I'm the most conservative member in my house (relating to ice cream.

I'm the most conservative member in my house (relating to ice cream.
I told my 14yo to act like we are in rationing conditions (because we are).
I showed him how I just use little glass cups for ice cream.
About a scoop and a half is plenty.
Then I see him the next day walking by with a cereal bowl filled high. It looked like a model of The Matterhorn sticking out of that bowl.
I thought " This dude can be trusted with ice cream about as much as you can trust a 6 year old with a tambourine in a family band.
We want him to take a "hunter gatherer" shift.
He still hasn't left our house and doesn't want to go outside. I think his vast experience playing Fallout and other games give him a clear and colorful perspective of plague. zombies, angry villagers etc. He doesn't even want to go out in the yard.

I'm a curious citizen reporter.

I wanted to write a piece about the state of relationships during virus-times. How is dating 6ft apart. (answer:romantic as all get out) I had my hunches but I wanted to look farther into it.
So of course I went to an old source for big laughs The Craigslist personal ads. WOOOO! But then {gut check} I found it doesn't exist anymore. Aw Sprinkles! I took too long to visit that well and it dried up.
Then my eye drifted to the "musical instrument for sale pile" A huge bolt of guilt shot up my spine.
Right now the Craigslist music page must be full of people forced to sell their gear.
Hard times make that flying V lose it's luster in front of the family. The last thing I want to do is buy a beloved ax for a song from a grieving person. But then again.
Buying their stuff is actually helping them so there is that. My moral dilemma was solved for me. I lost my income too Yo HAHAHAHA! I couldn't afford to buy a dinner bell.
I'm just living on enchilada sauce, Flintstones chewables, canned pie-filling and hamster ear medication.
I'm in no place for carpetbagging.
Take that Fate! haha!

Charley the dog.

People have been dropping by our place picking up masks. This dog's human ordered a mask from Olive and picked it up with his dog buddy. People's stories for wanting masks are their own chapter. I couple of small biz bosses have paid to have us tailor masks for everyone on their team but the big corporations are leaving it up to employees and friends to secure masks.
Some people come to us because they have elderly relatives that they are worried about. People who work in places that don't take the virus seriously.
Places where management and customers break the 6ft' rule to talk right up in their faces.
Apparently folks are behaving quite badly in the burbs and sticks.
Lots of our masks are on people who work in nursing homes or grocery stores. It's an honor for those humble heroes to be rocking masks made from the same cloth our dolls and clothes are made of. Profound honor.
Also an honor that all the nurses we offered masks to for free, paid us anyway.
Paul Kemp left us a spectacular tip when he got his masks. We were delighted to find he left artwork, succulent plants, cash, candy, weed, fabric and elastic.
We wuz blown away. I'm gonna enjoy that stuff next year when I'm brave enough to touch it.

:) We are grateful to lots of our essential workers. Folks like Charley's person, a hospital employee. I
n this case he gets PPE at work but not on the bus commute to and back.
Great to see everyone.

two concepts I never wouldda thunk went with quarantine

Two concepts I never thought would go with the concept of quarantine: "Days off" yesterday we took a day off even though I haven't left my house in weeks. We never stopped working and needed a break. We still delivered some masks to people but other than that it was all about RnR. Olive deserved a break after all that sewing and teachering. My son showed me his video game. Sounded religious so I wasn't into it (Halo) but I soon learned the controls. He asked if I like the game. I said "I would prefer a game where I wasn't shooting a gun at my son. He fixed that problem. "Lets play this game where we are shooting aliens on a distant planet!" Me: "Ethnic cleansing?! Eeff Off this game isn't for me Yo."

And the other odd concept I never wouldda thunk is "Homework" My son actually gets homework...to do in his room. His last assignment was memorize a monologue from the Book of Mormon musical. He gets to perform it for us today. I was so frikkin proud to hear him practice. He is better at crunching scripts than I am. Olive is a very strict drama teacher. Memorizing is just the beginning. She wants him to sound like the character, be the character, speak in patterns that don't sound like recitation. My boy's principal stopped by, dropped off his real world school work but we left it on the porch for a while to debug.

Quarantine. It's not all bad news.

 4 weeks on house arrest. Feeling fortunate.

 I'm spending more time with my son than I ever did, and about as much time with my Love as I always did. 
We were already socially distant to the rest of the world. 
Together we have lots of work to do cleaning, teaching d.i.y. 8th grade, creating shows and making masks. 
We go to bed tired every night so that's good. 
Too busy to be bored. We were only grumpy with each other once in all that time... it was funny. 
Three grumpy people storming around. 
We got over it. 
Olive makes us do lots of Yoga and PE to keep our spirits and health up. 
I been teaching my son the art of egg making. 
Every day he makes me one sunny side up, one over easy and occasionally an omelette.
I was grading him on them but now he is plenty dialed in. Olive got us some little whole chickens. 
My boy's next culinary lesson will be about how to part out a chicken in 8 surgical strike knife cuts. 
I'm beyond delighted that he is growing a passion for cooking. He had an epiphany since experiencing the joy of watching someone else enjoy food he prepared. 
Olive and I are still super passionate as always. We mute it a bit in front of the quaran-teenager. 
Glad he gets to see a loving relationship modeled though. He has only been outside once or twice. 
I'm hoping he doesn't carry the anxiety after the plague blows over.

Thank you Tamale Lady.

I'm not hip to plastic. Not a fan. Don't like how ubiquitous it is in groceries and I don't want anything I put out to made of it. So while pondering how to ride around giving out masks I started thinking around how to deliver them in some kind of container that isn't a single use plastic product like a sandwich bag. 

When life gives conundrums I always think to one of my favorite Oracles. W.W.t.T.L.D. What would the tamale lady do? I have seen her in a hail storm, tromping down the street dragging the ice chest and hollering "Tamales!" And people (me included) run out there and buy them from her. She knows what to do. The masks fit in corn husks. Thank you Tamale Lady. Mrs. Lady never gets enough credit in the community. 

listening to the cop radio.

listening to the cop radio. Some teens just flipped their car, Tboned a BMW and bailed. That's SE PDX near Lucky Devil. I been listening to them chase the kids all around the overpasses and into the neighborhood.
It was very entertaining and interesting to hear an angsty mischief chase from the cops point of view. It didn't remind me of my own hi-jinx (I never got caught)
They even had the helicopter searching for theze desperadoes in backyards with the Fleer.
After a long time they were quickly not finding the kids when all of a sudden a cop came on "Oh here they are , Put your hands up."
Now it all about cleaning up the car parts. If you live by the pAZ collective then that is what all that was about.
I guess it's harder to hide when there is nobody on the street to blend in with. :)
Now the cops rushed off to Hawthorne. 9 people fighting in the street and throwing a bottle.
Brawl at the Gold Dust. waaaap waaaaa.
A guy walking two dogs threw a bottle at some homeless folks and that kicked off an unpleasantness.