Day 6: zebra/teabag jokes, doing the dishes, bookclub, and dragon painting

Surrealist joke of the day, courtesy of the nine year old (it is possible that the isolation is starting to affect her sense of logic, which is shaky at the best of the times; however I can report that this joke genuinely cracked both of us up for a full five minutes):

A zebra said to a teabag, "Hey, what are you doing?" The teabag said, "Mind your own business."

Second day of distance learning went slightly more smoothly, although there was one moment of panic when it turned out I didn't have the right packet printed out prior to the Zoom group class (humiliation! bad parent! with the whole class watching!). Seeing all the little kids on their Zoom meeting is VERY FUNNY, as if they were the executive board of directors of a company (consultants for zebra/teabag based humour?).

There is a sign over the sink at my sister's communal living space that has a picture of various Arctic/Antarctic fauna joyously gambolling on the ice, with a caption that reads something like "Civilisation is a thin layer of ice over an ocean of chaos; do your dishes"; we will not contemplate right now the larger ramifications of that sentiment with regards to all the people who are apparently responding to this by buying guns and ammunition (God bless America), but instead confine ourselves to considering the immediate home environment; I have surprised myself by becoming an immediate, but immediate, washer and dryer of dishes after meals (the dishwasher is on the fritz), in addition to a slavish adherent of the school schedule, since it is obvious that the other way darkness lies...

I don't think it has dawned on la petite that she is literally not going to get to play in person with another child for probably months. We held our quarterly mother-daughter book club yesterday afternoon via Zoom as well; discussion of the book was negligible, and it was mostly a chance for the mothers to commiserate and the daughters to type poopie poopie poopie in the chat window to each other. They were so insanely happy to be typing poopie poopie poopie to each other that after half an hour or so, the mothers signed off, and I let madam take the laptop into her room so that she could giggle and type poopie poopie poopie to her friend in private. The psychic aftershocks of this experience are going to be felt in her generation for years to come, I betcha.

Meanwhile, dragon!