An old-school meme.

We began the day with temperature checks and no power outages, floods, or world-ending asteroids discovered hurtling towards us. Temperatures were all good, even if we all seemed to have some sniffles. But then, we had sniffles before this whole thing, so, ah, so far, so good.

The day had news of libraries, rec centers, and Lush store closures. Now, I can’t get a book, watch old people shower or get super fancy soap that’ll keep me smelling like a rainforest.

However, looks like no one is being told when they arrive via airplane that they should self-quarantine. It seems like something someone would have passed on to the border folks, but nope, another hole in the net appears.

So, slowly, the quarantine spreads. More people are being asked to stay home, more businesses like Starbucks are changing the way they operate (Starbucks is going to drive through only) and many more countries are putting in travel bans.

We’re trying to work that curve, man, work that curve.

Now, today I had plans to do jobs, but I made a classic husband blunder – I talked to The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World BEFORE she had coffee.  I said, hey, let’s do this and this and then that and after lunch, that thing, then another thing.

For her, anything said before her coffee is usually met with growls. “Mom, can we build a rollercoaster in the back yard?” Grrr-umph. “Mom, wanna hear 2 hours of atonal music?” Damm-grrrr-ack. “Hey, Cutie, I got a whole list of fun jobs to- ” (Strangles husband).

So, it wasn’t to be a jobbie day, but I managed to convince The-Youngest to set up our Dashcam purchased a year ago, and agreed to watch The Lighthouse with The-Oldest if he did the dishes without being asked for a whole week. The-Youngest and I also worked on finding an Xbox game that everyone would love.

The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World took on the task of making sure many of her friends and family were ok. Since we can’t leave the house, that means either talking to them on the phone or chatting away on FB (or her newest love, Instagram chat).

It’s something I think we all need to do. The more we isolate, the more we need to make the effort to say hi to people we love. Send a text, chat in messenger, heck, use that old landline if you really must, but stay in touch. A lot of people are afraid or feeling lonely, or simply no longer being visited, so taking that time may be the way we all give back a little in this crisis.

See, there are things to worry about. The world has to do a delicate balancing act between saving as many people as possible and making sure the whole world doesn’t fall into a Great Depression, with supply chains collapsing, wages gone and no one providing goods and services in our very complex economy.

But being afraid is natural. There are so many unknowns and unknowns scare most of us more than wasps the size of birds or bungee jumping naked. But panic, ah, that’s another whole different story. Panic causes all sorts of stupid things to happen. Toilet paper hoarding. Being nasty to Chinese people. Buying pot stock.

And keeping in touch with our friends and family might just mitigate a bit of that panic response as well. No one has to be alone in this.

For me, I lost one wife (to cancer) and the fear of losing The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World (my bright sunshine of happiness), well, that’s a big one, and if we lost either of the boys, gosh, how would one even survive that? If I let the fear morph into panic, she’d likely be locked in a room, dressed as a female elf (just because) and never let out until this whole thing passed.

Instead, both her and I want to make the most of the time we have together. We want to think of this quarantine as a blessing. It’ll do no good if anyone (and by that I mean. ME) wanders around all mopey and afraid. Likely it’ll all blow over, perhaps in a few months, perhaps sooner, and I know one thing for sure. I won’t regret a single moment we share together.

If things go really bad, we’ll be ready. If things get better quickly, where’s the downside of family time?

I really believe this crisis will define us, like Pearl Harbour defined one generation, like the moon landing or JFK defined another, or heck, how 911 changed the world we live in.

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So, to that end, we had a great supper together, played games in the evening and laughed like there wasn’t a care in the world. The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World did yoga with The-Youngest (and our dog) and spent time listening to a free VSO livestream snuggled in her favourite purple chair with The-Oldest.

Time well spent, I would say.

Tomorrow will bring what tomorrow will bring. I’m desperately trying to learn to live in the moment.