ENJOYING THE SCENERY VICARIOUSLY

In the midst of fourteen-hour work days and long working weekends, I have discovered something terrible about my schedule: Now that my classroom is at home, I cannot escape it.  I cannot say, "Oh, I will leave that data spreadsheet for tomorrow during my prep period" because first of all, the data notebook is here at my house waiting for me 24/7, and second, prep periods no longer exist.  There is no set curriculum anymore because materials are at school, and we are back to recreating lessons from memory or, in many cases, from scratch.

I keep my remote teaching schedule taped to the window frame above my school-issued laptop so I can periodically look at it and say, "Oh, crap. I have to stop fielding commentary from my C block class because I was supposed to be in D block eight minutes ago."  I have the state power standards for which I am professionally responsible also taped to the window frame, and I spend my entire day (and often into the wee hours of the morning) jumping from my school laptop to my desktop because the school laptop is not connected to my printer since, of course, I must document everything I do remotely by creating a paper trail, which is coldly ironic in this day and age of "paperless" school.

Mostly, though, I am having trouble with lunch.  Yes, that's right: LUNCH.

For the first time in over two decades, my working lunch isn't a mere twenty-two minutes (minus the hall duty and passing time, so more like seventeen minutes); my working lunch if actually a scheduled forty minutes.  It's amazing.  So, once a week I have been trying to take an errand lunch: I run one or two errands and then I go for a quick drive around town with the windows open, regardless of the weather or the temperature.

One day I went to the liquor store and the grocery store to pick up a small amount of items and still made it back with fifteen minutes to spare before my afternoon webinar started.  Another day I went to the post office to mail a package of homemade masks, and then I went exploring a nearby pond for about ten minutes. Sometimes I go for a walk and occasionally skip eating for the benefit of some fresh air.  I mean, I can actually eat at my desk now because no one in my home classroom is allergic to peanut butter.  It's pretty amazing.

If we are Facebook or Instagram pals, you may see posts chronicling my lunchtime excursions.  I try to incorporate water into my theme drives, too, because I am already missing kayaking and walking on the beach, even though those activities wouldn't have started in earnest just yet.  I feel like a caged animal, unable to fully enjoy my surroundings when I'm inside nor when I'm in the semi-outdoors.  It's "semi" because the government is telling us where we can and cannot go (even though we all own the public open spaces).

So, my friends, if you suddenly see posts about being outside, you will know that yes, I am working on my mental health; yes, I probably had something important that needed to be done -- like a sangria run -- and just took the scenic way.  But most of all, you will know that I am playing just a wee bit of hooky from school because I now have an extra eighteen minutes to my lunch, which is really like getting two entire lunch periods for the price of one..

Fear not; I'll make up any of the "running late" minutes that I may miss.  After all, school is in session  each weekday for five hours and I work double that daily, including weekends.    Just watch out for me in case I come home sopping wet one day: It means I cannot take this anymore, and I threw myself into the pond.  That won't happen, though, with the state police throwing us all out of the pond parking lot. So, for now, just vicariously enjoy the scenery, as do I.

ODE TO COVID-19

Covid 19 breeds such fear:
Don't breathe on me; Don't come near!
Stay inside! Don't go out!
It's your fault (Millenials shout)!

Listen kids, and listen well:
You and your fear can go to HELL.
Here are things that we've lived through
With far more significance than little old you --

Missile Crisis, Vietnam,
Watergate, and on and on,
Woodstock, meltdowns, Commie fear,
Kent State, drugs, and terrorists here.

Insane shit that we've been through,
You think we fear the Covid flu?
The difference between us is a snap:
You fear the flu; we don't give one crap.

WILSON CRASHES MY CYBER MEETINGS

I am not a fan of the movie Castaway.

However, there is a certain sanity to the volleyball named Wilson.  The main character talks to Wilson, and even loses his mind when Wilson floats away during the escape from the island.  Being in voluntary quarantine pretty much by myself, I totally get it now.  I finally understand the significance of Wilson and the importance of having a minor character, perhaps even a foil, readily at hand.

Initially, though, this may not be the case.  When I am first relegated to real life shelter-in-place, I enjoy it.  I don't mind the lack of human contact and even manage to do some organizing around this still semi-organized house.

Then comes the first cyber meeting with live cameras.

After moving myself around the house, I understand that the best Zoom-worthy place in my house is the living room downstairs, but the best work space for me is in my den/office/sewing room.  It isn't until the first camera-live work meeting that I notice the dress form in the sewing area is clearly visible.  I don't have any place to move her, and I am seriously tired of migrating around my home just for a decent camera angle.  I mean, Mr. DeMille certainly isn't looking for me, so camera-ready basically means no pajamas visible on screen.

I decide the best thing to do is to clothe my dress form.  I have a tunic nearby (hanging on a closet door knob).  It works perfectly, except now she looks a bit like the JJill Headless Horseman.  No problem.  I have a beach hat that will match her tunic just fine.  Before I know it, I have a lovely model standing in my cyber landscape when I turn on the computer camera.  And, before long, I start chatting with her (okay, AT her).

Hmmm.  She is my ... WILSON.  Dear lord, I have become a castaway.  It's just me and Wilson, hanging out, sewing, Zooming, and generally enjoying our voluntary quarantine.  So far Wilson is a fabulous minor character.  She hasn't become a foil yet -- she is still quite respectful during my meetings, she patiently listens to my complaints and my jokes, and she doesn't ever change the television channel.

Honestly, though. if Wilson leaves me (floats away, blows away, falls apart, or worse), I might just pull a Castaway and come apart at the seams.  Get it?  Sewing?  Seams?

Whatever.  I don't need outside validation for another few weeks (or months) -- Wilson thought it was funny.  That's all that matters for now.

THE LEGEND OF BAD NANA'S HEADBANDS

My poor sewing machine has been largely ignored over the past decade.  Oh, sure, I take it out occasionally to pretend-quilt (throw together squares without much concern to angles and beauty, sew everything together, then tie it all off with tons of surgical knots), and sometimes I will sew a straight seam or two.  But I really gave it a workout last week trimming down some old curtains to use in my kitchen (in a place where I moved five months ago ... don't judge me).  So, I have been feeling rather crafty lately.

This is what urged me to try making headbands with buttons for mask-wearing essential employees (to spare their ears from elastic) and to sew masks for general use (pretty much epic failure on the masks).  The first headband was a semi-success (meaning I can't really sew worth a hill of beans), so I ordered a bunch of headbands (thanks to the smart recommendation of my sister) and a bunch of buttons because, despite the family button box full of leftover and errant buttons, not too many actually matched.

My daughter had to be my guinea pig and constant model during this initial headband phase:  "Come here.  Try this on.  How does this fit?  Are these buttons in the right place?  Let me measure your head.  Do you need a different width?  What about colors?  Here, try it this way.  Is this better?  Worse?  Do you want to slap me right now...????"

The end result yields thirty-three button-sided headbands for mask-wearers.  I have become intimately familiar with the button foot attachment to my old machine, an attachment that I used maybe three times about twenty years ago (or more).  The good news is that I only snapped two out of sixty-eight buttons into pieces when I wasn't in control of the machine and the needle smashed the buttons to oblivion (but the needle did NOT break .... SCORE!).  Headbands = Done, and done reasonably well, so well that I even name my endeavor:  Bad Nana's Headbands

Now, to master the fine art of mask-making.  Yes, I have watched countless tutorials.  Yes, I have tried four prototypes, the last of which was largely successful.  Either way, my sewing machine will probably either love me or hate me by the end of this.  Poor baby.  Maybe all it really wanted was to be left alone, but, like The Little Engine that Could, or, even better, like Mike Mulligan's steam shovel Mary Anne, this old machine has truly come to my rescue and outdone itself.

WEBINARS, OH, WEBINARS

Webinars, oh, webinars - How fickle you may be!
If I turn on video, my messy house you'll see,
You will see me yawning when I'm in your company
Because these endless webinars will be the death of me.

Everyone complaining that their kids are home from school.
Now it's not so funny when at first they thought it cool,
But now a lot of parents find their kids their homes do rule.
(Welcome to the life of teachers, innocent old fool!)

So now I'm stuck in webinars as this has all unfurled.
(Oh, dear God, I know now why I left the corporate world!)
In these endless cyber-meets my thoughts are blurred and swirled;
I must make sure the mic is off when expletives are hurled.

Now that I've gone incognito, life again is grand!
I can sew, or bake, or pee while in this cyber land.
I post a comment or go live when given the command
To make it seem these webinars are things I understand.

Meanwhile, I participate and I do not begrudge
Presenters who know more than I. (Who am I to judge?)
But if I start to snore you might just send a text to nudge,
And I will trade you with a piece of webinar-made fudge.

THE WANDERING LAPTOP

Work has been relegated to home.  For many people, this would be an easy transition.  However, I am a teacher, and right now the federal and state governments have our hands tied in student equity laws.  Meanwhile, I am attempting to find a comfortable place to set up my quasi office/classroom.

Folks -- It's just not working.

First I set up on the kitchen table, an excellent work space with about as much room as my school desk.  I can spread out all over the place, but that is part of the problem.  First of all, I am, indeed, spreading out all over the kitchen: table, counter, breakfast nook, stools, chairs...  Secondly, I can hear my next door neighbor, which means that she can hear me, so my early morning video calls and texts and general ranting must be bothersome.  Lastly, I am IN the kitchen, too close to food and beverage that is preventing me from fitting into my work pants (yes, I try on a pair this morning and it isn't pretty).

So, I set up in my expansive hallway under the staircase and landing, kind of like Harry Potter but with more space and ambiance.  This is great, but I am still too close to the kitchen and the food.

Third stop on my office adventure is my actual office/sewing room/den, a large room that has a 270 degree view and four large windows.  I set up on my real desk, which is next to my home computer set up.  This is great except that when I am working, I am distracted by my home computer, and when I am writing or playing on my home computer, I am distracted by my work computer.  They are exactly three feet apart, and I bet if I try hard enough, I could reach between them and type on both at once.  I worry again about my neighbor because my personal office is directly above her apartment.

Downstairs I go again, taking my work office into the living room, a dangerous move because the furniture is very, very comfortable.  I find quickly that I must sit on a folding chair in order to be productive.  This lasts about a week before I get bored trying to relax in my living room after hours.  The work computer is right there, and it is soooooo easy to do work instead of sit still.

Back to the hallway I go, a different location closer to living room and not to the kitchen.  I sit and try to work, but the front door distracts me.  I am also directly under the doorbell - a dangerous move for someone as jumpy as am I.  Suddenly, my neighbor turns on her television set, and I realize that the hallway is not going to work at all.  If I can hear her, then she can hear me.

Okay, so the living room is the farthest away from bothering neighbors on either side, below, above, all around the mulberry bush.  But I really, really don't have enough work surface without cluttering the living room and turning it into another den.

The den.  Damnit.  Back we go to the den.  Okay, so it's not too bad.  I can look out the window into my landlord's office building, and I can see some of the shops uptown as I work at the desk.  There's a futon, a daybed, my sewing stuff, a dress form I can talk to if I get lonely, and a television in case I decide to watch old B-horror movies on the Comet channel (because daytime TV totally sucks and there's nothing ... NOTHING ... else on that is worth watching).  I have a comfy chair and all of my office supplies are up here; I have enough pens, pencils, and lined paper to open my own school right here.

Of course, the den is a total mess.  There are boxes from the move that still have not been unpacked, and the daybed, in full view of the computer cameras, is loaded with piles of sorted paperwork and photos and picture frames.  This means that every time I have to video conference, all people can see is that I am an abysmal housekeeper.  So, maybe I should go back to ...

Damn you, school laptop.  It's like you're taunting me.  Believe me, I don't want you here any more than you want to be here, you wandering nomad of nuisancery (yes, I just made up that word).  Well, at least I am farther from the kitchen, so perhaps my pants will be the biggest winner in this battle.

POSTING RECIPES: WHY I WILL BE DEAD FOR BREAD

Okay, people out there in COVID-19 Land, you need to STOP right now.  Stop it, stop, stop it!  You need to stop posting recipes on social media.

I'm serious.  That Buffalo chicken pull-apart bread recipe that somebody posted?  I hate you right now.  Seriously.  I risked my life for that recipe.  I ended up finding some of the ingredients and maybe I will be able to Mickey Mouse the rest of it.

The pizza dough was the problem.

That's right.  Pizza dough.  The store didn't have any dough, so I went for canned pizza dough.  Nothing.  So I looked for yeast.  No yeast.  Apparently everyone in the world bought up all the yeast when they also bought up all the flour.

I circled that damn store four times, risking my health and my sanity, because someone posted that damn recipe.  And ... I am pleased to report ... that I did, indeed, finally find a package of Italian pizza dough in the refrigerator section on my third pass through.

But then, oh, and here's where I really damn you, I began thinking about the refrigerator chocolate chip cookie dough.  You know, the kind you can break squares off and bake a few at a time.  Yes, I was trying to leave the store, trying to get to the check-out, and I had to turn around.  My fourth pass by the dairy section wasn't even for dairy, damnit; it was for cookie dough!

All because YOU posted the Buffalo chicken pull-apart bread recipe.

Stop it, people.  Stop posting mouth-watering recipes with things I do not have in my house that will force me to convince myself that I must venture out into COVID-19 Land or die never having tasted the succulent masterpiece you've posted on social media.

I can see the grave marker now:  DEAD FOR BREAD.  Truth.