Pandemic Week 7: A Snail's Pace

Does it seem like strange things are happening with time? Work-from-home days seem to stretch into infinity. Fridays are much longer than Tuesdays, and not in a good way. Wednesday and Thursday keep posing as each other. Saturday and Sunday are about 5 minutes long combined. Yet I can't believe it's already May. Is it because my normal cues for the passage of time have been removed? It seems like it's perpetually March, yet somehow almost summer. I am so confused.

Let's capture some action items. Let's align on a clear glide-path. Let's revisit our cadence. Let's do a deep-dive and double-click on that idea and then circle back. Let's reach out and do a gut-check with a temperature-read. Let's get more bandwidth to deliver the ask so we're not out of scope. Let's cover off on that offline. I'll ping you with a heads-up about the inflection point. This is an exciting opportunity to optimize our positioning.

(This #corporatespeak segment brought to you by conference calls at my job and around the nation.)

In non-work life, I picked back up with a daily hour of home-school instruction on topics of my choosing.

On Monday we discussed the etymology of the word "etymology" and that it is not the same as "entomology." Then we chose interesting-looking words from Harry Potter books and researched their word origins, including linguistic roots.

It got cut off in my photo, but I was very interested in the word "shunned" because it was the only one that's not directly a Greek, Latin, French (or German doctor) root. Shunned is from the Old English word "scunian," meaning to avoid out of fear or for self-preservation. (The word is used by Remus Lupin, who as a lycanthrope has been shunned his whole adult life.)

I was also excited about the word "incandescent" (Dolores Umbrage becomes "incandescent with rage"), which when broken down means "to become so heated as to emit white light." It has the same root as the word "candle."  I also learned that Exchequer has the word "Checker" in it on purpose, because in the olden days the royal accountants laid out a green & black checked cloth that helped them track revenue. It was checkered, so the department became the "exchequer." We also noted that the modern word "cheque" is right in the middle, a clue that it's related to money. There is so much packed into our beautiful language!

Tuesday was sunny, so we got out and did some gardening. We measured where our theoretical dwarf peach tree could go, and paced out spots for cucumber, tomatoes, squash, and greens.

Wednesday was also outside. We did some interval training (planks, jumping jacks, squats, crunches, and so forth). Then we played a vigorous game of freeze tag. This is when the person who is "it" tags another player who must freeze in place, but can be unfrozen by the remaining player unless he/she also gets frozen. I learned a new word, which is "puppy-guarding." If you are "it" and you freeze a player, you can't lurk around that player waiting for the other person to come unfreeze them. That is "puppy-guarding" and is not allowed.

Thursday was baking day. It was the least successful one so far. We followed a recipe that called for a box of commercial brownie mix, but the mix was so fudgy that it never set properly. It tastes good though.

In other news, I went to the store this week! I tagged along on one of my spouse's weekly hunting and gathering expeditions. I wore a cloth mask and bought a lot of useless yet satisfying items, like brie, chocolate, and incense cones.

For school, teachers have been sending links to zoo cams. This week my kids watched a tiger snoozing, a burrowing owl brooding, and some penguins getting fed (at the San Diego zoo). They were critical of the giraffe cam, which only showed antelopes.

Penguin feeding time! And an exciting marketing opportunity for Alaska airlines

I'm still learning Gaelic on my phone through duolingo. We are into the underwear portion of the curriculum.

Hello Eilidh! I have underpants on.

Now it's Saturday again and I have a few hours to fit in a whole week's worth of scheming. I wish you luck with whatever it is you're trying to squeeze in or stretch out in these weird times.

Today there are 879 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in my state. The numbers seem to be flattening out, BUT we have also generally not left our homes for 7 weeks. Once things start to open up, will the numbers start to climb again?  I took this screenshot on Thursday, April 30, and I'm not even sure what it means.