Barn Pixie

"On March 15, Baker ordered all schools in Massachusetts closed for three weeks from Tuesday, March 17 through April 7. The same day, he also banned eating at restaurants and gatherings over 25 people, relaxed unemployment claim requirements, and enacted other interventions through April 17 to slow the spread of COVID-19"

this from Wikipedia. I should throw them more money. They have turned into a remarkably reliable source for all kinds of things. I mean I used to think it was just for details of who did what in various SF TV shows or summaries of plots so I could decide how scary things were going to be, or all the books from a certain subset of authors. Now I go there for daily updates on the coronavirus in the state of Massachusetts, along with Washington Post and the New Yorker. To be clear, WaPo is for national knowledge, and the New Yorker is all about the human and emotiona aspects of everything, but those are my sources and they've served me well so far. 

I was walking around town yesterday with the Red one, and after lunch in a Thai restaurant (we were politely requested to wash our hands before we sat down, and they piolitely enforced that with everyone else who came through the door even the take-out woman) we were walking around thinking about yarn and amusements and stopped in the music store. I want to try to play an instrument again, and I once knew, like, 4 chords on a guitar. So I looked at cheap and nice ukeleleleles (I just ... don't like the way they sound? it seems dreadfully elitist of me) and mandolins (too many strings) and guitars (too big? Or I've already failed once at them? Or something) and finally asked a charming young man what he recommended, and he walked straight to a tiny guitar shaped object and called it a guitalele and I was smitten. It sounds nice, it is still small and light and stowable, I can use my existing four chords of knowledge, although they produce a different key they all work together, and I think if I use a capo I can get into the same key as a guitar. So I bought it, after a small amount of walking around, because it was less than $100 and because this virus and subsequent measures can last for weeks, and as Al pointed out, any measure taken to decrease boredom and fretfullness is a good one. Also, in a fit of foolishness (like a guitalele is not already foolish) I bought a Pokemon tuner. It is Charmander. It is Bright Orange. It is (the charming young man said) a collectors item, and not sold in the US after these sell out.

I practiced for ten minutes last night, until the tips of my fingers felt raw and dreadful, and I have it upstairs in my studio so I can practice without bothering Al while he's "at work" and I am thinking of recording myself in the next day or two so I have a benchmark against which to measure progress.

So that's life in social distance land... what're you all up to?