Breaking a Fast with a Feast

 Today is Friday ... we call it Fasting Friday. Sometimes we succeed at fasting, sometimes we don't. This morning I was determined. We had our coffee, I drank several glasses of water, and I ate my obligatory apple, but my plan was to eat nothing else all day - just water.

As of 2pm I was doing pretty good. But then I remembered. Tonight is the community Christmas party. We participate in this community so little that, if we're here when there's a party, we're going to go. And, we were hungry! Salad, baked Ziti, Swedish meatballs, Chicken Tikka Masala - and a whole table full of desserts. Maybe next Friday we'll fast.

We dressed up in our Christmas best.

The community center and Pool here are so beautiful, we really should go there more often.

It's good to meet the neighbors!

Back to reality … or is it

We're home, after 2 1/2 months on the road, and over 6,000 miles.

 We woke up this morning in our camper van at Anastasia state park. It was 6:30am and the sky was just starting to get light. We were parked in the RV site that was closest to the beach so we could make the walk in time for sunrise at 7. 

It was so beautiful. I felt so connected. 

After 250 miles, and a couple of stops along the way, we pulled in to our parking spot at home at7 pm. The house was cool from the central air conditioning. We brought a few things in from the van, poured a glass of wine, and I plopped down on the couch and picked up the remote for the tv.

As I write this post, several weeks have actually gone by. Time just slips away when we're home. When we're traveling by RV, every day counts. Which one is reality?

Day 18, #StayHome

A normal morning - I got up first, made coffee, emptied the dishwasher. We were guest presenters at a Zoom meeting at 11, so we spent a little time preparing. The meeting went until about 1pm, then I did a little email, web browsing. I didn't do my 7 minute exercise today. Why not? It's easy, it's quick. I'm just too lazy.

We learned from my friend Chris, on Facebook, that an old time favorite steak-house restaurant (Tropical Acres Steakhouse) was promoting its butcher shop and selling meat via phone that you could then pick up. Jim called, placed an order, took a drive and picked it up. He paid over the phone with credit card, and just picked up the bag when he got there - contactless. He was home within the hour with 2 week's worth of steak, hamburger, salmon, and crab cakes. ... and one whole cheese cake!
We're almost out of wine, so I'm working on an order from Publix that should be delivered tomorrow.

I'm 5 days behind now on getting our GeeksOnTour newsletter out. hmmmm If I have so much more time on my hands, why can't I get anything done? All I want to do is go watch some more Homeland.

Dinner was awesome. I cut up a butternut squash, tossed it with some herbs, oil, and a small drizzle of honey then cooked it in the air fryer. Jim cooked one of the steaks. First he cooked it in the sous vide to the perfect temperature, then he finished it on the grill.

After dinner we walked around the neighborhood, soaked in the hot tub and I watched more Homeland. No, I'm not going to show the cheesecake.

Bad News

US Coronavirus Cases: 364,059 US Coronavirus deaths: 10,792

Good News

Timing is everything. If our Maldives trip had been scheduled just one week earlier than it was, we may have gone. I'm quite sure we would have gone if it had been 2 weeks. Then, we would have been stuck there because we learned that they closed the airport. Here's a story of a couple who were honeymooning in the Maldives and could not return home to South Africa. They were the only guests at their resort.

Day 15 #StayHome

We look forward to Friday mornings. For about 6 years now, we've been meeting online with a small group of people to share information and opinions about technology. We've gotten to know them quite well, even though we may have never met in person. Today was Friday, and Jim and I were sitting at his computer, logged in to Zoom, ready to go at 8:30.

We always chat about a variety of things, but today we focused on the Zoom technology. This is the group we can practice with because everyone wants to learn. Today we practiced with breakout rooms. How cool. When you teach a group, and you want to break them up into smaller groups and give them an assignment to bring back to the whole meeting - Zoom gives us Breakout rooms. It's really cool.

After the meeting, we had our breakfast apple, then retired to our respective computers. I finally got my show notes emailed out to our 8,000+ mailing list - Weekly Tech Tip: how to get your slides into Google Photos. Then I got to work on an article for our newsletter that needs to get out: Practical tips for running a Zoom meeting.

At 4pm I had a zoom webinar  on my calendar from Elliott Masie. I always love Elliott's big picture perspective, and this meeting was no different. He discussed the importance of empathy in dangerous times like these. He has produced several Broadway plays, and he had actors and singers on the webinar who performed and brought tears to my eyes.  

So, we never left the house at all today. It was another gorgeous day. We did take a break for a little hot tub soak.

Oh - Jim just said, "Let's take a walk" 

OK, it's 6:15 pm. and it is really beautiful out there. Gotta go

Bad news:

Total US CoronaVirus cases: 274,987

Total US CoronaVirus deaths: 7,065

Good News:

Italy's lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic is not only keeping people safe, but it's giving the outdoors — which is typically flooded with tourists — a chance to recharge. This from a March 20 article from Travel and Leisure

An April Fool's joke?

Today is day 13 of our home isolation. It was March 19 that we had a Toastmasters club meeting that we still hoped to be at Denny's. We got to Denny's and met with Kip and Tom but Denny's would not let us stay so we brought Kip and Tom back to our house and held the meeting remotely with Zoom. 

Since then, no one other than Jim and me, has been through our door. We do go out for walks around the neighborhood and, of course, to soak in the hot tub in the back yard. And Jim went to the grocery store on March 23. Here he is getting ready to go with plastic gloves (from the sewer dumping kit in the RV) and a face mask - actually a dive hood?

We've been rearranging things in the house. I cleaned out some file drawers in my office, and Jim completely rearranged his office - getting rid of lots of stuff and turning his desk around against a different wall. He really likes the new arrangement, but now it means we need to paint another green wall.

Chris' office with a stand-up desk and a file cabinet that can actually hold new files now.

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Jim's newly rearranged office - the computer pit /video studio

My office even has enough room now that we could set up our slide projector and screen to get out all those old slides and look at them one last time. When we see a good one, I take its picture with my phone and, voila! it's in Google Photos. We think this is such a cool way to digitize photos, and a cool think to do with this isolation time, that we used it for the topic of our YouTube show, Episode 188: how to get your old slides into Google Photos.

Between walks around our beautiful neighborhood, time to rearrange and use our wonderful home, we're enjoying this #stayhome time. Jim decided he didn't even have to go to the grocery store anymore since Publix home delivery is working so well. Thank you Winston for your delivery service. Winston is the name of the young man who took on the gig of shopping for whatever you put on your online Publix shopping list, and driving it over to our house and dropping it off.  I even have my own private chef. Jim is such a good cook, and he actually enjoys it. So, all I have to do is sit back and tell him when I'm hungry - within the hour I have a delicious, healthy meal in front of me. I throw together an occasional salad, or cut up butternut squash to put in the air fryer.

Can life get any better?

Well, except for the people dying that is.

We watch the news and see field hospitals set up in New York's central park. I hear from my Italian friend, Paolo, that the local paper's obituaries take up over a dozen pages when the norm was less than one page. An assisted living facility just down the street has reported 4 deaths. This is the facility where Mom spent her first 5 years in an ALF. She's in another one now, and they are in lock-down mode. We hear from RVTravel.com that a friend, a fellow seminar presenter, Gary Bunzer, is in critical condition with Covid-19 and is in a Seattle area ICU. Gary is a bit younger than us (I think) and has always look quite fit.

According to the CDC, COVID-19 cases in the USA on March 19 (when we started our lockdown) numbered 15,291. As of March 30, that number is 165,539. On March 19, the death toll was 150, today it is 4,079 according to Our World in Data.
This is catastrophe. The zombie apocalypse come to life. The world is experiencing the medical disaster envisioned in the movie "Outbreak." It is an unthinkable horror, the end of the world as we know it.

So, how is it possible that life can be so good for us? We are lucky indeed, but it feels like more than that. It is surreal. It's an episode of the Twilight Zone. How can the world be in such danger when the flowers are blooming and the sun is shining? Don't they know it's the end of the world? (thank-you BeckyJo for this reference)
Maybe it's the 2020 version of War of the Worlds? Maybe when we wake up tomorrow, April 2, we will discover that it's all been some cruel April Fool's joke? One can only hope.

Meanwhile we can't panic. The most important thing we can do is to follow the guidelines for "social distancing" so we don't get infected, and don't infect others. If possible, enjoy yourself, spread loving thoughts. My favorite meme from this has been:

Our parents were asked to go to war. We're being asked to stay home on the couch.

We got this.