Celebrating Easter and other happy events

We're a month in to quarantine now, and our days have something like a pattern or routine, although this past week was set apart by many celebrations.  First we celebrated a six year old birthday, then Dad came home after a six week exercise, then we entered Holy Week and celebrated the Feast of the Resurrection (Happy Easter, everyone!), and then we ate more sweets to honor my husband's birthday. Tuesday was back to school day, but yesterday a friend celebrated a birthday, and we walked almost 10 miles around the neighborhood - with masks and opposite edges of the side walk. We tried to maintain the six feet apart, and since we passed several patrolling police cars, and none said anything to us, we must have been okay.  I have heard a police man ask people to keep moving along the beach before it was closed, but I haven't seen them stop anyone. My friend in Spain said her daughter was stopped while out walking their dog. They can only go a certain number of meters from home - I think about 50 or 80 - but she was within that distance.  They've had their quarantine extended another 30 days, even though news seems to suggest that they have reached the peak number of cases.

At one point I thought this quarantine was meant to give hospitals time to gather supplies and prepare for an onslaught of cases. Now it seems to be destined to last until a treatment or a vaccination is found. My husband wanted to talk about plans to fly our college students, who are with their grandparents in Indiana, back for the summer, but I hesitate to assume that by summer things will be back to normal. Our high school senior is losing hope that their mid-June graduation date will happen, although I've seen some creative solutions like ceremonies held at drive-in theaters. I waiver back and forth between frustration that a solution for reopening the economy has not been found yet and anxiety that the disease is much worse than initial reporting indicated.  It depends on what I read. I have stopped checking the daily numbers of statistics from the WHO.  I'm not sure how accurate they are anyway, if many people are still not getting tested. I read one article yesterday in the WSJ about how the virus may attack the nervous system and cause brain damage, a result just being identified as people recover. That was enough to make me satisfied to stay home again.

In the meantime, the past week has been a relatively good one.  Since we hadn't planned a birthday party for the five year old turning six, she was disappointed with her party at home with siblings. Her sister made her a beautiful castle birthday cake, and we delivered cupcakes to a few of her neighborhood friends. She got calls from family and some friends, so she felt like the star of the day. And her pile of random presents, including a stuffed animal from the grocery store, since some online orders failed to show up, made her happy.

The best birthday gift was that her dad came home late the next night. His flight was delayed over 14 hours, but eventually he made it back.  He's now on home quarantine, like the rest of us, although in another week he'll go back to work as essential personnel.  Since his group was in the desert, and they were on a chartered flight with no other passengers, he feels pretty sure he hasn't been exposed to any viruses. And no one is coughing or feverish around here...

Our Easter celebration was similarly happy - we watched the vigil on East Coast time at the University of Notre Dame basilica, which was still a couple hours long without sacraments, and then had a feast afterwards with good champagne and steaks, since several us gave up meat for Lent.  On Easter morning, we put another Mass on, but didn't make the kids sit to watch it. We had our Easter basket and egg hunt, made a big brunch, and then took some cookies to some neighbors in the afternoon, so we had a little social time from a distance.  We had plenty of candy and sweet treats, and although my online shopping was sporadic, everyone had a book and something to wear in their baskets. It was not a sunny day, but it was nice enough for a walk to admire everyone's gardens and to look for the white crosses that a lot of people have in their yards.

All of the rain has made it easier to stay at home. It also has made my garden healthy.  I finally have little seedlings in my garden boxes, but they look like mostly beets. My lettuce seeds apparently weren't viable. I may venture out next week to look for salad green starts at the hardware store, but we'll see. We also have lost a computer - the desktop gave up the ghost. I'm trying to decide whether to get a new one, or another laptop, or whether to try to find a repair person to try to fix it.  It's about 7 years old, which is about as long as computers last these days.  I think all the photos and documents have backed up to Google, so I am not mourning lost photos - but it is a good reminder that one of my quarantine goals is to print photos.

Time to pass the laptop to a distance learning student. Next time I'll write up some of the books I've been reading - although I seem to have a lot of books started but not finished.

An attempt to take an artsy photo from inside the 6 yr old's new kaleidoscope of my bookshelf.

My orchid rebloomed! A happy thing!

A reader!

A gift from my son - another source of smiles

And here is a dog in a carriage defying the no parking order at the beach.

Oldest daughter made carrot cake for Dad.

A roller blading six year old

The croissants made by my son in Indiana - lots of butter required.

Easter afternoon feast - the traditional ham, asparagus, scalloped potatoes and Watergate salad, also with homemade bread cross on the good dishes.

An old favorite

We added more eggs along the walk

Not everyone was excited about an Easter walk

Our vigil altar

A friend made us some stylish masks

The castle cake

Now we are six!

While dropping off cupcakes, a friend left a birthday message.

An attempt to take artsy photos through Facetime of spring at my parents - I miss these flowers!

Boxes from a friend who moved - another fun quarantine activity - fort building in the garage.

Palms for Palm Sunday