This sure has been a strange year! When the pandemic struck we were in Jamaica. As things got worse in the US we started to wonder about how we were going to get home. We were originally scheduled to fly back north on April 17, but as things started closing down we decided to get out while we still could. We moved our departure date up to April 8. Then the flight was canceled. And then the new flight was canceled. It quickly became apparent that American was not going to be flying out of Montego Bay anytime soon so we started looking at other airlines. The only flights we could find were once a week flights out by Jet Blue. We finally departed on April 11 on one of the last flights to leave Jamaica. Our friend Bob Hollenback got stuck down there and did not get back to the states until June!
Once back in Ithaca we hunkered down and did our best to not leave the house. Groceries got delivered, doctor appointments went to telemedicine and everything else got put off or canceled. Barbara started work on some of her many unfinished quilting projects and Tom got busy building fireworks for the annual PGI convention in August. The convention got canceled and for the first time in 26 years, we did not hit the road for our annual trip out west to the convention.
Despite our best hopes, the pandemic did not taper off but instead continued getting worse. We kept an eye on the situation in Jamaica. The government there did a much better job than ours here, but even so the thought of getting sick in Jamaica with no guarantee we could come home weighed on our minds, and we eventually canceled our reservations and decided to stay in Ithaca for the winter. Or at least until winter makes us just too crazy! It has been 13 years since we last endured an Ithaca winter...
Our local NPR station had a raffle as part of their fundraising campaign and much to our surprise we won a $1,000 prepaid Visa card! We decided that we'd spend it on something fun and now we are the proud owners of a 65" TV. The guy at the Best Buy store had a hard time believing that at 70+ years old it was our first TV! Of course, it broke right away - the sound quit - and we are now awaiting a visit from the Geek Squad to fix it.
Mark and Janet are planning on putting their house on the market and moving to New Mexico, so they have begun the project of whittling down their 50+ years collection of possessions. One of the things that had to go was a large pile of rough-cut oak boards that had been sitting in one corner of their barn for a long time. I agreed to take the oak and have been steadily processing it into trim for the pool room. That room has only been without trim for about 45 years, but what's the rush?
So now we have a huge pile of trim parts that are gradually getting sanded, varnished, and installed. And it is snowing.
