Love in the Time of Quarantine

A sign of the times. Last week I tried to get coffee from the Starbucks on campus. It was closed. I went to the school bookstore which has a coffee bar. Closed. I went to the local coffee shop and finally got one. Today at the same coffee shop I was met with this. No coffee today unless I wanted gas station coffee, which I did not. Tomorrow I guess I'll order ahead a coffee to go or do without.

I've been making more masks, including some for my BF, friend, and a former student. I need to send two of those tomorrow, but the BF actually came to stay with me for about a week, which started off horribly because he was really depressed and grumpy, but then he got better and we had a pretty okay visit. He went through three cases of cider in a week though, with minimal help from me so that does give me pause. He is not one to recognize anything in himself which he does not wish to, so that makes broaching such subjects difficult at best. We played some board games, talked about a variety of subjects including the virus, and watched a lot of a series on serial killers called Mindhunter which we both really enjoyed. He's due to be back in a week and two days, so I'll have to hold off on finishing it until then. The dog was the real winner as I went to work in my office a few hours each day and he watched her for me, especially after her daycare closed until June 10th under the Governor's new mandate. She really took to him, to the extent that on the last night she had the choice between curling up on me or him to fall asleep while we watched tv and she picked him. Small confession; watching him hold her and stroke her with absent-minded tenderness while she slept made me think how amazing he'd be with a baby, but that is thinking liable to lead to heartbreak and I've had enough of that on the subject.

On top of classes being sent online and the last show being cancelled, the summer study trip has been cut and students now have a pass/fail option, and the Panel Project was put off until at least the fall. That show in Richmond is still hanging on though, even with everything else going up in flames essentially around it. I was rendering for that yesterday and today with designs due early next week. It's kind of the last survivor.

The garden is doing well though. The daffodils are over with one remaining on the stalk, late but charming; and an apricot tulip has risen above the white parrot ones in the front bed. The lilac sprigs are getting bigger every day and the rose is putting on foliage in masses while the peony shoots up from nowhere. The weeding has begun, but it's not such a chore that it isn't also a pleasure. The lavender in the greenhouse bed is actually coming up, as are the borage and and forget-me-not seeds I planted in the enclosure bed. My BF asked me if I'd want to plant a veg garden, to my great surprise, so I may move that project up to this year and impress him into service on it. It's not all bad.