of a treadmill. I'm not a fan. I don't like the way it makes my legs feel, and I have trouble forcing myself to work hard enough to get a decent heart rate going. But it was either that or run outside in the rain--ick. So I did a mediocre workout and headed to my laptop.
That day, I was recording a bunch of videos for my classes. Max, our household video wizard, already had good editing software, and he showed me how to get picture-in-picture video so I could put myself in the corner of the screen while I put lecture materials behind me. I learned the trick of pretending the camera was a person and talked to it instead of my screen. I also forced myself to get over my hatred of hearing and seeing myself on video. I spent the entire day at this, and it was strangely tiring.
The awful, lowering weather continued. After work, I was feeling restless and decided to go on a bike ride regardless of the weather.
Southern Michigan is notoriously flat. All the lakes, you know. So it came as a bit of surprise to find all these hills in Albion. I mean, serious hills. They're the bane of bikers everywhere, especially early in the season, when you're not used to biking yet. The area around town is really pretty, as long as you don't mind groaning your way up yet another hill. I did find a bike path that goes through Albion College's nature preserve. There were many people on the trail, all avoiding carefully each other. The trail ends at the graveyard, which for me was a bonus. I meandered through the cemetery for a while before returning home.
Wednesday was more of the same: iffy workout in the morning, recording videos and lesson plans and checking student work until late afternoon, then entertaining ourselves in the evening. Darwin spends most of his time on the phone, on Zoom, or attending webinars. There's only one topic of conversation: COVID-19.
I didn't like leaving Max alone for more than a couple days, so I came back to Wherever on Wednesday evening. Darwin stayed in Albion. Max is trying to act like the crisis, while serious, is more of a "whatchagonnado" situation. But he's also anxious a lot. He hovers around my desk while I'm working, and I do my best to be available to talk to him. He's a manager at the McDonald's up the road, and they're still open for drive-through, but they only have three managers and four employees left. Everyone else quit. It makes the shifts difficult. On Thursday, he got home from work and said another manager and another employee quit. He doesn't know how they'll handle this--the place is still very busy. Being at work causes him a certain amount of anxiety as well. He worries about bringing the virus home to Darwin. McDonald's has put into place a bunch of rules to increase hygiene, including a strict schedule of "drop whatever you're doing and wash your hands," but it's still nervous for him.
Thursday, I finalized the last of my plans. In the evening, I completely cleaned and rearranged my desk. It's now delightfully clear and spiffy. A whole lot of "why was I keeping this" junk is gone. I don't work well in a cluttered space, and this is a nicety.
Today, Friday, is the last day of school before spring break. Talk about weird. We can't go anywhere, we can't do anything special that we haven't already been doing.
It feels like I've retired, in a way. My plans for retirement have always been to work at home on writing and publishing. I'd even worked out a schedule for myself: get up at a reasonable hour, have a workout, make a nice breakfast, and get to the keyboard. That's what I'm doing now!
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I realized that there'd be no commencement for Max, and that got me extremely upset. It's been a struggle to get my sons through school. School has been a continual source of stress and frustration and even anger. This stress has been a part of my life for nearly twenty years now. This last year, however, has been so much easier. Something clicked in Max, and he's been a more dedicated student who solves problems on his own and gets his work in and keeps decent grades without constant supervision from me. I've been so happy for him, and I was so much looking forward to seeing him get his diploma. I was waiting so much to hear his name and see him walk across that stage in his cap and gown, and then celebrating afterward with the family. But, no. That's been torn away, and it's hard to describe how crushing the disappointment is.
The weekend was yet more frustration. It was rainy and dreary and chilly out. Everyone says we should go outside as much possible for exercise, fresh air, and a break from the relentless sameness of four walls. But the weather wasn't playing nice, and we were stuck inside.
I also made a grocery list for pickup, only to discover that all the pickup time slots were taken, and the first one available was a full week away. Frustrated, I tried a different store. Their first slot was two days away, but a bunch of the stuff I needed was out of stock. More frustration. Everything has become a chore, even simple grocery shopping. I'm so tired of people panic-buying.
I settled on a strategy. Stores let you modify the order until a couple hours before pickup, so I placed the order at the first store and accepted the week away time slot. Then I accepted the two-day time slot at the second store, missing stuff and all. Later, I'll go into the first order and modify it with what I need at that point. I'll also add groceries for a the following week so I don't have to shop so often. Hey, our pioneer ancestors went to the store two or three times a year. I can handle twice a month, right?
Over the weekend, I did get a chunk of writing done on a new SF book. My agent says editors are accepting submissions. I'm currently about 10 pages away from the necessary 60 for a submission package.
At least the three of us are getting along. We aren't getting snappy or snarly with each other, like you might think would happen. Instead, we're all being careful not to annoy each other.
Monday, I followed my new routine. I got up and ran for half an hour on the treadmill, showered, and hit the keyboard. It takes an enormous amount of time to create lessons these days. Normally, it takes me two or three hours a week to put together lesson plans and materials because after 25 years, I pretty much know what I'm doing and I'm tweaking stuff and only rarely creating brand new stuff. Nowadays, the format is so wildly different, and I'm creating from scratch. I settled into work.
I'm also one of those teachers who wants everything lined up and ready to go for the entire week. This means normally I start making lesson plans on Tuesday so they'll be finished (theoretically) on Thursday, which gives me one more day (Friday) to cope if something goes wrong. See, I never, EVER leave the building on Friday after work until every lesson is planned out, all copies made, and all materials laid out, ready to go.
Things are different now. It takes me a LOT longer to put materials together. Then I have to upload and schedule them so they pop up on Google Classroom by 7 AM each morning. On Monday, for example, I spent the entire day on just English 9. I was making response sheets, tracking down reading materials, converting documents. It went on and on. In between, I answered student emails and checked student work.
Darwin, meanwhile, has closed city hall entirely. All employees would work from home. Still, he wanted to be in Albion in case there was something he needed to be on-site for, and he was going back Monday evening. I decided to go with him for a couple days. As long as I have Internet access, I can work anywhere.
Monday evening, my good friend Steve had arranged a Skype birthday celebration for his wife--also my good friend--Michelle. A bunch of us logged in, but a number of the participants couldn't get Skype to work right, so the gathering was a lot of, "Can you hear me?" and "Why can't I see you?" and "Are you muted? I can't hear what you're saying." Life with COVID-19.
I did pop out to the small local grocery for stuff we were out of. (Albion has no large grocery store.) Their shelves were hit-and-miss, some full, some hit hard, some empty. There was one lone roll of paper towel left in its section, huddled in the corner like a PTSD patient. At the register, the store had put duct-tape Xs on the floor six feet apart, and people were mostly following the protocol. I did encounter a group of four women all laughing and chatting close together with separate baskets under their arms. I gave them a wide berth. If they were willing to violate the six-foot rule this way, they were more likely to be carriers. The store had installed plexiglass barriers between the register and the customers, which I was glad to see. But in the car, the first thing I did was hit the hand sanitizer I keep in the cup holder.
Tuesday morning, I got up and tried a workout, but it didn't go all that well. At the Albion house, we have Darwin's exercise elliptical instead of a treadmill. I'm not a fan. I don't like the way it makes my legs feel, and I have trouble forcing myself to work hard enough to get a decent heart rate going. But it was either that or run outside in the rain--ick. So I did a mediocre workout and headed to my laptop.
That day, I was recording a bunch of videos for my classes. Max, our household video wizard, already had good editing software, and he showed me how to get picture-in-picture video so I could put myself in the corner of the screen while I put lecture materials behind me. I learned the trick of pretending the camera was a person and talked to it instead of my screen. I also forced myself to get over my hatred of hearing and seeing myself on video. I spent the entire day at this, and it was strangely tiring.
The awful, lowering weather continued. After work, I was feeling restless and decided to go on a bike ride regardless of the weather.
Southern Michigan is notoriously flat. All the lakes, you know. So it came as a bit of surprise to find all these hills in Albion. I mean, serious hills. They're the bane of bikers everywhere, especially early in the season, when you're not used to biking yet. The area around town is really pretty, as long as you don't mind groaning your way up yet another hill. I did find a bike path that goes through Albion College's nature preserve. There were many people on the trail, all avoiding carefully each other. The trail ends at the graveyard, which for me was a bonus. I meandered through the cemetery for a while before returning home.
Wednesday was more of the same: iffy workout in the morning, recording videos and lesson plans and checking student work until late afternoon, then entertaining ourselves in the evening. Darwin spends most of his time on the phone, on Zoom, or attending webinars. There's only one topic of conversation: COVID-19.
I didn't like leaving Max alone for more than a couple days, so I came back to Wherever on Wednesday evening. Darwin stayed in Albion. Max is trying to act like the crisis, while serious, is more of a "whatchagonnado" situation. But he's also anxious a lot. He hovers around my desk while I'm working, and I do my best to be available to talk to him. He's a manager at the McDonald's up the road, and they're still open for drive-through, but they only have three managers and four employees left. Everyone else quit. It makes the shifts difficult. On Thursday, he got home from work and said another manager and another employee quit. He doesn't know how they'll handle this--the place is still very busy. Being at work causes him a certain amount of anxiety as well. He worries about bringing the virus home to Darwin. McDonald's has put into place a bunch of rules to increase hygiene, including a strict schedule of "drop whatever you're doing and wash your hands," but it's still nervous for him.
Thursday, I finalized the last of my plans. In the evening, I completely cleaned and rearranged my desk. It's now delightfully clear and spiffy. A whole lot of "why was I keeping this" junk is gone. I don't work well in a cluttered space, and this is a nicety.Today, Friday, is the last day of school before spring break. Talk about weird. We can't go anywhere, we can't do anything special that we haven't already been doing.
It feels like I've retired, in a way. My plans for retirement have always been to work at home on writing and publishing. I'd even worked out a schedule for myself: get up at a reasonable hour, have a workout, make a nice breakfast, and get to the keyboard. That's what I'm doing now!
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March 22, 2020
The Plague Diaries: Escaping to the Kitchen
This weekend, I stayed away from school stuff except to remind my seniors that a bunch of them hadn't turned in their projects yet. I decided it would be good idea to stay away from the computer for a while, so I took refuge in the kitchen. It was time to make boeuf bourguignon!
I did have to pop out to the store for mushrooms and a couple other ingredients. It was only 8 AM on a Saturday, and I was rather hoping the store wouldn't be a madhouse.
Hopes dashed.
The parking lot was crowded, and a steady stream of people was entering and exiting the store. I accepted a spritzed towel from the employee station out front (apparently this was a Kroger-wide thing) and zipped through the store. As a bonus, I found seven jars of sunflower seeds in the nuts section. Sunflower seeds are a snack Darwin can reliably eat without spiking his blood sugar, and he can go through most of a jar in one sitting. Our household consumes enough sunflower seeds to keep an entire farm afloat for a year. They aren't all that popular as a snack, though, and often I have to hunt for them in the store--the store doesn't bother to shelve them prominently. I initially thought, "At least this thing will be easy to get, since few other people want it." Nope. Sunflower seeds have become as difficult to find as toilet paper. But today I found a seven of them lined up like chess pawns. I thought about grabbing all of them, then said, "You don't need to be selfish," and I took three instead.
I had only a few things in my cart when I was done, and I headed up to the front of the store. The despised self-checkout line was long, long, long. The cashier lines were a little shorter, but people had more stuff. I lined up for a cashier. Good choice. Like the cashier in Jackson, this woman whipped through the people ahead of me with the speed and efficiency of a drill instructor on cocaine. And the customers actually bagged their own stuff! You know it's bad when a bunch of wealthy entitleds bag their own groceries.
So I got out of there pretty quick. Yay!
Back home, I spent several hours in the kitchen, following Julia Child's recipe, but with modifications of my own. (The "flour crust" she insists on for the meat simply doesn't work, and I've abandoned it. And Darwin isn't a big onions fan, so I scale back on those.) It came out deliciously!
And I stayed away from the computer.
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I did have to pop out to the store for mushrooms and a couple other ingredients. It was only 8 AM on a Saturday, and I was rather hoping the store wouldn't be a madhouse.
Hopes dashed.
The parking lot was crowded, and a steady stream of people was entering and exiting the store. I accepted a spritzed towel from the employee station out front (apparently this was a Kroger-wide thing) and zipped through the store. As a bonus, I found seven jars of sunflower seeds in the nuts section. Sunflower seeds are a snack Darwin can reliably eat without spiking his blood sugar, and he can go through most of a jar in one sitting. Our household consumes enough sunflower seeds to keep an entire farm afloat for a year. They aren't all that popular as a snack, though, and often I have to hunt for them in the store--the store doesn't bother to shelve them prominently. I initially thought, "At least this thing will be easy to get, since few other people want it." Nope. Sunflower seeds have become as difficult to find as toilet paper. But today I found a seven of them lined up like chess pawns. I thought about grabbing all of them, then said, "You don't need to be selfish," and I took three instead.
I had only a few things in my cart when I was done, and I headed up to the front of the store. The despised self-checkout line was long, long, long. The cashier lines were a little shorter, but people had more stuff. I lined up for a cashier. Good choice. Like the cashier in Jackson, this woman whipped through the people ahead of me with the speed and efficiency of a drill instructor on cocaine. And the customers actually bagged their own stuff! You know it's bad when a bunch of wealthy entitleds bag their own groceries.
So I got out of there pretty quick. Yay!
Back home, I spent several hours in the kitchen, following Julia Child's recipe, but with modifications of my own. (The "flour crust" she insists on for the meat simply doesn't work, and I've abandoned it. And Darwin isn't a big onions fan, so I scale back on those.) It came out deliciously!
And I stayed away from the computer.
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The Plague Diaries: First Week in Semi-Captivity
You'd think that being told to work from home would free up a lot of time. You'd be wrong. (A lot of you are probably nodding in agreement.)
Since the schools are now on-line and I can work from literally anywhere, I decided on Wednesday to go to Albion for a couple days, and that was nice. But on Thursday, we got word that the governor was considering a stricter lockdown. (Spoiler: this turned out to be rumor only, and the next day, the governor gave a press conference refuting it.) I also realized that Darwin hadn't really done any grocery shopping, let alone plague shopping. So I ran over to Kroger in Jackson to stock the house.
Here I saw a major difference in stores. In Wherever, Oakland County, the Kroger is regularly stripped bare. Very little on the shelves. The hard-working employees restock overnight, and with an hour or two after opening in the morning, the shelves are bare again. Shoppers thunder down the aisles, their carts piled high. The checkout line stretches across the aisle and into the canned goods section.
In Jackson, it's a different story. The shelves have taken a hit, but there's still plenty of most stuff. (Though rice was gone.) They even had some toilet paper.
I couldn't figure out what the difference was for quite a while. Then it came to me. Oakland County is wealthy. A big chunk of the population has a job that lets you work at home, so they haven't been laid off. People have large houses with plenty of storage space. It all adds up to a burst of plague shopping.
Meanwhile, Jackson and Jackson County are blue-collar. Houses are much smaller. People are being laid off from jobs they can't do at home. They simply don't have the resources to buy an extra month's worth of groceries. It's another example of inequity in our society.
At any rate, I bought a pile of groceries while keeping my distance from the other shoppers. (The store had replaced the usual antiseptic wipe station with an employee at the front of the store who wielded a bottle of cleaner and handed out spritzed paper towels for customers to wipe their carts down. I suspect people were stealing the wipes and this was the alternative.) I piled my cart high, like a good Oakland County resident, and got up to the checkout.
I was expecting a long wait, but the clerk whipped people through right fast. There was no bagger, so I handled that chore. I noticed the same thing was going on in several other lanes. In Oakland County, many people are reluctant to bag their own groceries and will hold up the line until the cashier does it. (I just want to get out of there, so I always bag. Just like they do in Europe.) But in Jackson County, it was customer bagging.
I got the stuff back to Albion and decided, in light of the rumors, it would be better if I went back to Wherever. I didn't want to be trapped in Albion, separated from Max. Darwin agreed with this and off I went.
Meanwhile, my online classroom continues. It's a LOT of work, let me tell you. I can't simply tweak existing lesson plans. Existing material simply isn't suitable. I have to create new content, new activities that will work at home, new ways to assess student learning. It's hours and hours of work between answering student emails and messages. As an example, usually it takes me two or three hours per week to put together lesson plans for all my classes for the following week. I start planning on Wednesday, and I'm usually done by Friday, working on my hour-long prep period. This week, I was working four hours a day, EVERY DAY, just to get lesson plans created and activities posted. It's mentally taxing and it's often tedious--a lot of the work is doing the same thing over and over and over at a computer, and by the end of a school day, I have a neck- and headache.
Back home, the governor refuted the rumors, and I ground my teeth. I missed an evening with Darwin in Albion, and wasn't happy about it. He came up here on Friday, but didn't arrive until almost 9:00 because he'd had to work so late.
And now--the weekend! Just like the weekdays...
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Since the schools are now on-line and I can work from literally anywhere, I decided on Wednesday to go to Albion for a couple days, and that was nice. But on Thursday, we got word that the governor was considering a stricter lockdown. (Spoiler: this turned out to be rumor only, and the next day, the governor gave a press conference refuting it.) I also realized that Darwin hadn't really done any grocery shopping, let alone plague shopping. So I ran over to Kroger in Jackson to stock the house.
Here I saw a major difference in stores. In Wherever, Oakland County, the Kroger is regularly stripped bare. Very little on the shelves. The hard-working employees restock overnight, and with an hour or two after opening in the morning, the shelves are bare again. Shoppers thunder down the aisles, their carts piled high. The checkout line stretches across the aisle and into the canned goods section.
In Jackson, it's a different story. The shelves have taken a hit, but there's still plenty of most stuff. (Though rice was gone.) They even had some toilet paper.
I couldn't figure out what the difference was for quite a while. Then it came to me. Oakland County is wealthy. A big chunk of the population has a job that lets you work at home, so they haven't been laid off. People have large houses with plenty of storage space. It all adds up to a burst of plague shopping.
Meanwhile, Jackson and Jackson County are blue-collar. Houses are much smaller. People are being laid off from jobs they can't do at home. They simply don't have the resources to buy an extra month's worth of groceries. It's another example of inequity in our society.
At any rate, I bought a pile of groceries while keeping my distance from the other shoppers. (The store had replaced the usual antiseptic wipe station with an employee at the front of the store who wielded a bottle of cleaner and handed out spritzed paper towels for customers to wipe their carts down. I suspect people were stealing the wipes and this was the alternative.) I piled my cart high, like a good Oakland County resident, and got up to the checkout.
I was expecting a long wait, but the clerk whipped people through right fast. There was no bagger, so I handled that chore. I noticed the same thing was going on in several other lanes. In Oakland County, many people are reluctant to bag their own groceries and will hold up the line until the cashier does it. (I just want to get out of there, so I always bag. Just like they do in Europe.) But in Jackson County, it was customer bagging.
I got the stuff back to Albion and decided, in light of the rumors, it would be better if I went back to Wherever. I didn't want to be trapped in Albion, separated from Max. Darwin agreed with this and off I went.
Meanwhile, my online classroom continues. It's a LOT of work, let me tell you. I can't simply tweak existing lesson plans. Existing material simply isn't suitable. I have to create new content, new activities that will work at home, new ways to assess student learning. It's hours and hours of work between answering student emails and messages. As an example, usually it takes me two or three hours per week to put together lesson plans for all my classes for the following week. I start planning on Wednesday, and I'm usually done by Friday, working on my hour-long prep period. This week, I was working four hours a day, EVERY DAY, just to get lesson plans created and activities posted. It's mentally taxing and it's often tedious--a lot of the work is doing the same thing over and over and over at a computer, and by the end of a school day, I have a neck- and headache.
Back home, the governor refuted the rumors, and I ground my teeth. I missed an evening with Darwin in Albion, and wasn't happy about it. He came up here on Friday, but didn't arrive until almost 9:00 because he'd had to work so late.
And now--the weekend! Just like the weekdays...
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