Easter 2020 Roll Call!

1. Dad
2. Sherri
3. Angel
4. Gina
5. Beth
6. Christopher
7. Nikki
8. TJ
9. Cheyanna
10. Tristen
11. Matthew
12. Shobhit

. . . Hmm. This is quite a different mix of family "present" for Easter, which is clearly due to it being a Zoom "meetup" rather than a traditional Easter dinner. Christopher hasn't come to Easter in Olympia for years, and neither has Tristen; it's been a few years for Nikki and TJ as well. They really weren't this year either, but then neither were any of us, at least not to Dad and Sherri's house as originally planned, aside from Dad and Sherri themselves. Zoom allowed for both the next-best thing, and for some family in both Spokane and Wallace, Idaho to join.

Conversely, Ricky, Rachael and Raiden were once again unable to attend, this time because Ricky was driving a dinner they made over to Angel's to give her for Easter dinner. This was our third "family meetup" on Zoom, and once again, neither Brandi, nor Britni, nor Becca, joined. None of the have to date. They need to get their shit together! I'm willing to cut Brandi some slack, as she just had a baby. But Brandi and Becca? What the hell is their problem? Sheesh!

Anyway. I actually texted Gina and Beth this morning asking that they set up a Zoom family meeting for the holiday early this evening. I had mentioned that I would like this to happen during the Zoom meeting last Wednesday, but I had yet to see any post in the Facebook group about it, so I texted them to ask. Within minutes, Beth had the meeting set up, which I really appreciated.

Last Wednesday and the Wednesday before, our Zoom meetings numbered 13 people total. Today's totaled 12. That's seven fewer than the 19 who came by Dad and Sherri's last year, but I guess I can live with that. I certainly appreciate that, today—as with the last two Zoom family meetings—all four of us siblings were on the call: Angel, Gina, Christopher, and me. Christopher even talked a little more today than he did the past couple of meetings. I feel like we're all sort of starting to get the hang of this group Zoom meeting thing.

We were all on the call for well more than an hour again, too. It started at 5:00, which was the time at which Shobhit got off work; Shobhit got home at about 5:30. and did some visiting of his own, sitting in a chair behind me.

I made a dozen deviled eggs this morning, out of six eggs. I went out of my way to use the photo as my Zoom "virtual background" for this meetup. I'm really quite happy with how that turned out.

I also did a kind of fun thing this morning, before I peeled the hard boiled eggs to make the deviled eggs: I took a photo of the living room with 12 hard boiled eggs (I only made half of those into deviled eggs) placed around the room, and posted it as a "virtual Easter Egg hunt." It got a pretty good amount of participation, too.

I had thought I would have the whole day with Shobhit, as apparently Big 5 always closes for Easter. But, this morning he got a text asking if he could pick up a last-minute shift at Total Wine & More, and I told him it was fine if he wanted to get the hours. He worked noon to five, which was why he was at work and then did not get home until halfway through the Zoom call.

I had very little time to get bored while he was gone, though. It's a holiday, so I had to call Mom. I actually tried twice late this morning but kept getting voice mail; I called at around 3:30 and finally got an answer. We talked for about forty minutes, the first time since our last conversation, which was on March 13—the very day I had been "disinvited" from working at the office due to my cold making me cough. I spoke to a lot of people that day: Mom, and Dad, and Gabriel, and if I remember right maybe even Danielle. But, Mom was the only person I had not spoken to since that day. When we said our goodbyes she said she expects a call again in May. Okay, fine!

I also talked to Gabriel for a few minutes on FaceTime. He had his phone propped on his dashboard while he was driving from Stephanie's house to . . . the house in Federal Way he and Lea juat bought! Okay, technically the owners of the house merely just accepted their offer. I guess they'll be moving in late June. But clearly those two have had a hell of a lot going on in their lives lately, even in the midst of "CoronaQuarantine." And this new house is very big: more than 3,000 square feet, four bedrooms and four baths, mere minutes from both his mom and his grandmother, and all of a two minute walk to the beach on Puget Sound. He even showed me the beach.

I wonder if social distancing strictures will be eased up at all by the end of June. I'd sure love to go see their new place once they've moved into it. Of course, he probably won't want visitors until they've taken some time to settle in anyway, which would on its own take us probably well into July.

Before the FaceTime call with Gabriel, I decided to go for a walk. I had nothing else to do, and I hoped to find, say, maybe some Easter-themed window displays to get pictures of. I should have known better: most retail stores are closed and have been for a month. There was nothing Easter-themed to take photos of at all. But you know what there was a lot of? Murals, painted onto the boards on the windows of closed shops. I took 14 photos of those alone, there are so many such great murals all over the city; it's because of that alone that, someowhat ironically, this year's Easter photo album has more photos in it than any have had since 2015. And I took 16 photos total on that walk, which means if I had not gone on a walk, this year's Easter photo album would have had only 22 shots in it, and it would have been the smallest Easter photo album I've managed since 2013. But hey, even that many is more than I might have expected when I wasn't even able to get out of town for the holiday like I usually do. As a matter of fact, this was the first full Easter Sunday I ever spent entirely in Seattle.

It wasn't half bad, under the circumstances—even with Shobhit working a shift, and having to connect with family in Olympia for barely more than hour over Zoom. These days, we take what we can get, and I am so grateful we have things like video conferencing, to make extraordinary circumstances such as these more bearable.

[posted 8:43 pm]