Little changes

Before we begin, a few spectacular photos from our travel during the last couple of weeks.

Camellias from the garden outside our building.

Fog in the park outside our back gate.

I would have been in Sydney this past week at a conference, had the year been normal. Instead, all my travel photos are taken within a ten minute walk of home.

The state of Victoria has had a spike in covid-19 cases. We shut down again three weeks ago, but the numbers of positive tests keep going up and up and up, reaching record highs every few days. This is most concerning to me because Jonathan is back in school. Only the students in years 11 and 12 are in school in the state, all the others are online. But because there are exams at the end of high school, and the state doesn't want to figure out how to run different exams for different students under different levels of quarantine, they sent the oldest students back.

I am worried. High school is a place to spread viruses -- we all came down with a bad cold in February that had been spreading around Jonathan's high school. If they keep sending the teenagers back, it seems inevitable that we will all get covid. Maybe we will be lucky and not hit hard. But the disease seems so random we cannot know.

The decision is out of my hands, though. By law, Jonathan goes to school each morning, wears a mask all day, comes home.

Masks are obligatory outside of home now. We're all getting used to wearing them as we walk around the park out the back gate.

Possibly as a way of taking control of some aspect of a life spinning into chaos, Jonathan has decided to upgrade his vegetarianism to veganism. Basically that means he has decided to cut out dairy. He doesn't like milk anyway, and doesn't drink it, but he has had to give up cheese. I am not switching to veganism. I am eating all of the cheese that we bought for Jonathan before he decided on the upgrade.

I'm happy to support a new diet as long as Jonathan is taking control of it, thinking about nutrients and balance, and doing his share of cooking as it becomes more challenging. So far so good. Today Jonathan joined Tim at the grocery store to explore the vegan aisle to see what options were available. He came home loaded with non-dairy cheese, cashew-milk yogurt, falafel, tofu. Tonight Jonathan made green curry with tofu and veggies, and it was tasty. Tomorrow Tim will try a variation on pizza with non-dairy cheese for Jonathan. Many of our vegetarian soups and chilies were already vegan. We'll have to give up the pasta bake, lasagna, unless we make an alternative meal. But I guess we'll see whether this will work or not.

The final small change in our lives is that the new semester starts Monday, and this time around I am teaching. It will be my first teaching of the year. A new class. Online. Taught from my bedroom, where I can look out one window to the garden and the camellias, and then look out the other window to the park. And then look at all the faces on the screen. This is how we teach, now, here. And this is how we learn.

Unless we are in high school, year 11 and 12.

Board games

Tim said, "The three of us are stuck here together in lockdown, and we have all these really great board games. Why aren't we playing more board games?"

I said, "Because that doesn't sound like a fun way to spend our lockdown time?"

Tim said, "But why don't we try it? Let's play a board game."

I said, "Ok fine. We'll play one of your board games. In fact, we can play all of your board games. One per night until there is a widely distributed vaccine for covid-19. And we still won't get through all of them!"

...

Jonathan said, "Why does it take 45 minutes just to get through the rules? I am not doing this every night for the next 57,324,532 nights until we get through all your board games."

Jonathan said, "Why did you put that there? Are you a moron?"

I said, "No, he is a jerk."

Tim said, "Why are you two so loud?"

Jonathan said, "Why are you so grumpy?"

Tim said, "No talking when it's not your turn."

I said, "But I can sing! La la la la la!"

Jonathan said, "Is this game still going?"

I said, "Do you remember why we don't play board games? We have to go on living with each other in lockdown after this game is over."

Two and a half hours later, we finished playing the game Puerto Rico for the first time in eight years. (Tim has a little paper in each game -- he keeps track.)

As he left the living room, Tim's face was lit up with a perfect little happy smile.

Jonathan and I rolled our eyes at each other.

One done, 57,324,531 games to go.

The fabulous staycation

We postponed our January trip to the coast because of bushfires. Tim's March vacation was cancelled very last minute due to pandemic. The family July trip to the US was cancelled not long after, for the same reason. Since we're at home now 24/7, we can work 24/7 forever and ever and ever. Right?

Not right.

I was going insane. Just because I can work, doesn't mean I can work, if you know what I mean. Stress, headaches, zoom aches. Jonathan's school holidays arrived, and it was time to turn everything off and do something completely different.

We couldn't leave the country, and didn't really want to travel in a pandemic anyway, but how to signal to my body that we were doing something new and different? I switched beds. I decided to take the guest bed for a few days. Tim groaned a bit, so I assumed he'd be staying in our bedroom, but nope. He decided to join me. So then Jonathan looked around and decided that if no one was in the master bedroom, he'd change the sheets and stay there. So voila! New sleeping arrangements!

What do you do on a normal vacation? Lots of walking and sightseeing. I decided on a couple of very long urban walks, departing from our front doorstep, and taking the entire day. We would go hiking for our staycation! Far away from the wifi at home!

Only my first day off, it was pouring rain.  Buckets and buckets of rain. What do you do during a regular vacation when the weather is bad? Thinking back to winter vacations from my past, I decided upon puzzles and movies and books and hot chocolate!

Here is our puzzle from day 1:

And then on day 2 it was still pouring rain, so I did another one!

I realised after the fact that I had been working on the puzzle over Independence Day in the US, which in retrospect was a perfect day for the Washington DC puzzle.

Day 3: The rain was not as heavy, so I convinced the family to walk with me through the botanic gardens up to the river.

And then along the river. There are bike/pedestrian trails running for miles and miles along the river, and forking off into various suburbs. I have taken this trail when I have commuted by bicycle to Monash. Tim and Jonathan had never been on it. It's a fun trail. Where the highway crowds the river, they have floated the bike path out on the river itself.

Or dangled it between the freeway and the creek.

But after only an hour or so Tim and Jonathan began complaining. How long were we really going to walk? And soon after, we took the tram home.

Day four of the staycation: We walked to the park to the east, across two busy streets, and then around the small lake there. The views are really great.

Day five it was raining again. We had made a puzzle swap with neighbours. They took the cereal boxes and Washington DC puzzle. We picked up their map of Melbourne. This puzzle was a little more evil.

But I finished it anyway.

The other big news from day five, which probably deserves its own blog post but likely won't get one, is that we finally had our online citizenship ceremony. We were all sworn in as Australian citizens. Hence completing the Melbourne puzzle that day was apropos.

Day six: The sun came out!

We walked to the north, past the Shrine, closed and empty.

To the flower clock, where I took two photos without having to wait for any tourists to get out of my way.

We then wrapped around the tan track, and headed home by way of South Yarra, where the Victorian houses looked stunning in the sunlight.

These are pricey houses, very rarely for sale. The one across the street, similar in shape and age, had a sign up "accepting expressions of interest." I was interested. Tim looked it up when we got home. They want seven million dollars. I'm not that interested.

And one last photo from that walk: elm trees in the setting sunlight.

Day seven. A full week of staycation. Due to spreading of coronavirus, Melbourne went back onto full lockdown. Only four reasons to leave home: for health, e.g. to be tested for the virus, to shop for essential groceries, to exercise, and to work for essential workers. But I am inessential. And on staycation. For exercise, we walked up to Southbank. 

The National Gallery of Victoria was closed.

The Eureka tower was closed, shown on the right below. Anyway, it looks like it won't be the tallest building in Melbourne for long, if it hasn't already been overtaken by the building under construction on the left.

On Southbank there were no buskers. No tourists. Not many walkers. Almost no bikers. It was really eerie. The last time we were here, we were elbow to elbow with people.

But the views were still good.

Home again via the tan track.

By the time I've finished this post you'll have narrowed down my address. I guess you can come visit, then. Only not for at least six weeks, because we are locked down again until then.

Day eight: I took no photos on day eight. I had a massive migraine. I spent much of the day lying on the guest bed, because Jonathan had moved into my room and my own bed. It is never fair to have migraines on vacation -- staycation. I think I should get that day back to do over again.

Day nine. Rain again. We did our second puzzle from the neighbour puzzle exchange. And when I say "we" I mean Tim and Jonathan helped me spread it out the night before, but then abandoned it early. When I woke up before them the next day, I went into the living room and spent two hours finishing it before anyone else got up.

Day 10. We cleaned. Swapped sheets. Moved back into my own bedroom. Packed lunch. Off to bed early. Although we are in lockdown again, high school students in grades 11 and 12 went back to school as usual -- because the state hasn't figured out how it could do two different end of year requirements for high schools based on whether they were locked down or not.

So this morning, staycation over, we walked Jonathan to the train station so he could go off to school. And then I came home to seven hundred billion emails from a week away from work.

But thanks to a week away, I was ready for it.

Going backwards

We had been doing well in the pandemic, as a country, as a state, as a city. But for a few days in a row we've had double-digit growth in cases. That doesn't sound like much compared to other countries right now, but it is the same amount of growth we were seeing just before the country was shut down.

There are some differences. We have better testing now. We have contact tracing. We know where most of the infections came from. They came from people who ignored the fact that they needed to quarantine. They came from people who didn't care. Who visited extended family, every night, while infectious. Because of that, we've gone backwards.

Restaurants are *not* opening for more people after all. Fewer people allowed to gather in a home. More police checks on quarantine.

Also, a new hardship fund. If you get sick, this is money to help you make it through three weeks so you don't feel you have to go to work.

Guys, it's just three weeks. Please just wait out the three weeks.

Soon, it feels like there will be so few places around the world that are beating this, that it will become harder and harder to beat this. Maybe by doing well early we'll just end up doing poorly three months behind everyone else -- that happened to Australia in 1919.

And meanwhile, around the world, the countries (country) that should have been leading are giving up.

Honestly it's all so depressing.

Pros and cons of working from home: the definitive list

Now that I have been working from home exclusively for the last three months, I am a total expert. I am one of the biggest experts in the universe. I am by far the biggest expert in my own home now, three months in. Oh, yes, it is true that Tim has been working from home exclusively for about twelve years, compared to my three months. But that just means he is so used to working from home that he can't see it objectively anymore, so he cannot be as big of an expert as I am.

So, putting on my expert hat, I will now tell you exactly what the positives and negatives of working from home are.

Positive:

I get to see Tim anytime I want! Breakfast time! Lunch time! Break time! Interrupt Tim time!

Negative:

Tim interrupts me all the time. Can't you tell, Tim, that I am trying to hold six thoughts in my mind simultaneously, at the vertices of a regular octahedron rotating at a speed of 30 degrees per minute -- what? What? No I don't know what I want for dinner. Just make pizza!

Positive:

I never have to leave the comfort of my beautiful bedroom.

Negative:

I have been in this room for the last 22 hours, with my head tied to the monitor by this headset and my eyeballs about to explode.

Positive:

I can have a hot lunch every single day! Only two people in line for the microwave!

Negative:

I am eating microwaved lunch again with my head tied to the monitor by a headset. Crumbs in the bedroom.

Positive:

Between meetings, I can take a walk around the huge park out my backyard!

Negative:

I have walked around this park so many times in the last three months that I can match the tread marks on the bottoms of my shoes to the wear patterns in the asphalt. I have named the sidewalks: The Muddy East Side, The Long Diagonal, The Total Zig-Zag and the Partial Zig-Zag. The Oaks. Bobby and Judy. I am so tired of walking around this park!

Positive:

I don't have to do all the chores on evenings and weekends. During short work breaks, when I'm not interrupting Tim, I can just spend a little time getting chores done around the house!

Negative:

No. I am not going to clean the bathroom this weekend. I can do it during short work breaks. But not Monday. Or Wednesday. Or Tuesday. Or Thursday. Or Friday. Ew. No one has cleaned the bathroom since mid-March!

Positive:

I can wear my most comfortable clothes all day every day. Jeans and a soft sweatshirt Monday through Sunday!

Negative:

I have no reason to wear my pretty clothes anymore. They are so sad and lonely in the closet.

Positive:

Tim is perfecting his pizza making skills!

Negative:

Pizza again?

Positive:

Everything I need lives on this little laptop!

Negative:

I miss the books in my office soooo much!

Positive:

No commute!

Negative:

No train trips to mark the beginning and ending of the day. Sometimes, the days never ever end. Until Tim comes in and interrupts me and asks what I want for dinner. Pizza. Pizza, ok? Pizza forever! PIZZA!

... The end.

Writing during global crises (plural)

It's hard to write the kind of funny, light-hearted blog post that I want to read right now, when it feels like the world is ending.

Global pandemic. Serious shortages of funds in my industry. Layoffs starting, expected to get worse. Rioting at home. Violence. Injustice all over the world, including here.

Jonathan went back to school a couple of weeks ago. The first couple of days he wore his mask all day at school. Lately he has just been wearing it on the public transit to and from. Not much social distancing at school, he says, but the school has been better about moving kids outside during breaks, keeping their hands clean and sanitised. I guess for now this is normal.

And a lot of things haven't changed. The laundry still needs to be done. The dishwasher emptied. Shower. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

It's winter here again. Early sunset, chilly mornings. Last year I was careful and efficient with the heat, turning it off while at work and overnight. This year, I'm paying the extra in utility bills to be snuggly warm during all my online meetings. See? Not all is bad. Not all.

The view from here

A little less than a week ago, the premier announced that the oldest and youngest children would go back to school at the end of May, and the others two weeks later.

So Jonathan will be going back to school in about a week and a half.

I hope we're ready. I guess we're ready. There have been fewer and fewer cases, with more testing. There are fewer known cases now than there were while Jonathan was still attending school in March.

But there are still cases. There are two outbreak clusters that are growing, and other cases identified that aren't clearly linked. Still, the strategy here was never to completely eliminate the disease. The plan was to test, track, shut down schools and businesses locally in the event of an outbreak, and do this well enough that life could go back to somewhat normal.

Only seven new cases overnight. Only 110 active cases in the state. We're doing ok. We can move forward here in ways that other countries can't. Jonathan will go back to school. Maybe I'll even teach from the university instead of from my bedroom when the second semester starts at the end of July. Maybe.

Meanwhile, we eat and sleep and work. Move from screen to screen to screen. Bake bread. Cook meals. Walk.

I take photos of our walks.

Tim and Jonathan complain that they have to wait for me.  

But the world is still a nice place, and the camera helps me remember that.

Talking and walking and processing.

I think we'll be ok here. I hope. Back to school anyway.