I hate August

That's a very negative blog post title, and some years it isn't true. But this August hasn't been fun, with the hot dry weather and the virus and everything. One thing I did notice the other day -- when you're wearing a mask, you can't smell the smoky air as clearly. So, there's a plus about masks. 

I'm really tired of them, though, as is everyone else in the world. I keep having moments of dementia where I think, oh, I'll just go somewhere where you don't have to wear a mask. But where in the world (other than North Dakota, etc.) would that be?

I'm getting creeped out by the virus situation again. 169,665 dead as of this afternoon, still running around a thousand a day. Every country in the world keeps opening up, then closing down due to outbreaks. What is the endgame here? What could count as "over"?

Rocket Boy is here for another visit and we are happy to have him back. But he's not very happy with us. It's in the 90s every day, hasn't rained in weeks, every single day is either an Ozone Action Day or an Action Day for Multiple Pollutants, and the kids and I have gone into total zombie mode. We go to bed early, sleep late, and spend most of the day playing computer games. To spice things up a little, I do laundry and feed the cat. But Rocket Boy -- for whom our weather is a welcome break from the humidity of St. Louis -- wants to do projects! He wants to go hiking! And to museums! And he wants to clean things!

To all of which we say, knock yourself out. But please don't make us do it too. He does not like that attitude, and he is cross with me for not fixing the twins' attitude. Which I understand, actually. I just don't want anyone to ask me to do anything right now. So, you know, it could be a better visit, but maybe it will improve. Maybe we'll get a thunderstorm. That would help.

He arrived last Sunday, completely worn out from his hot, humid drive across Kansas. But by Monday night he was sufficiently recovered to go to Chautauqua for our 18th anniversary. We ate on the porch and it was very much like other years, except for the masks and the fact that there were no food menus. They print them out fresh each night and they had already run out by the time we arrived for our 6:45 pm reservation. So we were supposed to read a QR code with our phones to get to the menu, but my old phone refused to do this (or to go to the Chautauqua website at all) and Rocket Boy had forgotten to bring his. I really hate it when places expect and require you to have a phone.

Fortunately I had looked at the menu online before we went, so I was able to suggest that he have trout and I have salmon, and we both had soup to start and a fruity iced tea to drink. The food was better than it has been, some years, and we enjoyed watching magpies fly by. I counted 14 in all. We had cards for each other and it was a very pleasant time. Oh, and it was the one day of his visit that wasn't in the 90s! And the air was clear. The next day it went back to misery, but for our anniversary it was nice.

On Wednesday, he took the boys to Nederland to ride the Carousel of Happiness, and then they went hiking near Caribou with an old friend of his. The boys complained vigorously, both before and after the trip, but I think they actually had a good time. (A trip to a store for candy was involved.) It was probably 20 degrees cooler up there, and the air was maybe a little better. The kids said there was no one else on the carousel, and the person running it said that the only reason they were able to stay open was people coming up from Boulder. So I was glad they'd done that, and I got a few hours to myself.

RB wanted to plan an outing to a museum, so I said OK, let's do the Denver Museum of Nature and Science -- they're just itching to have people come visit. You have to make a timed reservation to enter the museum, and there were two special exhibits that I thought we might like to see, so I made reservations for both of those too. I wasn't sure how much time to allow for everything and I ended up allowing too much time for everything, but it was fine.

The day of our visit was of course an Action Day for Multiple Pollutants -- so we shouldn't have been in our gas-powered car, driving from Boulder to Denver -- but how could I have known ahead of time? Despite traffic, we arrived a few minutes before our scheduled 4 pm entrance time. As always, we went to the cafe first, and had snacks, since we were going to be at the museum through dinner time. You could only sit at a table with a green sticker on it, which meant it had been recently cleaned. As soon as we sat down, they took our green sticker away.

The museum was so empty, it made me sad, but of course it's safer that way. Our first special exhibit, The Art of the Brick (i.e., Legos), was at 5:20, so the kids and I went to Expedition Health to kill some time before it started. Once we went in, the exhibit was kind of disappointing -- you of course couldn't touch anything. We only stayed about 30 minutes, so then we had a long wait until Dogs! A Science Tail at 6:40 pm. We bought more snacks at the 2nd floor Coffee Lab and found a place to sit that wasn't as carefully monitored as the cafe downstairs (no green stickers). 

We've been reading Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell at bedtime, and elephant seals have been mentioned, so I looked at the marine mammal dioramas to see if I could find one. Rocket Boy finally found southern elephant seals in the southern hemisphere dioramas. They don't look exactly like the northern elephant seals, but close enough to give the twins a sense of how big those animals are.

Dogs! A Science Tail was more fun than the Lego exhibit, but it still didn't seem as interactive as the museum's exhibits usually are. They did have a "Jeopawdy" game that you could play with another person -- Kid B managed to beat his brother, his dad, and his mom at it (I let him win). There was also a track where you could test whether you were as fast as certain breeds of dogs. Kid A tried and tried to beat a husky, but it just wasn't happening.

On our way home we stopped for dinner at Great Scott's -- after all those weird snacks at the museum I'm not sure we needed dinner, but it rounded out the day. Great Scott's has set up an outdoor patio in the parking lot which was nicer than I expected. There was only one other group out there when we were (there were more people inside the restaurant). Every single time I eat at a restaurant, I feel bad for the owners and workers. They just can't be bringing in very much money. On a Friday night, Great Scott's should have been packed.

So the days go by. We ate out again on Saturday night, this time at Chili's (so that Rocket Boy could go to Walmart next store, but they didn't have what he wanted). Chili's was just dead. I felt so bad, I left our waitress a 22% tip. Probably should have gone up to 25%.

Today, once again, we stayed home and did very little. One project RB has been working on is cleaning the bathroom -- the one cleaning task I didn't get to before he came home. I'm sorry I didn't get to it, because if I'd just made it look OK, he wouldn't have thought it needed the deep cleaning he's giving it. But I can't complain. If he ever finishes (he's been working on it for two days), we'll have a nice clean bathroom and I won't have had to have anything to do with it

Just now, he and the twins cleaned out a section of gutter, in preparation for getting another gutter replacement quote on Monday. He did most of the work, but they kept him company and helped a little. And I'm making dinner (the oven is heating up as I type this). So we're all contributing a little today, and after dinner maybe we'll take a quick walk to the park in the horrible smoky air.

Today is the 16th, so that means we have 10 days until school starts -- entirely online. I don't know if I mentioned that. Originally they were going to go back two days a week (Phase 3), but now we've switched to Phase 1 and it's all online. They'll take three classes at a time, probably something like Language Arts, Math, and an elective, and then the second half of the semester it'll be Social Studies, Science, and another elective. Supposedly next Friday we'll find out who their teachers are and all that. It's the most uninspiring start to a school year I can imagine, but I'm still trying not to make any waves. It would be so much harder if they were in Kindergarten! Or first grade! Or their first year of middle or high school! Or their senior year! In fact, I can't imagine anything easier than 7th grade. So I'm not going to be negative about it. We'll survive (but Rocket Boy may head right back to St. Louis once it starts).