And on it goes . . .

Let's start with this . . .

And move on to this . . .

Mistah took a photo to show Mom my fancy sleeves while we were talking on the phone Saturday afternoon . . . hey, if you can't get fancy for Saturday night, when can you get fancy?

And in the meantime, our favorite young friend turned two for pete's sake and we got to real facetime him . . .

. . . this is a screen shot, not a video. But let's face it, a video would barely be able to contain our vast talents anyway . . .

I think this happened on Saturday too -- Mistah squeezing lemon onto his smoked salmon.

Because, why should we suffer?

And this happened somewhere in there too; who can keep track?

And then Sunday morning happened and the Mithells made everything better . . .

That's My Girl Nancy . . .

. . . and that's Fresh Jonny's eyeball . . .

. . . and that's our girl Zozo . . .

. . . and that's Poopie.

We inexplicably did not take a photo while on with my godson and I'm sorry about that because we had a *lot* of facetime with that kid.
Hey dude. I mean, 'Sup, bro? And hello to the lovely Andrea too. We loved our Sunday morning together.

Here's the thing. The weather on Sunday was downright mean around these parts. The wind and the rain and the cold did not make it easy for the citizens of this planet -- we had to struggle to keep it together . . .

. . . and it's only us -- just we lowly, humble, unassuming peeps -- who have only ourselves and eachother to try to continue to keep it together.

I feel for all the peeps out there who are struggling through these days. It's hard to SPO. To Sustain Productivity and Optimism. But good God I'm trying. We've got to try, right?

Call your friends. Call your neighbors. Call us.

And when all else fails? Call your sister Jane to ask her the rules, go out to the Westy for a deck of cards, and then . . .

. . . play Crazy 8s.*

(*I won.)

Drink 'n' Dial

We have been talking to a *lot* of people on the phone lately. Some people don't traditionally like it (hello, family!); some people love it (hello, Renee!). I just wish we had taken selfies of ourselves in every case.

We had not.

But then we started.

Hello, Renee!

We were looking up definitions of words in the dictionary while on the phone with Renee on Friday night because of course we were.

Hello, Kirk and Suzannie!

The Champagne of Beers goes a long way back with our Florida friends, who we spoke to Saturday morning . . .

Hi, Kelly!

It was brilliantly sunny weekend around here . . .

Hello adorables, while also talking to Mom!

Yes, Mistah was on the street. But yes, six feet. We are not barbarians.

Then Mistah had the great idea that we should have been asking people to send selfies of themselves while we were talking on the phone with them. Alas, we had not been. Alas, we never started. We therefore do not have a photo of Kat on the way to hike Bluff Point (Hi Kat!). And we do not have a photo of Nancy and Jonny while we were all drinking coffee in our respective homes on Saturday morning (Hey dudes). Nor do we have Christine or Ray & Joan on the Ides of March . . .

And although we do not have a photo of Jennie cooking ridiculously-delicious-sounding Arabian spinach Saturday evening, we do have a photo of us talking to Jennie whilst she was cooking ridiculously-delicious-sounding Arabian spinach Saturday evening . . .

Oh, hello Jennie!

We spoke to Lisa on Sunday afternoon, finally . . .

Hey there, Lisa!

And we had a few more six-feet-away walk-bys on Sunday afternoon, too . . .

Hello Adorables!

And hello again, our always-Lovelies . . . 

I will wave to you from the front porch like the Pope *forever* . . . 

Again whilst on the phone with Mom. A lovely tradition we've developed.

But, the grandaddy -- well, more accurately -- the grandmommy of them all . . .

I know! Mom and all of my sisters and I -- and a couple random dudes -- talked on Sunday morning, and it was everything.

It was so cool and so fun and so gratifying and so fulfilling. Don't you love The Future?

Hey, *you* try to get everybody in this crew 
to smile at the same time . . . 

I did not take a screen shot of Mistah putting our vase of yellow tulips between me and my laptop, entirely blocking my face (which nobody noticed), or Julie substituting a dancing bottle of Tabasco for her face, or Jane yawning dramatically when I told everybody about the amazing meal Mistah had cooked the night before, or Julie trying to commandeer everybody's camera remotely -- "Mom! Hit decline!" --  or the subtle birds being flipped, or Mistah trying to feed Jacquie a bite of the breakfast he had cooked, or of all the breakfasts being cooked in real time . . . but I did get MB in the sun overlooking Broadway, and Jacquie with a fake but enticing Hawaiian background, and Ann and Mom and everyone right there in the future . . . right there in the Future right now.

Oh Mom. Oh my sisters. Even though some of us are still 12 (you know who you are), it was it utterly amazing to see all those darling faces at once . . . to connect with eachother . . .

As the late great E.M. Forster said, "Only connect."

See you all for Happy Hour on Tuesday. Thanks for your technical expertise, Jacquie.

Love you peeps out there. Be careful and stay safe.

And call eachother.

Weird Days

It's so weird.

It's so weird that we can't see our friends.

It's so weird that our libraries are closed.

It's so weird that on a Sunday afternoon one says, "Do we have a hoops game to listen to . . . oh wait."

It's so weird that this is really just the beginning of it all.

It's so weird.

But what isn't weird and what isn't changing is we have today. We have this. We have this bizarre new reality and we have . . .

. . . an avocado . . .

. . . although we no longer have that . . .

. . . because we ate it.

. . . and we have leftie pizza . . .

. . . although we no longer have that . . .

. . . because we ate it.

But we do have .  . . . . . .  .

. . . books
. . . and audio books
. . . and streaming movies and shows
. . . and wine
. . . plenty of wine
. . . (I hope)
. . . and arugula
. . . so much arugla

. . . okay maybe I did not buy enough TP. Maybe I didn't, during this Great TP Crisis of 2020. Maybe I'll be the chump standing on the side of the road holding out bags of arugula in the hope of trading it out for toidy papes . . .

. . . but in the meantime . . . 

. . . did you go outside yesterday?

Because what we *do* have  .. . . 

 . . . is early Spring.

 People, we have daffs.

So Happy Early Spring, everybody.

Please please take care of yourselves.

Big Plans

We had Big Plans with our good friend the Small Boy yesterday afternoon.

We were going to Field, we were going to play Ball, we were going to have ourselves a Time.

Our good friend the Small Boy, however, had other plans.

He doesn't go in for that whole napping-at-an-appointed time business. No, he's more into the napping-when-he's supposed-to-be-Fielding school of thought. The little rascal.

So we made do with slightly bigger but no less adorable friends.

Well, one is still kind of small . . .

. . . not as small as she used to be . . . (can you stand it?)

. . . but just as fun and sassy and interesting and hilarious as she always has been. And adorable.

We had Jacquie with us in a little rectangle . . .

. . . and I'm pretty sure some random menfolk down below tending to the fire . . .

. . . but mostly we sat on the deck and basked in the sun and talked about all the things and drank all the bubbly and had ourselves our own Time . . .

. . . but man, did we miss our good friend the Small Boy. And man, do we miss our good friends his spectacular moms.

We need to make more Big Plans.

Palm Trees and Maple Leaves

I swear I was here a few days ago . . .

I know, right?

Plus . . .

. . . fish tacos.

And moonie and Venus rising over palm trees and I know.

But now?

Now I get to watch Mr. Dibble making maple syrup.

Seriously.

This is what I get to do. Hell, this is what I choose to do.

There are perks, though . . .

. . . there is Jane . . .

. . . and there is Jane In Steam . . .

. . . I love Jane.

Oh, wait. There's Mr. Dibble again. Never mind him . . .

. . . except for his elixir . .

. . . which either catches sunlight beautifully or glows from within.

It's a pretty amazing set-up over there across the river . . .

. . . but it seems to me they could be using their brain power -- and their kid genius' brain power -- to create one whole hell of a lot more than maple syrup . . .

. . .  but that's just me.

But seriously. It looks like they could generate Life over there. At least an early form thereof . . .

Anyway. The earth-colored peoples were lovely . . .

. . . oh so lovely.

And the toys were trotted out . . .

. . . and the chickens gave us snacks . . .

. . . and the maple syrup? . . .

. . . well, I guess we'll have to wait and see about that.

And in the meantime?

I swear I was here a few days ago . . .

*Sigh*