We are pretty much social isolating.   “NYS on Pause” is, I think, the official term.  Basically everything but “essential services” has been ordered closed.  People are told they should stay home, which is what we are doing. Jim is working from home,  even though technically he was deemed “essential”.  He went camping the other night with his nephew, Matt.  We figured it was a relatively safe outdoor activity, and indeed they saw very few people.  Kathryn’s brother Tom (living south of Seattle), however, said he went hiking and the trail was packed; since their dog doesn’t do well with a lot of people, they went home.

Eric says he misses school.  He is on Playstation a lot, though the other night he volunteered to play Scrabble (which is probably a sign of his boredom).  Before everything shut down, we went and got paint so he is painting his room Phoenix Suns colors – one wall grey, one orange, one purple and one half orange/half purple with a large Fathead logo on the grey wall.  Sometimes I think we are the easiest parents in the world.

This has all hit pretty hard, activity-wise. Kathryn had FOUR volleyball tournaments scheduled for March, all canceled. All our regular activities – swimming, pickleball, volleyball, the gym, heck even the Beginner’s Agility class that Cullen and Kathryn were taking! – canceled. 

Utica College has suspended all on-ground classes so Kathryn ended my teaching career putting stupid stuff online.  Ugh.  Last Friday she was told she could no longer see clients in person and since she didn’t want to make the leap to “teletherapy” for the few remaining weeks, she called all my clients and told them she was transferring them immediately.  Fortunately she had told them all she was retiring.  Not what you would call  a textbook case of “processing the termination therapeutically.”  So she felt she was just fading out of my career of 41 years – “Irish Exit.” Jim says, seeing Kathryn not be able to do all the things planned to do upon retirement, he is glad he is still working some. However, we have all this land around us that we can walk.  The birds are singing, the deer are out and about, the porcupines, skunks, squirrels are around.  Very nice.  We had pretty nice weather up to today, but it is blowing and snowing today.  The daffodils have poked up but they look pretty pathetic in the sea of white. 

We are pretty well stocked as we tend to buy in bulk anyway, so we are not concerned at this point about running out of toilet paper. Kathyrn went to the grocery store this morning. Took all precautions. It was decidedly Not Fun. Got most of what we wanted; interesting what we couldn’t get: carrots; canned spaghetti (for the teenager), bread mixes. Hoping not to have to go back for several weeks.