What makes a good day has changed so much in the last month, but today was a GOOD day. I’ll explain more in a moment.

First, though, the outside world.

In China, with the zoo closed due to the coronavirus, two pandas, that had tried to mate for a decade, (Ying Ying and Le Le), finally did it. I feel like we all should collectively smoke a cigar. I want them to name the baby Co-Vo.

In BC, no animals mated unexpectedly, but Bard on the Beach was canceled. When asked if it was to be or not to be, I guess they decided not to be. I think I hear Hamlet weeping.

In our neck of the woods, the May Day Parade was also canceled. It wasn’t exactly a Russian May Day Parade, with tanks and nuclear missiles, but it had a lot of old cars and that made it kinda cool.

So, why was today a good day?

We got the boys back for most of the day.

Gosh, I missed them a lot.

Being a stepdad I never realized how quickly you get pulled into their lives, how quickly you begin to care about them, worry about them, and, yes, love them. So, having them with us made the day shine a little brighter, made Beethoven sound a little more magical, and even made the dinner taste a little bit better.

The-Oldest played the piano as he always does, loudly so that someone in France can hear him. The-Youngest worked on his dream of going on a rollercoaster trip next year (“did you know if we got our rental car from Enterprise instead of Budget, we could save enough for a whole day at another park?”)

Both got a lot more information on what would happen next week with their schooling. Not all the teachers have chimed in, yet, but it looks like there’ll be a good number of hours spent on-line in a virtual classroom. I tell you, though, if I have to figure out new math, I’m going to become a day drinker.

Much to The-Youngest’s horror, his gym teacher will be requiring him to do something as yet unnamed. He’s already figuring out how to engineer an automatic sit-up or push-up machine.

However, we didn’t do anything special, today. Had lunch and supper together. Watched 2 episodes of Community. Chatted about this and that.

It was wonderful.

Still, you know, I so wanted to write a funny story about today, but a good funny story needs things to go wrong, and nothing went wrong, (unless you’ve watched Justin Trudeau saying ‘moistly,” then you know that sh*t’s hilarious!)

I do have a regret though. When they left, I didn’t give them a hug, completely understandable in the current virus crisis, but I also didn’t say how amazing they both are and how they’ve made our lives a billion times better. I didn’t say, man, you both are growing into fine, young men. And I didn’t say I love them.

I hope to do better when I see them next.