Looking Your Best Under Duress

Nothing could have been a more appropriate Mothers'Day gift than these charming little owls who each it its own way depicts how I feel...a little off kilter, a little wild eyed but still keeping it together reasonably well.

We had talked about having a Mothers' Day meal outside with Jim and Dana but, despite the way Dana is dressed, hot coffee was required to keep us warm outside this morning. It was misty and cold and not inviting. 
 
Although some businesses are being allowed to conduct business to the extent that they can provide delivery or curbside service, I suspect that that is going to be very hard to keep to that. I have a sense of pent up frustration and boredom that might just boil over if the lid is lifted even slightly. 

We are all beginning to look distinctly shaggy, but not yet totally unkempt. There was an article in the paper about how to  look your best on Zoom....apparently it has taken 8 weeks to adjust enough to this strange new way of living for it to occur to somebody to write an article like that. It didn't, of course,  mention that nobody has been able to get their hair cut in 8 weeks. In fact it didn't say anything not already known to blippers...things to do with lighting, angles, backgrounds and framing....

This was my favorite sentence:  "Presenting yourself virtually is really not that different from presenting yourself in person." 
I beg to differ...usually when you present yourself in person, you are not simultaneously looking at yourself on the screen. I find it disorienting....

I was quite amused the first week or two to see local newscasters broadcasting remotely from their homes, many in front of bookcases, some in front of paintings or, in one case, from the forest behind her house with a dog barking in the background. Now, most of them have changed to a stock backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge or some other boring picture. 

I discussed the wearing of masks and the effectiveness of Zoom classes with the girls. Both have difficulties with masks, Claire because she has broken her nose twice (just like her grandfather) and can't breathe through it, and Julia because she wears cochlear implants behind her ears....at least we don't have to wear those for a Zoom meeting....