Skitter’s showing off her ghost-and-owl Halloween Tie o’ the Day, while I am pleased to wrap a Day of the Dead-themed Bow Tie o’ the Day around my neck. I’m most proud to wear my “SPREAD EMPATHY” Face Mask o’ the Day. It’s a sentiment I completely believe in. I wholeheartedly recommend it to others.
During the pandemic, we have been good citizens about staying home whenever possible. I putter around in the piles of my poetry manuscripts, and through stacks of half-read books. Suzanne has spent most of her down-time with her coloring books. She hasn’t been as crochet-y or sew-y as in the past. She says nothing’s wrong: she just happens to be in a coloring phase—every pandemic evening after work. She swears coloring relaxes her, and I can tell that it truly does.
I do my best to make sure that she has every Sharpie marker color ever made, and I occasionally go online to hunt for interesting coloring books for her. I ordered QUARANTINE QUEENS for her a couple of months ago. It’s not as funny as it could have been, and a more accurate title would be PANDEMIC QUEENS. However, the coloring book does have a few clever gems, like this Suzanne-completed page showing a fitness tracker which has counted the wearer’s movement through the whole 23 steps traveled in a pandemic day. I realize that I myself probably haven’t taken a total of 23 steps in the entire time since mid-March, and I don’t feel a bit guilty about it. Every inch of my skin feels a little flaccid these days, but not a bit guilty.