Day 40, The Day One Escaped
We’ve been locked in since March 12. That’s 40 days of quarantine and social distancing. We’re zooming with friends and playing online games together. We’ve binge watched A LOT and read some good books. We’ve cleaned closets and I’ve personally practiced my #LipsyncLockdown song in the mirror, the one I would do, if I were a public Lip Sync kind-a-girl. (If you haven't seen these on twitter, they are fun to watch!)
Overall though, 40 days has gotten us into a routine. Good or bad, our day to day is less of a novelty, and is becoming more of a lifestyle.
So today we were suddenly startled to realize mid-day that one of our family members had gone missing. The family member in question is Winston, the 4 legged quilly hedgehog we share our home with.
Winston is my youngest son’s pet and before you break out the judgement on my parenting decisions, let me clarify by saying that M had been obsessed with and researching hedgehog’s for over a year before we agreed to get one. He knows the in’s and out’s of everything about them, including their typical habits, personality styles, potential illnesses and breeding issues. He has even written letters to the zoo’s in the US that keep some variety of hedgehog. He is, in fact, a google degree'd expert on hedgehog’s. So yes, we caved and got him one last December. His name is officially Winston, but we are starting to call him Houdini.
This is technically the 3rd time he’s broken out of his cage. He never goes far and we usually notice within minutes. So today went a little haywire when M went to check on him and discovered that Winston was not only gone, he was no where to be seen and he didn’t leave a trail. It was particularly disturbing because we spent last weekend installing plexiglass on the lower portion of his cage, specifically to keep him from escaping.
Chaos ensued and for the next hour+ we blew off school and work and split up to search the house. We looked under blankets, the furniture, around anything on the floor, the fireplace, under cabinets, in closets if there was any kind of gap under the door. Every once in awhile someone would say “SHHH!!” and we would all freeze to listen intently for some type of scratchy noise somewhere. Winston may be a skilled escape artist, but walking around covered in quills is tough to do quietly. The problem is that hedgehog’s are mostly nocturnal, so we thought for sure he was snoozing and waiting for nightfall to break out the party lights.
Eventually one of the SHHH’s worked and we discovered him nuzzled in behind our printer cabinet in the office. We laid out a clever trail of food pellets directly to his snuggle pocket (a fabric pocket he likes to sleep in) and we had him back in his cage, safe and sound, within minutes. Whew!!
Back to school. Back to work. Back to our quarantined routine and figuring out what’s for dinner.
Yesterday we launched our Build-a-Box promotion for Mother’s Day. So far it has been a big hit and we are thrilled to see all the boxes everyone is putting together. We’ll begin packing those this week and getting them out to you as quickly as possible.
Dallas started this week with a mandate to wear masks (cover mouth and noses) at all essential businesses. Pretty-much everywhere you go now people are wearing some form of mask unless they are outside walking in the neighborhood and even then they are wearing masks sometimes. The weather has been lovely here lately – minus a few heavy rain days – so it’s easy to wear a mask, but when it heats up here I wonder if it will be tough for everyone to keep them on.
In the meantime, we are working on the next box for June and it’s so much fun! We can’t wait to announce our next chef soon after Mother’s Day!
Stay Safe and Happy Cooking!
What we are listening to today:
Yellow Lines by Brendan James and Circles by Post Malone
What we are binge watching:
Old movies. Ferris Bueller. Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The lack of social distancing in every movie send me into Mom Mode. "6 feet, people! 6 feet!"
