Quarantine - Day 15

This was initially to be the last day of the official quarantine. This is only the last day of the first part of the quarantine unfortunately. Waldorf had tentatively changed their date of return from April 1st to April 20th, and now that seems remote as Illinois in general is starting to pivot towards possibly staying out the rest of the year, although it has yet to be officially addressed. We haven’t even told Ella yet that more homeschooling is in her future. She is dutifully going through her assignments, practicing her bass, and even doing gym by practicing yoga.

After solving a mountain of issues with all the computers and devices, and establishing a workflow to produce video and some rudimentary interactive content using ClassDojo and SeeSaw apps, we were finally getting back to producing and editing video when Abbie’s MacBook display stopped working. It had been repaired a year ago by Apple, and it certainly seemed to me like the repair had failed prematurely. However, Apple only likes to warranty their repair work for 90-days meaning they would be happy to fix it for another $500.00. I explained to Daphne in Ontario that was not a workable solution, and after 113 minutes of haggling we finally arrived at one. In the meantime, we readied Laura’s laptop with the software Abbie needs to edit audio/video, and Ella graciously let her mom use the old laptop that she inherited when Laura got her new one. We were back in business after only losing a half a day.

We are hoping that this content is considered adequate for the continued performance of our contracts so we can continue to be paid. The Mayor and the district superintendent were on the TV looking fairly uncomfortable and unsure as they outlined what the plan was for the rest of the year. They managed to give an hour long press conference without mentioning what the plan actually is. Apparently, the state is offering money to schools to help maintain their budgets and the federal relief bill will reimburse municipalities large and small for expenses related to the emergency. I am hoping that this wave of funding washes up somewhere close to my shoes enough to get them wet, but it may be that the wave breaks far before it reaches our little enterprise.

Abigail prepared a delicious dinner of chicken enchiladas and I spoke with my brother and my dad comparing notes across three state lines as to the progress of this thing. There is a consensus that it may get worse before it gets any better. It is galloping through cities now and, I think, the countryside won’t be spared either. Two weeks ago, on Friday the 13th, Illinois had 32 cases. I was concerned, but thought that the public healthcare system could certainly manage the outbreak. Now, they are readying McCormick Place as a hospital, and I realize how profoundly unprepared we were and now continue to be.