I feel like our nation has taken a turn, and we are all talking about things we haven’t been talking about, and it seems somehow different. To that note, today is Juneteenth and I really have to admit before a year or two ago I absolutely had never even heard of this holiday, and now people are wanting it to be a federal holiday, and it’s all great. Let’s continue this trend! Let’s continue to learn, to do better, and let’s get the madman out of OUR White House while we are at it.

I was finishing up an Edx course I’ve been taking and thought, I haven’t popped into the blog in awhile. So I thought I’d pop in and say hello. Things have been busy here but fun. I had my sister and her family visiting over the weekend through Tuesday, which was both normal and surreal…we hadn’t hung out with other people in months, and it felt wrong to do so, but yet we decided to go ahead with it. We’d all be doing pretty good at social distancing before the visit and are continuing to do so. I have been to a few more places than in the past, and even had a little gig for playing church music. I will say, it’s harder to play the violin in a mask, and I did take it off for the video, but only because there were only two of us in a giant sanctuary and we were more than six feet apart. Oddly I found it harder to hear in a mask, which makes no sense at all. But I wear the damn mask when I’m out and about, because all the science shows that we should. I wish more would do so, but I guess the American way is to be selfish and inconsiderate.

We plan to visit my sister again in a few weeks. They are in New York state now for a few months (and should be said, they canceled a flight they were planning to take for a few reasons, one of which was that masks were not required in the St Louis airport and therefore they felt less safe there) and it will be easy enough to drive to visit. We are still planning to take a trip out West. On the one hand, the virus. On the other hand, if others can do what they like, why can’t we, if we take precautions such as distancing and mask wearing around people, and mostly spend our time outside? We’ll be driving, and it’s still over a month away and some numbers are climbing while others are dropping…so who knows. Life feels more normal now…it feels normal to do nothing, to see no friends up close, to sign in when you go to a church to facilitate contact tracing (that made me feel safer, because I’ll know), and to be relieved at the grocery store when nearly everyone you see is wearing a mask and to know that THAT is why our numbers in the city are pretty good even while the rest of the state is growing.

I’m just blerghing now though, and you probably want cat pictures. I don’t have them right now! I have been busy catching up on teaching, reading, and just frankly, not taking enough cat pictures. They are adorable, but they keep hanging out in the same places and doing the same things, sorry!

I also don’t have food pictures. I think pet and food pictures are very controversial: people either love or hate to see them. I think, if you hate them, unfollow me or keep scrolling but other people really seem to enjoy complaining. I’ll try to do better this next week!

I’m going to read more about Juneteenth now. I am trying to take advantage of my more relaxed summer schedule to learn different things. In the alternate universe, we were supposed to be at a conference in Vail and then probably doing some sightseeing. Then we were going to be in New York visiting Leslie, which we are still doing, no matter what, and then we were going to be in France for two weeks, one for Louie’s conference and one for sightseeing. I still have the library books I checked out for that trip (are we allowed to return them now, I should look into this!). But instead, we are hoping to do a driving trip and camp, and hike, and do all many of outdoor activities (sitting around the fire, walking, watching wildlife, etc) and I hope it can happen. We may also be headed into another shutdown, so who knows! If so, maybe we’ll stay in New York longer if we get there.