This is my life - Coronaversion

So, what's Ipecac been up to during the pandemic?

I am one of the lucky ones.

I've worked for the federal government in downtown DC for 30 years this October. Up until mid-March, my shop was unable to telework. We accept filings from the public and have always needed to have a physical presence to accept and process those filings. But as the lockdown approached and my agency moved towards 100% telework, we figured out a way to cobble together an electronic filing system in two days. It's not sophisticated, but it works. So on March 17, I started teleworking.

It's gone very well. It's a strange routine, getting up, showered, dressed, and then walking into our guest room which is also our home office. Of course, the biggest upside is the lack of commute. Normally, I have an 80-90 minute trip downtown via bus and DC Metro, and the same coming home. Because of telework, I've gained almost three hours to do whatever I want. In the morning, I've used it for about 90 minutes of extra sleep, which has been awesome. I'm probably better rested than I have been in years.

Aside from work, I've been tackling a ton of longstanding projects around the house. From replacing power outlets and switches, to touching up paint, to trimming our book and DVD collections, to cleaning the garage, to reorganizing my game room, to finally going through my sixth grade beer can collection, I've gotten a ton of stuff done. I've been enjoying that and am looking forward to finishing several more projects. Honestly, my main fear is that I'm going to go back to commuting before I get all these things done.

Carol works at a theater downtown and was laid off some weeks ago. She's been keeping herself busy with various projects and some Zoom theater classes. We've been playing some of the games we've never played and bingeing Brooklyn Nine Nine. 

Rachel lives in DC with her boyfriend, cat and dog, and is also teleworking, so she's fine.

Ben is home and just finished his last semester of college. I feel terrible for him, and all graduating seniors, both in college and high school, missing out on all the last semester fun. Rather than spending time with his college friends, he's in his bedroom talking to them on his laptop. We also missed out on his last "rock band" concert in mid-April, which Carol and I loved to attend. Yes, as a guitar major, he took a class called "rock band" and they put on a show each semester. His last performance in college was going to be the music of Prince, Tom Petty, and David Bowie.

His graduation was supposed to be last Saturday, May 16, with a whole bunch of our family coming east to attend. None of them ever got to see his campus. To celebrate on Saturday, we ordered takeout sushi, which was awesome, but not a substitute for what we had planned.

This weekend is supposed to be our 27th annual Memorial Day game-a-thon. That is also cancelled. Other plans include a Disney World trip scheduled to start on June 10. Ben asked to go to Disney for his graduation present. I've held out hope, but it's definitely kaput at this point. Disney won't be open, but even if it is, I doubt we'd go.

As I said, I am one of the lucky ones. My family has income, we're comfortable and safe in our homes, and no one is sick. We're staying home as much as possible; I've left the property once in the last month.

Unfortunately, not everyone is well off. Millions of Americans are hurting because things have gone to shit and those at the top have given up even pretending to try. We needed a strong, consistent federal response and leadership to stop this a lot earlier, but as we all know, we got none of that. Millions of people are working during this, exposing themselves to disease and death to keep things running.

I owe them. We all owe them. It's up to all of us to make sure we learn from this experience and make sure it can never happen again.