Things at Walmart on 12/17/20

This sign was on the automatic doors up front:

A magazine about the Netflix docuseries Tiger King:

A GIANT can of tuna:

A Garbage Pail Kids chapter book:

A Jeff Foxworthy version of Monopoly:

and some anti-social t-shirts:

Air time on A&G

My youngest sister, who is a fellow Armstrong & Getty fan, gave me the best Christmas gift in 2019: socks with the faces of hosts Jack and Joe on them--ha! Not only did I love the socks, they gave me a reason to email the show's mailbag almost a year later:

("I'm just sayin'" is something O.J. Simpson said after commenting on a story in the news via his Twitter account. It was played on the show quite a bit.) 

I thought there was a decent chance my submission would be read since Jack and Joe had been promoting the merchandise in their online store and there weren't a lot of big news stories. As I was going to Target the following Monday morning, I was delighted to hear that mine was the first email after the freedom-loving quote of the day! They spent over a minute reading it and making related comments. I sat in the parking lot and listened to it at least five times with an excited butterfly stomach. 

I kept the good news from my sister, thinking it would be funny if she stumbled upon it herself while catching up on podcasts. I got a text from her a couple days later in all caps that said, "HAVE YOU LISTENED TO MONDAY'S MAILBAG?" It's one of the good memories I'll have of 2020.

Trees all askew

You know I only buy products from well-managed forests. The mismanaged ones are the worst.

Dreams do come true

Walmart has Chick Fil A sauce in a squeeze bottle!! It’s their own Great Value brand, but it tastes exactly right. I knew I might be onto something when I saw the waffle fries on the label. Wink, wink!

Bye, California

In May of 2020, we decided to get a real estate agent in Utah to explore the idea of moving from Santa Cruz. My husband’s job with Looker/Google was going to be over in December, and California was stressing us out. Cost of living was high, our electricity got turned off when it was hot and windy, and homelessness and drug use were all around. It was frustrating to pay $1.5 million for a modest house and $18,000 per year in property tax then see things like this:

Then we’d hear about this kind of madness:

 

And there were many perhaps well-intentioned laws—I voted in favor of some of them—that had terrible results. Let's have no felony charges for someone who steals $900 worth of stuff from a store! (Prop 47) = stores closing because people were blatantly stealing tons of stuff from stores. San Francisco businesses with 20+ employees should be required to give their employees health benefits! = higher prices for customers, fewer people hired, unwiped tables at casual restaurants, etc. This popped up when I tried to buy a bike online: 

It’s no wonder Governor Gavin Newsom was given this honor—ha! Like us, a lot of people wanted out of a wonderful but worrisome place.

So we sold our house (which thankfully went well--it was hard to know what to expect during Covid) and bought one in Utah for half the price. My mom was a MAJOR help previewing listings and taking us around during the three separate trips my husband and I made. We lost out on two offers and a backup before getting our current house. We gave our piano and trampoline to Santa Cruz friends who lived down the street: 

The kids had their last outdoor playdates (which started in late May 2020 with a handful of like-minded parents so we could preserve our sanity and help our kids stay connected and happy during the pandemic): 

Sister said good-bye to our very kind neighbor who had provided peach-ring gummies and hang-out time with her dog: 

My husband sold the charming 1999 Mazda Miata we bought from my aunt and uncle; it's a California car:

and I took the kids to the San Francisco Zoo one last time: 

It was not easy to leave--it's still my favorite house we've lived in, and the location was very hard to beat:

But we felt good about our decision, especially when the CZU Lightning Complex fire started burning 10 days after we left. We know three people who lost their homes and many who had to evacuate. (Our old neighborhood was close but got to stay put although the air quality was horrendous for about a month).

The move itself went well. My awesome friend from high school came out and helped us pack up the Penske truck that my husband drove, then she and I switched off in our family car during the 13-hour drive on August 6, 2020. We left almost exactly 19 years from the time my husband and I arrived in California, newly married and ready to start jobs in San Francisco. Here's me on a corner near our first apartment in the Marina district of SF in 2001:

It was so nice to have family help on the other end with unloading and unpacking. They are another big reason we made the move:

California COVID

In early March of 2020, we began hearing about a virus that was affecting China and Italy called the Coronavirus or COVID-19. I didn't give it much thought as we've seen others come and go with very little local impact--Zika, SARS, H1N1, etc. Then there were a lot of cases and deaths in New York City, and on March 12, the kids' school district announced there would be no school the following week because of the virus. And I started getting emails like this from every. single. company that had my address:

Thanks, Shell gasoline. Your support means a lot. Soon, even my hummus was trying to reassure me: 

On March 17, the city of Santa Cruz issued a "shelter in place" order for people to remain at home except for necessary errands and exercise, asked them to not gather in groups larger than 10 people, and to stay at least 6 feet away from others in public. They also designated which businesses were essential, and all others were to close. This was to help flatten the curve of cases so the hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed.  

Hair salons were deemed nonessential, so after awhile, I gave my husband and 1st Brother a buzz cut with the clippers we have at home:

Our closest golf course was closed March 18-May 4, which made my husband very antsy, so he bought a backyard tent thing to hit balls into:

Parking was blocked off everywhere at the golf course, but my husband was kind enough to drop Sister and me off and support my scheme of riding bikes on the cart paths. Sister had learned to ride a two-wheeler just weeks before and was slow and cautious, but it was still a good time. Bike rides at the empty Beach Boardwalk were fun too.

For the first while, it was kind of nice having things drop off my calendar and to-do list. School, piano lessons, and church went online, horseback riding was canceled, I got out of making a leprechaun trap, etc. The Internet humor was good too:  

But at the same time, it was unnerving to see that stores were actually out of toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and meat at times, and I was worried about how to help vulnerable relatives, neighbors and people whose jobs and business were impacted by the shutdown. Things did not let up, and we had to cancel our early-April family trip to Hawaii. The city shut down the beaches and blocked off parking to prevent people from gathering:

   

Wearing masks to prevent spreading the disease soon became the norm when out in public. My friend was so kind and sewed some reusable ones for the whole family: 

At the end of April, a pair of seagulls made themselves comfortable on top of our house. We woke up one morning to one of them aggressively tapping the glass on our bathroom window--this happened several times--and it pulled away part of our screen! The same one (?) subsequently flew onto our balcony and pecked at the sliding door, then struggled THROUGH the cables on the railing when my husband came out to shoo it away! None of this had happened before--I think the birds were hungry as they weren't getting their usual scraps from restaurants, schools, and tourist garbage--and it added to the freakiness. My husband went up on the roof with a hose to clean off their poop and any nesting materials. There were no birds in sight when he started, but I took this picture from below shortly after as they circled and squawked. We were in our own Hitchcock movie!    

Our harassment and putting some little cups of orange gel out that supposedly look like fire to seagulls caused the pair to move to our neighbors' house. The birds were actually fun to watch from next door and didn't menace us further.    

We had some good times during the shut down as a family, watching the LegoMasters reality show, old Amazing Race episodes, and movies here and there. My husband and I watched the Tiger King and Last Dance docuseries and Schitt's Creek as many others did. We golfed when and where we could. We ordered take-out a couple times a week to support local restaurants. (How heroic of us! It was a very nice excuse to not cook.) Our family also played a lot of pickleball, jumped on the trampoline, and took many walks to places like the deserted UC Santa Cruz campus:

The koi pond at Porter College was a favorite:

The kids did fine with online school, which stayed in place till summer break, but it was a lot for parents (and teachers!) to keep up with. There was SO much screen time, but I was very grateful technology could keep them learning, entertained, and connected with friends. Sister had some cousin playdates through Skype that went well: 

The weeks dragged on. I was glad to be working several mornings a week because I had a reason to get up and start my day. Otherwise, I often slept in to pass the time/because I could. We had only three Coronavirus deaths in our entire county in the first several months, so maybe the restrictions were good? But a lot of harm was being done economically and to people's well-being and to their freedoms; the cure seemed much worse than the disease. Then a black man was killed by a police officer in Minnesota and there were widespread, sometimes violent protests for months, and people were very heated about the November 2020 presidential election too...GAHHHH! The mental strain was rough. Again, at least the Internet understood: 

I tell you what: there were plenty of informative signs around if you somehow forgot the symptoms of COVID or the actions you should take to prevent spreading it. At the golf course (where they removed the rakes from the sand traps and took flags out of the holes for awhile):  

at Trader Joe's (where I would often wait 20+ minutes to get in as they limited the number of customers in the store, and they prohibited shoppers from bringing their own reusable bags and gave paper ones at no charge--this whole thing was a big set back for environmental concerns when it came to the production of trash):

and even when my husband and I finally did the Berry Creek Falls hike in the Big Basin State Park--it was one way only. As someone who gets lost easily, I appreciated the extra signs: