I sang old familiar songs with my school children today and it was good for all of us! First, I spent time with preschool through second grade, and then immediately with grades three through six. After some excited chatter–I left them unmuted for a few minutes–we sang songs together. To avoid being out of sync, I always muted their mics when we sang, knowing they would be singing with my audio as if in real time.

We sang

• Jenny Jenkins
• On my toe there is a flea
• Five little bunnies in the bakery shop
• Kye Kye Kule (with leaders)
• some Bible verses I have set to music that we have sung before

The older kids sang

• The Creation Song, which we performed at the Christmas concert
• Ground Hog (oops–I sent the words too late and most didn’t have it)
• There was a great big moose
• some Bible songs we’re working on
• Yellow Submarine

Now, there’s a perfect song for isolation!

And our friends are all aboard
Many more of them live next door
And the band begins to play [band plays]

We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine

Each rectangle on my Zoom screen was a peek into a different submarine! They looked happy and excited. Mom or Dad was just out of sight but I could hear their voices and picture their faces. I have had departure duty on Monday afternoons and got to know just who went with each student. Lovely, wonderful people who are committed to our school, and I miss them too.

After class we got to talking again. I know I didn’t want to let go, but for some of them Zoom classtime is a daily part of the morning. I asked about movies and wasn’t surprised to hear many of them had seen Frozen 2. I am so proud of the way my families have taken up homeschooling.

Excitement of another sort came when our tax accountant called with a lot of questions, and we discovered some important information had never reached her. Made a huge difference to the bottom line, let me tell you. I have to get these things to her, which I can do pretty easily by scan. I could also drop them off in a box at the building and we got giddy at the idea of taking this opportunity to safely get out of the house. But nah. I did that yesterday and it’ll be a while before I risk an experiment with ‘community spread’ again.

I am not checking the news every hour as I was last week, because after all, how else can the governor change my life? It is already turned upside down. So I don’t read as many comments as I once did. The ones that 1) think this is a huge hoax or 2) see this primarily as a power grab fascinate me. Where are they living, in some kind of universe where they only get the comments to stories on Foxnews? Do they not have access to the world through the web? Do they think these Italian mayors are part of a huge conspiracy? https://twitter.com/protectheflames/status/1241696164782669824?s=20

You can tell from their body language if not from their words–which are hyperbolic at times for emphasis–these men and women carry a heavy load on their shoulders. They know people who were healthy last month and are now dead from this pestilence.

By the way, the collection of Italian mayors makes me really proud to be third generation Italian. If I had grown up knowing my Italian family, maybe I would know how to use my hands to make my point!

One more thing and then I’m shutting down for the day.

If you have listened to the BBC radio program Cabin Pressure, from A to Z, then you’ll be thrilled to see John Finnemore’s quarantine video-from-home series he is putting out daily: Cabin Fever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhTBp1DRfx4  It is delightful!