Things To Do (And Maybe Not To Do) During "Self-Quarentine"

Okay, first, don't panic. Our family isn't on self-quarentine...yet. But, the kids are off from schoolbecause of the pandemic, and I'm a bit queasy about things, so I thought I'd share some tips and non-tips about what to do while socially sequestering yourself. I hope this is as informative for you as it is for me.

1. Whine about how bored you are. Yep. Not five minutes past breakfast Monday morning and one of the kids was already bored out of his/her skull (I'll reserve the child's identity to preserve the future peace of the household). They have books, toys, games, Minecraft, Roblox, YouTube, Legos, paints, crayons, notebooks, snow outside to play in (yeah, we got a humdinger of a blizzard, and then the rain came to wipe out all trace of the snow), and so on. They could have started a production company and produced stop-motion animation videos for social media (we have a book on that), for crying out loud. And, of course, when I suggest these things as alternatives to their boredom, what's the response? "I don't want to do that!" And, then, the whining commences. I had to endure days of this until I found a possible and temporary solution to the issue: I bought a 16-bit game system with 100 games on it, on clearance. So, now, when they are bored, one or both of them try to master a new game, or try to further their skills at one they have already played. Yeah, I know, that isn't very "hands-on" of me, and you must be wondering where my parenting skills went, but, really, anyone who has ever been cooped up with their own spawn for this long, with "nothing to do", will understand that old phrase, "Any old port in a storm."

2. Start A "Home Improvement" Project You Are Woefully Inadequate At Executing Or Completing. Thus, my "Basement Reclaimation Project". I got as far as pulling off the carpet on the basement stairs before losing steam. Really, that was enough of a project in itself. SO MANY STAPLES! SO MANY STAPLES THAT WOULDN'T COME OUT SO I HAD TO HAMMER THOSE SUCKERS DOWN AND THEY WOULDN'T HAMMER DOWN ALL THE WAY SO I STILL HAD TO PRY THEM OUT OF THE WOOD AND IT TOOK TEN TIMES LONGER TO DO THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD! But, I digress. Yes, I had an image in my mind of simply grabbing the carpet at the top step and just pulling it downwards, and the whole thing would just peel off as easily as a banana skin. Right. First, as I mentioned earlier, there were approximately a million staples tacking it down, probably for "safety reasons" and to make sure no one "trips and falls down the steps breaking their neck". I am convinced it was done just to make my life harder. But, anyway, after a morning of pulling up ten feet of carpet, padding, prying out a million staples and cleaning up the mess, I was done for the day. The basement can wait for another day. Which brings me to the next thing...

3. Play An Unhealthy Amount Of Minecraft. I play this game. A lot. Probably way too much. Probably not. But, it has distracted me from many things in life: a global pandemic, the stresses of my job, the pain of writer's block, my family's wellbeing, conversations with my wife and children, preparing dinner, bathing, brushing my teeth, sleep...you know, the usual stresses of life. Just to bore you with the details, I usually have a dozen or so "houses" in my worlds, and I recently chose to challenge myself to having only one house. So I set up another world and...but, you can see all that in my YouTube videos. If I ever take the time to make any or post them. Speaking of which...

4. Make A Gaming Video. Yes, I actually tried. I had the "brilliant" idea to post a gaming video to my YouTube channel, but I didn't want to do just another Minecraft video. And, I had this game called Dinocraft that I hadn't played for a long time, and I was sure no one else was doing that game online, so I thought I would. I figured out how to record through Google Play Games, and I played for over an hour, recording every moment. Then, I wanted to see how it looked and to edit it where needed, if I could figure that out, but when I went to view it, when I finally figured out where the video was in the system, it was completely blank. The picture was completely black and there was absolutely no sound. I even checked to see if it was actually playing at all, and it was. So, I deleted it. So much for my life as an on-line auteur.

5. Play With The Kids. My son has an on-going project: he's building a robot out of spare Legos from the kits he's gotten over the years. He has a pretty cool-looking Gundam style robot, now, which he keeps improving as the whim hits him. Anyway, we played with toys together in "Toy Land", his bedroom kingdom ruled over by King Golden Freddy. It was fun, but like any other game, it couldn't last very long before I had another obligation that pulled me away, like going to work or making dinner. Well, it was fun, but he cheats. He always picks characters that are way over-powered (or makes them that way) and he always sticks me with the weakest character so he can terrorize it in some way or another. Kids! I don't mind, though, and I sometimes tease him by deliberately picking an over-sized toy like his giant teddybear or another of his armored robots as my character, just to make him mad, and when he protests that my character is too "O.P."then I take the one I usually play with, this tiny little Lego man that couldn't defend himself from a little kitten. It's fun...!

6. Write A Blog About What To Do During Self-Quarentine. This wraps up this blog for now. A fitting ending, don't you think? Okay, it's a lazy way out, but you know what? It's my day off. I can do what I want. Maybe I'll finish my basement project today. Or, maybe I'll just make plans for what I want the space to look like. I should probably go through all of my comic books and thin the herd (a lot!), sell them at the used bookstore, or something. I have to figure out what to do with the shelves those books are on, and the boxes they're in if the store doesn't want them. I'll have to repurpose the plastic ones that aren't crushed beyond reuse. And probably dismantle the shelves and store them somewhere until I can figure out where they can go. You know what? I'll do that tomorrow! I've got a MineCraft gaming video to film!