It's all anyone is talking about, still!

First, family news.
We haven't concentrated so many phone calls in a single week in a long time.

• T & B, in San Diego, have been confined to their apartment since before the governor issued the lockdown for the whole state. Meals are delivered to their door and the aide is checked for temperature upon entering the building. It sounds as though they are ok. 
• J & T, in Pittsburgh, also sound ok, although J was on an errand to the pharmacy when I called. I had a long chat with T, who was still able to go to her physical therapy sessions at an ungodly early hour but that means she's the only patient there. Their son D, in California is keeping in close touch and son E, in Philly, is a nurse on the front lines of this pandemic.
• K& S, near LA, also sound fine. They have a wonderful hillside garden to get their exercise and K, even though he retired, is still teaching at CalTech. He hasn't been to the campus in weeks and is doing it all online, as is being done at most universities. I got caught up on their kids and grandkids.
• G, in Florida, also sounds good an caught me up on her kids, grandkids.
• P & G, in Six-Fours, are in good shape, missing their daily evening walk down to and along the seaside, but otherwise carrying on normally. The scheduled surgery is off until further notice, of course. Again, caught up on kids and grandkids. 

Now, for our gang.

• C, G, and the girls are safe and sound in Northampton. C is keeping the kids occupied with learning new family recipes (cornes de gazelle was the latest) and G is thinking of setting up office in the caravan parked just outside. The question is whether the wifi signal is strong enough. Of course, we cancelled our trip to see them this week. 
• E and G are carrying on as usual -- nothing new for them; they've been relatively isolated up on their hilltop for 6 years. Usually, they do go down to St. Antonin Noble Val and meet up with neighbors and friends and that is off, for now. E has gotten the veggie garden started and will be working on the walls in the gîte, now that the hay insulation is all dry. G is also keeping busy and doing fantastic artwork on the computer with the graphic tools he got recently. 
• A is working from home and seems to be the only one from her office who was set up for telecommuting. Others don't know how to log on and are skittish about downloading new applications and having documents filed remotely. Her balcony is starting to bloom.
• L & G, who, as I reported last week, just managed to move into their new apartment the weekend before the confinement started, have settled in to some sort of routine with both of them working from home and trying to keep the kids occupied. They have nice long balconies on the east and west sides, so they've done some gardening with what they had on hand. They've also discovered a floor of the garage that was apparently empty for work to be done. The kids have this gigantic underground playground and there don't seem to be other kids, so there's no problem about sharing time down there. There's also a large garden on the property, but not set up for play. We've still got lots of their boxes, here, so I don't know what they are missing. 

Here I am, trying on one of the masks.

That brings us up to us. We're fine. It's really not too different from normal. P was going out for walks, but has not gone out in the past few days -- the mornings are cold. We've got plenty of food in the house. I gave up trying to repair the back of the cardigan and started to make a replacement. But I don't do much at a time. I think I need to do some hand knitting to keep busy. I made some cloth masks.
I know they are not efficient, but there's something calming about making them. Next on the list is to make reusable disinfection wipes. I've got plenty of fabric to make squares and vinegar, but I don't have 70% or 90% alcohol. I wonder if vodka would do? We don't have that, either, but it might be easier to get at the grocery store. Also, since we might not be able to get together to do our US tax filing, I want to make a tutorial for them.

Speaking of tax tutorials, AARO's tax committee chair, Monte Silver, is organizing tax professionals to create short tutorials for AARO members (https://aaro.org/events/event-videos). So far, he's posted a few for those who have corporations and have to deal with GILTI. Other, more general tutorials, will follow. It might be worth it for some readers to become members of AARO (https://aaro.org/membership/how-to-join).

As of today, I'm going to try to be less online. The constant barrage of Facebook postings is too much.The kids have already turned off notifications from our family WhatsApp group and I agree; it went overboard last week. A daily post, and a little video call is enough. I did enjoy playing yahtzee (yams, in French) with C the other day. She had her dice and I had mine and we showed each other our throws so there was no cheating. She kept score, which is a great activity for addition and learning multiplication tables! I hope we get to do it again, this week.

Now it is time to go outside in the back yard. It's sunny and warm. The plum trees are in full bloom and the cherry tree is just starting to bloom. The plants we bought 10 days ago seem to be thriving and I can't wait to see the seeds we planted start to come up.

Then, lunch. The corned beef I made (from scratch!) turned out fine. My second loaf of rye bread was not as good as the first. It's too flaky. But we got some sandwiches out of it. About half the meat is in in the freezer and the leftover from our sandwiches will go into a "hachis parmentier" tomorrow.