Still October in 2020

Sophie is going back to physical school on Monday. She prepped her backpack today, and is very excited. I am also very excited, she hasn’t been out of the house unless she went somewhere with me since March! David is a little irritated that high school won’t go back until the first week of November, but he’s also kind of excited at the prospect of having the house to himself while she’s at school and Rob and I are at work (which is only like 1-2 days a week). I am happy that masks are mandated, and have been driving them crazy reminding them to wash their hands, use hand sanitizer, don’t share water bottles, etc.

Speaking of crowded places, the community center by my library is an early voting location and the lines this week have been crazy. I was hoping I’d be able to drop by one morning before work and vote, but there was no way that was going to happen, so I went to a location closer to my house yesterday. I must have picked a good time, because I was in an out in about 30-40 minutes - much better than I’d anticipated! Glad to have that done, I was worried what the lines on election day would be like (and I would have had to go either before or after work, since I work on Tuesdays). Now if I could just stop seeing political ads all over the damn place, sigh…

The kids decided they don’t want to bother attempting to trick or treat this year, and I’m glad. I don’t want them to be disappointed, but I don’t have any idea how many houses would be giving out candy, etc. I told them I’ll buy them each a bunch of candy and we can watch scary movies and order pizza or something for dinner. I will get some candy to pass out just in case we have any little kids in the neighborhood, but I’ll probably pack it up in bags and pass them out with gloves so there’s as little contact as possible.

Seems like I’ve been talking to my siblings more than normal recently. My brother’s house got pretty banged up in Hurricane Sally (ironic, in case I haven’t already mentioned it, because that’s our mother’s name), so my sister and I have been checking in with him. My sister finally got in to see Mom - they hadn’t allowed in-person visits since March, but Mom doesn’t really understand how much time has passed. I think my sister is going to turn off her cell phone, it’s never charged and she doesn’t answer it anyway. I know it’s just another milestone in this journey of Alzheimer’s/dementia but it felt weird this week when I deleted the weekly reminder to call her from my calendar. Apparently she’s incontinent now as well, but she seems happy and well taken care of, and my sister will visit every week now that she can.

My best friend from high school’s father passed away a few weeks ago, completely unexpectedly. I am still so sad for her. I’m terrible at keeping in touch but I’ve been trying to do better. Which reminds me, I need to call her. More later!