A new trend?

Day 36 of the quarantine and day 2 of my pepper plant experiment – and it’s still alive! (as are we.)

Also, we tried something that could have ended in horrible death or mutilation.

In the outside world, there were NO deaths today in BC. That doesn’t mean we are out of the viral woods yet, but ‘yeah us!’ The social distancing by the vast majority of the population is showing good results, though I do fear it’s taking it’s toll on us mentally.

In India, one policeman has resorted to wearing a coronavirus helmet. I think we all need to get one of those. In fact, why aren’t we wearing helmets? Or snorkels?

Here, this week, the boys had to make supper for one night. The-Youngest made pasta and meatballs on Tuesday. Nothing fancy, frozen store-bought meatballs, canned sauce, and packaged pasta, but it was all very delicious.

And let’s face it, I wouldn’t have made meatballs (since I hate the feel of eggs and meat together), sauce, (since it’s, like, a lot of work),  or pasta from scratch, (cuz I personally believe that’s impossible to do without it turning into a leather-like wad of icky goo.)

However, The-Youngest is pretty confident in the kitchen, and we can basically leave him alone, but The-Oldest? Well, like it’s best not to leave me alone in a chocolate store, he does need a bit of supervision.

See, in our family, like good superheroes, all have extraordinary abilities. The-Oldest, he is a piano master (maybe even a genius). The-Youngest can walk away from a 19-2 hockey game loss (where he was the goalie), and still be excited about the save he made with his face. The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World can maintain her sense of humor and kindness no matter what jackass she has to deal with at work (or at home).

And me, I can work dungeons and dragons into any conversation (though, I have found that doing such a thing at a party tends to leave me alone in the corner talking to the cat.)

However, we also have kryptonite weaknesses. The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World must avoid red wine or risk a massive headache. The-Youngest must touch everything in a store, which is all fair and fine if he’s in a clothing store, but if he’s in a cactus store (or an Irish crystal store), not so much. Me, I must avoid drinking drinks that don’t taste like drinks, or I end up dancing on tables with my shirt wrapped around my head and my pants gone who-the-hell knows where.

But for The-Oldest, his Mt. Doom is the kitchen. At some point, I wonder if he’s teenagering us, you know, doing silly stuff just to bug his parents, but I fear not.

Boil water? Microwave? These are simple things, but to a musician who lives inside his head where there’s a magnificent orchestra playing his amazing creations, it’s hard for him to remember what to do.

So, like I do many times, I set the goals low. Don’t set anything on fire. Don’t cut off a finger, a hand, or your penis.

And in that, we succeeded. But there was a lot of ‘you can’t put metal in the microwave” or “you cook the pasta however long it says to cook it on the box,”  or “don’t throw the boiling water at your brother even if he’s bugging you.”

To his credit, he didn’t complain about this task, not once. He had to make supper for everyone from leftovers, so he went around asking if they wanted the meatballs from the other night, the last of the hot dogs, “something that looks like Vegas threw up” (it was my shepard’s pie!) or the last hamburger or the chicken with some sort of little hairs all over it (“Crap, throw that out immediately, where the hell did you find it?”

Then he cooked more pasta to go with the meatballs, learned the difference between microwaving something for 30 seconds vs. 30 min, and found out that water boils a lot slower when you look at it.

Supper was fine, though. We told stories about our days even though we’d been in the same house the whole time, I loved my shepard’s pie the 2^nd time around, and The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World seemed to have developed a twitch in her eye from overseeing the kitchen nightmare.

When it came time to make noise in support of the healthcare workers, I banged a pot, The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World rang the cowbell, The-Oldest played the guitar, and The Youngest played his baritone saxophone.

I hate what has happened to the world in such a short time, but I will cherish these memories forever.

Until tomorrow, be safe, be healthy, and respect the new world.