My Life is on Zoom Now

 

I'm still on Zoom just as much as I was in the early days of the pandemic. There was this time when everyone seemed to be over Zoom happy hours, but I don't think I'll ever be over them. I love getting together with Jennifer, Adrienne, and Louise over Zoom. We've been doing this about twice a month since the pandemic started. We all decide on a cocktail, and make the same one, and we always have so much to talk about. Last weekend we celebrated May Day with floral martinis.

Adrienne has been texting us pictures from her cocktail book for inspiration. This was what we were drinking (although Jennifer went rogue and made something with watermelon in it).

Also last weekend, I went to a cooking class on Zoom. It was a promotional thing for the new cookbook I just bought, Lukas Volger's Snacks for Dinner. We made a feta-jam tart (mine was dairy- and gluten-free), sriracha snack mix, crudites, and pickled mushrooms, which I served over hummus. Everything was amazing, and I can't wait to get the cookbook!

Then early this morning I took a drawing class from Megan Fatharly, a U.K. artist whose work I love.

We drew flowers in different exercises, starting with a 30-second drawing. I was drawing a bunch of Trader Joe's ranunculus.

One minute with the left hand (I could only do these chaotic lines).

Four minutes with the left hand, and I was really starting to see how you could capture flowers with energetic lines and strong shapes. The flowers were so vibrant and alive, and I wanted to get some of that in my drawing.

Focusing on the background.

And this was my final drawing.

Seven Years Later

 

Here we are, seven years after my last post. On our 19th anniversary, David and I were looking at the old blog, and I thought, "I miss the Voyage of the Bloomingtonauts. Maybe I'll restart it."

Life is very different now than it was in 2015. David, Malinda, and I are living in Claremont, California, where I'm working as the Head of Cataloging & Metadata at the Claremont Colleges Library. David left his teaching job at Florida State when everyone else was leaving their jobs during the pandemic. He's in school now, working on a certificate in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

For our 19th anniversary, we went to our favorite California botanical garden, the LA County Arboretum. We sat on a bench by the pond and watched a huge flock of swallows swoop and dive over the water. There were turtles piled up on a rock, and a great egret stalking across the shore. "I wish we could see a peacock," I said, because the Arboretum is famous for its gorgeous, shrieking peacocks.

Then this peacock swept into view and strolled right past us, posing for pictures as it went.