So I’m finishing up my 3rd… no 2nd week of working from home. It would have been 3 but I had some presentations to do during that first week. Our Governor has recently extended the ‘Stay at Home” order until May and so, therefore, has my employer.
The wife is pissed and/or sad depending on the time of day because she “wasn’t built to be an online eLearning teacher.” She truly misses her classroom, colleagues, and students. All of which brought her such joy each and every day.
My oldest alternates between being pissed and depressed because her senior season of lacrosse is basically in the crapper… as is her senior prom and probably a graduation ceremony. There are a lot of other ancillary things being missed and that just compounds her anger.
My youngest is a social beast and she was none to pleased when her parents locked her down for two-weeks after she returned from the Gulf coast of Florida where she had vacationed with another family during Spring Break. She has not displayed any symptoms. And before you get all preachy, it wasn’t your decision and the Gulf coast had a tenth of the population that the eastern shore had on its beaches which were plastered all over the news and internet. Keep your self-righteous indignation to yourself cuz’ I’ll vote your ass off the island in a heartbeat. And for the record, the oldest is still pissed because we wouldn’t let her go on spring break because she was headed to Ft. Lauderdale with another family.
With their social schedules seriously curtailed, we’ve managed to have a couple game and movie nights… we even sat together and watched the ‘concert’ that aired on Sunday night. During the day, we retreat to our respective areas of the house to either do our jobs or complete assigned school work.
As for me, I’ve got more of a C’est la Vie approach to this. I already had the ability to work from home and did so on many occasions. The only true difference, aside from the family being present instead of in school, is that since we are all together I’d rather be doing something in the yard or fixing something around the house. Every day feels like a Saturday because I see the wife every time I head to the kitchen for coffee, I feel like we should be discussing what we are planning on doing this weekend.
The wife and I were chillin’ outside in the backyard last night and it was nearly silent.
Like, eerily, freakishly silent.
There were no planes on takeoff or approach to the airport. Every once in a while you’d hear a plane miles up flying over head to points east or west. There were no cars on the main thoroughfares or side streets. There were no firetruck, ambulance, or police sirens wailing in the distance or hauling ass up a nearby street. Depending on the time, I heard the intermittent sounds of kids playing, an occasional pet barking, neighbors on cellphones either on calls or FaceTime. Once all of that ended and people retreated for the night there was….. nothing.