I should be writing more on this blog. I really don’t have an excuse. I should also be accomplishing more in general. I’m not going anywhere and all the functions that take me away from home are cancelled. There are plenty of people in the same situation; I’m sure. I’ll mention a positive first. It’s unbelievably easy to maintain a consistent schedule these days. The down side of that “feature” is that every day is the same as the last.

In a nutshell, here is my day: Get up. Take pills. Eat a hard-boiled egg. Walk 5 miles. Eat vegetable soup. Bathe. Watch last night’s comedians on YouTube. Check the mail. Eat dinner. Watch TV. Spend an hour on the computer. Go to bed…Repeat.

Of course, there are a few other things. I report the Arizona Covid numbers daily on FaceBook. I also fix stuff.

Since March, this year has been a write-off. This year I didn’t attend the Renaissance or Maker Faires and no Festival of Books at the U of A. This year the American Atheists Convention was to be held in Phoenix—it was cancelled. I’m still in mourning over the loss of the Camp Quest Arizona week in the Prescott National Forest. It is the hardest and the most rewarding thing that I do during the year. The Fourth of July celebration is usually a time that Nancy and I get to participate in a party that we simply attend, and we had to miss that too.

For the past 10 years the months of August and September are a time to learn a new skill or make a major improvement on the house. This year, I had a taste of that when the air conditioner failed. Life was a bit challenging and I learned a lot about building a makeshift swamp cooler as we waited for parts to fix the A/C. (Turns out, I finished building the swamp cooler a mere 3 hours before the A/C repairs were completed.) In the past, I learned about pneumatics, and working with micro controllers. The skills I seek out are usually necessary for building and improving animated Halloween props. Which brings up the next topic…things that AREN’T going to happen in the last days of 2020.

This year, no Halloween party. I’ll work on decorating the yard but it’s not clear if there will be “trick-or-treating” this year. I’ll probably use the time to mildly improve on past decorations, but I’ll not have a new major theme. It’s really a shame too since the party would have been on a Friday and Halloween is going to be on a Saturday. Thanksgiving won’t change much for us. Nancy and I don’t have any family in the area (or left for that matter) and we usually eat our baked turkey in front of the television. Also, there will be no Winter Solstice party.

There is also the monthly, local stuff that’s no longer happening. We usually hike in the Sabino Canyon every Friday and have dinner with our hiking friends after. I’m missing the Tucson Atheists monthly meetings. gathering for a highway clean-up, drinking together at the depot, and a few other events. Lastly, I miss the monthly “Lacey Super-Secret Karaoke” house parties. In short, I’m missing my friends.

It’s not all bad. I’ve been able to walk every day. Sometimes, I see a coyote or, like today, a rattlesnake on the trail. I often see roadrunners and hawks flying overhead. Hopefully, next year will be better.