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COVID, week 8 & California is opening, sorta

COVID, week 8 & California is opening, sorta

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Well, the fine state of California reopened ever-so-slightly since last week’s writing, though Governor Newsom made it abundantly clear that if local orders were more strict than those of the state, the former superseded the latter. For those of us living in Santa Clara county, or more specifically, for my family and me, everything felt like it remained the same. There wasn’t any discernible difference. 

Earlier this week, on Monday, Governor Newsom announced that at the end of this week, more components of California life would be opening, and he’d be laying out what it all entailed at Thursday’s press conference. Obviously I can’t foretell what this weekend will look like for my family, but I can’t imagine that any of us will be super psyched and willing to go to florists, bookstores, clothing stores, or sporting retailers, the original list of soon-to-open aspects, for curbside pickups. 

Earlier in the week, the governor intimated that some parks may be reopening this weekend — or rather, that he’d be communicating what their reopening guidelines would dictate by the weekend — so I’m curious how parks here (like my beloved ARP) will be affected, if they would be at all. Ultimately though, if local jurisdictions and counties are going to be the ones making the calls on reopening, I don’t imagine anything changing anytime soon because SCC still has a huge number of cases (with SJ, in particular, having more than 50% of those reported in the county). 

So, in other words, the past week has been more of the same, at least for us.

suddenly family selfies are much easier to pull off

Of note is that A’s principal held a school-wide parent Zoom meeting this week, simply to touch base with us, answer questions, that sort of thing, and as of this week, according to our principal, the superintendent hasn’t expressed any plans to begin school earlier, in July, as Gov. Newsom last week suggested may be the case with some schools. Who knows what will ultimately happen or what school will look like in the fall — my guess is that it’ll be some combination of in-person and remote learning — so just like with everything else related to this, all we can do is wait. We’ve got about a month left in this academic year.  

Mother’s Day is Sunday (hooray!), and I ordered gifts for my sister and my mom (that surely won’t arrive on time) and wrote in the gift messages how much I miss them both. I don’t think they read my blog, so hopefully I didn’t just spoil the surprise. There’s not much “nice” about this whole pandemic upending everyone’s life, but an unexpected byproduct is that I’ve been having video chats with my family way more often than ever before. It’s fantastic for staying in touch, even when we don’t have a ton of new updates to share, but I still sometimes find myself saddened to not know when I’m going to see my family in-person again. The girls and I definitely aren’t going to the midwest (to Ohio or to Illinois) this summer, even if things change, because the risks are just way too high. Additionally, my family has already expressed that it’s highly unlikely that we’ll be spending time together and going out of the country around Christmas/New Year’s like we’ve done for the past 5+ years.

At the earliest, that means I won’t see my parents, sister and her family, and brother and his family until at least winter 2021, which sucks, and I simply have to hope that everyone remains safe and healthy between now and then. I have no idea when I’ll next see my in-laws, too, in person, which is also a huge bummer. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have a better handle on everything before next winter (and dear god can I hope for a new president, too?), but I guess just like most things in life and, conveniently, also in running, our best approach is to stay in the mile we’re in and not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Control that which you can control, and let go of everything else beyond your reach.  

And finally, in the past week, my big girl turned 9! She said that this year’s birthday was her best birthday ever (bless her), even in the absence of the usual kid birthday stuff like a big party, special restaurant dinner, and that sort of thing. Originally, her big present was going to swim camp this summer for a week (a sleep-away camp), but of course it has all been canceled. (By no means am I complaining; it is definitely the right call). I don’t know if it’s because the pandemic is bringing out all sorts of emotions right now, if it’s some motherly guilt that I couldn’t provide for my daughter what I know she wanted the most (as she has been looking forward to being old enough for swim camp for over a year), or if it’s because my girl is now 9 — almost double digits! — but dear god, I was such a hot mess on her birthday. Honest to god, I couldn’t get through singing happy birthday without choking back tears, and I was weepy like that all day long. wth 

that ‘fresh-after-a-run’ look (and smell, eegads) because I woke up to run early so I’d be home well before she came downstairs. Wet eyes indicate I had already cried by then, ha.

(At the risk of sounding a little imbalanced right now, usually I wake up early, drink tea and read the news [and cry a little while reading the news each morning], then I go for a run and finish feeling happy and jazzed and buzzy, and I’m pretty even-keeled for the rest of the day. On her birthday though, dear lord. It was nuts). 

Hopefully your past week has been healthy and uneventful (the good type of uneventful, anyway). Hang in there, gang. 

On occupying time and settling mental unrest:

Cooking: Nothing out of the ordinary here (read: more tacos, this time with a bean dip-type filling). Extravagant! 

Running: April ended up being a really solid month for me, with 242.36 miles (slightly down from March) and 12,769’ climbing (pretty much exclusively road hills, since ARP has been closed). Last week I had a 100k training week (just shy of 63 miles) for the first time in a couple months, a new record during shelter in place. Most importantly, running has been super fun and chill, and I’ve been doing a much better job of consistently doing the ancillary stuff I usually neglect. An especially lovely and fun part of running right now is doing 5k training with A, and I feel like it’s allowing us to bond in a different way. I love it 🙂 A bunch of friends are participating in the virtual GVRAT 1000k, and I considered it but ultimately decided against it. (I instead have opted to support some local race orgs’ virtual efforts). 

right now we’re going 3x a week, and it’s so fun. I love her energy and that we get to run during sundown together.

Watching: I finally watched the Olympic Marathon trials coverage on YouTube over the weekend (which I agree, was pretty terrible). Even though I knew the results, it was still a lot of fun to watch. Related, I’ve been listening to a ton of podcasts that interviewed runners after the trials, and I feel like it’s a fantastic balance to my mornings: read the news and cry (and generally feel bad afterward) and then go for a run and usually listen to podcasts about runners from the trials (and usually feel fantastic afterward). And for whatever reason, I got on a musical kick over the weekend and watched Oklahoma! (which was definitely *not* what I remembered from high school) and Singing in the Rain (with many parts that didn’t age well). I’ve been trying to watch McMillion$ (because the girls have gotten really into playing Monopoly), but our Amazon Prime app has been buggy lately, so I haven’t yet been successful. 

Reading: After the kids and I finished Ralph S. Mouse, we began Henry Huggins, and in my own mix, I’m alternating among Kindness and Wonder (the book about Mr. Rogers), The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Melinda Gates’ The Moment of Lift (which, so far, is excellent), and I’m wrapping up To Shake the Sleeping Self. It depends on my mood at any given time. You? 

Another week of this behind us. Thinking of so many right now and wishing you all good health. Take care, be well, and happy mothers’ day. xo 

COVID, week 7 & change, maybe … not really

COVID, week 7 & change, maybe … not really

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Ah, another week of a COVID-affected life is behind us, and the most notable change since last week’s writing is that California extended our shelter-in-place order through May 31. Realistically, that means nothing changed since last week, though it feels like talks are beginning to hypothesize what “normal” will look like, whenever that begins. Governor Newsom announced last week that hospitals could begin scheduling the important surgeries that had to be delayed initially, and in yesterday’s conference, he intimated about what the 2020-21 school-year might resemble, suggesting that school might begin as early as July (!!!!)  or August, with a ton of modifications to the standard school set-up. 

So really, since last week, there hasn’t been any remarkable, concrete differences that I can think of (or at least that are affecting my or my family’s life), just more garden variety hypothesizing and armchair quarterbacking (epidemiologisting?) about what cities, states, or the federal government should or shouldn’t do and what should or shouldn’t happen.

I realize I may sound pretty salty about everything right now; that’s my bad. Just like anyone else, I’m frustrated that I can’t do anything more but stay home and wash my hands prolifically. It feels like everything is moving glacially slowly. I wish I could do more.

Anyway, in the running world, more races have begun to openly talk about the likelihood of cancellations or postponements, too. A few come to mind: locally, races like Wharf to Wharf and its sister race, Little Wharf (both cancelled in-person and moved to virtual), the San Francisco Marathon (rescheduled to November), the Berkeley Half Marathon (rescheduled to December), and further afield, like the Chicago Marathon (giving participants the option to cancel for 2020 and get guaranteed entry for 2021, though participants would have to pay again), Grandma’s (cancelled in-person and moved to virtual), and there has been some chattering that the postponed London Marathon, set for October, may be run as an elite-only event, presumably like Tokyo did, before COVID really blew up. These aren’t easy calls to make (especially many months out from the original race dates), and my heart goes out to the RDs who are making some tough decisions with limited information. 

It was also within the past week that my eldest’s school district communicated to families about grading and expectations for the final trimester, too. Essentially, students in primary grades are expected to participate in the online class sessions each week and to submit their assignments on time (electronically). However, teachers won’t be doing any type of assessing or grading over the final trimester. In a nutshell, then: kids should be doing their work, but they won’t be getting any grades. Their final report card will have summative comments, but they won’t be getting the typical breakdown and assessments on the various core competencies they are supposed to be mastering at this stage in their education. It makes sense, given the constraints and issues of equity and access, but it is still no doubt a stressful situation for everyone involved — students, their families supporting their at-home schooling, teachers, everyone. I’m in it, and I feel for everyone. 

ya feel

On occupying time and settling mental unrest:

Cooking. Nothing too out of the ordinary here, just more taco creations (mushrooms and Cuban black beans combination as well as a squash-onion-pepper-diced tomatoes with peppers variety) and more soup (what we call “sister soup” in my household, since both the girls really like it. It’s a pretty simple vegetable soup). Plus a ton of leftovers, still.  

Reading. I finished Chasing My Cure (and then I went down a NYT rabbithole about the author), restarted Kindness and Wonder again (since my library loan expired), and the kids and I began reading Ralph S. Mouse. If you’re in the market for some interesting emails sent to you each week, I’ve really enjoyed the NYT’s Running newsletter each week (Saturday mornings) as well as Alison Wade’s Fast Women newsletter (Monday mornings). You also can’t go wrong with The Morning Shakeout (Tuesday mornings) or The Growth Equation (Thursday mornings), either. 

Listening. I’ve really enjoyed listening to tons of running podcasts lately, focusing on the trials in Atlanta, and I especially enjoyed Keira D’Amato on I’ll Have Another, Des Linden on the same, Molly Seidel and her coach on the same, as well as Seidel solo on the newly-released podcast called More Than Running with Dana Giordano. I’ve only been listening to podcasts on some of my runs lately, so it can be an excellent motivator to get out the door (and to keep going!). 

Running. More of the same, lots of very chill mileage with a healthy amount of climbing in my neighborhood, and all solo, of course. In somewhat miraculous news, I’ve become a bit more regimented in my ancillary work within the past week — apparently it only took 7 weeks of thinking about it to finally begin — so hopefully that can be a habit that I make stick. I’m THRILLED that my eldest has decided that she wants to begin training for a 5k (especially since swimming is still on hiatus for the foreseeable future), and I can’t tell you the immense joy that I have felt on the run with her in the few times we’ve gone out already. We’re following a run/walk strategy from Girls on the Run, and she’s having a blast with it already. It makes my heart sing. 

day 3 5k training

And you? 

Stay safe, and be well, friends. xo