Pod people

When we thought schools might open physically, we had a tough choice to make. Then they said they weren't opening physically until November at the earliest, so the choice was made for us. We've decided that the best way to handle distance learning, for a 5-year-old, while we're working from home, is by joining a "pod". 

Us and four other families have hired a pod leader from a company that used to specialize in special ed stuff. All the kids are enrolled in the same school, although not all in the same class. It'll be like school was last year, except it'll be at our house for the first week, and other families' houses for each of the following weeks in turn. When it's our week, we'll have to clean the house thoroughly daily after each visit, because of contagion in addition to the usual messes made by kids. When we'll be working, there will be 5 kids ages 5 and 6 in our house. Hopefully they'll be well-behaved. (Hoping they'll be quiet is unreasonable.) We have to take over and watch the kids for half an hour a day when the pod leader has lunch. When it's not our week, we'll take the kid to another family's house. We'll have to pack a lunch for her, which wasn't required at school. A tiny problem, all things considered, but it'll affect our shopping and stuff. We don't have definite plans for when someone has to cancel on short notice due to coronavirus or other infection. And it's only from 8:30 to 3:30 or so, I'd have to check, which is shorter than a workday, so we'll have to fumble around pickup and dropoff. 

This is the best option. It easily beats the following.

• Home-schooling while working from home. We tried that last spring like everyone and it was a nightmare.
• A smaller pod or one-on-one assistance - i.e. nanny, au pair, etc. - would cost more and/or have her in the house even more. 
• Moving to live with our parents and having them help out, like we did over the summer. We can imagine lots of variations on this but none of them would be viable all year long and none of them would let the kid spend much time with people her own age. 

And of course, our least bad option is better than a lot of peoples', since we're working from home and can afford the pod leader. 

Nature's Bounty

 I didn't expect this when I planned the trip to Vermont, but I found myself indulging nostalgia by berry-picking a lot. Blackberries and raspberries grow wild where I grew up. I remember making a meal of them, some summer days. Every day during this stay I'd pick at least a few. Several old patches I remember are gone, taken by a mower as the use of land changed or by changes in the terrain caused by the flood a few years back or simply by time. But there are still lots of little patches all over the place.

Am I working right now?

In the before time, when I mostly worked in the office, I put in about 8 hours plus 15-20 minutes to be safe, called it a full day, and didn't worry about it beyond that. If one day it took me 10 minutes to get lunch and the next day it took me 20 minutes, or if I read an article in between meetings instead of finding something work-related to do, who cares? I've seen my boss's boss's boss do similar things. It would be crazy to worry about that in a job like this. 

But now, who the fuck knows?

Being logged on for 12 hours a day could mean 12 hours of work or 2. If I'm sitting alone and focusing on a document or phone call and the kid is in another room entertaining herself or playing with someone else, then I'm definitely working. If I'm sitting next to the kid and trying to focus on a document or email and she's watching TV, I'm basically working. If I'm playing with her but checking my email every 10 minutes, or trying to focus on work but she's interrupting me every 10 minutes, or I plan to get up for a snack for just 5 minutes but stumble on 3 more things I have to do before I sit down again, then I'm...