Sunday, May 24, 2020

Day 70


Day 70, self quarantine:

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Yikes, I hope today is better than yesterday.  I basically spent the entire day using my new adult powers to restrain myself from biting my husband’s head off all day.

It was just...never mind.  I don’t understand how he can live so happily and obliviously amid clutter and disrepair.

I ended up biting off my own nose to spite my face because the end result of my holding my tongue and shrugging my shoulders was watching boring television all day and having a plate of boring scrambled eggs for a holiday weekend dinner.

Let’s hope today is better.

It should be.  At least in theory we’re going out to buy plants at 8:00 this morning.  

And I’m going out in the backyard to work whether he joins me or not.

Anyway, I’m much calmer today regarding Philadelphia moving to the yellow stage.  As my friends pointed out, yellow means those who work remotely should continue to do so.

My boss and I also discussed the strong possibility that we could both work remotely indefinitely but come into the office as needed or 2-3 days a week.  

I can live with that, as long as the numbers in Philadelphia continue to go down.

I guess I should admit I really love my job.  After my beloved  boss of almost thirty years retired, I had a truly horrible time and landed at arguably some of the worst lawfirms in the city. 

I just realized it could be a book.  From the crazy lady who threw a stapler at me and tried to make me her pot dealer to the senior partner who crawled under his desk and wouldn’t come out until we called an ambulance...to the psycho who made me do an intake for a new personal injury case for a crazy litigious woman who tripped over an extension cord in her own house...

Oh my god, I need to start writing.

The job I have now is spectacular in comparison.  But the best part of it is the writing and the fact that it keeps my mind sharp.

I talked about my mediation memo a lot but what I didn’t talk about was all the research I had to do before I even started it.

I now know more about golf course construction and the use of railroad ties than any normal person should. Normally we hire actual experts for this, but sometimes the situation doesn’t warrant the cost.

Anyway, as boring as it may sound, this is the stuff that keeps my brain active and young.

And it’s the real reason I’m not throwing in the towel today and retiring.

But...everything depends on the virus.

Mercury is in retrograde from June.18 to July 12.  Haha, if our governor stays on track, Monday, June 21 could be our first green light day.

Okay, that won’t do.

I better send him an email 😎

Oh well.  It’s 6:30 a.m.  If I want to get out of here by 8:00, I better wake Gary now.

Yeah, good luck with that, Rob.

I also better come up with a better eating plan for brunch and dinner.

I’m thinking barbecue.

Have fun today, people.


Saturday, May 23, 2020

Day 69

Day 69, self quarantine:

Happy Saturday.

I guess.

Philadelphia is reopening June 5 and I am trying not to freak out.

I don’t know where this leaves me.

I somehow had it in my head that I had more time to decide.

I know I said I already decided but...

I don’t know.

I do know this.  I don’t want to leave my guys.  Look at those punims.

Arghhhhh.

Talk among yourselves.  I’m all verklempt.

Friday, May 22, 2020

Day 68


Day 68, self quarantine:

Yay, it’s Friday, it’s a three day weekend and then I work three days and have another three day weekend and I am so, so down with that.

Let the eating begin.

Oh yeah, first I have to do the legal gig today.  I’m a wreck because I’m emailing my boss the mediation statement I’ve been working on all month after I’m done writing this and it’s just like turning a paper in to your professor, desperate for a good grade, only way worse because I’m old and feeble and not carefree and nineteen. 😎

I don’t think this is my best work but then again, I never do.  Beware the writer enamored with their own writing.  Yikes.

I just hope I don’t have to spend all day fixing it.  I’m anxious to start the weekend!

So one of the reasons our relationship works is that even though we’re very much alike, Gary and I are good at different things.  I’m the brains in this duo, he’s the common sense.  I mean, Gary’s smart but he isn’t a reader and he didn’t like school, where I read about a thousand books a year and my fantasy retirement goal is to be a senior auditor at Penn‘s Arts and Sciences school.

I ran the money and education side of things at Casa Slick and Gary’s the one who ran the domestic side.   I can’t even drive a car.

Oh, yeah, I don’t drive.  You don’t want to know.

Anyway, Gary won’t play board games with me because I always win.  I can’t help it, and until an unfortunate episode with alcohol last time we played, even Julie Slick could never beat me at Scrabble.

During quarantine, I’ve had such an urge to play something but Gary refuses. Bummer.  We have a treasure trove of board games here!

If only it was in my DNA to throw a couple games and let him win, we would have a completely different scenario.

So when I came downstairs one afternoon a couple weeks ago and caught Gary correctly calling out answers while watching a 1966 Password show on television, I immediately went on eBay.

I paid $15 and got a perfect condition 1963 Password board game.

“What’s this?” asked Gary after we got the contact free delivery knock on the door.

“Open it, open it,” I said excitedly.  “It’s an early Father’s Day present.”

He stabbed at the box with a knife and ripped open the carton like a little kid.

“You got me Password?” he asked, looking at me like I was a mental patient.

“Well, yeah.  I thought it would be fun.  That’s actually from 1963!”  

“I can see that.  It’s still got the price tag on it.  Look - it cost $1.98.”

“Omg!  That’s so cool!”

“Thanks,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“When can we play?” I asked.

“When the kids are here?”

Oh, boo.  C’mon, Gary.

“Let’s play tonight!”  I was already planning the evening.  First we’d have nachos.

“How are we going to manage that?”

“Wut?”  

What was he talking about?

“You need four people to play Password, genius.”

Oh for the love of God.

“It’s why they call it Password.  Your team passes the word to the other team.”

“We can’t just play each other?” I asked sheepishly.

“It’s not possible, Rob,” he laughed.

I knew that, I did.  What was I thinking?

So now this quarantine has to end soon.  I need my kids to be here so we can play Password.

I told you I have no common sense.  Password for two people.  Sheesh.

Maybe I can talk him into playing Clue.

So I’m wondering what people are doing for Memorial Day weekend.  Are there going to be Zoom barbecues?

The mind boggles.

I must be slipping.  Gary and I haven’t discussed what we’re having for dinners this holiday weekend but then again, every night is the same in apocalypse land.

I’ll figure it out.

It will probably involve fried potatoes.

Have an awesome Friday.



Thursday, May 21, 2020

Day 67


Day 67, self quarantine:

I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact that we are approaching Memorial Day weekend.

See the gaggle of lunatics waiting in line in the photo?  Normally, I’m one of them.  Like every Sunday during the Memorial Day holiday weekend for the last thirty years. Sometimes I stand there waiting for over an hour, but those cinnamon sugar cake donuts are other worldly and so, so worth it.

Oh, well.  Not this Sunday.

Nope, we’re going next Friday!  I have off from work for some heretofore unknown Jewish holiday and Browns Donuts has curbside, no contact donut delivery!

You realize as the designated donut procurer for Casa Slick, Ocean City, by virtue of being the family member up at dawn, curbside delivery of warm cinnamon sugar Brown’s donuts is the culmination of a thirty year fantasy, right?

I once ate a dozen of those babies.

Hey, they’re tiny.

Okay, I’m a glutton.  Whatever.


We’re not going to the beach this Sunday for a bunch of reasons.  It’s still too freaking cold, I’m terrified of possible holiday crowds, and most importantly, we’re working in the yard.

Also we’re filling the window boxes with flowers.  We were ecstatic to realize our local hardware store is super stocked with plants and herbs.

It’s the little things.

Especially during the apocalypse.

Sigh...oh well, this has to be a short post today.  I’m in the weeds at work and need to head upstairs early.  I promised my boss this Memo yesterday and played with it so much I lost all perspective and now I have to start fresh.

Ugh, I do the same with my personal writing, too, but at least with that I can put it away until I’m ready to look at it again.

Not so with a Mediation memo due yesterday.

Oh well.  

This time next week, I’ll be 24 hours away from a Brown’s donut.

And a Manco and Manco pizza.

Oh, and some Tater’s handcut fries.

Probably Rauhauser’s chocolate, too.

Hey, I have to cover all of my top four food groups.

Oh god, okay, I’ll stop.  

Onward.



Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Day 66

Day 66, self quarantine:

Behold the BEFORE picture of our backyard.

It took us two weeks to get here but the worst is behind us.

We took out 22 huge green trash bags last night but we worried about getting fined if we put out anything else so we stopped even though we could have kept going.

Next week the bikes, broken table, barbecues, and other items in this pic will be gone.

Oy, you should have seen the yard pre this “before” picture. I do have a photo.  Once the garden is finished, maybe I’ll swallow my pride and post it.

“What’s wrong with you?” I muttered under my breath several times, glaring at Gary as I swept up three feet of muck, lumps of charcoal and other discarded barbecue items.

You would not have known that twenty years ago, Gary spent an entire summer laying bricks back there.

Until this past weekend, you couldn’t even see the bricks.

I can’t blame him for all of it.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot.  Twenty years ago is right around when I discovered AOL and their evil little chat rooms.  Once introduced to the internet, I’m afraid I didn’t always feel like doing stuff around the house in my spare time and I hardly had any spare time to begin with.

From there it was a blog, MySpace, Facebook, and the dreaded Twitter...ugh, Twitter, how I hate you yet I still can’t stay away, even though you suspended my account for calling the Imbecile President and his hapless supporters very bad names. 😎

So it’s not all Gary.  I fess up.

And holy hell, I’m talking about Twitter the way tortured women talk about men.  We’re in an abusive relationship!

Okay, that’s enough of that.

Back to the garden - ooh, a Woodstock reference - once I discovered the internet, simultaneous to the kids being totally involved in the School of Rock, we stopped using the space for anything but storage and apparently spare trash for twenty years. But as bad as this pic is, I don’t think I’m being over optimistic that we will have a cool looking yard by July 4.

We planted those trees over twenty years ago.  They were in tiny pots and cost $10.

Gary put up the fence.  I made him use good wood and he admits he fought me on it...he has a weird cheap streak when it comes to home improvement products but has no problem dropping $500 for a meal and you don’t want to know what we spent on booze and dope in our heavy partying days.

But yeah, the fence is in awesome shape, we don’t have to touch it.

And once we really clean them up, the bricks are awesome, too.

I can’t wait to hang fairy lights back there.  I love the name, it’s so magical.  Fairy lights.   I think every home should have them, don’t you?

But I’m sticking to my promise to myself.  I’m not ordering anything for the yard until it‘s finished and we’re ready to decorate. Otherwise the project will be doomed and I will be the one who jinxed it.

Meanwhile, can I just say that Gary and I shlepped 22 trash bags and didn’t yell at each other once?

I’m loving this quarantine way too much.

So I think that’s it for today.  I’m not a fan of Wednesdays but I have a cool writing project going on at work so yesterday flew by and today should be more of the same.

Wait, did I just call the damages section of a Settlement Memo a cool writing project?  Hahaha omg, am I high?

Sadly, no.  Unless you count sugar.

Later, gators.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Day 65

Y

Day 65, self quarantine:

So I had my first office video conference call yesterday and to say it was a Saturday Night Live skit is putting it mildly.  It was so hilarious, so charming, so endearing I was kvelling all over the place.  Gary, who was in the kitchen cooking and overheard everything, was bent over double laughing.

Before the call, because I’m nuts and haven’t been out in months, I washed my hair and omg, even more importantly, I exfoliated my upper lip.  Don’t judge me.

Listen, I did an amazing job.

Though okay, it burned a little and the entire ten minutes I sat with it on, I was worried it was like acid eating through my skin and when I washed it off I would have raw open wounds where my upper lip once was and my video call would be totally fucked.

It was glorious.  I no longer resemble Groucho Marx and/or Tom Selleck.

So yeah, I was bummed we didn’t do zoom, instead we did our call via google.  I wanted to be one of those squares, damn it. The google thing was cool, though.  You’re a little avatar in the margin but every time you speak, you go full screen.  I snapped this pic of myself on the screen after I blurted out something about wanting to see my boss’ new beard and forgetting everyone could hear me.

What the call turned out to be was the founding partner of our firm missing everyone.  He’s eighty years old, he had the young IT guy in our office set up the call, which he took while riding in his car.

He never quite got the hang of it.

Omg, he took attendance the first 20 minutes of the call. There’s only like 15 of us.

I can't even.  

I’m changing the names to protect the innocent.

"Where's Ben?  I don’t see Ben.  There’s Linda.  Hi, Linda. Linda?  Linda?  Who's Linda?" 

"That’s Donna,” sighed his long suffering  assistant.

"Oh, hello, Donna. Wait, where’s Donna, now I can't see her.  I'm in my car.  It's a new car.  I got it right before the virus.  It parks itself.  Hey, at least they’re opening the golf courses.  Does anybody golf?  Ben, is that you?  You have a beard!  There’s Robin.  Hi, Robin.  Wait, where’s Ben?  I don’t see Ben. Oh, there he is.  Ben, I like your beard.”

I’m not even lying.  This went on for twenty minutes.  In between, Gary is walking in and out of the kitchen with stuff for me to taste and I can’t say Mmmm or I’ll appear on the screen with the spoon in my mouth.

“So this virus, we lost a lot of people.  It’s terrible. Terrible.  It‘s the death squad.  I’d like to tell you when we’ll be back in the office...”

...at which point my ears perk up...

“...it could be a week...”

No no no

“...it could be two weeks...”

NO

“... it could be another month...”

Keep talking...keep talking...

“...it could be two months.”

YES

“The virus will dictate.  We have to wait and see.”

So that was wonderful to hear.  We’re not being rushed back too soon, and I had a long heart to heart talk with my boss about my feelings earlier and we even discussed what changes would have to be made in our physical office before I felt confident enough to come back, virus aside.

For one thing, I’m not taking the elevator.  We’re on the second floor, give me a key to the door, I’m taking the stairs.

And the bathrooms...where to begin...

Stuff like that.

So we’ll see.  The main thing is, my boss now knows how I feel and won’t be blindsided in case things don’t end up working out and I decide to extend quarantine forever.

Oh, back to the conference call, it ended with, “This was great!  Maybe we’ll do it again next week!”

Oy.  Okay.  Hey, at least I’ll have another reason to wash my hair.

In other news, I’m unusually excited for a Tuesday. Starting at 7:00 tonight we can put out trash, which will lead to serious progress in the garden.  I can’t wait to have that solid “before“ picture.

This is what my quarantine has come down to.  I’m excited for trash day. 

It could be worse.

Ugh, maybe I better not joke about that.

Onward, fellow apocalypse dudes.







Monday, May 18, 2020

Day 64


Day 64, self quarantine:

Welp, it’s Monday, May 18, 2020, which means it’s the beginning of week ten of the apocalypse.

I know people are fed up.  As for me,  I can’t help it, these are now some of the best days of my life.   If only this was just my retirement and not a deadly virus.

Yesterday, I put my phone down for hours and Gary and I worked side by side out back.  While I do have my “before “ picture now, it’s literally a photo of 25 trash bags.  Once they’re gone Wednesday morning, I’ll post side by side pics.

We didn’t yell at each other once.  We blasted music played in the dirt, and giggled like kids.

We’re in shock how much we got done.  Gary agrees with me that barring any health issues or other emergencies, we’ll have a finished space by July 4.

Though one thing was clearly obvious yesterday - I had to be there to really get things underway even though Gary tentatively started this project two weeks ago.  I never realized I’m the organized, focused person in this duo, God help us.

I probably should have called it a day sooner, though.  My shoulder, neck and back are really feeling it today.  Hopefully the guy sleeping upstairs is okay.

Anyway, for the first time in many years, Gary had a clear path to his barbecue grill and after working in the yard all day, made us some banging grilled mushroom salads for dinner.

In other news, I’m edgy watching the news this morning.  America really is reopening.  I’m going to have to have the return to the office conversation with my boss sooner rather then later.  My sense is he won’t know anymore than I do about our return date, but if he tells me June 1 or even June 15, I’m going to have to break the news to him that I won’t be there.

And since I’m announcing it here, I’m thinking I better tell him today regardless.

Wow.  One thing about life. You can never say it’s predictable.

Okay, I have to prepare what I’m going to say.

Later.

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Day 63



Day 63, self quarantine:

Good morning!

Behold my first vine ripened tomato sandwich of the season, made on a fresh loaf of milk bread from Lost Bread Company with basil from Gary’s herb garden, served up with a side order of hand cut fries drizzled with malt vinegar.

Do I know how to live or what?

This was our victory dinner, people.  We are conquering the beast that is our backyard.

The “before” picture will be posted tomorrow.

I actually took a photo last night when we wrapped up but for whatever reason, I only took a pic of the pile of trash bags.

I’m wondering about my thought process behind that one 😎.

Here’s why I didn’t opt for the beach yesterday.   We don’t go to a real beach.  We go to Dog Beach, which not many people know about.  We take Jake, we leave our house at dawn so Jake can enjoy being outside before it gets too hot, and by 1:00 p.m. our pizzas have been ordered and eaten and we’re on the way home.

So I can go any time.

I also have three weeks vacation.  We can drive down any weekday we want.

If I didn’t get Gary really started out back yesterday and we went to the beach, the backyard wouldn’t happen this year.  I know us.  Every weekend from now on would be spent at Dog Beach.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but...

Sometimes you gotta be an adult.

We’re gonna love that space once it’s restored.

We used to sit out there every night, all those years ago.

And it was magical to see Gary get excited and talk about his ideas for the space last evening .

I made the right choice yesterday.

We’re going to work out there some more today and I can’t wait.

The only thing I did not do is text my boss regarding the court’s announcement they’re closed until September 8.  In my mind, so am I, and I wasn’t in the mood to have that bubble bursted last night.

I’ll keep you posted.

Happy Sunday!