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random notes from a pandemic
Boy did it feel weird to be isolated for Shabbat -- no torah study, no services, no shared meals, just me and Dani home all day. Some Reform and Conservative congregations (including mine) streamed services, but I don't use computers on Shabbat. If weeks turn to months I wonder how much pressure I'll feel on that. One bright spot is that we have a lunch-time torah study (parsha of the week) on Wednesdays that I can never go to because of work, but since it's virtual now I can block off that hour from work and attend. So at least I'll have that.
Pesach is in a few weeks. The seder we would have gone to is going virtual. I care about the ritual aspects way more than Dani does; his connection is family not religion, and we won't be with his family. It'll feel weird for me to basically read the haggadah while he plays along, maybe? I wonder if it would be safe to invite, say, one other couple and sit at opposite ends of the dining-room table. Maybe the virtual one will start well before sunset (sunset being late now that we're in DST)? I don't know what to do here.
Local businesses are struggling, as expected. Today we got take-out from a local restaurant to do our small part to help -- got two meals' worth of food, so lunch today and probably lunch tomorrow. I got email from the shop where I have new eyeglasses pending; when they come in I can pick up curb-side, but of course that removes any possibility of adjusting the frames to my face, which is always necessary. So I guess I get my new glasses when all of this is over.
With both of us working from home we've needed to develop some protocols: close the door when in a meeting, use headsets, coordinate lunch times. Eating lunch together helps with the isolation. Both of us are used to casual in-person chatting with coworkers and video chat isn't the same -- it's the difference between bumping into someone at the coffee machine and chatting for a few minutes, which feels natural, and taking a deliberate step to initiate a video chat just to say hi, which feels more forced. Our doc team (which is already remote even without a pandemic) is now talking about a regular casual video chat; maybe that will help. Maybe the Pittsburgh team should do that too.
Dani and I wanted to play an on-theme game yesterday and our copy of Pandemic is missing. Much sadness. We're trying to figure out if we left it at some friend's house or what. It's the older edition, before they changed the board and the game pieces in ways that combine badly for the vision-challenged, so I actually want that one back, or to replace it with that edition, rather than getting the current edition, if it turns out we need to get another copy.
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And yeah, I hear you on listening to practicing. Practicing music is, pretty much by definition, repeating things over and over, partially complete, with errors. It's not at all like listening to "completed" music. When On the Mark was together it must have been pretty disruptive to Dani; closing doors only does so much, after all.
What is a resonator guitar?
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A resonator guitar has one or more metal inserts in the soundbox to make it louder. It's an early 20th century invention for playing blues. They come in a few different styles. Mr. Fixer has an all metal, really loud one that he likes to play slide style; it sounds much like a dobro. I love that combination of sound and repertoire, but I need to be at least 40 feet away for my ears to be comfortable.
Mr. Fixer also made a "slide lyre," an Anglo-Saxon style lyre with a resonator insert that he calls The Historical Abomination. There's a whole Boreal Master Symposium schtick that goes with it....