Keeping in touch with family

#4. Keeping in touch with family. This is a very important thread and it is one that I pick up almost every day in one way or another. I am in touch with John almost every day by phone. We have also actually seen John and Cynthia a fair amount of times since this pandemic required us to be isolated.They have come here or we have gone there; we have stayed outside, kept our distance,  able to have a good conversation. I do miss the hugs that we usually have. Similarly, we have visited Katie and Savanna in Shutesbury, or they have come here, again staying outside. Our deck is actually the perfect place to have a conversation and keep more than 6 feet apart. We have not been in quite as frequent contact with the Feinland’s, though Ellen does text Tamar and sometimes Max, and for a while Ellen was playing games on Game Pigeon with Tamar - like Anagrams and Boggle. That has slacked off for some reason. But yesterday was Julie’s birthday, and we drove down to Northampton and Ellen gave Julie a card and we saw Julie, Ben, Tamar and Max, and had a conversation from the car while they stood on the sidewalk. A little over a week ago, we had a zoom session that included Katie Shay and Rob and Kate. I haven’t heard yet how things are going now that Rob and Katie are living together in the house in Boulder. We are in touch with Jim and Mary in Owls Head, Maine,  sporadically. For some reason we never talk with them on the phone. Or at least very rarely. But we do send them things via email and we occasionally hear back from them. And Mary does regularly send the Sunday morning Spelling Bee puzzle to us. We would love so much to visit them, but Maine is closed down right now, the beaches are closed, etc., and we’re not sure that it’s a wise thing to visit. We’re in touch with Maggie and Jerry in Bartlett, Illinois mostly by email. Jerry is good about sending us reports and interesting fun things that he picks up on the Internet.And I think that they and other members of the family in Illinois read this blog. So overall, I think we’re doing pretty well in staying in touch. Obviously, we look forward to the day when we can actually visit again.

Tamar and Max with Toby

Plus Ben and Julie