It's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine.

To be clear...I was born for social distancing.  As a toddler, I coined the phrase "plain day" as in "Mom, when is the next plain day?...it's exhausting having things on the calendar like preschool and library story hour."  I longed to be schedule-free.  I also hate hugging.  I could easily be on lock-down for months and be A-OK.  This is my kind of pandemic...although we've never navigated through this kind of thing in my lifetime and the first time I'm out of snacks, I might pack it in.

Speaking of snacks?  I have a 4-person family and I still shop in bulk at Sam's Club once a week.    Don't feel sorry for me--I have what feels like a dozen streaming services...I'm not hurting for entertainment.  My walks give me some therapeutic time, my kids give me my necessary aggravation time.  I'm just living the dream here people!

My husband, however, is not loving this.  He's constantly talking to people, now on the phone.  We just got back from Florida and he found out he's quarantined for 14 days from work and threw a fit. I don't know if he's just delusional or stir-crazy.

So...let me be real.  Chad thinks we should have stayed in Florida.  I'm not gonna lie, socially distancing in sunshine and 85 degrees is just plain better/easier.  We could see and hear the ocean from our room...not bad if you can get it.  But you'd also need groceries and TP and to be quarantined   (who ever thought I'd need to figure out how to spell THAT on a regular basis?!?) when we got back.  If we could get back.  Illinois went on lockdown hours after we arrived home from O'Hare.

Being on vacation while the world was breaking was weird.  I wanted to watch the news and crawl up in a ball and worry.  Chad was the opposite.  If he didn't know, it wasn't happening.  Yet, every day we were in Florida, things got a little more restrictive.  Day 1, the breakfast buffet spoon was still touched by everyone and no precautions were being taken.  Day 5 felt more militaristic and "war-zoney."  By the time we left, the beach and pier were closed, but we ate in a restaurant our last night so carry-out restrictions hadn't dampened the mood but we did get to see them lock the pier down from our spot at dinner.  Weird.

Turning in our rental car was crazy.  I had never seen a place with so many cars!!  They ran out of room to turn them all in.   We couldn't find a rental car in Miami because they were all here in Ft Myers. Abandoned by people who gave up on their vacations already.

The airport was packed.  Where were all the people who were staying home?  Even tho the airport wouldn't put more than a dozen people on a shuttle bus, the roads were packed on the way home.  Trust me, even on fish fry night, not everyone was grabbing take-out.

My facebook page is littered with shut-in advice.  Medical staff saying "I didn't stay home so you should." I get it.  I just don't know how long we'll actually do it.  I'll admit, that scares me a little.  I'm now hunkered down for the long haul...are you?!!?

End of Days...(Pre-end)

So let's just throw this out there...I'm gonna go take a nap during a zombie apocalypse.  My wait-and-see attitude has got me on the fast track to nowheresville.  I'm OK with that.  Every summer, I joke to my coworkers that I will see them in the fall...unless I've written that book...and I've NEVER written that book.  My default is on the lazy side.  I commend all you job-a-day-ers.  The ones with clean tupperware drawers and closets.  That's not me.  I'm saving all my work for a rainy day.  Now we have mandatory shut-in time and I'm all like...well technically, spring break is not over so....

Let's talk Spring Break...shall we?  I started mine a day early (last Friday the 13th...should have seen THAT coming, huh?)  My husband is a risk-taker and despite the Corona scare---we were still going on a cruise...with the kids.  Since we couldn't get our money back, I was OK with that thinking that the chance of them not cancelling was slim.   He called the cruise line earlier in the week and they said it was still a full boat, extra cleaning measures were being taken...it was all good.  (**They are now being sued by shareholders for flat out lying, but we didn't know that yet.  Except we totally knew that, right?!)  We took off from home at 4am Friday, drove to Chicago then flew to Miami.  We got into Miami just in time to hear rumors that our cruise was about to be cancelled.

Chad pointing to the actual ship we could not get on due to Covid-19.

We scrambled to the hotel kinda shell-shocked.  If it was up to me, I would have grabbed our bags and headed right back home.  But my husband had better sense.  We grabbed our bags, an uber and headed to the hotel near enough to the port that we still saw a cruise ship leave Friday at 4pm.  Our company we heard was classy enough to board the Friday passengers, then KICK them OFF before announcing the cancellation of all their cruises.

Miami was a beautiful disaster.  We were up to our eyeballs in rumor and speculation.  Was our cruise really cancelled?  We called...they were having a meeting at 5pm and then they'd get back to us.  In the mean time, we looked for another place.  I wanted to stay in the US because who knows what was happening and I was not getting stuck in Mexico or somewhere else.  Chad had always wanted to go to the Keys and his brother was in Ft Myers FL on vacation.  Checked the weather...Ft. Myers it was. Rented a place, talked about renting a car, we were moving and grooving and figuring things out.  Then I went to dinner...and drank.

When life gives you lemons...order a hurricane!

Our view of Miami from the hotel room.

That morning we rented a car.  Funny thing about a rental place, they can rent you a car, then when you get there they can have no cars and they are just like..🤷shrug?!  Guess you'll have to try someone else.  This happened to Chad 4 times.  Finally we ubered back to the airport and sat in line there waiting for a car.  We learned many things.  No flights out of Miami had any room.  When you cancel a bunch of cruises and thousands of people have to get home, it's kinda tricky getting all those people home again.  Also, when there are no cars...you might get one that smells like pee and not even care...that much.

The good news was from American Airlines.  They were so kind and flights out of Ft Meyers were $36 per person.  American Airlines were the only full service customer service we received from all this clusterfudge.  I'll go on record, the lady I got was a saint.

The good news...we found an opening at a condo in ft Myers for Sunday.  The bad news...it was Saturday and the worse news---we'd need to---gulp---bring our own toilet paper!  More tomorrow.    

To DO or not to DO...that is the question.

All my life, I've looked at good art (music, theater, writing, stand-up) and thought to myself...YES!  I NEED to do THAT.  I learned this weekend that bad art can have the same affect.  You see, somehow I got caught watching the Invention of Lying with Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Gardner and it's a TERRIBLE movie.  It made me think, hey, even I can do better!

I used to wonder what I was gonna BE when I grew up.   Then I found radio and loved it, then that whole medium died a horrible death and I tried something a little less creative.  Since having kids, I've been in the same job for years and it's very little brainpower after hours.  Kids are getting older and flying solo more so I should be doing SOMETHING else creative, but what?

I've thought podcast, sure, with my background in radio that should be easy but it's also intimidating.   I have to find a topic (motherhood, Seinfeld-like observational comedy, and BNL?) find time to record, find a co-host, design cover art, edit, and find an audience besides my mother.  Does it count as podcasting if you just create it and NO ONE listens?

Every summer I joke to my co-workers that I'm going to write my book while on summer break and not be available come fall when school starts again...and every year I lounge and find other things to do in my downtime.  Never gonna be a book.

We recently went to LA and there is money in creative thinking there.  LOTS of money.  But no one is just gonna find this terrible blog that I publish 4 times a year and think "Hey, I really need that girl on my staff," even though that's what I want.  I don't want to put in the work, but I want the final product.  I'm ready for my second act but a little lazy when it comes to preparing for my next big thing.

I used to believe it was coming around the corner, my chance to make something of my life.  But I'm 44...that chance might have gone by without me noticing.  I am VERY bad at directions.

So, what's next?  It's a 3-day weekend so I'm either going to watch my weight in netflix, disney+, and YouTubeTV (can we just say that content is CRAZY right now?!  How can I possibly have time to watch every show I want, it's ridiculous!) Or, I'm going to finally DO something.  Stay tuned.