The Fruits of My Labor Day

We are on day 174 of 15 days to slow the spread.

I’m already missing summer fruits. Cherries are gone and the peaches we always look forward to picking up on the way to the beach just weren’t as magical as we remembered.

It’s the Tuesday after Labor Day. In normal years, we’d have spent yesterday getting that last lap in at the pool or the last waterslide ride at the amusement park.

Narrator: This is not a normal year.

Here in the Richmond area and in most locations around the country it’s back to whatever-the-hell-it-is school for teachers and students.

If you know a teacher, you know that they’ve been stressed trying to figure out virtual instruction or how to socially distance students in their classrooms while policing masks and hand washing and just about everything else.

If there is no wine in your house, as soon as you finish this, you need to head to the store.

I’ve also been enjoying some fruits in my sangria over the last few weeks.

But that’s not what I’m writing about.

Faithful readers, you too can be one, will know that I try to do too many things.

I am a writer, an actor, a director, an artist, a Santa Claus portrayal artist, and I have a day job. And a yard.

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True, like I talked last week, I’ve done some prioritizing and have realigned the importance of each of these tasks.

Still, as we approach the fall, I knew that my home office was not configured to accommodate the writing, the working from home, and most of all the video production that is coming this holiday season. More details when they are available.

It’s also true that I spent Memorial Day weekend entirely reconfiguring the home office to accommodate all of my projects. I thought my plan and arrangement was brilliant.

Narrator: It was not brilliant.

Actually, the setup was working quite well until I started testing things for the video sessions. I can totally rock a Zoom session or Google Meets session with the best of them. But I did not have the set up that I needed for virtual Santa visits.

Consider the beans spilled on that one.

I’ll provide the details when I can, but let’s just say that I’ve decided not to do in-person Santa visits this year. It’s just too challenging. It’s a personal Santa choice, I will not put on the red suit with a mask.

I’ve been testing video. I still need to upgrade the PC/laptop, and I’ve got an upgraded webcam on the way. But I was able to assess that the camera shot was not what it needed to be.

Long story short.

To get the green screen where I needed it to be, I had to reposition a desk and two chairs, and possibly lose some house plants that are currently very happy on the front porch.

So, the office isn’t perfect. But it’s mostly functional.

And it’s staying this way until after Christmas.

It’s all good. Citrus is coming.

Photo by Isabella and Louisa Fischer on Unsplash


 

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