Tuesday - 25th

Well that was some night! I feel like I have just crossed the Atlantic on an overnight flight. (Not more than an hour's sleep. At best.) Or maybe like I was the old grandma standing in line for a coveted grocery item in post-war Poland, because the parents were working and no one else could take the time to wait many hours for, say, lemons. Or, in the alternative, like the kid who doesn't understand technology and needs to lean heavily on someone who does.

Or all those things.

It has to do with groceries. I'd gotten good, needed supplies before Ed and I went into isolation nearly four weeks ago. But we need to supplement them. I hadn't gotten enough. And of course, fresh stuff wont stay fresh for months. So I learned how to place orders for delivery from my grocery store. And it worked. At first.

Then the delivery schedule got full. A workaround was needed! On order days, I would stay up til an ungodly hour. Things opened up then. You still weren't going to get everything. They may run out of milk or flour. But you'd get most of what you needed. A few days later.

Last night, I stayed up until midnight and then clicked to view the newly opened slots.

There were no newly opened slots. Okay, maybe I should stay up one more hour.

Nothing.

Time to switch grocery stores.

No deliveries anywhere. Curbside pick up? Nothing. Everything booked solid, in some cases for weeks in advance. Oh, wait, by 4 in the morning, a pick-up spot opens up at a store a half hour from here. On Easter Sunday. At 7 in the morning. For seniors only. I'll take it!

But in the end (by maybe 6 in the morning), it's Ed who saves the day by figuring out how to work within this erratic system of hit or miss openings for pick up or delivery. His strategy may not work for us beyond this week, but at least for now, we are scheduled to replenish some missing items and, too, ones for the young family, because I'm the Polish old person who stands in line for the "lemons," then washes the groceries, because frankly, I have more time than people who are trying to do work and keep kids happy all at the same time (that impossible task).

By 6:30, I finally give in to sleep. For a little while. Today is the day I spend the morning with the kids at their house.

After animal care, of course.






And breakfast. (I indulge us in a little snip of daffodils from farmette gardens.)






Fortified with strong coffee, I drive over to the young family's home,

Kid play!

(In short sleeves, for the first time in 2020!)






(Well, she soon opts for a hoodie. Gaga, why is it called a sweatshirt?)






(Building a Castle for Delightful Children, a Water Park and a Very Long Train. You can guess who was in charge of which structure.)






It's a fiendishly warm day today. I mean, 72F (22C). For us, that's June weather. Oh, in two days we're getting frosty nights and chilly days again, but today feels unreal.

So Ed and I drive out to the Ice Age Trail for a walk. Normally we stick to the county park down the road, but we feel that on a day like this a county park is likely to be crowded and people still have very different ideas about social distancing, mine erring on the rather strict side. So we choose the quieter forested path crisscrossing the Brooklyn Wildlife Area and we meet no one at all.











(Yes, it felt that warm!)






(those "spacious skies...")






And after? Well, I am so sleep deprived that I am somewhat in a zombie state! But a good zombie state. I cook up a fish and cauliflower for supper and I think about all those who are so stressed right now that it hurts to even imagine their struggles.

For us, there will be food, and, importantly, the family is fine. There is nothing in the world better than that.

With love.