A long strange trip...and its only beginning? (Pandemic...Part 1?)

Note....This is posted here...because it's long...and probably not very interesting to those of us who have lived it this spring...but this is a good place for me to collect my thinking and have it "saved"...If you are really interested in what I've been up to it is a (long) version of a Christmas letter :)

Even though I have been officially a special education teacher for (gulp) over 20 years, I am a history teacher at heart.  I grew up listening to and reading memoirs and stories. "On to Oregon", and the Little House Series were two of my favorites...Both are stories of journeys and both have enough basis in truth that I've visited some of the locations mentioned in them.  They also are recognized as full-on memoirs--how the author remembers events isn't necessarily what really happened ("And all the Sager Children lived happily ever after....") This spring has been the opposite of a physical journey--we have actually stayed much closer to home than ever before--no trips to the mountains, no wanders through Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby...no dreamed of Girls' trip to Vegas....but it has, nonetheless, been a journey!  This history teacher is going to take a few minutes and collect my thoughts, in true memoir form (because that is what all good history is....it is our reflection of what is happening as much as it is a collection of facts....)  I'm sure there are some facts that I get wrong here..but this is a memoir...not necessarily an exact reporting of the facts.

 As some of you know, this has been a usual year at the high school I work at.  And as you know, usual for us means, well, unusual.  This fall we welcomed a new principal, with some nervousness, as there always is.  I have to say she deserves a medal for all the crazy (which I won't even try to list here...).  A short summary is that we had a building evacuation for a pulled fire alarm, for an overwhelming smell (causing dizziness and lightheadedness), possible bedbugs, fights over free t-shirts, and well..ok, all of that is pretty usual for a big high school, but, golly...  By March we were looking forward to Spring Break and all the fun things that come after--Prom, Graduation, Spring...

Spring Break was scheduled to begin at the end of the day on Friday, March 13 (how appropriate, right?)  On Thursday, March 12, there were rumors all day that school would be canceled for a deep clean on Friday.  None of us really believed it, and there wasn't an announcement.  But, following "maybe we'll have a snow day" protocol, I scooped up "everything" I would need to make plans for after break and to grade/do over break.

That evening was parent-teacher conferences for The Boy--we marched him from teacher to teacher and made appointments to make up all his missing work from snowboarding trips.  Here, too, rumors about what will happen next were rampant, but all tongue in cheek...like, "sure...they'll cancel school for this...eye roll"

To my great surprise, later that evening school was canceled...still we thought it was just for deep cleaning...eye roll, we'll be back after spring break... I texted with my office mate, we both decided there wasn't any reason to go in since we had scooped up stuff before we left...and "hey, we'll be back in a few days anyway"...The Boy and IM left for a snowboarding competition early, I decided to go to the grocery store, Petsmart, get gas...run all the errands, so I'd be home when The Girl got home from college to start her Spring Break. When they got to the competition site they found out that the competition was canceled, but, since they had paid for ski lift tickets, decided that they would just plan to ski/board the next day anyway.  They did school and work assignments (the van has a cell booster...might have better internet than home...) and went to bed.  The Girl arrived at the Suburban Ranch, we had junk food for dinner....all was cool.  When The Boy and IM woke up...all the ski resorts in the state had been shut down and there were lots of shutdowns... of everything.  So they came home. We spent the weekend watching Suite Life on Deck and eating some of the huge amounts of food I had stocked up on in preparation for Spring Break (and, honestly, "just in case").  Since The Boy, The Girl, and I were all off I had toyed with the idea of driving to see my parents, but with everything closing (and we hadn't asked/told them) decided that wasn't a good idea.  The Girl and I inventoried the pantry, refrigerator, and freezers and created a comprehensive list of all the food we had stored...and there was a lot.

IM, as an attorney, has been considered an essential employee during this whole time.  So on that Monday, he went to work.  The rest of us did some school work and read emails.  At some point that day it was announced that my school and The Boy's school would take the second week of spring break and more info would come later.

As the week went on and more things closed, more announcements were made..including The Girl's university moving to remote learning for the rest of the year.  She was given a four-hour time slot to come remove her belongings from the dorm if she wanted to.  Luckily, she had planned ahead, knowing there were only a few weeks left anyway, and had brought home a lot of things.  One of her best friends also needed to move out, since her family has moved out of state.  We debated renting a truck, but decided not to.  The Girl's friend had reserved a storage locker in the university town--I figured "how much stuff can be in two dorm rooms?" (cue hysterical laughter...some of you reading may remember that my parents once called IM and I to come help move my brother out of his dorm room because they had filled their car and a trailer and had things left...)

As we prepared to go move the girls...it started to sleet.  I was glad I didn't rent a truck...driving a truck in the sleet...eek.  We packed snacks, grabbed every empty box in our house and a roll of trash bags...and hit the road.  The day reminded me a lot of a couple moves I was a part of as a kid...including one where an electric skillet cord ended up in the bathtub and I moved some of my things across town in a little red wagon (I was a teenager).  There may or may not be a trash bag of coffee mugs stashed in a storage locker in a little college town... On the plus side, since The Girl's friend had to fly out, we collected a lot of yummy snacks and a giant package of toilet paper--whoo! Four runs to the storage locker later (a process that involved loading The Girl's stuff into the car, driving it to the locker, unloading, picking up the friend's stuff, unloading it, reloading The Girl's stuff...repeat....) It was a long day, but we got it done! There were no restaurants or gas stations really open at this point...so I was super thankful that I had filled the car up earlier!

Sometime during that crazy day, I got a phone call from my dentist asking if I could come in right then to replace my temporary crown with a permanent one...as they were mandated to close starting the following Monday...as I was in another town, I had to beg...and was able to get one of the last appointments before dentists were closed (for weeks!)

My first e-learning lesson for my Elements of Economics class was way too complicated.  I beefed up my Google Classroom and invited all my students. I had been relying on Schoology and a Google Calendar while we were "live", but Google Classroom seemed a little more streamlined, especially since many of my students use it for their Elements of Math and Elements of English classes.  The first lesson had four parts--it was too many pieces. Our school and district rallied and got the technology, in the form of all the Chromebooks from buildings, into the hands of students.  I figured out how to make my lessons more streamlined and we were off.  Some days I heard from lots of students via Google Voice, Google Text, email, and Google Classroom discussions/messages and some days I didn't hear from anyone.

We've had a couple opportunities to go into school to pick up things--one I didn't go, but told my coordinator to collect the flat of ramen noodles from under my desk (I keep them for students) and to lock up the IEP's I had on my desk; the other time I masked up and headed in, filled two bags with misc. things I needed or might need, waved to the one co-worker I saw...and came home!

The Boy did not love remote learning--it took him a while to get in the swing of things.  The Girl was a great motivator--she had a schedule for herself and put him on it. We spent our days fighting over the internet--thankfully, I had changed our cell phone plan to allow unlimited use of our phones as hot spots (so The Boy would have access while traveling for snowboarding).

We've all kind of become college students--we joke about "day jammies" and "night jammies" (although as it has become warmer, we all do tend to get dressed in "real" shorts and t-shirts instead of leggings and sweatpants).  We sleep in (unless one of us has an early call or class meeting) and stay up late, watching "Suite Life on Deck", "Good Luck, Charlie", lots of movies (old and new). I never felt like we went out to eat (or ordered much) before this--but I think we went weeks with only our own cooking.  The Boy and I worked on pizza recipes, we cleaned out the freezer (almost) and became super creative with recipes!  It is 11:30 in the morning and The Boy isn't up yet...but he will probably be up until 9 or 10, unlike during the school year when he is sent to bed by 8...(and in his defense, yesterday was his last official day of school...so sleeping all day might be ok..)  We have dug out all the old board games--Labryinth is a favorite, we can even get IM to play.  The World Case Scenario Game runs a close 2nd. There have been a few games of Clue and Life...but no one over the age of 16 wants to play Monopoly...

Spending so much time in front of technology has the disadvantage of making my neck hurt. I also went from 10000+ steps a day to struggling to get 6000....sometimes my steps are from pacing around the couch (5 loops=100 steps) and the backyard.  I was able to successfully transition some of my tutoring students to remote learning as well, so I spend way too much time in front of a screen.  I've learned to do first grade and eighth-grade math via Zoom--and created a mystery for the first-grader--"I win every time at math bingo!  Ms. Sarah, you aren't very good at math bingo!" The positive of that is that social media started to go back to its roots...at least my feeds. Instead of watching people argue (there was plenty of that, but I muted/blocked/ignored it) I reconnected (or connected better) with people from high school, college, "the early Denver years", and camp.  I created a remote learning group where people from all stages of my life could share ideas for how to navigate this new system. Zoom is a lifesaver--not only for tutoring (I didn't use it for school, we used Microsoft Teams) but for virtual campfires ("If we weren't Tecumseh Counselors, something else we'd rather be...If we weren't Tecumseh Counselors...Remote Learning Teachers we would be--upload! download! Where's that file?!", Trivia Nights ("From Noblesville, Indiana!", and virtual happy hours with pledge sisters and our honorary pledge sisters.  The Boy likes to pick the background--there are fun Star Wars and Agents of Shield ones available....We've toured the Winchester Mystery House, the San Diego Zoo, and successfully navigated Harry Potter escape rooms created by little libraries in other states.  I taught my mom to use Facebook Video Calls and got to do a mother's day video call with my parents and brother's family.  We attended a virtual birthday party for another nephew's 7th birthday. I had some fun games of Zingo with my nephews and at one point enjoyed a run through the house as my youngest nephew ran (with the phone) from his parents. I've also (almost) accumulated 40 hours of professional development through the NextGen Personal Finance Organization--not only for my economics class but also how to use online platforms and tricks and "secrets".

The other thing I might not have done is I ordered parts for our (really old) Wii online and fixed it--The Boy and I have become pros at Wii bowling. Ok, not pros, but we are better. We have two devices, neither was working, but with a new DVD drive installed ("yay, me!") we were back in business. It required a special screwdriver and a lot of patience...

Church has been online as well--most Sunday mornings I attend my parents' small church and my own church while working on a puzzle in the bonus room and the rest of the family sleeps. We've done, um, 5? maybe 6 puzzles since this all began--all of them pulled out of a cabinet where I stuffed them years ago "just in case we had a blizzard and wanted to do a puzzle".  Vacation Bible School is going to be online this year, so I've been to those meetings, too.

Some history teacher observations/journaling:
There really was difficulty getting toilet paper, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, meat, and at points milk and eggs.  We didn't worry about tp since I scored a giant package from the college girls, or Clorox Wipes (since I can still mix up a batch of daycare quality bleach water--thanks Bethel Childcare for embedding that in my brain 20+ years ago).  I did find toilet paper and hand sanitizer in the store a couple weeks ago but have yet to find Clorox Wipes.  Milk and eggs also seem to be available now, but the first couple weeks were weird (right before Easter).  We've had milk delivered for years, and usually don't order the extras. My milk bill for March ended up being about 5x more than usual because I ordered not only milk for us, but eggs, sausage, dip, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, and milk for a friend with littles who couldn't get out.  We also found a local-ish vegetable delivery company that lets us pick the foods we want each week and ordered lots of food from Amazon and AmazonWholeFoods (who I wasn't thrilled with the quality of the fresh veggies, so..). One of my tutoring students' families sells eggs, so I got to see them all through the window when I drove out to their house to get eggs. We ordered pet supplies through Chewy and Amazon...in fact, between March 12 and Mother's Day (May 10) I only had 4 "real" grocery trips...I ordered groceries from "Clicklist" (order online and go pick up) twice (4/7 and 4/25) and went into the store twice (3/13, and 5/9)--and I haven't been to Dollar Tree since...umm?  No clue...a very long time...I have learned to make masks and that when my sewing machine doesn't work it may be how the top is threaded rather than how the bobbin is (even if it is the bobbin stitching that is messed up).

Ok, this was much longer than expected...I don't know if anyone is still reading :)  Businesses are now starting to re-open but there are still lots of rumors about what school will be like for all of us in the fall. It looks like summer travel will be severely restricted...so stay tuned...maybe I will re-start my Suburban Ranch "adventures" blog to chronicle our "close to home" adventures! I hope that if you are reading you are safe and healthy...wash your hands!