twinsies

The wildfire smoke continues to permeate our city and home. We have learned a new vocabulary surrounding the Air Quality Index (AQI), with various colors denoting our spot on the spectrum (green-yellow-orange-red-purple-maroon). Portland has been in the maroon (hazardous) zone for the last week. 

Steve ordered air purifiers last Tuesday, expecting them to arrive Thursday, which they did not. According to Amazon they went out for delivery on Saturday and then... nothing. Nothing arrived, and they had no answers to our questions. We escaped to a downtown hotel for three nights because the room was advertised as a wellness space with in-room air purifiers, and it was indeed more breathable. Poor Jasper was pathetically sad to be left behind each evening and Steve and Liesl grew tired of being trapped inside one small space (Seb and I returned home each morning to take care of Jasper and work here). In good news, one air purifier was finally delivered late today, and is now set up and blowing clean air around, hallelujah! 

Meanwhile, remote learning and working continues. Liesl has Google Meets and individual learning through Seesaw; Seb has Zooms and Google Meets and seven classes set up in Canvas. I made a color-coded schedule and check in (nag/remind) frequently, but both kids are doing a great job of handling their school responsibilities and schedules so far. Liesl has a more structured daily schedule from 8-2 every day, but Sebastian has a lot more independent work to turn in every day. So far it's a big improvement over the spring in terms of teacher contact hours and expectations.

Anyway, we were feeling a little depressed, so Liesl and I took ourselves to the mall this afternoon in search of cleaner air and some retail therapy. We got matching purple hoodies! It was lovely to walk around for a bit holding hands and checking out clothing and candy and book and toy stores.