Beware the Ides of March

Holy f***, America.

So, this month can really be divided up into two parts:  BEFORE the schools were shut down, where life was normal and everyone was looking forward to St. Patrick's Day and the Daddy/Daughter Dance, and AFTER. . . where society shit its pants and we isolated ourselves in our homes and idiots began hoarding toilet paper.

A lot has been said of COVID-19, and I, for one, find that it's better not to take anyone's opinion to heart in this matter.  None of us can speak with any authority on this.  That being said, as this pandemic - which, according to experts, is still in a relatively early stage - continues to unfold and spread across the world, Yours Truly is, and has remained, pretty optimistic.

Now, I'm not one of those assholes that views this as 'no big deal,' and goes about his life as normal, hitting up stores and hanging out with others.  I've followed the quarantine orders, we don't leave the house very often (the exception being our daily walk with the Johnsons - which I'll explain in the pictures below - and an occasional errand to Meijer or Aldi or whatever.)

However, I truly feel at this point that I am going to end up getting Coronavirus, and my wife and kids will, too:  we'll get it, we'll suffer mild symptoms, and we'll recover.  I feel that's inevitable, and hopefully I'm right in assuming we'll come out of this just fine.  That being said, it's our responsibility as relatively young-ish and healthy citizens to stay the hell away from the elderly, who are more susceptible to this thing.   That's the whole point of this - 'flatten the curve' and all that.

I think I'm doing better with this Stay Order than most of my friends and peers, though, simply because Yours Truly, being a teacher, is used to sitting at home for a couple months at a time and not losing their damn mind.  This is business as usual for me, just minus the great weather:  instead of slaving over my yard, or sitting on the back porch for a couple hours tanning, reading a book, and enjoying a pipe, I'm having to find ways to occupy myself inside the house.  Nerdy side-projects on my computer I've been wanting to get around to - inventorying collections, scanning old family pictures, putting together videos from college, etc.

So, in summary, the Houghs are doing well, three weeks into this pandemic.  Morale is high, no one's sick, no one's suffering from anxiety or depression, and we're keeping ourselves busy.  Once the weather improves and it starts getting warmer out, I can start attacking the yard with a vengeance, but, in the meantime, I've got plenty to do around the house to keep me sane.

Here you are, America - a look at what our March looked like.

Enjoy.

While watching a Rolling Stones documentary on Netflix one evening, Kris and I spotted a familiar pirate skeleton figure sitting on Keith Richards' piano.  I have the exact same one, which I picked up in Disney World's Pirates of the Caribbean gift shop back in 2002 (I actually have the entire set.)  Kinda cool knowing that Keith and I have something in common.

Some random video we found on Alayna's phone, who frickin' knows.  Now that we have a third source of pics and video in the household, you'll be seeing stuff from her phone pop up here in this blog as well. . .

The local car wash here in Midland changed ownership last month, and one Friday after picking up Alayna from school, I swung over to get the Titanium Falcon cleaned.  Alayna wanted to film (or, 'record,' as the kids call it these days) the process, since the new owner installed a bunch of colorful lights throughout the wash.

This was some school project Alayna and her classmates filmed for a class of theirs.  We actually have no idea what any of it is or means, we just stumbled across this one day while routinely going through her phone.

Kris sometimes volunteers for a weekly fellowship dinner at her church.  One week, my buddy Morgan - who brought his family out for the meal - texted me this pic.

Our Lodge holds an annual spaghetti dinner for the community that brings in a shit-load of money for. . .  I don't know, some sorta medical fundraiser of some sort.  This was originally scheduled for April 4th, soooo it's probably a safe bet this is now cancelled and we're not going.

Behold:  two tweens in their natural environment.

Alayna recently discovered how to make memes on her phone.  And it so it begins. . . .

And another one.

As the weather started to warm up at the beginning of the month - 'cause, as you know, this was the mildest winter frickin' ever - the girls have started to try their hand at baseball.  Not that they have any of the equipment or knowledge of the game necessary in order to correctly play baseball. . .

On Friday, March 13th - the day they decided to call off school for a few weeks - society (as I stated before) lost its damn mind.  As a result, people - being the stupid, easily-influenced sheep that they are - decided they had to stock up on essentials because they wouldn't ever be able to go to the store again.  Canned goods, eggs, milk, disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer, paper towel, and - most of all - toilet paper were quickly snatched off the shelves.  My buddy Mitch texted me and the rest of our dad squad this picture at Meijer when he was out hunting for toilet paper.  It was 7am, and nearly everything was already gone.

Fortunately, Kris had the day off of work, so she spent her morning driving around Midland buying up everything that was on our grocery list, amidst all the panic and chaos.  She texted me this picture while I was at work of the toilet paper section at Kroger, where she had been fortunate enough to grab the absolute LAST twelve-pack of toilet paper in the store.  She said she had felt like she had just won the lottery.  We later split a bulk, 50-roll box of toilet paper from the Midland Paper Company (who supplies the hospital and many of the larger companies in town) with two other families, so we were well-stocked for the panic.  Not that we felt the need to hoard anything at this point in time, mind you, but because soooo many other people were, we had little choice.  I f***ing hate people.

Later that night, I hung out with some of the dads over at the Collier's, where we watched 1917 (which was awesome, by the way.)  Afterwards, Ryan gave his son's hoverboard a spin around the basement. . .

The next morning, the guys that had been over at the Collier's the night before drove up to Clare in order to hit up a few spots around town for Irish Fest (as I had been talking it up the night before.)  Unfortunately, I couldn't go with them, as I had to help get our house around for our annual (and this year, last-minute) St. Patrick's Day party later that evening.  The guys later texted me this picture from the White House, where they grabbed some breakfast before setting out to hit up a few bars around town.

I also may have mentioned how the Greatest Pizza on Earth is located in Clare, so they sent me this pic as well.  A few hours later - after they had hit up Jay's and three or four totally-empty bars around town (thanks, Coronavirus, for ruining Irish Fest) - they unexpectedly showed up to my house with two, untouched large pizzas for the party.  I nearly wept.

The day after our party, as Kris and I cleaned up the house, it was pretty sunny out, so the dogs spent the majority of the day hanging out in the Study by the back door.

Alayna took this pic of the dogs spooning.  We takes a lot of pictures of the dogs. . .

With all of the kids being suddenly kicked out of school for two or three weeks (we were first told we would be going back to school on April 6th), parents across the state had to scramble to figure out what to do with their kids.  No education for three weeks?  That's pretty insane.  Teachers had to frantically develop lessons for students to complete at home, in order to keep their brains sharp.  Alas, at the same time these assignments couldn't be mandatory (i.e. graded), as not every student has the means of accessing the internet at home.  It was obviously pretty stressful for both teachers and parents to figure all this bullshit out over the course of a weekend, but fortunately for the Houghs Yours Truly, being a teacher and everything, stepped in as both babysitter and educator.  Not only would I continue to teach my own students from home - using Google Classroom and educational sites like Flipgrid to communicate enrichment lessons with my students - but I also would oversee and administer the lessons and assignments my kids were receiving from their teachers online.

I even took on two additional kids, too - Alayna's best friend, Maddy, and Abby's BFF, Ella - in order to help their parents out with childcare, etc.  Every morning, starting around 9:30am, I'd start the girls off with a half-hour of reading, followed by some journal question-entries in their notebooks based on what they had read that day (reading for comprehension and application is big in education these days.)  After Reading and Writing (which every day compromised of this activity, plus whatever their own teachers sent them), we'd transition to Social Studies or Science - I'd check to see what their teachers sent them and just keep track of it in a spreadsheet I created.

Ella and Abby, working through a lesson module sent by their Science teacher.  Around 11:30am or so, we'd break for lunch and some hang-out time, then at 1pm I'd recall the kids to battle stations in order to work on Math.  Generally that took anywhere between a half-hour and an hour, so usually by 2pm the kids were done.  From that time until Kris got home, the girls just kinda hung out around the house, and I was able to grade my own students' assignments, work on creating content for them to work on in coming days, etc.

After dinner, we'd have some chill down-time, where the girls got to work on things like puzzles.

This bad-boy we inherited from Granny Hough, back in 2015, thereabouts.

Day Two of Pandemic Academy, as I like to call it.  Also known as St. Patrick's Day. . . back when that was a thing.

My buddy Brad - previously shown in front of a certain, prominent Clare pizzeria - happens to be a cigar salesman, and following our St. Patrick's Day party (where we talked about cigars for some time), he swung by my house to drop off this ballistic, air-tight gun case that he transformed into a fully-functional humidor.   He swears by cases like this over traditional wood cases, and I take his word for it.  He threw in about 70 cigars as well, free of charge.  A ridiculously generous gift, and one that will be much-appreciated as we enter into a quarantine.

During 'recess,' Ella and Abby decided to make a 'restaurant' outside.

As far as a menu goes, I think they served up tree bark and mud.  Something along those lines, I don't know. . . all I know is that I ended up being the poor son of a bitch who had to clean the whole damn thing up.

Doing another Prodigy lesson (an RPG-ish Math game that the girls are absolutely obsessed with.)

Taking an afternoon nap on St. Patrick's Day.  Why the hell not.

It was definitely a bizarre and surreal St. Patty's - having to homeschool a group of kids under the ever-growing threat of a global pandemic becoming a local menace - but after the girls went to bed, I decided to enjoy a traditional Irish drink of mine:  Jameson with green food dye.  Slainte, homies.

Alayna was walking around wearing these costume glasses (from Kris' Mr. Smee costume a few Halloweens back.)  Who knows why.

Mr. Hough, overseeing more virtual lessons.

After a couple days, the governor gave the order to close certain medical facilities, such as dental offices.  Kris, being the manager of a dental office, was sent home until further notice, so while I've been teaching kids, she's been working on cleaning the house and picking up random home improvement solutions to stave off boredom.  Such as painting one side of the basement stairwell in a series of abstract shapes - an idea she lifted, of course, off Pinterest.

I attempted to lie down and watch an episode of The Simpsons one afternoon, and Samson decided to take advantage. . .

Kris gets some help (sorta) with her painting project. . .

The finished product.  Turned out pretty well (though it's kinda hard to see in the pics.)

We have this broken mirror in our storage room (it's been in the back since we moved into the house.)  The girls had pulled it out for some reason or another, and Alayna decided to snap a selfie in the reflection.

Some new quarantine artwork.  Kris had stocked up on a lot of arts and crafts supplies from Michael's while readying for the quarantine, including stacks of blank canvases for the girls to paint.

The girls enjoy taking stupid-ass, personality quizzes on Youtube, and one evening asked if Kris and I would take it with them.  I think this particular quiz - about roles in a friend/social group, I think - required us to answer like twenty questions, each one having multiple answers with different point values.  Here Kris tallies up her answer totals. . .

This is Kris, apparently.

Here's Alayna.

Aaaand this is Abby and I.

Seriously.

One afternoon, Kris broke out some sidewalk chalk for the girls and suggested they follow the trend on Facebook of chalking our sidewalks and driveway with inspirational messages.  You know, shit like, "We're in this together," "Stay safe -we love you," etc. - stuff like that.  This practices was trending all over the place online, and the City of Midland had pounced on it, encouraging residents to have their kids liven up their properties with messages of community, hope, love, etc.  So, what did our kids decide to draw?  They created a murder scene, and outlined one another's bodies in chalk, like a crime scene.  Because we're the motherf***ing Houghs.

Making pizza for dinner one evening.  This was one of those kits Alayna had sold for a school fundraiser a few back (for her orchestra, I think.)  It actually ended up tasting like Little Caesar's, too, which was weird - I figured there'd be more to their pizza then that.

Later, while watching a movie, Abby decided to play a game on her tablet. . . underneath this frickin' box.  This kid's beyond weird.

After nearly two weeks of not being able to leave the house, I finally snapped and decided to head out to Radio Wasteland to purchase some new vinyl   The very next day, the state issued a stay-at-home order, closing all non-essential businesses and more or less forcing people to stay at home.  Thank God I was able to squeeze in one, last bout of record-shopping before the ax fell. . .

Making some art in the basement.

Samson snores like nobody's business.  Like, every single time he falls asleep.  It's hilarious.

Of course, as if we didn't have enough to deal with these days - what with the pandemic, the quarantine, the social-distancing, the stay-at-home order, the homeschooling, etc.  No, Michigan said 'f*** you' and gave us one, last day of snow one morning.  Granted, this was all melted within a few hours, but still . . . not the kinda thing you want to wake up to while you're dealing with all of the other bullshit we've been dealing with lately.

No idea.

Mitch stopped by and we had a social-distance'd beer in the driveway.  He was riding his bike around the neighborhood, popping in and having a drink with the other dads in our social group.  You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.

Alayna, knocking out her mandatory thirty-minutes of daily reading with a couple of mutts. 

Abby and Ella, working on some math.

Spelling tests are the best. . .

. . . this was not party of homeschooling.

One evening, Kris orchestrated all of our friends to line their cars up in front of our house at 7pm.  It was Courtney's birthday (that's Ella's mom, if you'll recall), and due to quarantine and what not, she couldn't really celebrate it.  So, we decided to lead a parade from our house to theirs, driving by her house with our horns blazing in order to wish her a happy birthday.  All the families had their kids make birthday signs to tape on the left sides of their vehicles (the side she would see from her house as we drove past), and at 7pm I called Erik, her husband, and told him to make up an excuse that would get her outside at 7:05pm.  At that point in time, our caravan of loudness drove down their street, horns blaring and people screaming.  Mission Accomplished, America.

More weird pictures from Alayna. . .

As the weather started to heat up, I decided to clean out the garage (FINALLY) and get the bikes ready for Spring.

I have a laundry list of work to do on these bikes - lubing chains, re-chroming wheel rims, calibrating brakes, etc. - but, for now, at least the tires are inflated and all the bolts and gears are tight.

One of Alayna's paintings she did recently.  She's been getting really good with gradients lately.

Kris and I figured it was finally time for the girls to experience the great, '90s classic, Nightmare (which Chris and I grew up with as kids - glorious, cheesy '90s horror.) 

The girls loved it.  We had to wait until they were old enough to not be scared by the creepy-ass dude in the video, and they were totally fine it.  We're definitely going to be playing the expansion sets, seeing how we're on indefinite house arrest until future notice.

A buddy of mine texted me a picture of him with a beer one evening.  I wasn't drinking at the time, so I just snapped a pic of what I had on me at the time.

A logo I created for a Yeti I'm going to have engraved once this whole COVID-19 pandemic blows over. . .

As you know, I've been homeschooling the Johnson's kid the last two weeks since they closed down the schools.  This meant that our two families had been regularly exposed to one another for a couple weeks, so as the stay-at-home order came into effect, it basically meant that we were quarantined together.  As such, we fell into a routine of going on two-hour-long walks throughout the surrounding neighborhoods every day at 4pm (weather permitting) - sometimes walking our dogs, sometimes not.  The girls would speed ahead on their bikes, Kris and Courtney could catch up on gossip, and Erik and I could have a pipe and bitch about what our world leaders were doing wrong.  We'd even swing by our friends' houses to say hi (from a safe distance, of course), and on occasion run into them on the street.  Here are the Colliers, who were out on a family bike ride when we ran into them.

Spotted this fine work of penmanship on a little kids' swing at a public park (before they were all closed down by the city.)

Ella and Abby spot a dead squirrel on one of our duo-family walks.

I've been video conferencing with friends quite a bit over the last couple of weeks.  It helps to have a beer with the guys once and awhile, and if the only way to do so is via the World Wide Web, than so be it.  Here is the legendary Jon Kimmel, who wanted to start the evening off with frickin' shots. . .

Later, we were joined by lil' baby Beepers. . .

Believe it or not, I video-chatted with these two knuckleheads for over three hours, but it felt like a mere fifteen minutes.  Two weeks of house arrest will do that, folks.

The Game of Life.  Boardgames, puzzles, cards, you name it - anything to keep the kids entertained.  As we enter Week 3 of Quarantine, we're technically on 'Spring Break,' which means no school.  Life has been a popular game choice with the girls lately, which is fine, I suppose, it just takes FOREVER to play. . .

- Brian