Dispatch from Coronaville: A Typical Day in an Atypical Summer

The view from here

So what does an ordinary day in extraordinary time look like?  For starters, not very exciting.  Some aspects of my day happen by choice--me attempting to provide some structure, others are bad habits that have developed over time.  Last summer (and the summers before that) were jam packed with swimming lessons and swimming for fun, art classes, Vacation Bible Schools (one summer we did three VBS programs in a single summer), visits from and to family in Florida, along with trips to the movies, out for ice cream, and time with friends.

This summer my typical day looks like this: I wake up usually between 7:30 at the earliest and 8:30 at the latest. I'm usually quite exhausted having gone to bed late the night before, but for some reason I can't seem to sleep in anymore. I'll have devotional time with my Bible, journal, and a six month old copy of Frontiers Magazine (the magazine of Adventist Frontier Missions--the reason I'm reading a six month old copy is because I'm behind in my reading). Then I lace up my battered running shoes, power up my bluetooth headphones and head out for a run. I cover just over 3 miles in a half hour run on the weekdays and put in five miles on Sunday.  When I'm done, I'll sit on the front porch, nursing a Gatorade, and check out the New York Times "Morning" news brief and run through my Facebook feed.

By this time it's 9:30 or so in the morning and time for breakfast. If the boys are up (which these days more often than not they aren't) I'll make breakfast to order for them--pancakes or waffles, eggs any style, veggie bacon (or stripples as we call them, technically they are Morningstar Breakfast Strips), maybe a smoothie or yogurt parfait. If the kids aren't up I might make myself something or just as often skip breakfast altogether and head for the shower.

After showering, I'm ready to tackle projects for the day--working on a blog entry, working on an article for The Scratch, working around the house, sending emails regarding the various committees I'm on--search committee for the new principal of our school, re-opening "small council" for the school, working on plans for our July 26 8th grade graduation. There's always something to do to eat up the time. I usually eat lunch around mid-afternoon, sometimes eating in front of the TV with Babs while we watch reruns of her favorite soaps. Then if I'm lucky, I'll get to watch some shows on Netflix or Hulu, or maybe a DVD. Often the time evaporates before I get to that.  There are variations to the daily schedule. On the weekends I'm responsible for the meals, so there's cooking to do. On Mondays I do laundry. On Wednesdays I mow the lawn, do yardwork, and other outdoor projects. On Fridays I grocery shop and clean the floors (my contribution to weekly housecleaning otherwise known as "getting ready for the Sabbath.")  We'll eat dinner, usually between 7 and 8 PM, maybe a little later.

After dinner I might watch a little of my shows, do my Coronavirus blog if it's a day for that (I like to wait until evening to get the most updated numbers), or read a little. We all go to bed late, much later than we really want to. I'll usually have my "Time Together" with the boys anywhere between 9 and 10:30 PM (this might be a round of UNO, hide and seek, frisbee or dodgeball in the backyard if we get it in before it gets dark, or various games the boys come up with), follow that with reading Harry Potter to Elijah. But the boys usually don't go to bed right after that.  They may not hit the hay until well after 11 (and on occasion have even gone past midnight). Babs and I typically turn out the lights around 1 AM (though 2 is not unheard of).  And that's my day.  Babs usually has some major project that takes up all day whether it's working on plans for next school year, working in our garden, or orchestrating the purchase of our new bed (it's supposed to be delivered on Friday, replacing the bed we bought for $500 right before we got married in the summer of 1997).  The boys spend probably more time than is healthy watching TV or playing on their tablets. But they'll also play in our backyard inflatable pool. Ezra likes to tool around in the driveway on his scooter and Elijah will spend time drawing as well. They usually make time for a screaming fight with each other each day. 

There's a lot I feel like I should be doing. Spending more time with the boys. Making sure Elijah stays on top of his summer reading project and having him learn to type. Making the boys do chores everyday and getting them to bed earlier. These are the parenting failures I castigate myself for. I feel like I should be doing more prep for  next school year and that will be taking up more of my time in the coming weeks (next week will also be really busy as Babs and I are switching for the week. I'll cook during the week next week, and she'll take care of the meals on the weekend. I'll also be busy getting ready for graduation on the 26th). I feel like we should be taking the boys on little day trips, though where we would go in the midst of a pandemic is something we are weighing. I'd like to spend more time with Babs, watching a movie together or reading together.

There's some projects still to do on the to-do list. Fixing our leaning mailbox, organizing the basement and finishing organizing the guest bedroom/office, cleaning the garage gutters. I've already cleaned and organized the garage and a few other little projects.

There are things I want to do but can't seem to get to. I'd like to write more. I'd like to read more.  There are more shows than I can reasonably keep up with that I'd like to watch.

It's not very interesting. But that's okay. My family and I are healthy. We are getting steady paychecks. There's not much to complain about. I am grateful.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus rages on. The U.S. has now had 3,433,156 cases of COVID-19, a 6.1% increase over the last three days and about 22,000 more cases than I predicted. The rate of increase in deaths on the other hand has dipped to 1.3% down from 1.8%  on Saturday. This means a total of 136,122 deaths, 574 fewer deaths than I predicted. Based on these numbers I'd expect to see 3,642,578 total cases and 137,892 total deaths by Friday, July 17, 2020.

Florida notched it's highest 3 day total with 37,118 new cases. Ohio is also showing a sharp upward trend as well, with it's highest three day total since I began tracking the numbers. Only Nebraska has shown a modest increase, still well short of its early records from the spring.

Total Cases:

Florida: 291,621 total cases, 1.3% of the population. At this rate Florida will surpass 300,000 cases within the next three days, possibly by tomorrow. It took from the start of the pandemic to to mid June for Florida to register it's first, 100,000 cases, about two weeks to register it's second 100,000 and ten days to reach it's third 100,000.

Ohio: 67,995 total cases, 0.58% of the population.

Nebraska: 21,756 total cases, 1.1% of the population

Deaths have dropped in Ohio for a second three day period, while Nebraska and Florida still seem to be following the usual up and down pattern, though again Florida's down with 212 deaths is still far above what used to be typical for the state. I predict that Ohio's death count will begin to rise as the increase in cases starts to take effect. Once again I can't chart Florida's deaths.  There are too many.

Total Deaths:

Florida: 4.408 deaths, a rate of 1.4%

Ohio: 3,069 deaths, a rate of 4.5%

Nebraska: 300 deaths, a rate of 1.4%