COVID-19 Diaries: Week Two

This last week brought about stunning changes, the likes of which we never thought that we would see in our lifetimes.  As of March 16th, all bars and restaurants in Connecticut were closed, as well as gyms and casinos (Lee is currently doing maintenance work at the Y); by Monday evening, all nonessential businesses will have closed or transitioned to work from home.  The city of Middletown literally padlocked basketball and tennis courts, as well as playscapes and fields.  President Trump advised that the nation could be in turmoil until July or August; and the stock market had its worst week in history, wiping out all gains over the last 3 1/2 years.  JPII moved to online learning on Tuesday and at the same time, postponed the 8th grade semi formal that Emily has been looking forward to for months.  Although the CIAC has not yet cancelled the spring sports season, the writing is on the wall and my heart breaks for the thousands of high school athletes - especially seniors - that will be impacted.  Our girls are running together every day after classes end; Elizabeth then spends about 45 minutes playing lacrosse and Emily is keeping up her daily soccer touches.  They are staying active and getting outside as much as possible, as are Lee and I.  The dogs seem thrilled that we are home all of the time.

A never before seen sight on Clover.... 

In what is perhaps the school's finest hour, NWC ran on time and as scheduled this week, just virtually. The structure and routine was a blessing.

Emily working out with her friends virtually. 

JPII - business as usual.

The girls play cards after lunch every day.  They also go for a run together after day after their classes end.

Emily is losing her mind not playing soccer.  Her team had a Zoom meeting on Saturday, something her coach wants to do every week, and she's been working hard on juggling, foot skills and shooting.

Another Damuth Scholar

Two weekends ago, Emily and I went to NWC so that she could register for her freshmen classes.  After she registered and we were walking out, the head of the performing arts department approached her and said that she recognized her from her audition video for the Damuth Scholarship, a four year partial music scholarship.  The woman then turned and introduced Emily to a faculty member as "our 2024 Damuth Scholar".  I didn't hear her, but Emily told me as we were walking out of the building - as we had not received any communication from the school, she was hopeful but still a bit uncertain.  That afternoon, we received our financial aid package from NWC, which included the Damuth Scholarship; and two days later, she finally received the letter from the Damuth selection committee - she is the scholarship recipient!!  We are so incredibly proud of Emily for overcoming her fears (performing in front of people) to go through the application and audition process and then winning this prestigious award!!

COVID-19 Diaries: Week One

On Sunday March 8th, after packing Emily into a friend's car for a two hour drive to Schenectady for a soccer game, I headed down to New York City for what was to be a two week arbitration of the largest case of my career.  Including weekends and holiday, I've worked all but two days since Christmas preparing for this arbitration - reading briefs on my laptops during long Saturday track meets, taking conference calls while we took down our tree on New Year's Day, you name it.  We got through opening statements and the direct examination of our first witness on Monday, and then headed back to the office to continue prepping.  I returned to my hotel around 8:30pm, only to realized that I'd left something at the office and headed back over; and while walking over, I received a text that it was important that I return to the office immediately, something had happened.  Around 9pm, I learned that someone in the office building where we were conducting our hearing had tested positive for COVID-19.  He had been self-quarantined for more than a week, but opposing counsel was freaked out because prior to that, someone from his office could have been in contact with this person. After the initial shock wore off, we thought that his reaction was a bit over the top and the arbitrators agreed, urging us to push forward.  Opposing counsel, even with pressure from his own client, refused and so on Tuesday evening, we packed up everything and headed back to Connecticut. When the car dropped me off around 9, I proceeded straight upstairs, threw all of my clothes in the laundry and jumped in the shower; but other than that, I really was not concerned. There were 17 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a city of 7 million people; what were the odds, really.  As the week went on, however, things became a bit more alarming.  The CIAC cancelled all post-season tournaments on Tuesday afternoon and although Elizabeth was not impacted, she said that watching the juniors and seniors sobbing in the hallways, along with many teachers, coaches and the AD, absolutely gutted her (a petition to play without fans got 80,000 signatures in less than 12 hours, but alas, it was not to be).  By Thursday afternoon, US Soccer had cancelled all practices and games through mid-April; Northwest Catholic announced that it was going to online learning effective March 16th; and there was a run on toilet paper and other essentials at our local grocery stories (NB: this did not effect us, as I made Lee buy extra toilet paper, paper towels and Clorox wipes two weeks ago. He thought that I was crazy, but he did it.  I looked a little less crazy by the end of the week.)
Over the weekend, Emily met up with some of her teammates to run and kick the ball around; the parents stood 6 feet apart and instructed the girls that they were not to touch each other.  We'd like to keep them going with this, but I'm not sure how much longer the fields will be open and how soon we will move to snitching on our neighbors for going outside.

The grocery store on the afternoon of March 11th.

Picking up Elizabeth from school on March 13th. 

A little bit of pick up after 45 minutes of running for Emily and some her friends. 

February Odds and Ends

Kid is all smiles. 

Final basketball practice 

Final basketball game - Norwich Diocese Tournament

Emily played an amazing final basketball game on 2/29/20 and this layup was just one of many great plays she had that morning.

Foul shots were an issue for Emily in the second half of the season but in her final game, she went 4 for 6 from the free throw line, keeping her team in the game until the final minutes.

Winter Soccer

With the relatively mild winter, the Sporting girls have gotten in a few friendly games over the last couple of weeks. They've been lucky with the weather and the one game that was cancelled was cancelled because of high (dangerous) winds, despite temperatures in the mid-50's.  It's nice to see them starting to return to form and to get in some touches on the big field before the season starts.  Emily had a really good indoor season and is hoping that translates to her game this spring.

I love this photo because Emily is playing against a future high school teammate in it.

It was absolutely freezing on 3/1 when they played their last friendly.

MCL

For the last month or so, Elizabeth has been playing winter lacrosse for two different teams.  We drive 35 minutes (each way) on Sunday mornings and afternoons so she can get in the extra touches in the game she loves so much.  In mid-February, she scored a brilliant goal in an early morning game and then took a tumble.  And didn't get up.  As this is completely uncharacteristic for her, the coaches and Lee were on the field pretty quickly, and then me.  She couldn't feel her toes or foot, couldn't move off of the ground.  Lee carried her off the field and we headed straight to the ER. Along the way, she regained feeling in her foot and ankle, but her knee was starting to bruise and swell. After three hours in the emergency room, we learned that there were no broken bones, and that the injury was likely not to her ACL, but that was about it.  It's been a frustrating ten days, but after an MRI and two appointments with the orthopedic surgeon, who thought that it could be a torn MCL or meniscus, we finally got a diagnosis and a plan.  The MRI showed no tears, but did show a sprain of the MCL.  She will be in physical therapy for the next four to six weeks, but if all goes well, she will be medically clearly by the time lacrosse season starts.

The goal.

Waiting in the ER.

After XRays

She's in a pretty good mood for a kid that can't walk.

NWC Winter Track Part II

Elizabeth had a terrific winter track season.  She barely missed qualifying for states in the 55m (by .03 seconds) and got faster and faster every time she stepped on the track.  She absolutely loves running the relay, although she was frustrated each week with the fact that the coaches kept changing the order on her team.  She was the fastest leg on the relay team every race they ran, regardless of which leg she ran.  In their final race of the season, the coaches put her at the third leg and I challenged her to bring her split under 30 seconds.  She met the challenge, running a 29.1, which really gave her an idea of what she is capable of. I can't wait to watch her run next winter!

55m hurdles after only three days of practicing them - why not?

4x200 relay at the CCC Championship race.

She's running the third leg in this relay, and knew the girl that she was trying to catch (a former teammate from travel lacrosse).  My favorite part of this race is when the girls head turns on the curve because she can't believe that Elizabeth caught up to her.

CCC Championship race.  Elizabeth ran the third leg.

JPII Basketball Ends

Emily's regular season of middle school basketball ended this week.  She gave it her all in every game and really racked up the steals and rebounds as the season went on.  Although they came up 1 point short in their final home game (Emily's 3 point attempt with less than a second left on the clock hit the rim, circled around and then fell out of the basket which was a heartbreaker), they played better and better with every game. Emily played almost every minute of every game, sitting only when the game was way out of reach for them or when the other team got too chippy and it looked like they were trying to hurt her.  As a coach, it was really great to watch them grow as a team and to finish the season strong.

Final home game of the season. 

8th graders

January Odds and Ends

Father Daughter Dance 

Hamilton

Last year, Emily's literature teacher introduced her class to the play Hamilton as part of a section on Revolutionary War history.  Emily was immediately hooked and has been listening to the soundtrack on repeat ever since and I knew that she would love to see the play in New York.  I spent the better part of November scouring the internet for (affordable) tickets and finally found three for the February 2nd show - which also happened to be Super Bowl Sunday.  Apparently, if you want to see a coveted show, that's the Sunday to go. The girls and I took an early morning train to New York, had brunch in Hell's Kitchen, and after a little bit of window shopping, took in the show.  It was far better than I anticipated - simply spectacular.  At one point I looked around, and everyone was leaning forward in their seats, hesitant to miss a single word.  At the end of some of the songs, there were tears streaming down people's faces.  It was funny, clever, moving, educational - just spectacular.

We were literally in the last row of the theater, but there wasn't a bad seat in the place.