Quarantine life has been going pretty well here at the G & G household, all things considered. I mean, it's a struggle, but it's a struggle within the parameters of nothing major is wrong. Nobody is sick; we're both still employed; and our electricity is still on. As far as I know, pretty much everybody's electricity is still on, but can you imagine if it wasn't? Just thinking about that makes me appreciate that our power is still on. Thank you, utility workers of the DC area, and thank you, Nikola Tesla.
The other thing is that we are all cooped up together. That, of course, can be very trying -- I saw a post on Facebook that said something like, "My wife and I have a fun game we play during quarantine called, 'Why do you do it that way?' There are no winners." -- but it's probably better than the alternative. I imagine I would be pretty miserable if I was single right now. I would be fine for a week or two -- I might even like it, truth be told -- but after that I bet the loneliness and isolation would be difficult. A few months after I first moved to DC, there was a huge snow storm that shut the city down for a week, and I just about went stir crazy. It's not quite the same thing -- I had no Internet, no cable TV, very few personal belongings, and I couldn't even really go outside because the snow was so deep. Also, I was new to the area, so I was predisposed to loneliness. But, still, it sucks being holed up alone.
As best I can tell, my single friends are hanging in there okay though. For as bad as social media can be in most instances, this might be a time when it can actually provide people legitimate comfort. I've been on Facebook more in the past few weeks than I was all of 2019. I also played in a trivia challenge via Zoom, and it went really well. I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was, even though we choked in the end. We were winning until the final question, in which you had to name 6 of the 8 official alpine countries. We got Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, and Italy straightaway, so we just needed one of the last three. My inclination was Liechtenstein, but another guy on our team said Czech Republic or Slovenia, so we went with Czech Republic. Of course, it was wrong and both Liechtenstein and Slovenia were right (along with Monaco, which somebody else on our team mentioned as a possibility). It was a stupid guess, even at the time, because the question stated the official designation of alpine countries occurred in a year before the Czech Republic was even a country! Oh well -- win some, lose some.
The kids, of course, are out of control right now. They can behave in spurts, but there is a lot of fighting and complaining and crying. We've been trying to keep up with school lessons, but I wouldn't say it's going great. I'm not worried about Lil' S2. He's not even five yet. I didn't go to a "real" school until I was six. Lil' S1 is a different story. I'm not worried that he's going fall behind for the rest of his life or anything like that. But he might have some catching up to do over the next few years. He's a smart kid, but he's not great at doing schoolwork. He has terrible handwriting; his spelling is atrocious; and he'd rather turn in chicken scratch than put in the modicum of effort it takes to make an assignment presentable. It's tough to assess your own child without being biased, but I really think he knows a lot for his age -- he's good at math, a strong reader, and a fountain of facts (especially about animals*) -- but he struggles to put it together into something a teacher can grade.
*The other day we were walking near a pond full of Canada Geese, and I misspoke and said, "Look at all the swans," and he replied, "Those aren't swans, Dad, those are geese." And this morning I was telling S how the Coronavirus was probably passed to humans by pangolins, and he overheard me and gave a mini dissertation about how pangolins were armored mammals like armadillos. What seven-year-old knows such things off the top of his head.
It could just be immaturity. Being a late summer birthday he's one of the youngest kids in his class, which probably makes a nontrivial difference right now. I think about that sometimes with respect to my own upbringing, because our birthdays are only a few days part, but I was one grade lower than he was at this time. I was a really good student, but I wonder how much of that was just me being older than most the kids in my grade. It's true, I was also a very good student later in life -- long after a few months of age would matter -- but maybe I learned good habits and confidence that I wouldn't have learned had I been a class ahead instead of a class behind. Who knows?
Anyway... in an attempt to occupy the kids, S has been making some pretty major purchases for our backyard. She bought this giant inflatable hamster wheel type of thing, and she also bought a trampoline. We still have to assemble it. It's been super windy here the past few days, like blow-the-hat-off-your-head windy, so we haven't had a chance yet. We (mostly I) will probably do it this afternoon. It was pretty expensive, but I was cool with it. I always wanted a trampoline as a kid. The kids who had them were always so dexterous and agile. It would be cool if my kids learned how to do flips and cool jumps and stuff like that. I might even try it myself, but I'm probably too old to do anything cool. Last time I got on a trampoline it hurt my back -- not like my back was a little sore the next day, like there were a million little needles jabbing my lower back the instant I stepped on it. My back is in a lot better shape now -- a standing desk and a rigorous exercise routine have done wonders -- but it might not be in trampoline shape and perhaps it never will be. It's not like I'm getting younger.
The fear, of course, is that the kids won't really like the trampoline, and we spent several hundred dollars on an unsightly yard decoration. But that's always a fear with kids. You don't know -- they don't even know -- what they will like until they try it and you possibly sink some money into it. My parents "wasted" a bunch of money on a saxophone for me when I was a kid. I use quotes because it was only a waste in retrospect and there's no way to know this in advance. If I liked it and learned how to play it well, it wouldn't have been a waste. My parents also bought an Apple computer when I was in high school and equipped it with programming software for me, and I spent hours on it and learned how to write computer code. They also spent several hundred dollars on lacrosse equipment for me, and I played through college and got a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment from it. So, you just don't know. If you have the money (and I recognize that's a big if for many) spending it on pursuits for your kids seems like a good way to go to me. You only need a few hits to make up for the misses -- and then some.
This discussion reminds me of something I read in David Epstein's book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Quitting has gotten a bad rap. There's this romanticism with seeing things through to the bitter end, no matter how futile -- winners never quit and quitters never win -- but if you look at people who are really successful in a given a field, many of them tried and quit dozens of endeavors before landing on something that stuck for them. In fact, just now, I remembered that we also bought Lil' S1 this expensive robot called Dash that you can program through the iPad, and he's really taken to it. I've been really impressed with how well he does at figuring out the little programming challenges, and it's something we can do together, as I still have to help him with the harder ones. So, even if the trampoline is a bust, it won't be that big a deal. Plus, I doubt it will be. I mean, Lil' S2 is currently kicking a cardboard box around the house and fighting the air. I think he's gonna like a trampoline.
Alright, that's about all I have time for now. Until next time...
[Handsome man, that Tesla]
The other thing is that we are all cooped up together. That, of course, can be very trying -- I saw a post on Facebook that said something like, "My wife and I have a fun game we play during quarantine called, 'Why do you do it that way?' There are no winners." -- but it's probably better than the alternative. I imagine I would be pretty miserable if I was single right now. I would be fine for a week or two -- I might even like it, truth be told -- but after that I bet the loneliness and isolation would be difficult. A few months after I first moved to DC, there was a huge snow storm that shut the city down for a week, and I just about went stir crazy. It's not quite the same thing -- I had no Internet, no cable TV, very few personal belongings, and I couldn't even really go outside because the snow was so deep. Also, I was new to the area, so I was predisposed to loneliness. But, still, it sucks being holed up alone.
As best I can tell, my single friends are hanging in there okay though. For as bad as social media can be in most instances, this might be a time when it can actually provide people legitimate comfort. I've been on Facebook more in the past few weeks than I was all of 2019. I also played in a trivia challenge via Zoom, and it went really well. I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was, even though we choked in the end. We were winning until the final question, in which you had to name 6 of the 8 official alpine countries. We got Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, and Italy straightaway, so we just needed one of the last three. My inclination was Liechtenstein, but another guy on our team said Czech Republic or Slovenia, so we went with Czech Republic. Of course, it was wrong and both Liechtenstein and Slovenia were right (along with Monaco, which somebody else on our team mentioned as a possibility). It was a stupid guess, even at the time, because the question stated the official designation of alpine countries occurred in a year before the Czech Republic was even a country! Oh well -- win some, lose some.
The kids, of course, are out of control right now. They can behave in spurts, but there is a lot of fighting and complaining and crying. We've been trying to keep up with school lessons, but I wouldn't say it's going great. I'm not worried about Lil' S2. He's not even five yet. I didn't go to a "real" school until I was six. Lil' S1 is a different story. I'm not worried that he's going fall behind for the rest of his life or anything like that. But he might have some catching up to do over the next few years. He's a smart kid, but he's not great at doing schoolwork. He has terrible handwriting; his spelling is atrocious; and he'd rather turn in chicken scratch than put in the modicum of effort it takes to make an assignment presentable. It's tough to assess your own child without being biased, but I really think he knows a lot for his age -- he's good at math, a strong reader, and a fountain of facts (especially about animals*) -- but he struggles to put it together into something a teacher can grade.
*The other day we were walking near a pond full of Canada Geese, and I misspoke and said, "Look at all the swans," and he replied, "Those aren't swans, Dad, those are geese." And this morning I was telling S how the Coronavirus was probably passed to humans by pangolins, and he overheard me and gave a mini dissertation about how pangolins were armored mammals like armadillos. What seven-year-old knows such things off the top of his head.
It could just be immaturity. Being a late summer birthday he's one of the youngest kids in his class, which probably makes a nontrivial difference right now. I think about that sometimes with respect to my own upbringing, because our birthdays are only a few days part, but I was one grade lower than he was at this time. I was a really good student, but I wonder how much of that was just me being older than most the kids in my grade. It's true, I was also a very good student later in life -- long after a few months of age would matter -- but maybe I learned good habits and confidence that I wouldn't have learned had I been a class ahead instead of a class behind. Who knows?
Anyway... in an attempt to occupy the kids, S has been making some pretty major purchases for our backyard. She bought this giant inflatable hamster wheel type of thing, and she also bought a trampoline. We still have to assemble it. It's been super windy here the past few days, like blow-the-hat-off-your-head windy, so we haven't had a chance yet. We (mostly I) will probably do it this afternoon. It was pretty expensive, but I was cool with it. I always wanted a trampoline as a kid. The kids who had them were always so dexterous and agile. It would be cool if my kids learned how to do flips and cool jumps and stuff like that. I might even try it myself, but I'm probably too old to do anything cool. Last time I got on a trampoline it hurt my back -- not like my back was a little sore the next day, like there were a million little needles jabbing my lower back the instant I stepped on it. My back is in a lot better shape now -- a standing desk and a rigorous exercise routine have done wonders -- but it might not be in trampoline shape and perhaps it never will be. It's not like I'm getting younger.
The fear, of course, is that the kids won't really like the trampoline, and we spent several hundred dollars on an unsightly yard decoration. But that's always a fear with kids. You don't know -- they don't even know -- what they will like until they try it and you possibly sink some money into it. My parents "wasted" a bunch of money on a saxophone for me when I was a kid. I use quotes because it was only a waste in retrospect and there's no way to know this in advance. If I liked it and learned how to play it well, it wouldn't have been a waste. My parents also bought an Apple computer when I was in high school and equipped it with programming software for me, and I spent hours on it and learned how to write computer code. They also spent several hundred dollars on lacrosse equipment for me, and I played through college and got a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment from it. So, you just don't know. If you have the money (and I recognize that's a big if for many) spending it on pursuits for your kids seems like a good way to go to me. You only need a few hits to make up for the misses -- and then some.
This discussion reminds me of something I read in David Epstein's book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Quitting has gotten a bad rap. There's this romanticism with seeing things through to the bitter end, no matter how futile -- winners never quit and quitters never win -- but if you look at people who are really successful in a given a field, many of them tried and quit dozens of endeavors before landing on something that stuck for them. In fact, just now, I remembered that we also bought Lil' S1 this expensive robot called Dash that you can program through the iPad, and he's really taken to it. I've been really impressed with how well he does at figuring out the little programming challenges, and it's something we can do together, as I still have to help him with the harder ones. So, even if the trampoline is a bust, it won't be that big a deal. Plus, I doubt it will be. I mean, Lil' S2 is currently kicking a cardboard box around the house and fighting the air. I think he's gonna like a trampoline.
Alright, that's about all I have time for now. Until next time...
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