The time on my hands

What do you do with three weeks off?

That’s my conundrum today as I begin the longest summer vacation I have ever taken.

In this period of global pandemic, there’s no place to go.

When I made the decision to take these three weeks off, our plan was to travel as our new group of five – Jackie and her daughter Mackenzie, myself and my two daughters Alannah and Ashley-Rae. Her family in St. John’s Newfoundland had reached out to invite us all and we all agreed to jump at the chance of such an adventure.

An adventure for sure for me and the Brill Girls, but for Jac and Mackenzie it would be a great visit back home.

Jac was telling us all of the great sites we would see – like icebergs floating down past the oceans edge of town – and the beautiful rolling landscapes – and all the great people she loves that we would meet. And we all got excited. The pictures all look so beautiful.

“We’ll drive” explained Jac, “It’s a long drive but it’s all so beautiful. And we will ride the ferry overnight to the island province”.

“How long does the ferry take?” asked Alannah.

“About nine hours, and I hate boats”, laughed Jackie. “But we will be there for St. John’s three weeks of summer”

So I booked my three weeks and two days off from work or the long trip.

And then the pandemic got worse instead of better.

Now we have rules like wearing masks in public places and social distancing of six feet and social bubbles of no more than ten people and washing and sanitizing everything you touch.

Some of the provinces in our path out east instituted rules like if you enter that province you have to self-isolate for ten days before you can carry on with your trip. How would they be able to enforce that? I don’t know. Do I want to find out? No – not with the kids with us anyway.

It would have been adventure though - like the old Smokey and the Bandit movie. Only we would be the illegal cargo instead of Coors beer.

Imagine us driving down the Trans-Canada highway – reaching a roadblock at the Quebec – Nova Scotia border – a Gleeson-like provincial police officer complete with polaroid sunglasses standing in the middle of the highway with a bullhorn for us to pull over, and Jackie swerving to the right to heading for a flatbed trailer parked on the shoulder with its rear end down on the ground – like the perfect jump ramp – and Jackie shouting to us all to “hang on – this is going to be fun”.

“Yeee-Hawww” I would shout as the SUV flew through the air.

After the airborne Dodge Durango landed with a couple of bounces, she would have to lose the RCMP chasing us on horseback she would ride down into the valley of the median and up the other side of the highway that people heading west would use – swerving between the oncoming traffic – and the moose and elk that just naturally wander out on the highway.

That would be an adventure.

“Now that’s just stupid” Jackie will say when she reads this.

“I don’t know”, I’ll reply “you’re a pretty crazy driver”

“But now we will never know” I would say before she had a chance to get mad.

Besides, the police would have caught us at the ferry anyway.

So now I’m trying hard to think of what to do for fun on this three weeks of vacation.

“Work on your house Fred” everyone will say.

Everyone will say that.

And everyone would be right. I have a list so long of all the things I need to do – both inside and out. De-tangling it from the past to open it up to the future. Rooms to clear out and carpets to clean or pull out and replace with other flooring. The garage is a horrible collection of things sat down quickly to get them out of the car or another room in the house. A couple of trees to cut down or pull out on the north side of the house. An old car to clean up and sell. A spare room downstairs to clean out to use as my work-from-home office in three weeks’ time. Painting and multiple trips to the dump.

The list is daunting. Overwhelming in fact.

Well, the problem of what to do is solved.

I wonder if three weeks is enough?

Crazy Times

It’s a beautiful day here on this 2020 Mother’s Day.

The world seems so green and lush and healthy with the deep blue of a clear sky, the yellow rays of sunlight and the colours of the flowers springing up through the ground.

It’s hard to believe the world is sick.

Well, not the planet - but the global population of humans that inhabit our world remain under a stay in place isolation order of varying degrees.

It’s crazy.

You’re living through all of this too, so I won’t bore you with those details you already know.

As for our little family, a lot has changed.

My wife Darlene and I have have separated now for two years, amicably and there is no reason for anyone to shed a tear on our behalf, as it has a been a very positive experience for all.

My two little girls - Alannah and Ashley-Rae are now 19 and almost 18 respectively and have both become quite accomplished young women in their own rights.

And some eight months ago I met one of the most special people I have ever known and fallen madly in love with her in the process.

During the last nine weeks of pandemic self-isolation I have been working from home, my laptop set up with three monitors and a keyboard in the corner of the living room, with the honour and pleasure of working with a fantastic team on one of the most exciting projects of my career - using Microsoft Teams and Zoom to collaborate we meet online several times a day.

Alannah has successfully completed her first year of college, and Ashley-Rae participates in online classes and course material for the remainder of her senior year. If anyone in our house has suffered from the self-isolation mandate during this pandemic it has been Ashley-Rae. Her Senior Year Prom cancelled, her final year of both high school softball and dance team competitions eliminated, she, like most other high school seniors is constantly impacted by a string of disappointments.

The next disappointment is likely to be the cancelation of this summer’s travel fast-pitch softball schedule. The majority of the team’s schedule slated to play in both Michigan and Ohio in a time when the opening of the U.S. - Canada border to non-essential traffic seems highly unlikely until at least the fall, it appears apparent that this season will be another casualty,

Given my age nearing sixty, my daughters have mandated I do stay home - no shopping - no visiting - except to visit Jackie and her daughter Mackenzie - who is the same age as my two daughters - I am now homebound.

I’ll admit I spend a lot of time with Jackie, either at her beautiful home a few miles away, or here at our modest little homestead.

But there is so much unsettled in our world right now.

There are a lot of questions that will be decided by the laws of economics as the world awaits the opportunity to reopen after this shut down.

Will we ever return to a normal office work-life again is will it be the new norm to work from home? Given that there will likely be a six-foot separation rule when businesses try to move back their traditional workplaces - will that reduced optimization of office space make I cheaper to have staff work at home? What will the productivity rates of people working from home be?What will these shifts really mean to our local, provincial, national and global economies?

Will we ever enjoy going to restaurants, movie theatres, shopping malls and such places ever again? What happens to music concerts and professional sports events now?

Or will we simply open up and go back to life exactly as we left it?

To me, it comes down to confidence levels - at several levels. From the global level to open up borders depending on national confidence levels, the more local levels to determine what the safest number of people to gather in one place will be, and our individual confidence that interacting with our world is safe enough yet.

But certainly there is still great opportunities out there for those who have the skills to chase them. We are already seeing some - such as delivery services - from food to purchases - even entertainment. And the realization that we reached our technology level just in time.

And other new opportunities will arise - the most notable in my mind is to offer the skill to help companies and corporations figure out how they will pivot their business practices to survive in this new world.

But will we see the end of professional sports? The end of arena sized music and entertainment concerts? The Theatre? Will we ever again celebrate events with parades and fireworks? And how can the way we take care of our senior citizens change - because nursing homes and long term care facilities definitely need to be overhauled.

What can we afford to do?

Who knows? I don’t. But I suspect we will never again be able to feel comfortable in large crowds - at least not without masks and gloves?

But I think it’s safe to say that if your industry supports health care, delivery of goods, or any kind of internet based transactions or home improvement services, you are likely to boom after this. But manufacturing has no option but to further automate using robotics.

Our world - I believe - will be different.

And I hope that the impact to your world is more positive than negative.

The next question though - when this is all over - will be “did we handle this right?” A lot of retrospective about self isolation and personal distancing will happen - after the crisis - after we are immunized - if we are ever immunized. There will be a lot of finger pointing and blaming. And the current great divide between the left and the right will likely grow larger - as will the divide between the have’s and have not’s. And conspiracy theories - already appearing - will fire dispute in that each will claim that the other is lying or covering something up.

And the scientists will be monitoring closely how this incredible reduction in human activity has allowed this planet we live on to heal. That should be interesting. Or even more concerning - depending on what we find out.

It’s bound to happen.

It’s who we are.

And these are crazy times.