Lockdown Logs? Summer of Sorta-Seattle

Locked down in our new townhouse and lovin' it. Ok, I don't know if we're still "locked down." Technically we're in Phase 2 for reasons I can't quite understand, since all covid seems to be breaking loose. But hey, the world seems bored of covid-19, severe outbreak be damned. Let's go to Disneyworld!!!

 Even my anxious ass is desensitizing a bit. I start to make compromises. If this is long haul, then we got to bubble it up with my mom at least as long as they keep us in Phase 2. Maybe my dad visits (I'll try to keep a six foot distance outside, but by the end he'll be leaning over Andrew's shoulder looking at his phone while we eat pie together indoors, because... life is complicated and we're probably all fine).

 Sure, cases are going up all across the West Coast and California just locked down again, but we can figure out safe ways to road trip to a lodge in Oregon with Andrew's family if we plan it just right and get tested first. Did you know that covid-19 tests have a false negative range of 10-30% so the more who test the better probably, but don't quote me on that because I don't understand statistics more than "I don't get them" which still puts me at "tons more educated on statistics than 90% of Americans by the look of things."

But hey, masks! We have masks! (And maybe some kind of strange magical spell drawn on Allan Sister Bunny's head to ward off evil?? I'm banking on the magical drawings)

We're officially "settled" in our new house (emptied all the boxes onto the floor, hit the dump with tons of recycling, and called it grrreat!). We had a virtual housewarming or two (featuring shaky cam Blair Witch tours of the household led by Allan Sister Bunny of course). We've met and talked to the neighbors from our parallel lawns several times, which is cool because we met almost nobody in our last couple of digs. Allan's petted multiple neighborhood doggies.

Get this: We saw another kid in a nearby yard named Rory and the kiddo actually introduced herself to him as - wait for it - Chaya!! I was stunned and excited to know that Chaya had not permanently left the building. Apparently Allan is Chaya's sister. And Chaya still goes with Allan a lot of places. We talk about Chaya a lot. We both like her.

Are we Seattleites? Debatable. Since the West Seattle Bridge went out of commission, we're kind of like a little island off of Seattle. And with police defunding measures, SPD has recently promised they'd shut down their precinct here. Residents are talking a mix of secession and vigilantism already and it's only been a week of suggestion and innuendo. But if we could all band together and "deal" with the people who are still shooting off fireworks at 2 a.m. on random weekdays, I'm down with a Mad Max haircut and and several lit torches.

Reopening or no, it's still basically stay at home stay insane hereabouts in Sorta-Seattle.

We've been lazing and cavorting about the house still and likely will continue to do so until Apocalypse demands otherwise. Being "stuck" in West Seattle ain't bad though. Great neighborhood to walk around. Or even the beach, which is actually a pretty chill place to be what with the bridge out if you go during the week.

I know you don't need masks if you can be six feet from people, but I like to bring them for getting to the beach and Allan really really wanted to wear hers ALL DAY (about an hour and a half, in her world). I think she looks pretty rad.

I just located a preschool that will be doing online programming this fall. They have summer camps so we can try it out, but it sounds really perfect. The teacher will deliver a packet to us the weekend before. Then lead the kids in zoom classes 3 times a week.

When we tried a zoom class with Outschool, it did actually work. Other than my having to sign up in advance, so once Allan picked the class - "Draw a Unicorn Storytime" - she was totally ready for it and had a breakdown upon the realization that it was not NOW but actually next morning (which might as well have been ten centuries from now).  But once it happened, she drew the unicorn and even talked a bit with the other students and teacher.

The same preschool is doing online summer camps. For virtual summer camp, Chaya chose "Bear Camp" a camp that I explained to her repeatedly wouldn't start for two weeks. But of course we've had several melt downs since signing up because it ought to be August already and there should be bears. Off into the wilds we go I guess.

But we've also "songs" to ease the wait. We made it through the entire two seasons of Puppy Dog Pals and are now watching Vampirina, which is ... Its a story about a vampire girl whose family moves from Transylvania to Pennsylvania to open up a "Scare B&B" which I guess is basically like an Inn for ghoul tourists into the freakish human worlds. The music is insipid (yeah they sing), but it resonates with me.

Back in 2017, Andrew was almost poached by a company in Lititz, Pennsylvania (which we didn't talk about because he was still at EI and they don't take kindly to being shopped around on). He even flew out there for an interview. They ended up going with somebody else, so Andrew decided to get his PE and keep applying to other places... and eventually ended up making rockets for Lex Luthor from his home office, so yay. But I feel a little connected to Pennsylvania because we did a lot of research about living there in the six or so months of interviewing and some part of me basically lived there as a result. So that. And of course I spent a small portion of my teens as a cute little Hot Topic glitter vampire so there are things close to my heart here.

tl; dr: Allan/Chaya's renewed obsession with Halloween pleases her goth glitter butterfly mommy. 

Allan also has gotten mega proficient at ABC Mouse, which is an educational online program. My favorite part: they have an endless library of books to read. A lot of Allan's screen time is now me reading to her, but on a computer. I thought of it as just for kicks - largely learning games - but it's cool and terrifying how able she is navigating computers already. She'll be hacking my online banking in no time to buy new pommel horses for her room.

ABC Mouse gamifies things by giving you "tickets" for each activity you complete. Then you can use these tickets to "go shopping." You get an avatar to dress, pets to buy and play with, a room to populate with endless weird junk (four pommel horses in different colors are an absolute necessity... Because duh!). Allan's favorite activity a few days ago was buying clothes, dressing her avatar and then "taking a picture." She spent about three months worth of tickets doing this and now has to go back and actually do activities. Budgeting skills handled. Who needs an allowance when we got ABC Mouse?

Raw deconstructed s'mores

We're not indoors all the time. Sometimes we walk the neighborhood until mommy's allergic reaction reaches nuclear. There's the beach. Other times, we "picnic" on the stoop, gradually using more and more of this whole "yard" thing we've managed to reclaim.

 Andrew and I have plotted out the future of our yard, mostly. There will be all kinds of pretty plants. A patio of pavers for our table and BBQ. And way less grass! Way less. I used to play in the grass all the time . Even last year we sat in the grass a ton with other families and it wasn't terrible. But oh my lord i'm allergic this year. To everything, but mostly grass. Which is a pain because grass pollen spreads really far and wide with the wind and we have a lot of grass in this neighborhood (not all of it manicured into sterility). I step outside and my head stuffs up, my eyes turn flame red, and recently I've had a return and increase of itchy angry skin. It'll be nice to get our a/c unit in, flip on all the crazy medical air purifiers I got and hermetically seal myself indoors. A/C coming this week. then, well, I'll still go outside and everyone will still track pollen back into the house, so whatever. But the A/C will be nice.

First thing we do... burn all the grass

Back to that grass. When we finally moved into the house,  the grass had been growing unchecked for about a month and change. It was looking to develop sentient thought and start eating small neighborhood pets. I'd suggested maybe we get a flamethrower or a landscaper to tame it. Instead, Andrew - who has always claimed he hates yard work and wants nothing to do with it - went to Home Depot and bought himself a weed whacker and a lawn mower and progressively cut it down to manageable. Just in time for it to go dormant and his wife to be like "first thing we do is pave the entire yard..."

He went out one morning to just "trim" the lawn (you're apparently supposed to deal with super tall lawns by trimming, waiting, trimming, waiting and then mowing). Then decided to mow it. Then decided to start pulling out all the invasive hops in our front yard. Then to the dump to get rid of all the yard waste... Within the week we had a pretty elaborate garden plan for the mega ultra yard of glee and merriment. He still says he doesn't want to spend lots of maintenance time on the yard, but... it's early yet. I'm pretty sure this is going to be epic and he'll go outside to hug and tuck in every plant before bed at night by next spring...

...which Allan will enjoy watching from her window, because she does'nt really sleep anymore. Just sits in her bed in the dark with a red crayon, defacing all her books. An action that gives her extra glee "because when EEEESHPAW (Andrew) sees me he will CRYYYY!" Our child is a sociopath. But a cute one.

Last night we had a spectacular melt down because she wanted her dessert marshmallow from a different bag than daddy's dessert marshmallow. Taking the only obvious recourse to such injustice, she threw all of the marshmallows on the floor over the course of ten minutes of steely defiance and then cried for another several hours because she wanted a different candy for dessert. Most of that time she lay upside down, ass bare because she'd doffed her underwear earlier (shortly after mommy said "I'll sit on this broomstick if you sit on the toilet" because that's how our house rolls these days). She locked herself in her room for a while before i convinced her to howl like an angry wolf so I could brush her teeth. She promised that she would be very angry when she woke up this morning because of the dessert thing, but eventually called a truce for the evening anyways and slowly but surely we got her dressed and negotiated some books for us to "pretend to be things in" and then set her up with her crayon and book to hopefully sleep some day. I can't wait to find out how that all panned out!

And we'll go on. Watching the world get a little weirder. Wearing our masks. Trying not to scratch and otherwise enjoying and "enjoying" the fruits of summer.

Occasionally, we'll have baby pancakes.

And in just a little more time, Allan, Sister Bunny (and her imaginary friend Chaya) will turn five. And the world will be a little more wild.

Stay safe Don't inhale any strange respiratory droplets. And enjoy the sun!