Day 16 of our captivity: resuscitating the vacuum cleaner

Today’s main accomplishment was replacing the vacuum cleaner’s dead rechargeable battery, since the new one finally showed up.  While I was at it, I found and installed the replacement brush bar.  I’ve had that part for a while, and you can see that its installation was long overdue.  The end of the old one was sort of mangled and melted.  Was the vacuum gummed up with my hair, or the cat fur?  I’m not saying...

Day 15 of our captivity: A new board game

I gave the kiddo the game Wingspan for Christmas, and up until now it had only been shared with friends at school.  Today we broke it out at home, thanks to the fact that Kean had had the foresight to bring it home from school on the last day before the closure.  It provided a fine way to pass part of the afternoon.

Day 14 of our captivity: Simple soup

Leftover night here tonight.  What to do, what to do?  Throw all the leftover vegetables and potatoes into the blender with some sautéed onion and chicken stock.  Top with fried bits of leftover bratwurst and a piece of focaccia.  Oddly satisfying.

Day 13 of our captivity: A visitor

A few weeks ago when rates dipped oddly low, we jumped on the opportunity to refinance our home loan.  As part of this process, an appraisal of the house was needed.  Pretty hard to do when everything was shut down a couple of days later...  Eventually, the ancillary businesses like appraisers, title companies, and notaries got clarification that they were "essential" and could still operate, but it was still pretty hard for the loan guy to find an appraiser willing to work in our area.  In the end he did, so we had the excitement today of greeting the appraiser, who was masked and gloved against what I've been calling the "plague world", and then opening doors so he could come in and take pictures of everything he needed for the appraisal without him having to actually touch anything.    All while maintaining the mandated 6-foot distance.  It took all of five minutes -- but oooh!---we had a visitor.

Day 12 of our captivity: Distance learning

Kiddo has reported numerous shenanigans as everyone gets used to distance learning at the high school this week.  These include (but are not limited to):

--Tech-challenged English teacher couldn't figure out how to schedule a Zoom meeting that would allow all students to access audio; then rescheduled a corrected meeting that no one saw because they were all frantically trying to finish the assignment they got from the no-audio meeting.

--Kid has never used webcam, and just now realized that some internal setting is messed up.

--PE Zoom meeting was cancelled 5 minutes in, to never be repeated, because some sophomore had set his icon to "something inappropriate".  Teacher banned class from Zoom.  Fortunately, their workouts are all logged in a phone app, and have been all year.

--Kid learning to manage bedtime after mistakes were made.  Ooof 4:30am.

--Two amazing, functional Zoom meetings!  Econ and Art.

--Math homework completed after useful video posted by teacher.

Distance learning end date moved from April 3 to May 1.  I expect it to move out again...

Day 11 of our captivity: Clear air by the Bay

I went on a bike ride this morning, choosing the route based on my rule of “Pick something non-hazardous that I can ride without needing to pee or refill bottles, as long as it isn’t crowded.”  The latter piece of that rule generally means “Stay off the normal bike trails”, given the number of people using the bike trails as places to have their kids burn off energy.  Not a problem really — there are so many fewer cars on the road that all sorts of routes that would normally be horrible are now quite feasible.  I ended up out near the edge of the Bay and enjoyed the clear calm morning air.

Day 10 of our captivity: More cheer from our walk

We walked down several streets we had never been on before this morning.  Despite their proximity to the house, there are still some neighborhoods that just aren’t on the way to anything.  Here are a couple of cheery things we saw.

Random pebble smiley.

 Vintage tow truck.

The kid also *needed* to bake, so once again we have cake.  I’m hoping the store has eggs the next time we go, or I will have to get creative with substitutions!  We have plenty of chocolate.

Day 9 of our captivity: Tulips!

Chad and I admired these lovely tulips out in front of a deserted school on our morning walk.  Normally I wouldn’t notice these, as the street they are on is usually traffic-infested, leaving no attention free to notice flowers.  Not so today.

Day 8 of our captivity: Working from home

This morning at our house sees us settling into our new "normal".  After we went out for a walk, Chad settled in to his work set-up in the living room with headphones on, to try to get some actual work done.  Kean is on what is probably the best computer in the house in the kid room, with headphones on.  Perhaps the kiddo is logged into the school system working on homework; perhaps art is being done instead.  Either way, the rule is "no youtube or video games until school hours are over".  I am in the office, again with headphones on, getting ready to work on our taxes, after having made a quick run to Target to pick up the order of essentials I put in last night.   They cleverly have set up their system such that one doesn't have to touch anything other than one's own bag of stuff.

Incidentally, those of you who enjoy good choral music might enjoy what I am currently listening to -- a "virtual concert" put together by a Stanford alum who I know from Early Music Singers.  Eric Tuan conducts several small groups around the Bay Area; this one is the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir.  He cobbled together video of final rehearsals for a concert they had to cancel; I'm just running the audio in the background while working on other things.  It's worth a listen.

Day 7 of our captivity: Laguna, two weeks ago

Two weeks ago, the kid and I had breakfast on the beach in Laguna.  We were down there for quick weekend trip to visit a couple of colleges before Kean makes a final decision about the fall.  At the time, I wondered if the trip was wise or not, given our then-handful of local coronavirus cases, and even joked about having to buy bicycles to get back home.  I didn’t really expect that a mere week later we would *actually* be locked down... Kiddo was lucky to have gotten the in-person college information-gathering done; peers who had planned to do this over spring break are just out of luck.

For your vicarious enjoyment, here are our few vacation pictures for the year:

We started with a completely spurious trip to the La Brea Tar Pits because the kid was intrigued.  It is distinctly odd to see asphalt randomly seeping up from the ground in the park.  Despite the fact that the kid is pictured next to the cone, it was me who got sticky stuff on my hands.  I just couldn’t resist poking it with a stick...

Not pictured:  colleges, the ostensible point of the trip.

We stayed in scenic Laguna Beach.  There were just enough clouds to improve the view, without said clouds actually raining on us.

Dolphins!  Really, they were there.

Kiddo squiddy dance.

And, of course, nice sunsets, right across the street from where we stayed.

Day 6 of our captivity: Rails and cozy blankets

I foresee many board games in our future.  Also many days wrapped in cozy blankets instead of real clothing.

Day 5 of our captivity: Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake

I've been meaning to make this for a while and finally got around to it.  Yum.  Even if it did keep us awake a little later than optimal last night.  I have deemed it an afternoon snack going forward.
Recipe is here, though I replaced the crust with a simple chocolate graham cracker + butter crumb crust.

Speaking of last night, apparently the kid was talking loudly enough on a call on the computer that Chad couldn't sleep.  Clever guy that he is, he used his phone from bed to make the kid's computer say out loud that the voice of God was telling all teens to go to bed.  This morning we found out that kiddo and friend were apparently reading the Book of Revelations aloud to each other over the computer to settle some minor biblical dispute.  At 2 am.  Apparently the friend's illustrated kid's bible had missing "major plot points" that were present in the "primary source".  Sheesh, teens...

On a final note, the cat is really really really liking having us all home all the time.

Day 4 of our Captivity: Focaccia

We’re all stuck at home.  Maybe that means there will be more blog posts.  For now:  admire the sourdough focaccia!

Kiddo:  yakking with friends on a Discord server, procrastinating reading the distance learning syllabi that were just posted for the high school.  They have tongue-in-cheek named their server the “Senior Ditch Month Server”.

Chad:  working from home in the living room.

Me: avoiding doing the taxes by texting with the women-from-the-climbing-gym group about hangboard, slack line, and pull-up bar set-ups for the house.  My hangboard is outside and therefore has the best view :)