A Typical Week-end in the New Normal

This morning, I thought I'd write about our past week-end.  In some ways, it was like any other week-end where we didn't have plans.  In some ways, it was very different.

I did some grocery shopping on Friday before heading home, in the hopes that I wouldn't have to shop during the week-end.  So on Friday night, we were able to have hamburgers, what once would have been our Friday tradition.  It wasn't with the better quality beef we would ordinarily get from Doris' Italian Market, but it was delicious nonetheless.

On Saturday I baked cookies for the virtual tea at 10.  We were trying to make it similar to our crafting Saturdays of grad school times, when we would gather and combine treats and brew lovely pots of tea and splurge on gourmet coffee and work on our needle projects and talk and talk and talk.

Our virtual tea had some technical difficulties, but eventually we could gather.  It was good to see everyone, but I could only last for about an hour--very different from face to face grad school days.

I felt similarly about the group of Create in Me retreat participants on Saturday night.  It was great to see everyone, but exhausting after a bit.

On Saturday, I went into the pool for the first time.  I started reading Ann Patchett's The Dutch House--a wonderful book so far.  I had a batch of evaluation essays that needed to be graded, so I plowed through those.  I also had a wonderful phone conversation with a friend from my South Carolina community college days.

She said, "It's a shame it takes a pandemic for me to pick up the phone to see how you're doing."  I feel the same way.  We see each other far more sporadically than we once did, when we met yearly at Mepkin Abbey.  We may try to do a Zoom meeting with our other Mepkin friend in early May.

On Sunday, I ate all of the cookies that I made on Saturday.  In ordinary times, I would only make cookies if I had an event to attend.  I'd remember that I would eat all of the cookies if I didn't have a place to take them.

Yesterday we had even more phone calls.  Yesterday was family call day:  my spouse's dad, my spouse's brother, my mom, dad, and sister, who are together at my parents' house.  It was great to catch up with everyone.

And now, it's back to work.  It will be a day of meetings, of accreditation documents, of all the things that need to be done, regardless of the pandemic stalking the planet.