Life Changes and Changes Back

Ever since Randie went back to college, life here at the Fortress of Ineptitude as settled into a strange but oddly comfortable rhythm for Andrea and myself.

Rosie, our dog, sometimes still scans the rooms of the house, pacing as if searching for the missing person who used to be here. 

Rosie contemplates in her doggie mind, "Hey! I could've sworn there was a third person here some place!"  

But Rosie has adjusted. Instead of flinching or running off when I need to take her outside, she now calmly presents herself when its time for me to take her out for a walk. 

We no longer have to corral or coax her to bed time. Now she patiently waits for Andrea to brush her shiny black coat before bed. 

Rosie clambers up on the sofa to join Andrea and I to watch TV. Rosie has come to accept us so we get to keep living here now. 

We miss our daughter Randie but Andrea and I have developed a pattern of life around the two of us and the dog. And though our hearts ache to not have our daughter around, we have...

WHAT THE FUCK?!? SHE'S BACK?!?!?!   

Universities are learning that trying to return to normal college life with dorm living and in person classes is just not a tenable position in a time when the damn pandemic is not under control. 

My daughter's school was among those that experienced spikes and clusters of the dreaded COVID 19. Which should have come as a surprise to no one. 

But colleges make more money from students living in dorms and eating off of meal plans than just taking classes. Being on campus is where the money is and damn it, colleges were going to give it a go. 

Repeatedly the case is made that in person learning is far more effective than on line learning and that the college experience goes beyond just the education obtained in formal classroom settings but also is developed in the alchemical experience of interacting with one another, developing relationships. 

I concur with that perspective but I also concur with this concept as well: in person learning and the college experience  isn't worth a damn if you're sick or dead. And it isn't worth the price of spreading that sickness and death to others. 

The big push (starting from the top with that damn mother fucker Donald Trump) to declare victory over COVID 19 and resume life as normal is total bullshit if the battle to contain and eradicate the virus at the heart of this pandemic still rages on. 

Anyway, as the date of Randie's departure to go back to college approached, we played a game of chicken with her university. Surely they could see the writing on the wall that this would not end well. 

Nope. The university called our bluff and damn it, our daughter was off to college. 

It took about 2 weeks for her college leadership to come to the conclusion that everyone else with half of a brain saw coming months ago. Spikes and clusters of COVID 19 popped up right on schedule and everything goes to hell. 

So our daughter is back home. 

And Rosie the dog scans the living room and realizes, "Hey, there IS a third person! I knew it!"