This morning was very sad as we packed DD22 into her car and she made the 464 mile southern trek to San Diego by herself for the first time. A month ago, she accepted a job in San Diego, which she was going to start after taking a 2 week break at home, after her last final. Then, the pandemic swooped down. She drove from San Diego to Irvine to pick up her brother for Spring Break 2 weeks ago. The freeways were empty (Are freeways ever empty during the day in Southern California?) and rest stops were eerie ghost towns. I had a mini getaway, eating tours, and family dinners planned for her final Spring Break. But we had to shelter in place. Instead, we had virtual dinners with both sides of the family and cooked up a storm of special occasion foods from scratch. We had such a good time making won tons, shrimp dumplings, pork and shrimp dumplings, BBQ pork buns, red bean buns, Mickey shaped rice krispy treats, and a giant chocolate cake filled with raspberry mousse.
Won Tons
Shrimp Dumplings
Pork and Shrimp Dumplings
BBQ Pork and Red Bean Buns
Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Mousse
We had some of her favorite meals: loco moco, steak, beef stew, avocado toast, lots of fresh seafood including a crab boil and hot pot, and we culminated it last night with a Thanksgiving Dinner with all the trimmings. Truly, we still have much to be thankful. She sent me this meme last night!
As the 2 week of Spring Break came to a close, she still had a job in San Diego and it is considered “essential”. Her employer gave her a choice of whether or not she wanted to start work on Monday. A week or two later will unlikely make that much of a difference right now on the pandemic curve. She is blessed to have a job waiting for her. She has to drive by herself since her brother is staying at home to do college online. And we didn’t feel it was a wise choice for any of us to drive with her and fly home. So, she backed out of the driveway with a couple of coolers of homemade food and soups, and drove off into the sunrise.
I had a few teary moments. There was no party to celebrate DD’s college graduation and first job and there will be no commencement in June. She worked hard to graduate on time or early in 2020 because she thought it was such a cool year to graduate. Tearfully, I browsed the slideshow from her high school graduation party and looked at pictures from our last family vacation, WDW December 2019. Looking at all the pictures gave me such joy in this time of launching a child into the adult work world during a worldwide pandemic. I thought I would finally do a trip report to bring some joy to some of you sheltering in place who would care to read my ramblings. It just started to rain. We need it. But it is dreary and unseasonable cold, in the 40s and 50s. We are in week 3 of sheltering in place. We were at Disney for 15 days. It may take me a bit to finish writing.