This is April. This is Quarantine.

Quarantine time is a strange phenomenon. What day is it? What week is this? And further confounding the anomaly is my new penchant to burn the midnight oil and then sleep away the morning. I'm getting better though. Yesterday I set my alarm for 8:30 and only snoozed until 9:30. This morning I must have reset my alarm (although I don't remember doing so) and then greeted the day just before 10. I was hoping for improvement. I'd have considered 9:15 a win. Well, there's always tomorrow. And what day will that bet?

Lily and I debated the length of this stay at home life while we were out for an afternoon walk yesterday. She claimed it's been months. After a little back and forth, we agreed on 4 weeks. The weather seemed in sync with this time out of time. It started to snow when we were a block from home. The sun came out just as we joined the path and for the duration of our walk there were intervals of bright sun followed by squalls of snow. At one point without a cloud in the sky, we observed a steady stream of snow. This is April folks.

After almost 4 miles, I felt productive so I pulled out the pork roast that was to be dinner only to find it had spoiled. Wasting food right now gets deep in my craw. I poured a glass of wine leftover from Easter and lost myself in an episode of Tiger King. I'm not proud to admit that I started and finished the 7 episodes yesterday although it was my major accomplishment for Tuesday. Yesterday was Tuesday...right? BTW Carole totally fed her first husband to the tigers, they should all be in jail, and I hope I can get Mike a pair of Joe Exotic underwear for Father's Day. Forget 2UNDRs. 

I managed to hit pause and make dinner. I needed a wine refill so I had to get up. We settled on a quick and easy carbonara, so basically breakfast for dinner: bacon and egg pasta. It was very good, but my regular recipe is better. Sorry Mark Bittman. I need to defrost something for dinner right now so we don't go hungry tonight. That's a joke btw.

We should be eating Easter leftovers. We have enough pricey lamb chops and rosemary potatoes for another meal. Mike cooked the chops perfectly and they were tasty, but I now know that they aren't my thing. It's not so much the taste as the idea. That being said we had a lovely celebration with friends who are family. And before anyone gets their dander up, we were under the 10 person limit, and we didn't hug. We taught the W's Wizard before dinner. I just ordered a game for them from Amazon. I both love and hate Amazon right now. Ah, but dinner came together perfectly. That's because Mike was responsible for timing. Thank you love. All the food was piping hot as we sat down at the table. Wine was poured, candles were all lit and Mike made an eloquent toast. Putting this dinner together filled me with so much joy all weekend long and knowing that we would be together made all of the quarantine changes like watching mass on television a little easier. I made a carrot cake with brown sugar buttercream for dessert. The homemade butter pecan ice cream refused to set, but it was the only fail. After dinner, the guys played crib and the rest of us played Fish Bowl. I missed my usual peeps, but thoroughly enjoyed our Easter gathering. I'm hoping that we can be with family by Mother's Day.

 All Set.

 Hello Spring.

Game On.

 My Guys.

  Girl Power.

Parker House Rolls.

Sexy Chops.

Dinner is Served.

As I'm writing, I just found out that several states have extended their stay at home orders until as late as June. One of the states is Minnesota. They have 90 cases. I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me. In Michigan, residents can go to the hardware store, but they cannot buy paint or grass seed. Did you read 1984? This kind of authoritarian order seems arbitrary and punitive. Wisconsin's governor closed all state parks this week and banned window visits at care facilities. These seem like knee jerk reactions. Orders made just because those in power can. I've been surprised that Americans have been so complicit while our civil liberties have been stripped one after another. I don't see this passivity enduring. I'm feeling more violated than vulnerable right now.