The twin girls across the street love my puppy. Almost every time I round the corner to the front yard, one of them runs out the front door in PJs or calls from a second floor deck to yell, “Hi HERO!” Their SIP time includes homeschooling, so I’m not surprised they’re staring longingly out windows looking for any diversion at all. With great pride they told me (always a leash apart) that school math is super easy for them, then with gloomy faces reported that Russian math was going to start up again soon. At almost 10 they are bursting with chatter and stories. I’ve only gotten to know them over the past month of Hero-walking and quarantining, but they’re magnetic the way all girls are, times two. I love their driveway chalk pictures and, you know, just all of the… girl stuff.

With Bernie still in and out of the hospital, it’s #Flattenthecurve Day 14 for Lees with no in person contact with anyone at all except all of these boys, the dog included. I’ve never lamented not having daughters because most of my favorite people made them and let me borrow theirs. But now I’m stuck here with ever-hungry seat-lifters and I’ve become Monica:

I’ve also become a bit Monica with the cleaning… 

I miss Women’s Bible Study: a weekly reset that just isn’t the same when we’re not in a circle on couches giggling and praying and sometimes crying together. (Bible Study is a full contact affair, emotionally and physically.) I miss coffee with girlfriends: a lifeline to sanity, a sounding board for complaints, a no-judgment zone to share successes and worries. I even miss chatting with moms on sidelines. OK, maybe like one or two of you. You know who you are. When I picture Life after COVID-19, it involves margaritas with The Stockton Women, a fierce collection of cousins who share Grandma Mid: the hilarious, loving, smoking and drinking matriarch who loved each one of us the best.

I also miss restaurants a ridiculous amount. Meal planning and preparation and clean up is now a three times a day thing–often at different times, plus snacks. I miss meals out where my only responsibility was ordering and eating. And take out isn’t the same. Those of you also rinsing plastic containers for the recycles and marrying leftovers into Tupperware are feeling me on this. IT IS NOT THE SAME.

Talking to the twins’ momma on my multiple daily Hero walks (always a leash apart), I recognize she has zero down time. She’s working while homeschooling and entertaining her almost 10 twins who still need her supervision for things like slime-making and movie-approving. Meanwhile, I’m here with a puppy and teenage boys who sleep until 2pm. What a waste of resources that I cannot invite the girls over to make cupcakes, let them watch unapproved Netflix specials, and try on silly formalwear from the back of my closet…

… girl stuff.