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How I Miss the Quarantine

Spiderman and Zoe
 
 

I have three daughters, four grandchildren and a grand-dog. Because of the Covid quarantine, Adele and I have rarely seen them over the past year. But immediately after we both received the two vaccinations, the whole mishpucha came to our house for Passover.

My youngest daughter and her family kept a social distance because her son's daycare was appropriately anal about spreading the Covid. My oldest daughter's family was planning a trip, so Zoe, their dog was left for us to pet-sit.

My middle daughter left early but said that later in the week, on Wednesday, it would be Caesar Chavez Day and asked if for one night we could give her a break and watch her five year old son, Elan.

Came Tuesday evening, Elan arrived and when I opened the door, there he was, all three-foot-something of him dressed head to toe in a Spiderman costume — really head to toe including one of those see-thru masks with the compound spiderish eyes.

Elan spent the evening running around the house, climbing on the furniture and talking to the dog — and of course doing the one thing that he most wanted to do — the main reason for his visit from his point of view — to watch cartoons on Adele's iPad. This is a super-treat as his mom keeps a tight reign on his screen time.

So, Adele reads him several stories and puts him to bed. Adele and I go to bed — and Zoe curls into her cushy bed — one of two that my daughter included in her protracted sleep-away package. So, there were are, no sleepovers for over a year, and now two sleepovers together.

Well, they were both really good. I wish I could say the same for me. As my usual, I awoke several times through the night and finally got to sleep just before dawn.

 

Not so many minutes later, at the break of dawn, Elan woke and began calling, "Noma, Noma," the grandkid's code for Adele. She got out of bed going quickly to Elan's bed. Zoe was quiet. So far, so good.

I was resting for my big day of the week — teaching a songwriting class in the morning, running a sing a-long in the afternoon, and participating in an open mic in the evening.

So, I was getting my last moments of beauty-rest when at 6:58, I heard Adele's iPhone ringing/buzzing — whatever. Sensing that it wouldn't stop until I answered it, I rolled to her side, and picked up the iPhone just as it stopped ringing.

Simultaneously, I hear Adele answering her phone. It seems that the call is automatically paralleled to her iPad — and she was in bed with Elan watching on her iPad.

Elan, who is quite adept at using the iPad. immediately answered the call saying, "Hi mommy, I'm busy—can't talk now."

"As Mommy was lounging from bed," as Adele later explained, "she told me it was time to feed him his first (probably of three) breakfast(s).

By then I had picked up Adele's iPhone and bleary-eyed had begun making the trip to their room, in time for Elan to strip out of his pjs and into his Spiderman outfit — ready for a new day of climbing the furniture, spooking the dog and coming out with incongruous requests such as, "What's your password, grandpa?"

How I miss the quarantine.

~ Al Zagofsky

 

 

 

 

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