So How's The Quarantine Going For Everybody?

I thought I might use the blog to create a little diary of the Coronavirus quarantine. Sure... this might not be entertaining for you to read, but since everything going on right now is quite unprecedented I figured it might be interesting to look back on at some point in the future, hopefully when things are a bit more "normal." As a family, we're already a week in, so this will probably be a little bit of a longer catch-up post... with shorter installments in the future. Who knows where this is going to go, so bear with me.

Monday, March 16
Nothing too crazy. This will prove to be my last day of working at work. We're encouraged to work from home moving forward. Many others have already done this, but I'm interested to see how this goes. Lilly is already at home on her first day of Spring Break... although we should all be up in Philadelphia on a mini-vacation. We cancelled that the prior Friday. A year ago we were in La Jolla, California kayaking during a Los Angeles/San Diego Spring Break. What a difference a year makes...

Tuesday, March 17
Work from home begins. Meh, I was probably on a video conference of some sort the entire day. Usually when I work from home I feel relatively productive, probably because some of the work distractions are left at work. I've found when everybody works from home it's pretty much the opposite. Crazy amounts of emails, internal messaging pop-ups, and of course the aforementioned conference calls. First day of dedicated work from home definitely didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. However, I really can't complain, at least I still have a job... let's just not talk about those 401ks, okay?

For what it's worth, Lilly's Spring Break has now not only been extended another week, but now the kids aren't going back to school until at least April 15th... with some sort of virtual classes beginning on March 30th. I'm sure that'll go well...

K.C. and I finished binge watching season 2 of Succession (HBO) on Tuesday night as well.  That show... I can't stand any of the characters, (maybe Kendall is sort of likable at times) but damn if it isn't well written. Especially if you enjoy profanity (as I do).



Wednesday, March 18
It's recycling day. Recycling is still coming during the pandemic. I shower, take out the recycling, and log on for work.

Work kicks it up a notch as the only sport that is actually doing anything right now, the NFL, begins their free agency. Working in sports, this is kind of a big deal. News gets out early that Tom Brady is going to sign with Tampa Bay. Gotta sell those jerseys once he moves. Many, many more video conferences in preparation...

Fortunately, we buy some time by the fact that no official announcement is made on Wednesday evening, but I'm exhausted. We travel to Flavortown and watch reruns of Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives pretty much all night.

Thursday, March 19
I don't really recall what happened on Thursday, must not have been that memorable. Corona days are running together now. Seems like the President is having daily news conferences and saying dumb stuff on the regular.

I don't know... other than the 6:30 and 11:00 evening news, I try to keep the news off where it makes sense. You can also tell people are starting to get stir crazy by the amount of nonsense being posted on social media. I am enjoying this Quarantine group I was invited to though on Facebook. I've largely been off social to this point, but I have to admit it's pretty funny.

Friday, March 20
Work kicks back in a big way. The Brady deal is announced, as are a few other notable free agents. We put product up on our websites for those interested in buying jerseys rather than toilet paper. Speaking of which, our household fortunately still has an adequate supply.

There are food trucks in the neighborhood, but I think K.C. is still a little turned off about leaving the house. We let them pass and eat-in. I don't think we've eaten in for every meal for a long time. Unfortunately, we're also eating all the snacks too and I'm drinking Cheerwine like a crazyman.

Lilly is also mildly bummed that we choose not to go to Target to buy a Nintendo Switch Lite and the new Animal Crossing game. She was saving her birthday money to purchase those. She acts like a sassy 14 year old most of the time, but she still loves Animal Crossing.

A lot of the fly fishing companies are putting out free stuff to keep people busy through their social distancing. For example, Tenkara USA records a podcast, publishes coloring sheets, and makes back-issues of their magazine free for download. Speaking of magazines, the submission deadline for my little side-project Tenkara Angler passes. I only get 5 article submissions this go round. Bummer. Might not be enough content to publish a Spring magazine, we'll see...

Saturday, March 21
Wake up to find out Kenny Rogers passed away last night. F*ck. 2020... go back to where you came from.

Needing to get out, I go on a long morning walk around the neighborhood. Since I'm not driving to work anymore, I've been missing out on the week's podcasts. I listen to the latest episode of MeatEater to kill the time and learn that traditionally ketchups (catsups?) were made of things other than tomatoes... like mushrooms. And it was common. News to me. I also notice while walking that people I pass are not quite as friendly as they used to be - heads down, no "good morning" greetings. Maybe I look like I have cooties.

There aren't any sports on TV, so K.C., Lilly, & I all unfortunately kind of fall into "screen time" for most of the day. The adults are probably both on Facebook, and Lilly is likely on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or group chatting with friends. I did order a book about brook trout from the Rogue Angler's website as well as a Tacky fly box on clearance. Figure the reading might keep me busy in the days or weeks ahead.

We did talk to K.C.'s brother up in Philly. Glad to see that "Uncle Andy", his wife and two young boys are doing well and feeling healthy. Pennsylvania (and other several other states such as California) are now on pretty much a lockdown. Don't leave the house unless you need to, and non-essential businesses are closed. Florida hasn't gotten there yet, but they do finally make the call to close the last beaches as of Saturday evening. I don't think some of the footage of Spring Breakers running around some of the Florida beaches (which went to the national news earlier this week) went over too well.

K.C. tolerates me watching There Will Be Blood on TV to wrap up the evening. That movie is so good. Watch it if you haven't. Just don't expect a happy ending... for anybody...



Sunday, March 22
K.C. joined me for the morning walk this morning. While the distance was slightly shorter, the other folks out and about were much friendlier today... probably because K.C. was along.

Of course we talked a lot about what's going on in the world during our two hour walk. Small topics such as how long we can wait before going grocery shopping... to some headier topics such as what the actual signal will be for things to get back to normal again? Do new cases need to stabilize, start going down, stop all together? If I'm not mistaken, China's been in this big for at least two months and still aren't back to normal. Who knows... but I don't think we'll see any of that over the next week or two.

I think we're both actually more concerned about what's going to happen to people that have been laid off, furloughed, or have small businesses that need to be shut down for an indefinite amount of time. Fortunately, we've got a little socked away in case that were to happen to us, but we know there are many others (including friends & relatives) that will be hurt in a serious way. With all of the crossed streams of communication (and miscommunication) I'm not even sure what the best way to help others is at this point...

On the way back to the house from our walk, vultures ominously circled overhead. I kid you not.

On a lighter bird sighting front, we saw an oriole in our backyard today. We usually get a lot of cardinals, mourning doves, bluebirds, woodpeckers, and others... but rarely orioles... so that was a pleasant sight.

I spent the afternoon getting my home office a bit more organized for the work week ahead while K.C. & Lilly watched musical movies on television. First, Sweeney Todd and then Into the Woods. Guess that was payback for There Will Be Blood. I went into the backyard and practiced casting my Type I tenkara rod with about 18 feet of line... just in case I'm still able to go to Oni School out in Utah in August. Who even knows if Masami Sakakibara will still come over at this point...

And that's about it... for now. I wrote this blog post at about 7:30 pm on Sunday evening, I'll probably watch the new episode of Westworld tonight... As such, I guess one might expect the next journal entry on Tuesday morning. We'll see, these are certainly crazy times, so you never know exactly what's going to happen next...