FaceTime

Garbage in, garbage out

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‘You meet the nicest people at the dump’

I just have to say that my family has way too much fun on our weekly Family FaceTime calls. We started them during the pandemic — and for a couple of years now we’ve been gathering round the ole iPad or iPhone every Sunday at 3PM Pacific Mom Time.

Checking in with Mom and the Sibs on a random Sunday. Jealous of Doug’s Dilly Bar

It doesn’t hurt that every one of my sibs is pretty darned funny. (Those of you who know me in person may be surprised to learn that, in my family, it is not I who is the “Funny One” — or even the “Chatty One.”)

Roger shows off the latest headgear on another random Sunday

To say that we discuss a wide range of topics on these calls would be putting things mildly. Sometimes we’re serious (sort of). Like, this Sunday Youngest Younger Bro Doug reported on the soggy aftermath of a Maine Nor’Easter. (He lost power and his dock got dunked.)

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The Zoom Zoom Room

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‘Connecting in the Time of Corona’

I don’t know about you, but my head is spinning these days. No, it’s not from the craziness of the News Cycle — though the suggestion of ingesting bleach or zapping the inside of my body with “light” is rather mind-boggling — no, my noggin is spinning from all that Zooming.

I’ve been Zooming (or FaceTiming or Facebook Messengering) with West Coast Cousins of The Dude, members of my New York City Ladies’ Club, the Curator of the Frick Museum, and even Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah. (I’ve already written, in “Apocalypse Now,” about Zooming with John Krasinski.

Why, the whole Earth is zooming! (Thanks, New Yorker)

And that was just this week. It’s kind of funny, actually (if anything about this Corona Crisis can be funny), but I’ve been feeling more connected than ever during these weeks of isolation.

Somehow I thought that isolation would be more, well, isolating. But, as it turns out, I’ve got my coffee with the ladies on Mondays, my art lecture on Tuesdays, my Family FaceTime on Wednesdays. And this week, I’ve added a Cocktail Hour with my Bridge Buddies on Thursday. I hardly have time for those endless hours of curled-up-in-a-big-chair-under-an-afghan reading I’d pictured myself doing.

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