I had a delightful time at the typewriter shop while we were in Philly, but unfortunately the two subsequent weeks didn’t go as planned. We all ended up dreadfully sick, with fevers, coughs, and it got so bad that the whole family went to urgent care to rule out some of the most worrisome things culprits and see what could be done. Not COVID, not flu, not strep. In retrospect it could have been RSV, but there’s no special treatment for that really, so it hardly matters, we were just sick and needed rest. The really unfortunate part is that it meant we could visit anyone. With an infant in the family and a several older relatives, we couldn’t risk getting near any of them until we were feeling better. So I chugged along working from home and we all did our best to stay happy and entertained until we were better, including doing some art at home!
As an aside, since I was working through all of this, if you hear any recordings of me made in late March, I sound like a bit like a frog!
Eventually we started trending upwards and were able to meet up with MJ’s father, at a park and masked up when we were close to each other talking.
By the end of the second week we were doing well enough to rejoin society, and by then the antibiotics that half the family were on would have done their job and we were pretty confident we were no longer contagious.
Adventures began with Aaron and I visiting a new toy shop that had opened up nearby. I picked up some loose and inexpensive Star Wars toys for him, as he’s really enamored with droids. I also got a few collectible toys for me, and an epic new pint glass.
We didn’t see nearly as many people as we had planned, but we met up with my friend Crissi and her new husband for dinner one night. Then on the final weekend we were able to welcome MJ’s best friend and her husband for a visit to get some quality time with us and the boys. We spent the final Sunday we were in town with them, and took the boys to a little local hobby farm where the boys could see and pet some animals, and Aaron even got a pony ride! It was a great find, we’ll have to go back with some of their cousins, but we got lucky that day since it was by appointment only and they happened to have a cancellation that freed up a spot for us.
I did also get some time away by myself. On the Friday before we left I met up with a couple friends at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia to see SIX. It was clever and funny, and a refreshing change of pace, since I haven’t seen a musical since before the boys were born, due to both a mix of new parenthood time constraints and the pandemic.
From there, I ended up getting a hotel room downtown for the night so I could hop on a 7:20AM train the next morning to head out to the Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference, which I’ll write about later. It’s only my second conference since everything shut down in 2020, and my first time back at a generalist open source conference. It felt so good.
A soggy morning at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia
Our trip wound down over the next couple of days with lunch with a friend on Monday and then our trip home on Tuesday. We took a later flight than we usually do just because of flight costs and availability, which unfortunately led to Aaron being a bit more grumpy than I would have liked due to a missed nap, but we all made it through. As a bonus, we missed all the terribly rainy weather in northern California while we were gone, so we’ve come back to beautiful, sunny days.