Zooming and Exploring

Today we went to John and  Cynthia's house in the afternoon. They had set up two sets of chairs and tables under umbrellas in their front yard, and it was very pleasant to sit and talk. The temperature was perfect. When we arrived, they were sitting and playing music - flute and harp - and what was neat was that as we sat there, the wind "played" the harp - a lovely chord. They also had been watching a fox and three kits playing in front of a pile of brush and rocks. Later, we got a glimpse of one too. About an hour after we arrived, we had a Zoom session with Katie in Boulder, and Rob and Kate in Santa Fe. A highlight was a viewing of Katie's film - a three minute ”mockumentary” - i.e., a mock documentary that she created over last weekend. About a dozen Stevens College students had agreed to stage a film contest in which each of them created a three-minute video based on certain parameters. These were friends from when Katie was actually in the film program at Stevens. The film had to be in French, it had to have a refrigerator as a prop, and it had to include the line “get away, I haven’t had a shower for days.” Katie‘s film stars her Chihuahua, Gertie, the narration is in French with English subtitles and definitely had the necessary refrigerator and line. It was basically the story of Katie’s self-quarantine  at the house in Boulder,  but told from Gertie’s perspective. It’s a riot and very well done. Hopefully she will eventually put it on YouTube.

We got to hear quite a bit from Rob about how things are going at the college of music in Colorado, where he is Dean. He said they are having lots of meetings by zoom, because they have to have their detailed plan for the fall ready by May 15 so they can inform students and parents. We learned from Kate that she has been recruited to help with contact tracing for the coronavirus. She works in public health, usually doing AIDS education. Katie has only a couple of days left in her self-quarantine at the house in Boulder. Her dad will return Monday night. She is doing fine.

After our Zoom session, we took a little exploratory walk around the house at J&C’s. We got a glimpse of a fox kit, followed a little brook, saw sumac, buckthorn and old apple trees. Their land is more diverse than ours, I would say.

John and Cynthia in  their front yard