Celebrating in the age of Corona

Our youngest turned twenty four yesterday. He had been looking forward to this birthday and had planned an array of events, some with his siblings, some with high school friends and some with work friends. He had planned a festival of celebrations.

Unfortunately, Corona-virus put an end to his plans.

Our son decided that he would celebrate when the crisis was over and had gotten his mind around the fact that this would be a not particularly pleasant or celebratory day. But all through the day greetings arrived by way of social media and old fashioned phone calls.

We ordered dinner from a local kosher meat restaurant. My husband brought home a large bottle of Corona beer. Our daughter and son in law joined us at the table via Google Hangouts. Our son's closest friend from childhood and downstairs neighbor joined us for dinner. We talked and laughed together and after we cleaned up from dinner gathered around the TV and played a high tech version of old fashioned party games that had us all laughing until tears rolled down our faces.

My son mentioned last night that it was a memorable birthday and was far nicer than he had expected.

The one sour note of the evening was that I had in error eaten a bit of techina. I had promised my doctor that if I had another allergic reaction I would go to the ER, but this is a time to not go to the ER. The reaction wasn't huge, it was just beginning. I made myself a cup of espresso and downed a couple of Benadryl. It worked. I chose that method rather than the Epi-pen because the day after hangover from using an Epi-pen is awful. I figured that if my reaction had gotten more severe I would have used the Epi-pen, but the espresso and antihistamine together did the trick. I have been pretty out of it all day.

All of us are working from home and so far have done a pretty good job of working around one another's needs.

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sarah in nyc

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