girl at large

Timing Is Everything

(Delivery truck and crew by Viv, circa 2018)

Pro Tip: when supporting small and mid-sized businesses, keep to the services and products they have OFFERED. Don’t ask for more. Don’t ask for an exception. Don’t ask for shit Karen. 

The phased back to work plan can work, but only if we observe all the safety guidelines. The next phase can’t happen is the first phase fails.

Don’t assume everyone has the capabilities to meet those safety procedures right this minute. Just because they technically CAN do business doesn’t mean they are READY to do business.

Many businesses laid off and furloughed their staff.  Bringing staff back too soon is financially risky, and not the right decision for folks who make $50k or less. Many staff CAN’T come back because they have underlying health conditions or are caring for their own families. Or they don’t want to because they know their job functions are inherently risky or that their employer may not be capable of making their work environment safe. Or they may just not be ready to come back for WHATEVER DAMN REASON THEY HAVE THAT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS ACTUALLY.

Businesses literally probably cannot physically do more than what they offered you. Be grateful.

Covid Kids

Easter is a bit different this year. No big beautiful family meal at Aunt Lisa’s, no dressing up fancy and no Easter egg hunt at the park. Instead only six eggs to color, scrounging up strange kitchen drawer candy, raiding the present closet for a basket filler.

This is week four of the quarantine, week four of the emotional roller coaster, first full week of homeschooling, second week where I have no sales team left to work with, fourth week of no customers, fourth week of no answers. 

What will the kids remember? The tears and arguments? The short tempered parents? Being separated from friends and grandparents?

Probably not. They are ages three and seven. They will remember the year the Easter Bunny brought legos instead of marshmallow eggs. (It’s a dangerous precedent really.)

I remember in tough times, not the trouble itself so much as the comfort my mom employed. Sometimes it was for her comfort, like her favorite food (creamed eggs on toast), sometimes for our comfort like holding my head in a certain squeeze, or reading at the end of her bed.

I don’t need the iron this morning, or a fresh pair of tights, or a pan of food to bring, or to rush out the door hollering to “get in the car or else!”.

But I sure do need some hope.

Some hope to help me take these six eggs and, like the lemon to lemonade adage, make something of them. Maybe egg salad. 

But not creamed eggs on toast. Because it’s gross.

At Home Learning

I’ll always question why I asssumed it was safe to have the kids at Grandmas house the first week and half. Once I developed a cold (only one day of low fever, no other covid symptoms), it came crashing down on me just how selfish and risky that was. I hope that lesson wasn’t learned too late.

Now that they are at home with us all day every day, I’m learning first-hand how amazing Grandma time was —activities, schedule, lessons schoolwork. And the snacks! Oh the snacks. I’m finding out just how impossible is it to Work From Home and Parent At Home and Also Be A Teacher. It is impossible.

You know those work-from-home memes about discovering the “work personality” of your spouse? Paulie is about exactly what I expected, though slightly more organized. In contrast, during their first classroom video meeting, I was surprised to find out my kid, my very quiet kid, is the bold over-sharer! Good to know.

And one final lesson during this pandemic—the entire first two weeks I thought “WFH” stood for What Fucking Hell, not Work From Home.

I like my version better.