The Bubble: Day 2 (part 1)

I’ve been so busy since the bubble started at the Sharpman house that I haven’t had a chance to write about it. I started a post about my first full day – that was Tuesday the 1^st of December – and I’m only getting ready to put it up now, more than two weeks later. It’s not that nothing’s been happening, just that I’ve been super busy with the boys, being a tutor in the morning and taking care of their physical education activities in the afternoons…and then hanging out with them after dinner. The boys are awesome, don’t get me wrong…but even at my age two young kids can be pretty dang tiring. I don’t know how teachers do it…and I ain’t so sure how parents do it either.

So, anyway, here’s what I had to write about Day 2 of the Bedrossian Bubble:

As usually happens when you wake up in a strange bed – I had no idea where the fuck I was when I opened my eyes on Tuesday morning. It was a big, luxurious room with a super soft bed…but I couldn’t place it at first.

I sat up in bed, remembered my weirdass dream from the night before, and then remembered where I was: in the Sharpmans’ pool house, where I promised to stay without going out until right before Christmas. It was a COVID precaution after Dr. Peterson, the boys’ tutor, tested positive, and I was now a part of it, for better or for worse.

I still had a dream ‘hangovers’ you get when you have weirdass dreams, and saw that it was still early – 7:30, and Jacob told me that they didn’t get up until 8. I had time on my hands, so checked out my little kitchenette to see if there was a way to make a cup of coffee.

Turns out there was a fancyass coffee/espresso machine, the kind that uses capsules that come in all different colors. I had no idea which capsule made which kind of coffee, so I decided on a light brown one. I figured that was a safe color if you wanted coffee. Sandy had put a quart of milk in the kitchenette fridge, and I found a sugar bowl. The coffee was good…not the greatest cup of coffee I’ve ever had, but it was good…and just what I needed. I could of done with breakfast then, too…but that wasn’t going to be until 8:30, I reckoned.

In the meantime I had to figure out what I was gonna do with the boys all morning long. I needed to teach them something, and I knew I had a handle on what they were doing in math…but what about the rest?

Maybe I could teach them how to start their own blogs lol.

Actually that didn’t sound like such a bad idea, although I think WordPress has a minimum age limit. But Matteo did say Dr. Peterson gave them a writing assignment. Jacob didn’t seem too excited at the idea of having to do it, but it was the kind of thing that might keep them busy and that I might be able to give feedback on. I know my grammar isn’t always perfect, but I think I still write pretty good lol. I certainly have plenty of experience writing after keeping the blog, and, so, maybe I could get them to spend some time writing.

I’ve somehow got to fill up five hours…and having them write quietly and then read the results sounds like a way to spend some of it. Besides, I’d be interested to see what the boys would write…if I could come up with a good subject. “How do you feel about being locked up in a bubble for three weeks?” doesn’t seem like the best topic, since the boys haven’t gotten much chance to go out since the spring quarantine started. The bubble may be something different for me, Sandy, Ethan and the crew, but it’s kinda business as usual for the boys.

I thought maybe I could ask them to write a story or something… I was trying to run over ideas in my head, looking at the clock, because time was running out and, at 9, I was suddenly gonna have to be a fancyass private tutor to a pair of rich boys. And there I was, a dumb jock lol.

Ok, I never thought I was a dumb jock…although people did often get me mixed up with one…but I also know that I haven’t had a fancyass education…certainly not anything like Dr. Peterson with his PhD, although I reckon you don’t really need a PhD to teach a 9 year old. Even a smart 9 year old like Matteo.

On the other hand, I know the boys like me. Matteo may once have thought I was the enemy, but he’s gotten to be pretty chill, even if I am the exercise police. I’ve never said anything against the diet to him (hey, I’ve got a job to protect), but I think he understands that I’m on his side…if there’s a question of sides in the first place.

So I was racking my brains trying to come up with something I could teach the boys when I had what I hope was a great idea. There is one academic thing I do know a lot about: Shakespeare. I was sure that neither Jacob nor Matteo had read a Shakespeare play, and, if Matteo might be a little young (remember we Blocks started Shakespeare on our 12^th birthdays), he’s a very smart kid, and I bet he’d be able to understand one of the easier plays. As for Jacob, well…he’s almost 12…and that was gonna have to be good enough. I even had a reason for trying to teach them Shakespeare: the way they teach it in school sucks big time, and, like Mom used to say, you need to learn to enjoy Shakespeare before your English teacher ruins it for you.

I just needed to decide which play we’d do. Mom started me out with Romeo and Juliet, although As You Like It is always a good place to start, too. I decided I’d go to Sandy and ask her to get us copies of both from Amazon. We’d have them day after tomorrow, since they have Prime and order a shit ton of stuff from them, especially now that we’re in our bubble and can’t go out and buy anything.

I felt like that was a good idea, and got into my super cool shower before shaving and getting ready for the day. (I get lazy about shaving, but I try to show up for work freshly shaven when I can. The Crawdads were one of a lot of minor league teams that wanted players to be clean-shaven…no matter how sloppy players sometimes look in the majors. I never got out of the mindset of looking neat for work, even if I have shown up at the Bedrossians a few times with some stubble…and even if there was a lot of positive buzz on Facebook about an unshaven Baseball Boy. Still, if I was going to be a schoolteacher, I felt I needed to look fresh and cleaned up…even if I realized to my embarrassment that I was going to have to teach the boys dressed in basketball shorts and a tshirt, since I totally forgot to pack ‘school clothes’ the day before.

Then it was what I reckoned was time for breakfast, so I headed over to the kitchen.