Day 18 of our captivity: Not an April Fool

We found out yesterday that school is officially online-only through the end of the school year.  Despite the date the notice was sent, it is not an April Fool’s joke.  Feh.  Kid is somewhat bummed about the end of senior year (was sort of hoping to get back for the last couple of weeks and graduation),  though is also enjoying being able to sleep in before logging in to class.

In other news, I took a 9-mile walk this morning; it is sunny and gorgeous, and the air is clear :)

Day 17 of our captivity: Grapefruits

This morning, I embarked upon a two-pronged “essential activity”, riding my bike (exercise) to get grapefruits (food) off of my friend’s front yard tree.  45 lb of grapefruit in the bike trailer, to be precise.  We will eat some of it as-is, but most will be made into lacto-fermented soda.  Yum!

(Gotta prevent scurvy whilst we shelter in place until at least until May 3, which will put us at somewhere near 50 total days.)

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.