Entries tagged with zoom

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high school reunion?

My 40th high school reunion is coming up. There's a zoom event on Friday, plus an in-person gathering in Central Park on Sunday, and another event for fully vaccinated people. A couple of weeks ago I decided the in-person parts weren't worth the round trip from Boston, and I have now taken a freelance gig that might conflict.

Two hours of Zoom, with people I haven't been in touch with*, on Friday evening? I'm going to RSVP, to get the link and put the reminder in my calendar, and then see.

* The only person from Hunter I was close to as an adult was

roadnotes, who wasn't in my class (she was a year older than me). Her comments on how disappointed she was at her thirtieth reunion weren't the only reason I skipped mine, but they were a factor.

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Mom's birthday

My mother had a Zoom birthday party today, in two parts: part 1 for her friends in the UK, and part 2 for family in North America. That included some family by choice, Frieda who my mother has known since she was ten and first came to New York, and Norbert who was a friend of her parents from a year or two earlier than that, in France before and during the war, and who thought of them as being like parents to him.

I think everyone had a good time, although someone asked Mom to say a bit about her sisters (both of whom died in the last year) and she was noticeably sad. Mom asked everyone to say something, however long or short they felt like; at least one person left it at "Happy birthday." I said something about being happy to see her and her apartment, where I visited her in late 2019, because it brought back those memories and because it was reassuring, seeing that she looks well.

There was a bit of "so that's what this person looks like" along with "so that's what she looks like now." I think I'd seen a photos of my brother's girlfriend before, but if I'd seen a picture of my cousin Carole's son it was a baby picture, proudly displayed by my grandparents. Carole's hair is still red, though not the flame-orange it was when we were in our twenties; Anne and I have both inherited Grandma's white hair.

Mom's upstairs neighbor, Jackie, who is her quarantine pod, was there, and brought in a cake, with candles.

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Zoom socializing

I spent most of the afternoon looking at the laptop screen, because two different friends invited me to Zoom parties today, at mostly overlapping times.

To keep the conversations manageable, both friends were using breakout rooms. This worked, except that I barely got to talk to either of my hosts. But I had some fun conversations about topics including bits of history and politics, as well as catching up on each others' lives.

I like

liv's parents, which isn't surprising, but is pleasing. I don't remember who said, in that conversation, that he thought peak Somerville was 7Ate9 bakery celebrating Shakespeare's birthday by giving free cheesecakes to people who could recite a sonnet, but I think he has a point. I do wish I'd managed to say more than hi to her, before she decided it was time to put everyone in smaller groups, so conversation would be possible.

At the second party, I'm particularly glad I got to talk to

lydy and to

alanro. I took a break between the parties because i wanted to get up, move around a bit, and give my eyes a break from looking at Zoom meeting rooms.

Tomorrow I'm talking to my mother. The plan is for her to call me 11ish; I was thinking of suggesting that we try Zoom, but maybe not after three hours or so on Zoom today.

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zoom gaming

Someone else's post about how much they'd done yesterday reminded me to note this:

I played Boggle and hung around for low-key conversation over Zoom with

cattitude,

quility, and some of Quility's Minneapolis friends for a little over an hour yesterday. Then I went and read my book, while they played for another hour+. I bailed because I was yawning, and we'd reached a sensible pause. (I warned everyone up front that I probably wasn't up for two and a half hours of Zoom gaming, and asked to play something where one game ends relatively quickly. Two weeks ago they gamed without me and spent three hours on a single game--which isn't flawed, but if they'd wanted to do that I'd excused myself rather than half to drop out mid-game when it might be inconvenient.