Week sixteen, and we added a few more “new reality- social distancing” firsts to our list.

We went on our first day trip to Vail and Breckenridge. We woke up at 5am to beat the holiday crowds on our two-hour drive. We made such good time, that we had several hours to kill before meeting our friend’s Julie and Ryan for breakfast.

It was a great day and I will write a full-blog review in the future. Both cities encouraged masks and social distancing. It seemed like more of the Breckenridge visitors complied with safety restrictions, but overall I felt safe in both towns. We wore our masks, kept our hands clean, and we were careful in crowds. We enjoyed two restaurants and quickly learned the importance of planning ahead with reservations during covid, as the restaurants were operating under a reduced capacity. We were lucky to eat!

In Vail, we rode the gondola and walked through the Betty Ford Gardens. This gorgeous river shot was taken from a covered bridge in town.

Breckenridge was less fancy than Vail and more down-to-earth. Unfortunately, it rained during our visit, so we didn’t do much besides eat pizza and walk down the main street. I look forward to returning and going on their gondola, which unlike Vail’s, is free! Vail’s gondola was really expensive.

The mountains at Breckenridge are picturesque.

All of the rain, meant a beautiful rainbow. So many rainbows in Colorado! We found this one in the town of Frisco. No filter on this picture, it was really this vibrant.

My other covid first was a trip to the dentist for a teeth cleaning. They had tons of safety procedures in place and few patients. It seemed as safe as possible under the circumstances, and I figured that keeping up with dental health was too important to delay.

We had a lazy day at home for the 4th of July. Unfortunately, like many places, we have people in our neighborhood who insist on using fireworks. We live in a high fire danger area, so they are 100% illegal.

It’s also frustrating, because of the morality of it all. They are illegal for safety reasons, but we also have kids in our neighborhood who have been affected by local school shootings, and others with PTSD. We have pets who are terrified. I too have childhood gun drama that gets dragged up with fireworks, so I’m sensitive. We didn’t lodge any complaints with the police, but several neighbors confronted those using the fireworks and it turned ugly. It makes me sad and frustrated that this is happening in our community. I can’t believe that the desire to use illegal fireworks is stronger than reason and compassion. It’s unbelievable.

We finished watching the first two seasons of “What we do in the Shadows.” It is one of the funniest shows that I have ever seen. We are now anxiously awaiting season three, which is sure to be delayed. We also watched “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” with Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams. It’s not a very funny movie, but it was certainly sweet and uplifting, probably just the type of movie we could all use at the moment.

I made Ratatouille from a Noom recipe, and it was delicious!

I sent a personalized card created by Punk Post to a family friend ( my mom’s best friend) who lives alone and who has been having a hard time. She called me crying, because it was so nice to get a card in the mail. This was a reminder to be better about checking-in with people that I care about. I feel like I’m handling things well, but others are not.

And finally, cute cat pictures of Tom. Slinky is cute too, but he doesn’t pose for as many pictures! Tom loves that big brown ball, and in this picture he was holding it and meowing for attention. He loves for us to throw it,and he will retrieve it! Who needs a dog?

It’s week six of social distancing and the weeks are bleeding into one another. We still have a regular weekday work routine and we look forward to the weekends, but those are mostly a blur of relaxing at home. As far as we are aware, we still don’t know anyone who has contracted the virus.

This Monday, Colorado shifted from “stay at home” orders to “safer at home” and certain areas of our city were supposed to try opening up, however, I’ve not noticed any changes. Governor Polis announced that Colorado was joining a pact with the western states and this made me feel optimistic. I’m worried about the states that are pushing to reopen. I’m shocked that Georgia thinks that including places like bowling alleys and movie theaters in their initial reopening phase is a good idea. Seriously?

We saw news footage of an airplane that was full and several people were not wearing masks. I’m not sure why masks are not enforced. Jet Blue did announce that they will enforce wearing masks on flights. I wish other places would do this, specifically grocery stores. It’s not a big deal and everyone should get on board with it.

And about the grocery stores. There is news about the supply chain breaking due to the meat processing plant closures that has me worried. I’m not worried about missing meat. I can eat vegetarian, no big deal. I mainly have this anxiety about people hoarding food again and empty shelves. During our last trip to the store, things were mostly back to normal. I hope this news doesn’t cause another round of panic shopping. The sense of panic increases my anxiety. Mostly, my anxiety is under control. I don’t need to go back to weird anxiety dreams.

We are still among a handful of neighbors wearing masks on our walks. Luckily, we don’t encounter many people during our evening exercise. It feels pretty safe and we are cautious. We took our face covers down for a quick moment to catch a picture of us in front of the community club house that is being constructed. I’m not sure if we are going to be able to enjoy the pool this summer, but it is exciting to think that we will have one in our neighborhood! With our bandanas down, we look like we’ve gone from “bank robbers” to “ready to enjoy bbq at the hoe-down.” So versatile!

A few dramatic weather shots from this week. It rained, we had a small amount of slushy snow, and we also experienced the hottest day of the year. Actually, the hottest day since we moved to Colorado - about 80 degrees! I miss California, so it was heavenly.

The kitchen experiments continued with making shepherd’s pie using a Colman’s seasoning mix from England. The meat leaked through to the mash topping. It isn’t pretty, but it was tasty. Dan even said that it tasted authentic. That’s high praise.

Dan purchased the biggest tub of Branston Pickle from the British Food Depot. We have quite the collection British food items in our cupboard. We might need to open a shop. The “erase-a-hole” is to show perspective. We have holes from home renovation projects. Being stuck at home is leading to a variety of projects.

Using left over chocolate cake, strawberry syrup, and ice cream, Dan made sundaes. Also, I call them “sprinkles” and Dan called them “hundreds and thousands.”

We left the house twice this week. We headed to Tipsy’s Liquor World (best name ever) to stock up on bourbon, gin and beer. We own several cocktail recipe books that have never been used, so we opened one up and made a “New Yorker”. It was tasty, sort of…really strong and not quite as elegant as the photo in the book. We need more practice! Challenge accepted!

Our second outing was to satisfy a craving for Panda Express. I know. I don’t even really like Panda Express, but I was craving their food specifically, not just Chinese food. We created a mobile order and went to pick it up. We decided that I would go in to collect it. I was impressed with the measures they took to maintain safety. They had one entrance for mobile orders and another for walk-ins. The whole restaurant was blocked off and a new register area was created, so that no one except staff was near the kitchen or buffet islands. The employees stayed more than six feet away, had masks, and dropped food off on a pick-up table. Although a few other customers were in the store, they kept their distance and all but one, wore masks. I felt safe. I also picked up dessert at LaMar’s Donuts, located in the same center as Panda Express. LaMars Donuts had similar safety procedures.

One situation where I did not feel safe occurred in our own home and I feel stupid for allowing it to happen. Prior to the restrictions, we had scheduled a contractor to fit a radon fan in our basement. We agreed to keep the appointment and he showed up with another employee, neither wore masks. We wore our masks, kept distant, and I wiped down all of the surfaces when they left, but I should have insisted that they wear masks. It’s a foolish risk, especially in our home. I do feel happy to have the radon fan, as that was a worry. Now we can move forward with using our basement for more than storage.

We watched season two of Ricky Gervais’ After Life. I cried every single episode. Buckets. It is both desperately sad and incredibly hopeful. Lovely and compassionate. Hilarious and irreverent. If you can handle the tears, it is the perfect show right now.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we rented Hustlers. It was entertaining and even more so, since it is based on true events. A crazy story. The biggest take-away is we both could not believe how stunning Jennifer Lopez looks. She’s gorgeous, more gorgeous than her much younger co-stars.

We also watched a heavy, depressing documentary about the environment called Planet of the Humans. It brings up important issues, but it is a lot to handle right now. It didn’t leave me feeling hopeful. it drained me. That said, I love the news about the environment beginning to heal while we are stuck at home. I’m sure that us humans will screw it up again when we get the chance, but maybe not completely. Maybe this will change us for the better too. I hope so.

The best entertainment this week came from Tom. We put a video of a mouse running around the tv screen and he went into action.

Tom was also the star of a card that my friend Julie sent to me. She discovered a company called Punk Post, who create customized, hand drawn cards. This card was sent in honor of Tom, who has not taken to litter box training. I have to watch him and give him the stink-eye to get him to use his box. He’s an obstinate kitten.

We had zoom cocktails with a different friend named Julie and her husband Ryan. Julie and Ryan just joined us in moving from California to Colorado and since we cannot celebrate in person, they gave us a tour of their beautiful new home! Joyful things are happening!

Ending with happy on more cat pictures from this week. Tom claimed a toy box and I caught the two cuddling again.