What a week it has been. I’d say bad, except for some good news did happen!

Backing up a bit, so with all the Covid-19 stuff, Louie and I thought long and hard about taking our trip to Atlanta, but we decided to go for it: we were driving, and we were mostly just going to visit our friends April and Charlie, so we figured we weren’t interacting with huge numbers of people nor would we be at the whims of the airport. I packed a few extra items in the car in case of emergencies (little did I know that toilet paper would become an emergency and I would have brought more to leave with April) and we set off.

We had a great time in Atlanta. I might share more later, but that already feels too long ago.

Our last night in town, I got a call which left a voicemail. I started listening to it, and froze. It was a place calling to tell me they had my cat, Miles. THEY HAD MILES.

They had actually had him since October but for whatever reason, hadn’t run his microchip. When they finally did, Saturday evening, they found us. We told them we would be there as soon as we could.

We left Atlanta very early Sunday in order to get to the shelter before it closed.

And then we took him home. He’s been missing since April 20 of last year. Oh, and before being in the shelter, he was visiting the porch of a woman who lives in our neighborhood, about 5-6 blocks away. I even interacted with her on nextdoor, but didn’t know it was him (she said he was unneutered, and he is neutered, and I didn’t get back in touch with her due to a variety of reasons, one being I was in touch with so many people about black cats, and I also guess I figured she would run his chip at some point since that was mentioned in the thread…oh well!) But most important, he seemed well fed and happy, and the people at the shelter seemed very nice and loved cats.

Today is day two of online teaching from home. How quickly our lives change and yet already seem normal. This is the amazing part of being human, is that we adapt so quickly. We are struggling to figure out how to deal with life as it is now, with social distancing (who even knew this word 7 to 10 days ago?), working from home (thank goodness for the internet and video chat, right??) and spending far more time together and less time with other people. It looks like I wasn’t insane two weeks ago to stock up on food and such, though there isn’t actually a food shortage, it sort of feels like it.

I went to Schnucks (our local grocery store) yesterday afternoon for a few items (milk, notably) and it was shocking. Empty shelves everywhere, though there was still plenty of food, if you were willing to be flexible. No bananas, but still apples and pears. They were out of a lot of pastas but not all, and the same with breads. They did have a ton of green cabbage, 29 cents per head, and I just couldn’t imagine making cabbage right then. That’s how you know it isn’t really a food shortage…if there were we’d also be buying the cabbage.

I did get milk, though not my preferred brand, and a few other items. I think mostly we will just be cooking at home more and not having to pack lunches either, so our cooking styles will change over the next few weeks/months. I’ll have more time too as I’m only teaching and don’t have any extra gigs. We’ll see how much I miss them! Right now, I’m not feeling like playing the violin because I’m a little bummed about all that’s going on.

In any case, this is a wonderful time to be home with Miles and Muriel, and watching them interact and get used to each other again. Do they remember? No idea. Does Miles remember us? Again, no idea, but he seems to be settling in well and doing some of the same things he used to do, but that could just be instinct. (Likes the same toys, hiding in the same bathroom drawer, etc.)

How are you coping? Are you working from home (are you lucky enough to be able to?) Are you struggling and hoping relief comes your way (we will need cash in people’s hands soon)? Are you just going on, life as normal?