Happy visit

I missed posting last weekend, but I know you all will forgive me. Rocket Boy has been here since May 22nd and we are having a nice, if a bit weird, time. Part of the weirdness is his job and part is just the desperate state of the country right now. I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by the news.

RB told me ahead of time that he'd have to do some work while he was here, and it turns out that means he has to work at least 4 hours a day on weekdays, sometimes more. His co-workers know he's in Colorado, but everyone seems to need him desperately. He's had three or four conference calls and many many email exchanges while he works on a big programming project. At first this upset me, but I'm adjusting to it. After all, this job is what's supporting us now, and I'm very happy that he likes his work and his co-workers value and like him.

So my plans for us to work together on numerous projects, take family walks or hikes every day, and still have plenty of time to cook elaborate dinners, watch movies, play board games, and just talk -- have had to be scaled back a bit. It's OK. We're having a nice time. And after today we have exactly one week left of his visit, unless he decides to extend it, which he could. We'll see.

We have actually gotten a lot of small projects done -- he changed the lightbulbs that I couldn't manage, replaced the broken cords in two sets of curtains, put the screens in the front and back doors, mowed the back yard and weeded the side yard, and took our broken computers to his fix-it guy in Evergreen (verdict on mine: its useful life is over; verdict on Kid B's: needs a new hard drive but worth fixing). We're trying to find a new couch for the living room, but so far no luck. We've also taken a few walks to the park and cooked a few simple meals. He barbecued salmon for Memorial Day dinner and afterwards we roasted marshmallows.

The visit got off to an exciting start when Kid A decided to cook ramen in the microwave, Dad's first morning home. Rocket Boy and I were watching the previous night's PBS NewsHour in the office, because he'd moved the TV in there to try out his Roku stick. The boys came in, looking nervous, and told us there was smoke in the microwave. "Well, turn off the microwave," I said. It took a while for them to convey the seriousness of the problem.

It turned out that Kid A had forgotten to put water in the styrofoam ramen cup and the whole thing caught on fire, leaving the mess you can see in the photo. The house was full of smoke, so much so that I had a coughing fit and had to go outside. And now, seven days later, the house still stinks, particularly the microwave itself. (I think we need a new filter?) It reminded me of the first day of summer vacation -- after 1st grade? -- when Kid B had a bike accident, tore open his chin, and refused to get on a bike ever again. This was less dramatic, but it reinforced my sense that the "first day" of anything is potentially risky.

A few days ago, while we were outside weeding the side yard, I decided to prune the little tree by the driveway -- the one where I saw cedar waxwings a few months ago. "Don't prune too much," Rocket Boy said, making me want to prune even more. FORTUNATELY I saw it in time -- a hummingbird nest on a branch I was about to cut off.

I think it was the day of the microwave fire, when I was spending a lot of time outdoors, that I noticed that a hummingbird kept dive bombing me. I couldn't figure out what her problem was -- never even thought of a nest. Anyway, it was the same bird, and here was her nest. So darling! And such a connection with my mother, who once had an Anna's hummingbird nest in a tree fuchsia on her patio. Our hummer is almost certainly a broad-tailed, the usual species here.

The next day I asked Rocket Boy to go buy me some flowering plants that the hummingbird would like. Our local nursery, Sturtz & Copeland, is gingerly open (you have to wear a face mask, not too many people allowed inside at once) and I was a little nervous about going, so I sent him. He, of course, was also nervous about going, because he was sure he would come home with the wrong plants. I swore up and down that I would not criticize his choices, that my only requirement was that the flowers appeal to hummingbirds. "Ask the staff for suggestions! I'll love anything you get." And I have abided by that vow, but honestly, it wasn't hard, because he got perfect things.

The folks at S & C told him that most hummingbird plants are perennials, not annuals, so he got several of those. The few annuals he got are in the pot above -- marigolds, which are his favorite flower, and a deep pink impatiens that can handle the sun better than regular impatiens. I will probably still get some more annuals for the little pots that I keep close to the porch -- lobelia and things like that. But I'm particularly excited about the perennials he got, though I wonder whether we can keep them alive over the winter. We worked hard to clean out the front yard flower bed, which was full of weeds, and now we just have to decide where to put each plant. I can't remember what they all are, except that one is a penstemon and one is bee balm. But there are three others, too. It looks like a hummingbird smorgasbord! Of course I should also get a hummingbird feeder -- maybe next week.

Let's see, what else? I did manage to get the house pretty clean, sticking with my schedule, clean enough that Rocket Boy didn't scold me, and I've managed to keep it in reasonable shape over the past week, too. I feel inspired by this approach to cleaning, and plan to continue working with it. I'm thinking I could continue my "one-room-per-week" strategy, maybe change it to "two-rooms-per-week," but do surfaces on Monday, stuff on the floor Tuesday, sweeping/vacuuming Wednesday, get rid of trash for the whole house Thursday, and perhaps a special cleaning project in those rooms on Friday. Well, we'll see.

School is over, as of the 21st. I was much sadder about it ending than the twins were. Their band teacher hadn't been doing online sessions, but for the last day he did one, just to chat and say goodbye. During the call, the boys got the idea to set up their Chromebooks on either side of Chester, so that their class would see different aspects of the cat (instead of Kid A's and Kid B's faces). Then they got out the catnip, which we keep in an old green Parmesan cheese container, and sprinkled it around. "Is that cat eating Parmesan cheese?" their band teacher asked, to our great amusement.

Mr. Fluffypants has been very naughty recently, getting out into the yard and running away every chance he gets. When Rocket Boy works in the yard, he likes to leave doors open, which makes it easy for cats to go out. Pie Bear goes out too, but that's not a problem because he always comes back in (and is too old and decrepit to hunt birds). One night Chester got out and we simply couldn't find him, so we put the kids to bed and I continued to go outside every so often, searching in the dark. Finally, when I was on the sidewalk, looking down the street and wondering how far away he had gotten, I noticed what seemed to be a cat statue in our neighbor's flower bed, across the street. "Wait, they don't have a cat statue, do they?" I tried to remember. They do have a tortoise statue. Anyway, it was of course Chester, looking very regal, so I chased him home. The next day he ran away again, and also the next. Bad Mr. Fluffypants. But that third day he perhaps had an "incident" with a neighbor cat, because he raced home and then needed to rest for a long time. He's been better about staying inside since then.

May flies by

Didn't we just start this month? I'm confused about how quickly May is passing. Two more weeks until one of my favorite months is over.

I don't have a lot to talk about, since it feels like last Sunday was about two days ago. We made it through another week of school, barely. Now they just have four days left, and no more new assignments. Supposedly the last week will involve lots of video classes, but only their math teacher has actually announced any, so I don't really know what will be happening. Class starts at 8:45 tomorrow (quite a bit earlier than we've been starting school most days), so we'll see what happens.

I've been puzzling over whether to give money, and to whom, during this time of crisis. Kid A's special school that he used to go to in the afternoons put out a cry for help, so I gave them $100 a couple of weeks ago. This past week I gave the boys' old elementary school another $100, to help make up for their annual fundraising spaghetti dinner being cancelled. Another easy thing I could do would be to donate the money left in the boys' hot lunch accounts to the school district, which will use it to give grocery store gift cards to families who are struggling. I think I will do that, but I keep wondering how much more I should give. We are in good shape, but will we stay that way? I think Rocket Boy's job is very secure, but what if it isn't? There's a tendency to want to hoard money the way people hoard toilet paper. I want to be both generous and careful.

We're getting excited about Rocket Boy's arrival, on Friday (May 22nd). He was originally going to stay 10 days, but now he's upped it to 16, until June 7th. He thinks he's going to be able to work here, i.e., do his job -- I'm skeptical. Very small house, very noisy twins. But we'll see. It will be really nice to have him here for two full weeks. I'm sure we'll do lots of arguing, and get cross with each other, but 16 days will give us time to get cross and then get over being cross. I'm hoping we'll get a lot of household repairs and tasks accomplished, such as fixing the two sets of curtains that have broken cords and replacing the storm doors with the screen doors. But, knowing Rocket Boy, we'll probably also do some fun things. Even in total lockdown -- which we're not, anymore, as Colorado starts to open up -- Rocket Boy would find things to do. I'm often not comfortable with how he pushes the envelope (or ignores it entirely), but after two months of staying at home, I'm ready to see the world a little. Carefully.

I'm preparing for his arrival by cleaning the house, or trying to. I had really let it get into bad shape. Not every part of it -- I kept doing the dishes, albeit slowly at times, and I kept doing the laundry and cleaning the cat box and taking out the trash/recycling/compost -- but much of the house is a pigsty. No vacuuming or sweeping or dusting has taken place since he was last here, THREE months ago. All sorts of things have gotten into piles. It's bad. And if Rocket Boy walks into a house this awful, he will insist on hiring a housecleaner, which will probably mean bringing back our old housecleaner, Mary, who I don't want anywhere near my house. Ergo, I have to clean.

Part of the reason things have gotten so bad is that I've been depressed. But part of it is also that the twins are home all day. I had gotten into the habit of doing some cleaning while they were at school. Having them home has interfered with that. Of course, I know, I should be taking advantage of their being home by TEACHING them how to clean. Oh, God, let's just leave that idea there and not touch it again. I've trained them to take their dishes to the kitchen (mostly) and put appropriate items into the trash/recycling/compost (mostly). They also put their clothes in the hamper and their coats on top of the cabinet by the front door instead of on chairs, and they used to put their backpacks in their cubbies, back when they went away to school. More than that -- you do it. It's beyond me.

Last week, feeling significantly overwhelmed by the mess, I looked for a website to help me. There are lots of websites about organizing your house, getting rid of things, finding a place for everything, etc. But I needed something that would help me with actual dirt, as well as mess. This led me to "Unfu*k Your Habitat" (for me, the asterisk replaces an "n" rather than a "c") and specifically its instructions for Emergency Cleaning. I believe the idea here is that you would do all the things it suggests in one day, but I can't clean my house in one day, so I broke it down into several days, like this:

• last Thursday: throw out any garbage I can find, take out recycling and compost (conveniently, trash pickup is Friday)
• last Friday: clean the kitchen, especially things I've been neglecting, like the fridge
• yesterday: clean off flat surfaces -- tables, dresser tops, countertops
• today: laundry, especially of things that I've been letting lie around, like dirty tablecloths, towels, blankets, and stuff to be donated
• Monday: get stuff off the floors
• Tuesday: clean the bathroom, including mopping the floor
• Wednesday: sweep and mop the kitchen floor, and probably also the living and dining room
• Thursday: sweep/vacuum the hallway, our bedroom, kids' bedroom, and office; put out the trash and recycling and compost again
• Friday: change the sheets on the bed, clean anything else that looks bad; pick up Rocket Boy at the airport at 3 pm.

Doesn't this seem doable? It has been so far. I'm on Day 4 and still going, which is impressive for me. The author of the website is very big on taking breaks, too, and not letting yourself get overwhelmed, which I do so easily. The only thing that worries me is that sweeping and vacuuming don't take place until next Wednesday and Thursday, at which point I may be burned out and not want to do it, and that's what needs doing more than anything. But I do like the basic approach of this method: garbage, flat surfaces, stuff off floors, and sweep/vacuum. I have always approached cleaning in terms of rooms: first clean the living room, then clean the dining room, etc. After a room or two I get tired and that's the end of that.

I'll report back next weekend and let you know whether it really did work out.

Well, I guess that's about it. I'm so tired today. I need to return to my 11 pm bedtime -- it's been sneaking up to 12 and beyond. Part of the problem is that the twins go to bed later than they used to. Instead of lights out by 9:30, it's been lights out by 10 or 10:30. Then I have to feed the cats, clean the litter box one last time, do whatever dishes are lying around and often start the dishwasher, take my shower, and then read in bed for a while. It's hard to do all that in an hour. And then I can't sleep late in the morning because the sun and the cats wake me up. Last night I turned off my light at 12:30 and woke up at 6! Less than five and a half hours of sleep! Oh, I was so mad. I'll aim for bed at 11 tonight. And maybe a nap this afternoon.

I woke up not because of the sun -- and the cats weren't even up yet -- but because of a bad dream. I've started having general anxiety dreams -- last week I dreamed that I went to a store without a mask! And now a teaching dream:

I dreamed I was teaching some classes at CU, and for some reason they were scheduled at the same time. One was a freshman writing class and the other was an Arabic reading class. They were held in rooms in the same hallway, so I could dash back and forth between them, but it wasn't going well. To further complicate things, I didn't have roll sheets for either class because the department I was working for was clear across campus and I hadn't stopped by my mailbox to pick them up. I was aware, in the dream, that in this day and age it made no sense that I couldn't get my roll sheets electronically, but very few things made sense in this dream. Anyway, I tried to get the writing students to write their names on a piece of paper (I had a terrible time coming up with a blank piece of paper) and then ran down the hall to the other class and tried to get them to do the same. At one point there was some doubt expressed as to my ability to teach an Arabic reading class (a few weeks ago I dreamed I was teaching a political science & economics class, same problem).

You can see why I might have needed to wake up from a dream like that. I was very angry when I woke up (WHY was I scheduled to teach two different classes at the same time, what idiot thought THAT up?, etc.), and when I tried to go back to sleep I kept getting angry about other silly things, so I finally gave up and got up. So it's a not so great day. But I'm on my third load of laundry, with plenty of time for a few more, and I feel good about that. And eventually, after many more activities, it will be bedtime. Maybe even naptime before that. And on we go.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is here again, and I haven't received a single card, flower, present -- nothing. But, you know, it's OK. I told Rocket Boy we could celebrate Mother's Day late and Father's Day early when he gets here -- in 12 days! -- so I didn't expect anything from him. The twins I guess could have made me a card, but they aren't very artistic or crafty. It would have been a stretch. They could have made me breakfast in bed, but I had a bad night and ended up sleeping until 10 (!), at which point the cats woke me up by walking on me and even licking my eyelid (Chester).

When I finally got up, fed the cats, and went out to get the paper, I stayed out for a minute or two, listening to the birds in the trees. It was such a cool, pleasant morning, so much sunshine, bees all over our dandelions. A neighbor rode by on his bike and called out, "Happy Mother's Day!" and I thought that was so nice. "Thank you," I called back. I don't know his name, but I think he's the person who offered to help me shovel snow a few months ago.

When I went back in the house I was still smiling. I told the twins about it, and Kid A said, "I didn't even know it was Mother's Day," which I call Not Paying Attention, since I know he's seen ads for Mother's Day this past week and I've certainly mentioned it. Also, on Friday, Kid B had a video call with his language arts teacher for the express purpose of making a Mother's Day gift, which Kid A listened in on. Unfortunately, the teacher went quickly through the directions, and didn't post them, and Kid B got stuck on #1 -- find a container. He kept calling to me, "Where's a container I could use?" and I said, "What kind of a container?" and he said he didn't know. I told him to look in the cupboard under the counter, but he didn't. Finally I opened that cupboard and pulled out a container with a lid. "Would this work?" "Yeah, but now I don't know what to do, because she went too fast and now everyone's done already."

I told him it was fine. I don't even know what the Mother's Day gift was, except that it was supposed to contain sugar, oil, lemon juice, and some other things. I'm sure I would have liked it, but I don't mind not receiving it. I thought it was very sweet of the teacher to have done the project.

Last night I had two special treats. No, I take that back, there were three. First was our usual Saturday night delivery dinner, from Noodles, and unlike last week from Snarf's, the order was perfect -- they sent everything we ordered and it tasted good. A few minutes after we started eating, the phone rang, and it was my niece Lauren reminding me about the Zoom piano recital I had been invited to, which of course I'd totally forgotten about. I hurried back to the office, turned on my new-ish computer, forwarded the invitation email from my phone to the email that I can get on that computer, clicked on the link, and was drawn in to treat #2, this lovely recital. My nephew's three kids take piano lessons from a really good teacher in Los Angeles, and they practice on my father's old piano, a 100+-year-old Mason & Hamlin baby grand. For the recital, each kid played at their own home. A Zoom recital seems very weird, of course, but it was also so cool, because of all the people who were able to watch. So on one screen I could see whichever grandnephew/niece was playing at the time or waiting to play next, on another screen there was the rest of the family (my nephew, his wife, and the other two kids), on another screen there was my name (I turned the video off so I could keep eating my dinner), on another screen there was my little sister's name, on another screen there was my older sister and her husband, and on another screen was my nephew's dad. And of course there were all the other people in the recital and their families on their screens. The music was lovely and the little pianists all did exceptionally well, especially compared to piano recitals I recall from my youth.

Treat #3 was a little different. Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week and I had meant to send all the kids' teachers e-cards, but I never got around to it. School was hard this week. I kept my temper, which is good, but I also realized that I'm just burning out on this stuff -- as are they, of course! On Friday they each were supposed to finish a major poem and submit it, and we didn't get it done. And I don't care. I feel like school is almost over and we've done a lot of work and I don't care if we happen not to do any more. Which is a bad attitude. But anyway, I did want to take the time to let the teachers know that I/we appreciate them, so on Saturday night I got to work and chose e-cards for all of them (one about how apples and honey are produced for the science teacher, one with a typewriter providing percussion for a song for the band teacher, etc.), wrote nice notes to each, trying to think of specific things I liked about them, and sent them off. And that made me feel good, because of course doing nice things for people always makes you feel good.

So, Mother's Day. In addition to sleeping late, I played 25 Microsoft Solitaire games (had to finish up the daily challenges for April and get started on May) without feeling guilty, and then I made cookies. I kept thinking about that lemony present Kid B was going to make me, and that made me want something lemony. So I made Lemon Dot Lacies, a recipe I got from my mother's cousin Dorothy about 25 years ago. When I went looking for the recipe online I found something called Lemon Oat Lacies which is the same recipe as mine, so I think "Dot" must be a transcription error for "Oat." Maybe I should call them Lemon Oat Dot Lacies in future. Anyway, they're very tasty and half the recipe made 45 tiny cookies -- and less than half are left, so you can see how we liked them.

Rocket Boy is going to call in 30 minutes and walk Kid A through the steps of making pancakes, so that will be my Mother's Day dinner. I'm looking forward to it! Tomorrow we have school again and I will try to pull myself together and pull the kids through the week. I also need to work on housecleaning, because things have really gotten out of hand and I don't want RB to be horrified when he walks in the door. So that'll be a project.

Otherwise we're just cruising along, feeling sad about the endless terrible news, wondering how to make life better for other people when we're still hanging out at home. Colorado is opening up, but I don't think we're going to participate in that too much. Until I know I have antibodies, I'm going to be too nervous to have my hair cut.

And now it's May

The weeks go by, the weeks go by, and now it's May, but we're not very merry. And I love May. May is our reward for surviving the winter, and gloomy March, and iffy April. This view of the year derives from my 9 years in Michigan, where March was a dreadful brown gloomy month and April was an improvement, but May! May was when spring exploded with beauty. The lilacs! And at the end of the month, the peonies! All of Ann Arbor came alive in May, you could just hear it humming.

Boulder doesn't do May like Ann Arbor did May. In the Rocky Mountains, plants are a little more subtle, a little more cautious. It's a drier land, you aren't going to get that voluptuousness that you get back East. But it's a lovely time, though you can still get snow. I noticed on our Thursday walk that most of the lilacs in the neighborhood must have frozen during the back-to-back 17-inch snows. We are lucky that our lilac blooms so late. It is just starting to put out little green leaves and seems to be fine.

My traditional day for buying flowers and vegetables to plant is Mother's Day, but even that is a bit risky out here. According to an article in the newspaper yesterday, last year we had snow on May 9th and May 21st. I looked back at my blog to read about it. I wrote a post on May 8th -- Rocket Boy had just left for St. Louis and was facing the possibility of rain, snow, and tornadoes on his trip. And there's a post on May 27th with a picture of the May 20th/21st snow. I had already planted my flowers, so I covered them with tarps that night and they did OK.

So I look at my empty pots and I think I'd better wait. Mother's Day is May 10th this year, next Sunday. The weather forecast shows nice weather for the week ahead, mostly 70s, a little cooler next weekend. I don't trust it. "Slight chance of thunderstorms" one day can change to "70% chance of snow" a few days later.

I don't know if the place where I usually buy flowers is even open this year. Colorado is opening up, but Boulder County is moving more slowly and I don't know if nurseries are considered "essential." I'll wait.

This wasn't a great week for school, after a couple of pretty good weeks. Kid B missed an important video call for his language arts class on Tuesday because he didn't read his email and the teacher didn't mention the call on Schoology, and I got really pissed off at him and said I wasn't going to help anyone that day (this was on Wednesday, when we discovered he'd missed the call). Not my finest hour. I was embarrassed that I hadn't been able to keep him on track, cross with the teacher for being so secretive about the information, frustrated with how behind he's getting in that class. "If you won't put any effort into your schoolwork, I'm not going to spoon-feed you," I said, or something really mature like that. It didn't help that I wasn't feeling good -- from Tuesday to Thursday I had a terrible taste in my mouth, another COVID-19 symptom that didn't go anywhere. By Friday morning I was OK again, just tired.

Kid A, who got caught in the crossfire, actually handled it better than Kid B, and did some of his work by himself. But Kid B spent Wednesday watching YouTube videos. This meant that on Friday (the other day when they have periods 2, 4, and 6) "we" had to do a lot of catch-up work. Helpfully, the language arts teacher had accidentally removed her weekly instructions from Schoology, and by the time we emailed her about it and she put the instructions back up, Kid B was emotionally DONE for the week and refused to do anything else. He basically skipped language arts last week, missed at least three assignments, and I know this is all going to come down on me somehow.

So I've gone into bad mom mode, which is always very destructive for me. Bad mom, can't get her kids to do their schoolwork. Bad mom, doesn't want to cook dinner or bake. Bad mom, lets the clean laundry sit in the laundry basket for two days before putting it away. Bad mom, hasn't vacuumed in months. Bad mom, can't keep up with the dishes. The photo shows the dishwasher full of clean dishes that I haven't put away yet, dirty dishes above them waiting for the clean dishes to be put away so that they can go in the dishwasher, and over in the sink, a bunch of handwashing that's been waiting for me to do something about it for days. Bad mom.

I did manage to get Easter put away, last night, so that takes care of one thing that was bothering me. But there are always more things, more things to do, more things I haven't done, more things to feel guilty about. Bad mom.

Yesterday (Saturday) I suddenly felt very sleepy and lay down to take a nap around 2:30 pm. The front door was open (the storm door was closed) and I was very lightly asleep, still somewhat aware of what was going on in the house. I dreamed that the storm door opened and someone came in the house, walked down the hall. It was Rocket Boy! He'd flown in from St. Louis as a surprise. I jumped out of bed, went to him, tried to express how happy I was to see him but for some reason I couldn't make a sound. He seemed young, like how he looked when I first met him almost 20 years ago. I hugged him silently, overwhelmed with joy. And then I opened my eyes -- and I was in bed, alone, and it was all a dream.

And then I worried, because the dream was so vivid, it seemed almost like it might be a visitation from someone who had just died. I tried to call him, but it went to voicemail. Not until nearly 8 pm did he call back, at which point I was pretty nervous. But he was fine. It turned out that while I was having that dream, he was at Urgent Care having a COVID-19 test. I don't know what that means. I was just really glad he was OK.

So now we have the first full week of May. I'm going to try to make it a good week, since school is almost over (the 21st is the last day). No getting mad at preteen children who don't check their email. Just git 'er done. I'll try to get us outside every day, enjoy what's in bloom even if the lilacs didn't make it this year.

Last year at this time we were getting ready for the twins' "graduation" from elementary school. I can't bear to think of this year's class -- they don't get that wonderful ceremony, with baby pictures projected on the screen behind them as each kid reads a short piece about their memories of elementary school. I'm so sad for them.

First, today, I'll deal with all those dishes. Then I might think about dinner. Rocket Boy is going to do a Skype call later this afternoon and help Kid B make gravy, which we will eat on stuffing (which I must make). I nixed spaetzle, because it's such a pain, I don't cook meat (except bacon, once in a while), and the kids don't like mashed potatoes, so stuffing was all we could think of to eat with gravy. Why gravy, you may ask. Well, Rocket Boy keeps trying to think of things he can do over Skype to connect with the kids. He was working on some electronics kits with them, but the kids' computer was fried by a brief power outage we had a couple weeks ago, and they can't do it on their school-issued Chromebooks, and none of us feel comfortable using RB's Ubuntu laptop he left behind, and... Anyway, then he thought of cooking over Skype, and gravy seemed like an easy place to start. We make gravy with a mix, so it's not too complicated.

I'm not sure the twins actually like stuffing. Hope they do, otherwise I'm going to have a lot of stuffing to eat this week. I also should make something else to go with the stuffing -- I'm thinking our traditional Thanksgiving spinach dish. What a weird dinner. Oh well.

I think the main thing is to try not to be too hard on myself, not get into all that "bad mom" business. It's a bottomless pit. I've been doing a fine job during the lockdown, even if I haven't cleaned out all our closets and cooked gourmet meals. Anyway, it's not about me. Criticizing myself as the worst mom in the world takes my attention away from all the people who really are suffering and who need help. At the very least, even if I can't help them, those people could benefit from me not diverting someone else's attention with my self-pity. OK, with that in mind, I'll go forth and try to have a decent week. Hope you all do too.