COVID-19

Life in the COVID-Kingdom of America is much different than what we were used to back before Covid-19.  Up until February 2020 we were living the post-retirement life of travel and adventure.  Summers in upstate New York, late summer and fall traveling in the USA.  Winters in Florida followed by spring traveling to Central America or Europe.  In our third year of retirement, we were enjoying live and the opportunity to travel.  Then came COVID….

Quarantine – New York

We stopped in New York with the intent of simply getting our taxes done before heading back out on another trip.  Oh, were we wrong.  We spent April and May in the New York Finger Lakes, watching the snow far more than we expected.  At the end of May, we headed back to Florida where we’ll spend at least the next year waiting for a manageable solution to COVID-19.

Quarantine – Florida

Initially, Florida was great.  We spent the first few weeks in ‘self-quarantine’ since we’d come from New York, where the virus had a stranglehold.  After that, life settled into a repeating pattern of… something just ahead of boredom.  As time has passed, the laissez-faire approach of Floridians ushered in an upsurge of Corona Virus, just as New York finally got a handle on their troubles.  So we never had a chance to develop any kind of mainstream routine.

Today we order our groceries online from Walmart.  Picking up those groceries represents our primary excursion outside of the community where we live. We live with a lingering sense of concern about contracting the virus is we venture out any more.  After all, we’re part of that “at-risk” demographic… older Americans.  Huh, when did that happen?

The Book

Over the past two months Julie and I have taken up activities and hobbies from days gone by. The first “great idea” was writing a book for our grand-kids… Well, it was actually Julie’s ‘great idea’. She ended up writing the book and we collaborated on the illustrations.

When finished, we had 16 pages with two illustrations per page. It seemed to take somewhere between 6-8 months, but I suppose it was actually only a few weeks.

In the end, we had everything from school buses and taxis to owls and komodo dragons. For the most part, we had a good time… and only a few creative disagreements along the way. Both of us were blown away with the end product. And more important, it was the catalyst for other creative endeavors since then.

I call this art…

After I suffered through painting a rhinoceros (based on an image I found on the Internet), I settled on drawings and paintings of my family’s home in Clarence Center. The first rhino was done with brushes and came out looking more like an elephant (or so Julie says…). In any event, it came out so bad, I decided to try my hand at palette knives for the second attempt! Hmmm, our grand-kids liked it, but maybe I’ll go back to brushes.

My brother and I call the Clarence Center house the ‘pink house’ while my sisters tell us it was ‘salmon’… whatever. The latest attempt was a pen and ink drawing I did of of the old house this morning. I then went to Photoshop with a scan of the drawing and added some color.

Moving Forward

That is now part of my signature in email! What I find funny is that the smaller I make the image, the better it looks!! I’m planning to try more and working harder to improve my skill with acrylics in the coming weeks so I don’t have to miniaturize everything. I’ll let you know.

Other than painting and drawing, Julie has become a dedicated pickle-ball player. Maybe I’ll write about that next… pickle-ball… huh….