Day 28

Day 28, self quarantine:

Happy Easter.  Yeah I’m Jewish, but every holiday in my life is about food, not religion, so you better believe I celebrate all of them, especially when it’s all about baskets of chocolate.  (See also: Valentines Day)

For whatever reason, I’m thinking of Easter/Passovers past, starting with mine.  I got my philosophy about food from my mother, which is basically Food is Love.  We didn’t go to synagogue on Passover or have a sedar, but we had rich, cheesy kugels (I know, I know) brisket cooked in ginger ale (I can already see I’m going to have to do a separate post about food in the sixties) and on Easter, my mother would bake a ridiculous multilayer coconut cake with marshmallow icing.  

I just had another crazy memory.  Back in the dark ages, when I was in elementary school, on the last week of school leading up to Easter and spring break, we made Easter bonnets.  Our teachers would send home a supply list:  Paper plates, ribbons, jelly beans, Peeps...and we’d turn them into rather spectacular millinery, which we’d proudly wear in an Easter “parade” in the schoolyard.

As a budding foodie, I freaking loved making those bonnets.

I could just see Julie and Eric wearing paper plates on their heads and marching around outside.

Oh wait, what am I saying, yes I can 😎

I’m not gonna go into it, but for the most part, my childhood memories of holidays are not good.  My mom thought they meant family, my father thought they meant Oh awesome, I can lock myself in my bedroom and get wasted.  There was always a lot of yelling.  From the time I was a kid, I vowed if I ever had a family of my own, It would be the exact opposite for my children.

Which brings me to my next memory, and it’s a good one. Young’s Candies.

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2007/07/02/taste-forever-youngs/

For the kids’ entire childhood, we were lucky enough to have an old school candy store in the neighborhood where they made amazing chocolate on site.  Every year, Gary and I would make up spectacular custom baskets.  Eric loved anything peanut butter.  Julie loved solid chocolate eggs. Easter mornings were like Hanukkah/Christmas around here, but then again, so was every holiday.

I guess I am especially feeling the loneliness of quarantine today, but okay, I’m also realistic.  Eric lives in Nashville and Julie lives in Seattle.  I doubt we’d be sitting here, ripping apart our respective baskets and sharing a breakfast of candy this morning, anyway.

I’m here to tell you that over ten years in, empty nest syndrome never gets any easier.  

But yeah, yeah, there are certain perks.

I told Gary not to buy me any Easter chocolate this year. He’s still asleep upstairs. 

 I really hope he didn’t listen to me.  

Ugh, what am I saying. There’s still macaroons in the house.

Mmmm...macaroons.  I just realized we covered both holidays with that one.

Omg, they are amazing with a hot cup of coffee.  And with that, I’m off to have eight more.

Happy Easter!

Day 27

Day 27, self quarantine:  

I’m back.

Yesterday started out tough.  I was waiting for news on my “co-worker” hospitalized at John Hopkins (John Hopkins!) with COVID-19.  It was kind of like how I imagine it is sitting around waiting for a meteor to hit.

I decided to binge watch  Top Chef all day while snacking on Gary treats throughout.

“Can you make cookies?” I asked him.

Gary looked up from his computer, (hahahaha) shocked.

“Cookies?  What kind of cookies?”   

“Christmas cookies?”

“What?  Christmas cookies?” 

Hey.  At least he didn’t immediately say no, even if he was looking at me like I was out of my mind.

I nodded. 

“Which ones?” he asked.  Shortbread?  Thumbprints?  Oh, no....you want the ones that take me three hours - the ones with peanut butter cups?’

“No...”

“Which ones, then?”

I looked at him hopefully.  “All of them?”

“Rob!  Seriously?!”

“Okay, okay, just thumbprints.”

He sighed.

“Isn’t it Passover?”

Oh, yeah.  Crap.

I considered this for a moment and brightened.

“Do we have any coconut?”

“Coconut?  I don’t know.  Maybe.  What now?”

“Macaroons.”

He started to laugh but stopped when he saw my face.

“Oh my God.  Really?”

“Yeah.”

“If I make them, do you promise you’re not going to complain all day tomorrow you’re fat?”

“Well...”.   

He had a point.

As I was trying to decide,  using my usual scientific methods, i.e., if I diet and get thin during quarantine I will probably get the virus and die, conversely, if I eat my way through the next several weeks and gain a couple hundred pounds, I’ll likely live a long, miserable life, I got a text from Aileen.


Aileen is one of the many extraordinary people I’ve met through my kids.  As a young girl, she took a Robert Fripp Guitar Craft course on the recommendation of a boyfriend and it would change her life, leading her to a career in  music and music therapy, and inclusion into a group of international King Crimson family and friends.

Over the past fourteen years, I’ve seen the love and power of that group.  In fact, it was through the extended Crimson family in Seattle that Julie finally found love and happiness and her new home.

I remember in the early days of the Adrian Belew Power Trio, when I tagged along as merch person, we were stopped at the Canadian border for the usual questioning.

“You’re musicians?” the border patrol guy asked, peering into the car and taking in the guy in the sombrero with two giggling teenagers.   “What kind of music do you play?”

Adrian’s response was immediate.

“We play intelligent music.”

Isn’t that the truth?

Anyway, getting back to Aileen, she texted me that she was going to be in our neighborhood and was going to be dropping off a very special package (carefully wiped down) on our stoop.

And with that, Gary got a reprieve from cookie making.

Because you know, when someone tells me they have a gift for me, my mind goes right to food.

And I follow Aileen on Facebook.  She’s superwoman.  She makes bread.  She grows all kinds of vegetables in her garden.  She freaking roasts her own coffee.

Guess what she also tried her hand at during quarantine?  

Soap making.

In addition to leaving us a bag of her incredible fresh roasted coffee, Aileen put together a self care package of beautiful, fragrant soaps.  The picture I took doesn’t begin to do justice - I wish there were smellivision.

My mood did a 180.  

I remembered I chose the path of gratitude.

The rest of the day was wonderful.  I learned my coworker is improving.  Gary made vegetarian matzo ball soup.  And Julie did an amazing live stream show which I finally figured out how to broadcast on the television as opposed to my phone.

Speaking of live-streams, Eric is doing one at 7:00 tonight with luminaries like Roseanne Cash and  John Oates to raise money for musicians brought to their knees by the events of 2020.  I will post a direct link later.

So that’s it for today. There’s only one remaining question: Do I want those macaroons or not?

Day 26

Day 26, self quarantine. Someone I know — someone close to me—is in the hospital with COVID-19.  That stupid Bob Lefsetz email came true.

Gary thinks he’s going shopping at Aldi this morning.  He’s going to have to tackle me first.  I am up at dawn to hide his keys.

I just signed up for Hulu.  I will now proceed to watch every damn episode of every damn season of Top Chef since 2006.

Hopefully I will not have to think for the rest of the weekend.

Day 25

Day 25, self quarantine: Happy Passover.  I’m not exactly feeling like I thought I would today.  

Back in January, the month I thought would never end, I kept looking at the calendar to see when I could take a break from my crushing work load. We had back to back trials through February, and March would have to be a catch up month on all our other cases. Because I work for an Orthodox Jewish firm, we’re closed for Passover today and tomorrow, and Wednesday and Thursday next week.

I decided to go somewhere great these four days.  I texted Julie in early February to see if she was available and started researching spas.  I wanted four days of warm sunshine, great food and being ridiculously pampered.

Kinda like here every day at Casa Slick.  What I take for granted.  

Or used to.

As I was googling fancy resorts, the first news out of China and Italy started breaking.  And then Seattle, where Julie lives.

Within a few weeks, it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere.

This morning, I’m watching the news and seeing lines of cars stretched for miles with anguished families financially decimated by this quarantine, desperately waiting for cartons of free food.

I’m seeing interviews with weeping,  exhausted health care workers separated from their families for safety reasons.

I’m seeing big refrigerator trucks loaned by WAWA rolling up ominously next to hospitals.

I’m reading about John Prine.

I’m trying not to be down, I really am, but I’m scared.  And I miss my kids.  Eric was supposed to be in town this month to play a Neil Peart tribute show at the Ardmore, and Natalie, with Eric on drums, was supposed to be here in May to open for Hall and Oates.  

Julie was supposed to arrive here Tuesday for a two week visit.

Maybe it’s the holidays, but I miss my family so much I’m sitting here crying like a big dummy.  It feels like months before I’ll see them again and with a sinking heart I realize that’s true.

Yesterday I spoke to our office manager.

“Tony, any idea when we’ll be back in the office?”

“Oh, I think we’re out until at least May 15.”

Oh my God.

I texted my boss somewhat hysterically with the news.

His reply?

“I’ll be very happy if we’re back by May 15.  Don’t count on it.”

Wut?  

Okay, deep breaths.  There are two paths I can take here.

From my spot on my sofa this morning, watching the news in horror, and writing this post, which has become my daily therapy, I am 100% positive which one I’m taking.

I choose to be grateful.

Very, very grateful.

As a gift to myself, I’m posting my favorite family pic of all time, from Eric and Natalie’s wedding last year.

Happy Passover.

Day 24

Day 24, self quarantine: Today’s post should be titled Who is this alien sitting at my dining room table and what has he done with Gary?

You know, Gary, the rebel without a cause  who calls my iPhone “that fancy thinking box”?

So I snapped a pic in case I was hallucinating.

That’s Gary alright.  Hell has apparently  frozen over.

Somehow, his office, which has remained open during the apocalypse because they’re a life sustaining business, decided to entice Gary with an offer to come over to the dark side - which is, ironically, the white collar side of the plumbing business.

I’m laughing my ass off because the poor dude just wants to retire and instead they delivered him a shiny new laptop with his company’s entire customer history downloaded on its desktop.

Even funnier was, I had to be his IT guy.  You have no idea just how hilarious the idea of me being the Casa Slick techie is.

And I was doing fine, until I hit a wall trying to connect all his weird VPN or VNP or VAPING or whatever that stuff is called.

Quick call to Queen Techie Julie in Seattle.  Whoops, they’re three hours behind.  I stopped and texted instead.

“Are you awake?  Call me!”

As soon as I sent it, I realized I probably scared her to death. Who talks on a regular phone anymore?  And who wants a hysterical text from their senior citizen parent in the middle of a senior citizen parent eating plague?

Julie, however, is used to me. She merely texted back “One sec bathroom.”

Julie was indeed Queen Techie because she was able to help me overcome the biggest hurdle, which was what the hell was my internet password?

Once that was established, Gary got on the phone with his office and I swear to God, he managed to hook himself up remotely.  Even with absolutely no knowledge as to how to use the delete or backspace keys on a laptop.

“Rob, how do I get my name out of here?”

“Wut?”

“My name!  I typed it wrong.”

Oh god.  I tried so hard not to laugh, I really did.  Fail.  

“Is that funny to you, Poindexter?”

Ooh, ouch, he called me Poindexter.  I grabbed a handful of pretzels and went back upstairs to my own home office purgatory.

I came down an hour or two later to check up on him and he was sitting crosslegged on the floor, smoking.

“All good?”

“This sucks,” he said.

Haha, welcome to my world.

“You know you don’t have to do it, Gar...”

“I know.  It’s cool.  I’m finished for the day.  I get done at 3:00, remember?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s 1:00.”

He shrugged.  “Who’s going to know?”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I’ll tell him, don’t worry.

So this is very interesting to me.  Gary always complains he hates his job and we’ve discussed his upcoming retirement this summer so many times I was sure it was a given.  The apocalypse is affording him the unexpected opportunity of a fully paid early exit.

So why isn’t he taking it?

You know I had to ask.

“Because I live one day at a time,” he replied.

Oh.

“And a pandemic probably isn’t the best time to make a life decision,” he added.

That, too.

Holy hell.  I’m thinking maybe he’s a grownup after all.

(Cue my kids, who are likely stealth reading: 

“Okay, boomer 😂😂😂”)

Day 23

Day 23, self quarantine:  Day 23, really?

Yesterday was challenging.  I kept getting booted off the office remote system every five minutes while I was working on something important.  I am not going to go into it any further except to say I repeatedly banged my head on the desk until Gary, who must have had ESP, came upstairs for a visit with Jake the paralegal dog and an offer of warm almond biscuits and a fresh pot of coffee.

Warm biscuits make everything better.  At least in my world.

I’m pretty happy.

Others, it would seem, not so much.

I can’t help but notice that after almost a month of quarantine, you can gauge a lot of relationships by how anguished their Facebook posts are.  It’s pretty obvious that a lot of couples are spending their first real alone time together and there are surprises, not all good.

Hey, after a hundred years of marriage, we’ve gotten some surprises here, too...or should I say some new information...about each other as well.  It’s kind of cool, actually.

After our first week home, I learned my husband is a juvenile delinquent.  It turns out I can’t make calls to clients with Gary in the room. Don’t even ask. Somehow I didn’t break up laughing in the middle of asking Ms. H about her cervical fusion or advising an elderly brain injured gentleman to make sure he wore his helmet even while riding an indoor

stationary bike while Gary...Gary...never mind.  I didn’t realize he was still ten years old.

Oh, sure I did.  We both are.

And of course Gary is now asking me for medical advice every chance he gets  “since I didn’t realize  you’re a doctor.”

But yeah, he does give me weird looks while I’m working. He’s used to a very different person at home, Robbie, his wacky partner in music, food, and crime.  He’s never really met the adult me, which I think is most excellent since I’m not really crazy about her, either, and only trot her out at work.

Anyway, another thing that’s insane is after all this time together, there’s still secrets and stories we haven’t told each other.

Or, um, inadvertently discovered or blabbed during a wasted late night confessional.

Damn, we’re talking a lot these days.

When I came downstairs to have my biscuits, Gary was listening to the radio and watching television with the sound off.  Some old guy wearing a fancy sweatsuit, was standing next to a race car and being interviewed.

“What the hell are you watching?” I asked.

“You don’t recognize him?  That’s my buddy, Mario.”

“Mario Andretti?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, he’s your buddy now?”

“Hey, I did have breakfast with him.”

Wut?

“Sure you did, dude.”

“I did!   He gave me that special screwdriver I have on my keychain!”

Wut?

“Seriously, Gary?  Mario Andretti gave you a special screwdriver?”  I was laughing so hard I was almost peeing myself.  Gary got all indignant.

“Why would I make that up?”

He had a point.  But still.

“How do I not know this?  Let me see it!”

“My keys are on the table.  Go look if you don’t believe me, Dr. Rob.”

Damn, there it was.

“So you had breakfast with Mario Andretti?  How did that happen? And how am I just hearing about it now?”

Oh my lord, I had to ask.

He then commenced to tell me an Alice’s Restaurant type epic tale spanning six years, beginning with Gary as a wide-eyed little boy who idolized his racist, bigoted, staunch Republican father, and their yearly epic, drunken 15 hour marathon drives to the Indianapolis 500, beginning in 1963, just months before Kennedy’s assassination, to their final trip in 1969 just months before Woodstock, when militant liberal hippie Gary brought along an ounce of pot tucked in his overnight bag, walked 25 feet behind his dad at all times, stayed stoned 24/7, and dreamed of running away from home to live on a commune.

Of course I had heard abridged variations of that story before - I was around back then, too, but I was a self absorbed young teenager person  and up until yesterday, Gary never talked about it in such historical detail and how did I miss the screwdriver on his keychain for 50 years?

It turns out meeting Mário Andretti was the least interesting part of Gary’s story.  At least to me, anyway.

(The breakfast was really a banquet a couple days before the race, similar to what we now call meet and greets, and the screwdriver was a promotional gift to all paying attendees.)

I was writing the novel the whole time Gary was talking.  There’s some real meaty, beefy bouncy stuff there 😎

Who knew?

Not me, apparently.

These are interesting times, huh.

Day 22

Day 22, self quarantine:  And so starts week four of self quarantine.

Yesterday, I turned to Gary and said incredulously, “Do you realize this is the longest time we’ve ever spent one on one together, despite being a couple for like half a century?”

He stared at me and I could tell he was about to contradict me but then realized he couldn’t.  Even when we were teenagers, we went to school and had jobs.  The longest vacation we’ve ever had together since we graduated school and started working is two weeks.  I had a couple of months maternity leave but Gary didn’t.

So instead of saying anything prolific, Gary just opened and closed his mouth a few times and let it sink in.  Finally he just said, “Wow.”

“Yeah, I know.  Week four and we haven’t killed each other yet,” I said, smiling.

“I’m enjoying myself so far,” he said.

“Me, too.  But I’d enjoy it a lot more without the threat of death by choking on my own mucus.”

I didn’t say it, but we’d also enjoy it a hell of a lot more if we were actually retired, not thinking about our jobs, and could actually go out and physically do things.

But yeah, so far we’re doing okay.  We’re getting through it with food and music.  Which is exactly how we get through any day normally but this time we’re super conscious of it seeing as we can’t really do anything else.

Music is everything.  After our miserable first few days navigating bad dead celebrity daytime television, we switched off the tv and began listening exclusively to wxpn radio, which is our local public radio station out of the University of Pennsylvania. Their program director is also a rabbi, who by the way married Eric and Natalie.

Anyway, wxpn plays eclectic music, a lot of the stuff we loved as teens through now, and they also feature the top 20 NPR hits in heavy rotation, playing them at least twice a day.  

These top 20 hits have subliminally become our quarantine soundtrack.  

I’m pretty stoked to be hearing great new music from artists I really didn’t know about.  Early James.  Marcus King. The Lone Bellow.  Nicole Atkins.  Who knew?  I can’t fucking wait to get to a record store.  (One hopes.)

I’m obsessed with The Lone Bellow at the moment.  

Gary and I will never be able to hear any of those tracks without remembering this strange, scary time in our lives.  We’re deeply connected by and to music, we’ve got a musical milestone for everything.  

When we were first married, the song Baker Street was a huge hit.  We had a bright red MG convertible and to this day, I can’t hear Baker Street without remembering the warm sun on my face and my hair whipping crazily around in the breeze, feeling like Gary and I owned the world and no one had a better life than we did.

(I still feel that way.)

The song Moonshadow by Cat Stevens was playing in the delivery room when I gave birth to Julie.  Gary and I get choked up every time we hear it.

When Eric was six years old, he was home sick from school and he requested I put on some music.  He’d just gotten his first real drum set and climbed behind the kit.  I put on Eric Clapton’s I Can’t Stand It, and looked over at Eric as he naturally and brilliantly played along, and I know it’s crazy, but in that moment, I saw him clearly as an adult, and knew his future.  I hear that song, it’s 1993 and Eric is a a six year old superstar in-waiting.

I also have an entire soundtrack from Eric and Natalie’s wedding.

And for my own.  Oy, I have a whole story about my honeymoon and All the Young Dudes but that will have to be its own separate post.

Anyhoo...

I’m just hoping I get to look back as happily on this soundtrack.

https://youtu.be/1iBv76JOYYw

Day 20

Day 20, self quarantine: Yesterday was another tough one.  Bill Withers was a favorite of ours. So we had a little tribute at Casa Slick and listened to his music.  What an unbelievable artist.

And then because I’m death obsessed these days, my mind drifted to January, 2020, which already feels like a thousand years ago, when we were reeling from the shock of losing Neil Peart and Kobe Bryant.  Oh, and the apparent death of democracy but I won’t go there.  But yeah, remember January?  We collectively sighed Oh my God, when will this month be over and joked that it felt like a decade.

But then March, 2020 rolled up and said Yo, January, hold my beer.

April, 2020 stood in the wings, cackling and rubbing its infectious diseased hands together, and now we’re thrust into a strange new world of face masks and pop-up morgues.

Not to mention vacant cities that look like something out of a Mad Max movie.  Holy hell, downtown Philadelphia is boarded up because restaurants and retail stores are frightened of looters with food insecurities.

Wut? Food insecurities?

Here’s the official definition from the dictionary: 

“the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.”

Welp, I’d never heard that term.  If you had asked me, I’d have thought food insecurities was a new eating disorder, one which I was likely to get.

“I can’t eat this chocolate chip muffin, Gary.  I like it but I don’t think it likes me back.”

Or:

“What the hell is that in my salad?”

Those are food insecurities in my world.  Oh, I forgot one.

“Are there any animal products  in anything I ordered?”

I’ve never really gotten over that time when Julie and I ordered banana bread pudding for dessert and learned, after devouring it, that it contained bacon fat.

Bacon fat in dessert.  Who does that?  

Yeah, yeah, I watch the Food Network. That doesn’t make it right.

Anyway, so assuming we live through the pandemic, the next stage of this apocalypse is mass looting by the starving, unemployed, i.e., everyone? You mean this here quarantine is the baby stuff?  

Cool, cool, everything is fine. I’m sure my excellent mental health will see me through this...NEVER.

I’m not kidding, the scope of this thing is blowing my mind.

I’m trying to imagine a post pandemic world and I can’t. Even more shocking was how suddenly everything just stopped, and in just three weeks, for nearly all of us, our lives completely changed forever and it’s only just started!  How can I even contemplate all the businesses that won’t be here anymore?  The weirdness of everyone wearing masks. Never eating at my favorite Indian buffet again - oy vey, can you imagine ever eating at a buffet again? 

Actually, I’m a food snob.  I hate buffets, they’re gross.  I make an exception for Sitar India but I honestly don’t know when I’ll ever feel comfortable in any restaurant again and  I’m not even a germophobe.  

And with all this on our minds, overshadowing everything are the daily prayers and thoughts and hopes and wishes that we and everyone we love stay safe and healthy.

Oh yeah, that.  Somehow my goal for 2020 was never Hey, I had a virus and I didn’t need a ventilator! 

Silly me.

Maybe if there’s a vaccine, maybe after we flatten the curve, all this will pass.  The question is when.

It’s the waiting that’s the hardest part.  For now, anyway.

Day 19

Day 19, self quarantine: Yesterday, I got  an email from my doctor, letting me know his office is closed, oh, and by the way, several of his patients have coronavirus and two have died.

Once I stopped projectile vomiting, I checked my calendar and confirmed I hadn’t been in to see him since January.

I knew that, I did, but fear is a powerful amnesia  drug.

My doctor was kind enough to provide his cell phone number and now I have a brand new tool in my hypochondriac panic attack goody bag. Hopefully I won’t need to use it, though I am sure I will waste hours on my fantasy phone call with him because I’m twisted like that.

So yeah, day 19.  Do I even believe except for trips around the block with the dog and one quick swing by the office two weeks ago to pick something up, I haven’t been out or had physical contact with any human other than Gary for 19 days?

Though this is kinda how I fantasized our old age and I’m way cool with that but I guess talk to me after April 30 or whenever it’s safe to go outside again.

Speaking of going out,  Gary went to seniors shopping at Whole Foods at dawn yesterday and came back shaken.

“I was the only one not wearing a mask,” he said incredulously.

The dude really needs to get an iPhone.  

I rummaged around my dresser and found a bandana Keith Richards threw to me at a Stones concert in the 70s with a skull and crossbones on it so that’s going to be Gary’s new mask. It will be quite fetching with his long gray ponytail. 😎

Okay, Keith didn’t throw me his bandana, I bought it at the merch stand.  C’mon, if Keith Richards threw me anything at a concert, I’d have a freaking tattoo commemorating it on my forehead.  I’m just having some fun.

Because all this death and destruction is getting to me.

And as I’m sitting here writing this, I’m watching the news.  It looks like a federal mandate is coming out today that says everyone in America is going to be wearing masks from now on.  Oh my god.

I’m trying to have nice thoughts but it isn’t easy.  I’m still having a hard time wrapping my brain around all of this.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about September 11, 2001 - the day America changed forever.  We all remember what we were doing.  It was like that when John Kennedy and John Lennon died, too.  I was at the office early, and chatting online with a writer friend of mine who was in his office in NYC.  It was 8:46 a.m.  I got a description of the first tower struck in real time, as it was happening, from his office window.  We were using AOL instant messenger to chat, and something akin to HOLY SHIT appeared on my screen. 

At first, we thought it was a bizarre accident.

And then the next tower was hit.  My law firm had a television in our conference room, it was before social media, and the staff darted in and out shocked, totally clueless and vaguely terrified...we really didn’t know what was happening.

And then the plane went down in Pennsylvania — OUR STATE — and we were sure it was World War III.

It was still morning.  Eric and Julie were in 10th and 11th grade, respectively.  I raced to their school and grabbed them.  We walked  home in a fog — ran, actually — and were glued to the television all day.   I knew that life had changed forever, and that September 11, 2001 would be a date in United States history that would live in infamy.

I guess that will be the entire year, 2020.

And like September 11, life is never going to be the same afterwards.  

This is crazy.

Day 18 Self Quarantine

Day 18, self quarantine:  I have all kinds of thoughts this morning, none of them good, and then I stumbled on the rolling  New York Times coronavirus obituary list and lost it altogether though I highly recommend you read it.  So I was struggling with what to say today without bringing you all down with me when I saw a short piece on the news which gave me inspiration and made me laugh.  The perky, young anchor looked into the camera and asked with a perfectly straight face,

“Will coronavirus end your marriage?”

Oh, honey.

I’ve been with my knucklehead since Richard Nixon was President.  We’ve been through substance addiction, deaths of loved ones, near bankruptcy, September 11, infertility and several miscarriages...you think a little virus is going to take our relationship down?

Apparently a lot of couples are struggling with too much togetherness.  Right now in China, following months of quarantine, the divorce rate is soaring.

But then I thought about how this virus could take our marriage down in the worst possible way, and I started slipping into panic attack territory again.  So I used my emotional “tools” and shook it off and decided to make this post about gratitude.

I am grateful for my husband and kids.  They are everything to me.

I am grateful my family is safe and healthy and able to self quarantine.

I am grateful I can work from home and fulfill my lifelong fantasy of having my dog at work.  Speaking of Jake, he’s hilarious.  He defies the You can’t teach an old dog (he’s 9) new tricks every day.  The two of us get up at dawn while Gary sleeps in.  Around 8:00 in the morning, he starts nudging me.

“What is it, Jake?  Are you ready to be Jake Slick, paralegal?”

As soon as I say it, he runs to the stairs to head to Julie’s bedroom a/k/a my new office.  He waits for me and Gary said he hears us while sleeping - the sound of Jake’s paws on the hallway floor and me giggling and whispering “Are you ready to work today, Jake?”

Jake stays with me all day, stretched out on Julie’s bed, snoring.  He only gets up for lunch, which brings me to my next item of gratitude.

I have a husband who is an unbelievable chef.  I’ve eaten in 5 star restaurants all over the planet...I’ve eaten in Tuscany for God’s sake, and Gary can compete with all of them although Tuscany...

Anyway, I’ve been getting some 5 star meals during quarantine, including surprise lunches garnished with fresh herbs.

Jake is so down with this new routine.

So what I’m saying is, I know I’m blessed and maybe I used to take everything for granted.

Not anymore.

https://www.nytimes.com/series/people-died-coronavirus-obituaries