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The #NewSelfie Challenge

My friend Janine is worried. She can’t go to work, she can’t go to the contra and square dances where she’s famous as a caller, she can’t travel to see me… All that’s left is the one thing she’s put off for 30 years: finish moving into the place she’s been listing as her home address for three decades. The virus won’t get her, but having to go through the contents of her guest room just might.

She’s not alone. All over the world, we’re sheltering-in-place, and trying to figure out what to do there. My brother is streaming Zoom sessions for his children’s classmates covering everything from how to draw Disney characters to basic computer programming. My niece says she’s catching up with friends and family during online happy hours. My techie daughter is in geek heaven, working from home with minimal human interruptions (and there might be some intense Animal Crossing breaks. Don’t judge.) My writer friends are… well, okay they’re pretty much doing what they’ve always done. But now they’re supposed to be holed up with their computers while donning (or not) extremely questionable attire.

Everywhere people are moving their work and social lives online. We had to cancel a concert scheduled for St. Pat’s day at our house. Instead, the three generous and fantastic musicians—Michael Alpert, Craig Judelman, and Sasha Lurje—decided to zoom their concert online from Michael’s home in Fife, Scotland. Over six hundred people from 28 countries registered for the evening of lively Klezmer music, Yiddish singing, and entertaining stories.

And then there’s this incredibly moving concert. Watch as the artists of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra come together virtually to play the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—each from their own home. As always, but especially now, it’s a tribute to the hope and triumph of the human spirit. (I can’t listen without crying.)

#NewSelfie I fixed the faucet

 

And my #NewSelfie?

I was going to talk about how I avoided calling a plumber to replace our broken kitchen tap by just ordering a new sprayer and screwing it in. Only… even I could tell that references to my world-class screwing proficiency were just not going to go in a family-friendly direction…

So instead I give you this week’s #NewSelfie:

Let them eat cake ~ or at least Lemon Ginger Creamcheese Pound Cake (from the always fabulous The Whimsical Bakehouse: Fun-to-Make Cakes That Taste as Good as They Look: A Baking Book by Kaye Hansen, 2010]

So what’s your #NewSelfie ?