Lobsters

Recent­ly, for Valentina’s birth­day, the kids used to book a hotel some­where, and we would go on a trip to new places. How­ev­er, in 2020, due to the coro­n­avirus epi­dem­ic, many states imposed trav­el restric­tions, and many hotels and restau­rants closed. Trav­el­ing just was­n’t fea­si­ble any­more. We decid­ed to cel­e­brate the birth­day with­in the close fam­i­ly circle.

In Mass­a­chu­setts, where our rel­a­tives live, the epi­dem­ic was severe. Their state reached the fifth place in the num­ber of cas­es. A self-iso­la­tion régime was also in effect there. Every­one stayed at home. My sister’s hus­band was forced to take 5 days off work because the admin­is­tra­tion feared that after the quar­an­tine, every­one would go on vaca­tion at the same time.

In stores, the sit­u­a­tion was the same as in oth­er states, with an increase in the prices of some prod­ucts. How­ev­er, dur­ing the epi­dem­ic on the East Coast, the price of lob­sters dropped sig­nif­i­cant­ly because the export of seafood to oth­er coun­tries and states was reduced. The main sup­pli­er of lob­sters, the state of Maine, is near Mass­a­chu­setts. Our rel­a­tives ordered a deliv­ery of lob­sters from that state as a gift for Valenti­na.

The pack­age was left at the front door, as usu­al, after ring­ing the door­bell. Inside the pack­age were four huge live lob­sters, con­grat­u­la­tions, and a lot of pro­mo­tion­al mate­r­i­al with cook­ing recipes. Lob­sters are caught at night and sent by plane ear­ly in the morn­ing. We placed the lob­sters on ice and cooked them in the evening.

Before her birth­day, Valenti­na was tak­ing an online exam. She was accept­ed into the finan­cial pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. In Feb­ru­ary, she took a class in account­ing, and she was sup­posed to go to a test­ing cen­ter in April to take the exam. How­ev­er, in-per­son exams were can­celed every­where. A friend’s daugh­ter even defend­ed her diplo­ma online via ZOOM. So, tak­ing the exam remote­ly was not easy. The exam had 50 ques­tions and was allo­cat­ed 3 hours. The ques­tions involved solv­ing prob­lems and cal­cu­la­tions, not just yes or no answers. We all sat qui­et­ly in dif­fer­ent rooms, doing our own things, so as not to dis­turb her.

After the exam, we had a video call on ZOOM with rel­a­tives from Mass­a­chu­setts and a few fam­i­lies of our friends. Every­one sat at home with drinks of their choice and com­mu­ni­cat­ed online. It was a pleas­ant inter­ac­tion, main­tain­ing social dis­tance. After­wards, we went to pre­pare the fes­tive din­ner. Levy grilled the meat, and we set the table with every­thing else.

I don’t know about oth­er peo­ple, but all our acquain­tances here try to fol­low the rec­om­mend­ed dis­tance: they don’t host par­ties, wear masks in stores, and most work from home.

In Mass­a­chu­setts, they have come up with a ser­vice to con­grat­u­late young chil­dren on their birth­days — you can order a dri­ve-by with sev­er­al police cars and a fire truck. This con­voy of vehi­cles would dri­ve by with flash­ing lights and sirens to bright­en up the kids’ cel­e­bra­tion. Old­er chil­dren orga­nize dri­ve-bys for their birth­day friends (with par­ents’ help, of course) with cars, bal­loons, and honking.

The day after Valentina’s birth­day, her friend Sve­ta and her fam­i­ly came to con­grat­u­late her. They are mov­ing to Texas, and the meet­ing could not be post­poned to a lat­er time. We sat in front of the house at a dis­tance and chat­ted. Not long before, Sve­ta also had a birth­day, and Valenti­na had vis­it­ed her to con­grat­u­late and chat at a dis­tance. In gen­er­al, we will soon get used to self-iso­la­tion, and as in the car­toon about Masyanya, we will say: “For­get about going out­side, there’s noth­ing good about it.”