I decided today that with all the online resources I'm sending my colleagues to get them through distance learning, there was another way I could help out- I could focus on something that every busy teacher tackling distance learning needs: a solid grocery delivery service. So I spent the morning updating the Virtual Zen Den I created a few weeks ago with "alternative" supermarket options.
So I created accounts on PeaPod, Whole Foods and Instacart, placed my orders, and prepared for delivery. But apparently, so did everyone else in my vicinity.
As a result, the Instacart delivery from Wegman's, as I wrote about here, was never delivered and canceled by Instacart after several messages about "delays". Two days after that debacle, Whole Foods delivered an abbreviated order, complete with lemonade substituted for orange juice and missing several items. Finally, PeaPod delivered- mostly. We received our order on March 28, but there were two orange juices with expiration dates of February 18th, and about a third of the items we wanted were out of stock (ps- they discontinued their email customer service, when you fill out the form online, you get an email saying they don't have the staff to answer it, and when you call their customer service line, there's a message that they have extremely long wait times so call back later and it hangs up on you).
Since then? There have been ZERO available days for delivery, and frankly, I'm not going to the supermarket. I appreciate tremendously the folks who do- the shoppers who are going out, finding whatever items people need, and carefully checking off the boxes on the list. I'm a wiz at the grocery store, but with underlying health conditions in my family, I can't head there myself, so I'm dependent on these amazing folks, and I do my best to tip them as well as I'm financially able to. But with the "normal" routes to supermarket delivery not working, I needed to find other options.
I've gotten creative, checking Staples.com for snacks, ordering syrup from The Vermont Country Store, and seeking out farms in the area that deliver. The produce delivery has been outstanding- Grateful Produce Box and Harvest to Home NJ have both delivered on or before the dates promised, WITH EVERYTHING I ordered. I've found bakery supply stores like Baker's Authority and iherb.com. And I figured that when you start to think about needs for teachers, being able to provide for your family and eat yourself are pretty high up there.
So I curated food stores with delivery the same way I would research options for a literary analysis paper. Each one was tested, evaluated, and then posted with a little description of what to expect. After adding photos for some visual interest, I emailed the new link to my colleagues. While I'm proud of my academic contributions to my school, I have to say that the emails from my co-workers related to this were the most heartfelt I've received (it may just be easier to get excited about being able to eat than an eBook about F. Scott Fitzgerald).
After work, the girls and I decided to do a little cooking. We've been spending a lot of time watching the Food Network Go app, and have developed a love of the baking shows like Buddy vs. Duff and Spring Baking Championship. Alas, we don't want to waste our ingredients on something that isn't healthy right now (see exhibit A above about grocery delivery), but there's one thing that's relatively healthy and fun to bake, and that's muffins. The only issue is that my kids can not agree on flavors- E. loves blueberries, R. doesn't, and the only other fruit we had in the house was apples. Fortunately, the oat muffin base I use works well with either, so after we whipped together the eggs, vanilla and soy milk, and then gently mixed in all the dry ingredients, we divided the batter and folded each fruit in half of it.
While the muffins were browning in the oven and causing the kitchen to smell like a bakery, the Ring app on my phone went off, and we saw that our neighbors were dropping a letter in the mailbox. We briefly met them last week, when E. was writing "Happy Easter" on the driveway and they were headed out to try to catch the Easter Bunny who was riding around on a firetruck in town. But since then, their daughter has written E. a couple of letterd, and E. has written back, so she has a full fledged pen pal! The beauty of this is that their ages are a year apart, and when social distancing ends, they live one house over and the girls can walk between our yards.
E. immediately set to writing a letter back, and the rest of the day flew by (with a brief slowdown to taste the deliciousness that was our baked goods- I had a blueberry, because there is nothing like biting into a tart, fresh, still-warm blueberry muffin).
When it got later, my sister texted me that there was going to be trivia on Instagram, and did we want to be on a team with her and a few of her friends.
Several years ago, a group of teachers and I would go to Tuesday Night Trivia at a local tavern. It was a staple in my week, and our group expanded periodically, but the constant was that we were good- we consistently won the evening, gaining gift cards for the bar, occasional t-shirts, and once, bleacher tickets to a Yankees game (I took my friend Nicole and we had a blast). We were competitive, smart people who were strategic in our points strategies and had outstanding team names, often related to Thundercats. It was a highlight and made me some of my best work friends.
After the kids were in bed, I checked my emails and the news (I'm trying to do this in brief snippets so as not to get overwhelmed). It's important to note the "good news" going on (John Krasinski may be my favorite person working that category right now with his "Some Good News" show on Youtube), and I cried when I saw one particular report.
To understand, know that a few years ago, I had a remarkable student in my writing class, and she ended up being one of those "favorite" kids that you will remember forever. She was funny, friends with everyone, and literally said once that her mom was her best friend (an 18-year-old girl- when I met her mom, I asked what the heck her secret was and she laughed and said "I have no idea"). One of her assignments in that class was to take a holiday memory, and make it into a children's book. We had a very tight knit class that year, and the kids all wanted to invite their parents in for a storytime read aloud, and party right before the holiday break. Her mom, who she looks just like, absolutely beamed as my student read a delightful rhyming story about Christmas and trying to catch Santa with her brother.
A few weeks ago, I saw a post on the town parents' board that her brother was in ICU with Coronavirus. It was exactly the type of thing that sends me into panic attack mode, and all I could think about was my student and her family. I kept checking back, looking for updates, and saw article links about how they were trying desperately to get him an experimental drug that was having good results, but that had recently been difficult to get a hold of because it was experimental. His condition was getting worse, and you couldn't help but think how bad this could get. He was airlifted from a hospital in NJ to one at UPenn, and that's when the posts started to have a hint of hope. His fever had broken, and he was now at one of the best hospitals in the country. But that was it- no more posts, no more articles.
Until today. Today, in the local paper, the headline was that he was able to walk out of the hospital and go home. Someone posted a video to the town's boys' lacrosse page, and while it's very pixelated, there he is, striding out the door and into the arms of his waiting family. I was bawling by the end, so grateful he is okay, and so happy for my former student. I know other people dealing with this illness- a friend's aunt, a friend down the street who is on day 30 and her three daughters- and her mom, who started showing symptoms this week, went into the hospital, but then was discharged yesterday. It's scary, and a reminder to be careful out there, no matter what. But this young man's story was also a reminder that there can be, and should be, hope.
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