We have a move in date/time and place for Vince’s dorm. Move in is on the 22nd at 2pm – a single in Hawthorn Hall, 3rd floor. I think we get an hour to move in and only one helper. We know the mailing address and are ready with Amazon account to start shipping things that won’t fit in the van. As soon as Vince got his room assignment, he went to IKEA to buy extra long sheets. He got the closest dorm to the dairy cows which pleases him.
Today I feel good-ish. OK that we are driving 3,000 miles in a pandemic towards enormous fires. Other times, I weep.
Vince is excited. In the way that 18 year olds sometimes can be in the midst of chaos. He walked into my room yesterday while I was getting up and ready for the day and after he had stayed up all night and immediately rattled off all the things he knew I was worried about. The possibility of: getting sick, being lonely, classes too hard, etc. (Also he said he wanted to join the UC Davis fire department which is one of the few college fire departments in the country that recruit students…which led me to both worry about him fighting out-of-control fires and perishing by burning to death – though it’s more likely from asphyxiation.) And then he followed it with – I’m not worried.
At my desk job, I talk to patent lawyers a couple times a week. I deal with a lot of lawyers, so it’s not like these people are my friends or anything. Usually, we just talk shop, no extra chit chat (we are mostly all introverts)- but these days, everyone wants to talk. No matter where they are – Philly, Florida, California. Everyone wants to stay on the phone five minutes longer to talk about the world, their families and how we are going get through this terrible, country-changing time.