Dispatch from Pandemic Valley

It’s been weeks since I’ve spent any time with Delaney, and far too long since I’ve even seen my NC granddaughters. God knows when I’ll get back up there at this rate. I do check in with my son and everybody’s fine, they’re doing a lot of socially distanced hiking, and he’s fallen down the sourdough rabbit hole.

He was already a bread maker as well as a brewer, so it was somewhat inevitable that he’d have to study the science of sourdough and make his own starter and start experimenting with it. He taught me the word “levain,” which I’d never heard before.

Delaney, meanwhile, is showing some real talent as a makeup artist. Not an eye shadow and lipstick makeup artist, though she loves that too; nope, the girl has a real gift for special effects makeup. I get texts of images like this:

I think Halloween is going to be quite something this year.

She has grown inches and gained muscle during this time away from school, and looks 9 going on 10 instead of 8. She’s still doing online dance classes, but she’s had more time to just hang out with neighbor kids. This was deemed safe after confirming that their parents have been isolated as long and everybody is staying safe and even shops at the same Publix, so the odds of exposure to the virus are equally minimal.

Delaney got sucked into the world of dance at 3 when her mom enrolled her in a tiny tot class to wear her hyper little ass out. She had real talent, and progressed rapidly into team dancing and competitions.

Before this spring, she really hasn’t had much down time to just hang out and ride bikes with friends; dance at her level is truly an all-consuming passion. She’s still dancing, but she’s not spending hours a day rehearsing for competition this year. She’s had a chance to try new things, like drawing and creating gruesome makeup effects, and yesterday the same neighbor kids invited her to go fishing at the neighborhood lake. She caught her first fish!

She wants her own fishing rod now.

So, when I bitch and moan about how awful everything is, and it IS awful, there are also unexpected small joys. I’ll take whatever I can get.