Today we wondered what fall and winter will bring for our unusual family. It's been six months like this. Had this pandemic never happened, by now, I would be in New York on my own, my mother in Florida, and Sophia back in Los Angeles. But here we are in the park in Queens, Sophia's feet on my shoulders, my mom hovering behind, only my mother's blue glove reminding us of the danger still around us. But what next?

This month is the birthday of my late father, Arthur Kramer. I wonder how he would have dealt with the last three months with us. He worked at Queens General Hospital, a New York City hospital, and I bet he would have done whatever he could to help the other staff members deal with the Covid crisis in NYC. He certainly would not have approved of the President's abhorrent behavior during this time when leadership was needed. My dad was not anti-police. For a time, in the 1970's, he even joined the local "police auxiliary" as a middle-man between the 107th Precinct in Queens and the community. I have funny pictures of him in his ill-fitting volunteer police uniform. But he would be aghast at the thought of any police brutality, and I have a feeling he would have been the first one in my family to support Black Lives Matter. He was active as a community person, way more than I have ever been, going to weekly community board meetings and working with several progressive organizations. His motto was "Be of Good Cheer," which we put on his tombstone. He also liked Entermann's donuts and rum raisin ice cream. He was definitely more of a man to admire than Donald Trump, who also has a birthday this month.

This is a photo of us from right before the pandemic hit Queens. You can tell it was taken in February 2020 because we all look ten years younger. No one knew yet what the year would bring. We had recently started sharing the apartment on a temporary basis. Sophia had just shipped her car over from Los Angeles. The weatherman on the local news predicted snow later in the week. I never drove in New York, and Sophia only knew Southern California, so we bought this shovel at a hardware store, in case we need to shovel it from the snow. We did a silly selfie together for Facebook. Our very first snow shovel! The weatherman was wrong, and it never did snow. The shovel languished in the car trunk all spring, summer, and fall.

It snowed on Thursday, nine months later, on the day before we were interviewed about our quarantine photos on the Today Show. We were so focused on setting up our new ring light that we forgot about shoveling the car. On the Today Show, we joked with Al Roker. He was touched about how our quarantine experience has made us love each other as a family even more.

The next morning, we discovered that the city had plowed snow all over Sophia's car. The snow had turned to ice. There was no way to move the car. Our shovel we bought was trapped in the trunk. We blamed each other for the situation. A neighbor approached to congratulate us for being on TV. We were now local celebrities and couldn't argue in public anymore!

For three days now, we have been chipping away at the ice surrounding the car. It’s still trapped. I have spent my time doing two more interviews about how much our family loves each other, while arguing with Sophia about her Toyota Prius rusting in the streets of Queens.

It's nice that we have been getting some media attention for my photos. But I'd trade it all in a second to go back to the family in the photo from February 2020, when we weren’t so stressed after ten months living together during a pandemic.

My mother has always been more of a canned vegetables type of cook. She also makes a great tuna fish sandwich. Sophia is a gourmet cook and has been spoiling us for months with delicious exotic meals and freshly baked bread. My mother also found a new kitchen-related passion -- she has become obsessed with keeping the kitchen clean, even constantly checking the oven to see if anything was left behind. Maybe this pandemic turns everyone OCD. This has created some tension in the house lately between the two women. This kitchen is not big enough for both of them Luckily, I know how to diffuse any situation. When our old fridge finally died last week, I ordered a new one, not realizing that I bought a model where the door handles were on the wrong side. So now, no one can open the fridge or the oven! Problem solved.

We bought a third TV this week, and put it into the bedroom. 55" widescreen. So now all three of us can retreat into our own spaces and watch whatever show we want. Ironically, I haven't watched the TV since. I'm not sure it is what I really wanted.

We didn't plan on it, but we decided after dinner to put on a zoom synagogue service to watch for Rosh Hashanah, mostly because it was easy to do, and we didn't have to wear shoes. And we turned on the zoom just as they started doing the memorial part of the service, and suddenly the rabbi started to cry and said that Ruth Bader Ginsburg just died.

I was up all night sad about the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I also couldn't help notice that the late Chief Justice and my mother were both born in NYC in 1933. Completely different people, with way dissimilar career achievements, but I bet they would have hit it off. Sometimes I get pissed when I hear people say they don't need to wear masks during a pandemic because the virus mostly kills old people, and they are sitting at home anyway. I think RGB is a testament that you can be a worthy force in society even in your late eighties, and it's worthwhile for society to help protect this vulnerable population as they contribute their wisdom and experience, just like the rest of us. A person's importance doesn't end because of the slowing down of the aging body.

Months ago, when the pandemic started, I gave my bed to Sophia, and I've been mostly sleeping on the old sofabed in the living room. The mattress sucks; it sags and creaks. During the last few weeks, I've been having bad dreams at night about the current President of the United States. Today, Sophia surprised me with a new sofabed. It's a perfect day for it to arrive seeing how the election results are in. I hope to have fewer bad dreams now for two reasons - a better mattress and the end of a national nightmare.

I was asked to do my first zoom presentation. It was on "being creative during the times of Covid." The only good light was in the living room so I told Sophia and my mother to stay out of the living room while I was on video. In the middle of my presentation, my zoom screen got text-bombed by Sophia asking if I wanted to take a short break and have lunch. I told her no, and asked, again, that both of them leave me alone. She said “no problem."

A few minutes later I (and everyone on Zoom) heard the fridge open in the adjacent kitchen, and all sorts of clanking and plastic-opening noises, as my mother made herself a turkey sandwich. When her sandwich was ready, she couldn't sit in the dinette because she would be seen on-screen, and she couldn't go to her bedroom, because God forbid she would ever eat in her bedroom, so she went to other side of the living room, away from my webcam, munching on her sandwich as I spoke to the group.

Sophia then text-bombed me again, "I'm going to make you a sandwich. You have to eat." I quickly texted back, “ I AM NOT HUNGRY!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” in all caps, like in one of Donald Trump's insane tweets. She texted back, “No problem.”

A minute later, Sophia appeared crawling on the floor, under the radar of the webcam, to hand me a sandwich. I guess I was hungry after all.

Sophia and my mother have always had a very good relationship, with few of the stereotypical mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflicts you always hear about. Their good relationship continued even after our divorce. But the last forty-odd days have put a slight strain on their relationship. It is difficult to be in lockdown during a pandemic, especially while having having a lunatic in the White House. Someone needs to take charge in this house, and it's been Sophia who has been the rock of the family during this - she is basically keeping us alive. She does all the Instacart shopping, she cooks, she makes us wear masks, and she coordinates what needs to be done to protect the family. But my mother doesn't like being told she can't go shopping or do the laundry downstairs. Her role as matriarch has been upended. I'm a good mama's boy and don't like to go against my mother's wishes, but during these stressful times, I often have to take Sophia's side to protect my mother from herself. This shift has caused some tension, and like all men worldwide who find themselves caught between two women, the only solution is to hide in the bathroom. It makes me happy when I see Sophia and my mother connecting with each other with love, remembering that these are not normal times.

The pandemic has been unkind to my mother's once weekly mahjong group. Since March, one player passed away, another got sick and went to an assisted living, and the third moved in with her daughter in Texas. And she's lonely without the mahjong group.

Thanksgiving, 2020. If there is one public event that I love in New York it’s the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. So, we were disappointed when we found out that this year was going to be a TV-only parade because of Covid-19. But then Sophia had an idea. We could buy some big animal balloons on Amazon and then parade around our living room, making our own special Thanksgiving Day event! We received the balloons from Amazon, and this morning, all we had to do was blow them up. We saw online that the Party Store would inflate balloons not bought in the store for a fee, but when we got there, we were told that the new policy was prohibiting them from touching any balloons not bought at the store, because of the pandemic. We called the dollar store, the florist, the stationery store, and the hookah store, but they all refused for the same reason. Our plans were falling apart. Who wants to do a parade with droopy balloons without any helium? Was this another casualty of the pandemic? This is when Sophia remembered the Halal supermarket where she bought "loosies," when no one else would sell us anything but a $20 full pack of cigarettes for a photo shoot we did recently. Would they also be able to blow up our balloons during this parade crisis of ours?

Thank you, Halal Supermarket, for making our Thanksgiving Day a special one. You just made America great again!

One of the arguments for not wearing a mask outside is that it is a free country. To many, asking someone to be inconvenienced is an infringement of personal freedom. If someone is at risk to the virus, like seniors or those with medical issues, they should just stay home. ⁣
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That is easier said than done. After months ago home, it becomes an infringement of personal freedom for seniors and those with medical issues to be stuck at home. ⁣
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After our trip to the park last week my mother tasted the flavor of freedom, and she liked it. ⁣
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My mother's friend, Shirley, called. She used to be the same blouse size as my mother, but because of an illness, had lost a lot of weight. She had a bunch of brand new outfits from Bloomingdale's that she never wore that were now too large. Can she drive over and give them to my mother? ⁣
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At first, Sophia and I nixed the idea. My mother bristled at out helicoptering. We came up with a compromise. I would go downstairs and pick up the blouses from Shirley as she drove by in her car. ⁣
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When it was time for Shirley's arrival, I found myself on an important zoom conference call. Sophia was about to have a virtual conversation with a doctor at NYU. We were forced into the inevitable - my mother would have to go downstairs ALONE and pick up the blouses. It would be the first time she's left the house alone since March. ⁣
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"What's the big deal?" some of you might ask. My mother is active and independent, and can go outside by herself. She's not a child. But there are a lot of people out there who don't wear masks, even in our neighborhood with one of the highest Covid-19 infection and death rates in the world. ⁣
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We told my mother that if she goes out by herself, she has to wear a mask, gloves, and goggles to protect her eyes. ⁣
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"Why don't you just wrap me in the shower curtain?" my mother asked, sarcastically.

Sophia came to me in the middle of the day with a printout of a Google Docs that she created.⁣
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"Maine. It's Maine. I made a list of which state in the East Coast has been least affected by the pandemic, and it's Maine."⁣
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"So what?"⁣
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"I think things are going to get worse, not better. I think we should go to Maine for three months. I've already found a rental on Zillow. We can walk to the water there and get the f*ck out of Queens!"⁣
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"We can't afford to go to Maine for three months. We're not like Alec Baldwin with a second house in the Hamptons."⁣
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"We can split it three ways. You, me, and your mother A lot of people are leaving the city."⁣
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"I'm not leaving the city for three months."⁣
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"Why not? It will be good for your mother. We will have more space. We'll stop killing each other."⁣
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"I"m in the middle of a photo project getting attention about us living in Queens during a pandemic! No one wants to see us running away to Maine and eating lobsters by the shore. It will ruin the project."⁣
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"You're worried about your photography project more than our lives? That's the most selfish thing I ever heard."⁣
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"And by the way, I don't even think my mother eats lobster because it's not kosher."⁣
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"Yeah, but she loves Murder She Wrote. That's in Maine."⁣
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"Besides, I hear that some states don't even want you there if you have a New York license. We'll be ostracized and even beaten up by the locals the minute we drive into Maine."⁣
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"We have that covered. I have a California license on my car."⁣
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And last night, I was up all night, thinking about this this crazy idea while I heard sirens in the background. I've never been to Maine. But I doubt that we will do it. Just a fantasy.

We've Passed The Two Month Mark. ⁣ ⁣ we've All Been Sleeping Way Too Much, Even In The Afternoon. You Don't Need To Be Freud To Know It's Depression. There's A Limit To How Long Someone Can Be Quarantined With The Same People All The Time Without It Affecting Your Mental Health. ⁣ ⁣ "We Need To Exercise," I Said. We Need To Move Around. We Need To Dance, For Our Mental Health."⁣ ⁣ i Put A Disco Radio Station On Pandora. "Stayin' Alive" From Saturday Night Fever Was On.⁣ ⁣ "Stayin' Alive... Stayin' Alive..."⁣ ⁣ the Song Seemed Appropriate For A Pandemic. ⁣ "Ooh, I Love The Bee Jays," Said My Mother.⁣ ⁣ "It's The Bee Gees, Not The Bee Jays," Said Sophia, Laughing. "Do You Know What Bjs Are?"⁣ ⁣ "No," Answered My Mother.⁣ ⁣ "Blowjobs."⁣ ⁣ "Oh."⁣ ⁣ i Was Getting Uncomfortable With My Ex-Wife And My Mother Discussing Blowjobs.⁣ ⁣ "Let's Dance," I Said. "For Our Mental Health."⁣ ⁣

The days of women doing all the household chores in marriage has changed in the last two generations, but not completely. Most American men now pitch in, but I doubt the divisions are equal. Maybe this pandemic will now be the final nail in this unequal gender allotment of household duty. Suddenly, we have all become house wives and house husbands. There are no excuses for someone not participating in domestic chores. Most men are home. I'm not trying to be a feminist hero here. I curse and complain everytime I do the dishes, vacuum, clean the bathroom, or do the laundry. It even makes me petty because once you start doing a chore, your "roommates" start to expect you to do it every time, as if it is your role, when you never chose it as a permanent job. I hate that. Is this the resentment my mother and grandmother felt in their marriages? I would say 90% of all fights here during the last five months have been about cooking, cleaning or organizing the house. This is nothing new in cohabitation, but it is intensified during a pandemic, because there is nowhere to hide after the argument, other than maybe your car. Maybe the rich are happier because they can afford hired help. If one positive thing comes out of this pandemic it is that everyone now sees that domestic work is real work, even if unpaid. Excuse me, but I have to go now. I have clothes in the dryer.

People are protesting because they want to get a haircut. I want a haircut too, but I'm accepting the limits of the monent. ⁣
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We keep the printer in the dining room because there is no room anywhere else. We were in the living room when we heard a loud BANG. A picture hanging in the dining room fell off the wall fell off and landed on the printer. ⁣
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"I'll fix it later," I said.⁣
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That was three days ago. And no one has noticed that I haven't fixed it. And no one seems to care. We're accepting the limits of the moment.

One of the inconveniences of the last two months has been doing the laundry. We don't have a washer and dryer in the apartment, so we usually use the laundry room in the lobby of the building. The last time I was in our laundry room, in early March, it seemed scary - too crowded and too many surfaces shared by others. That's when we started washing our clothes every other day in the bathtub. We used a clothing rack in the bathtub to dry the clothes, but because of poor ventilation and poor hand-wringing, it would take twelve hours to dry one sock. I suggested we dry the laundry on our outdoor terrace by the dinette, but my mother adamantly refused. ⁣⁣
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"I'm not going to have all our neighbors look at our laundry," she said.⁣⁣
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It became an ongoing conversation. I didn't understand why my mother was being so paranoid about hanging the laundry on the terrace. Did it remind her of her childhood in a poorer section of the Bronx? Was it considered low class? She insisted that our apartment building had an expressed law "in the books" that no one should hang their laundry on the terrace. ⁣⁣
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"That's ridiculous," I said. "It's a pandemic. The rules are out the window. No one cares if we hang the laundry on the terrace."⁣⁣
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But she didn't want to have anything to do with it ⁣⁣
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I was washing the laundry in the bathtub today when I saw that that my mother was napping. I told Sophia that this was a good idea to dry the laundry on the terrace and prove to my mother that it is a good idea. I hung some wet sheets on the terrace railing, and the wind almost made my mother's fitted sheet sail away off the terrace towards LaGuardia Airport. People waiting on the line downstairs at the Key Food Supermarket looked up at our terrace with disapproving looks, almost as if saying "What is this - the Bronx?"⁣⁣
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The laundry dried quickly and ended up smelling terrific, and my mother gave limited approval to drying small amounts of laundry on the terrace, as long as she is never seen doing it.

We took our first trip as a family to a local park. It was a beautiful day, and it was so nice to finally go outside. But there were so many people not wearing masks. I can understand the reluctance. It is uncomfortable going to the park on a sunny day while wearing a mask. Unfortunately, it is stressful for anxious folks like us, whether the paranoia is warranted or not. Our excursion was exhausting, especially for my mother. Part of it was our own fault, with Sophia and I constantly telling her what she could and couldn't touch, as if we were helicopter parents. We'll try it again in a few days, and hopefully we can all be a little more relaxed, and treat this situation as more normal. After two months of hiding indoors, a mild form of PTSD has settled in, and just being outside seems new, strange, and slightly dangerous.

On March 7, most of us in America weren't taking Covid-19 very seriously. It was happening mostly in China, we were told. It was my birthday that day and we decided to have breakfast out in a local diner. Sophia brought along a bottle of Purel, gloves for using the menu, and a mask to wear when the waitress arrived. My mother and I were embarrassed by Sophia, thinking that she insulted the owner of the diner, as if we thought his establishment was contagious. People at the adjacent table were even snickering at us. Oh, well... it's now almost seven months later, and the three of us are still here, defiant. But the diner where I went for my birthday is gone.

I couldn't sleep last night. Out of nowhere, this woman I once dated, who now lives in Boston, was texting me, seeing if I was up. It didn't surprise me. Over the last four months, this pandemic has reconnected me with so many people. Even former enemies have tried to create bridges, asking for apologies, just in case one of us happens to die. I told this woman about my situation living with my mother and ex-wife. She laughed. She told me that she was living alone, and feeling lonely. I told her she should be out there dating. She reminded me that there is NO DATING during Covid-19. I told her that everyone was feeling lonely now. It wasn't natural being home so much, isolated from friends, and not meeting new, interesting people. She said she was touching herself. She asked me if I was touching myself. I said yes. I heard my mother leaving her bedroom and going into the bathroom. I revealed to my friend that I wasn't really touching myself. I just was enjoying saying hello to her and knowing that she was doing OK during this crisis. She said she wasn't really touching herself either. I told her that I had to wake up early to get to the laundry room before anyone else. She told me how hard it has been finding her favorite brand of laundry detergent in Boston during the pandemic and couldn't understand why anyone would be hoarding Tide. I laughed. "Crazy times," I said. And then we hung up and I tried to sleep.

3AM. When something is named and defined, either by yourself or other, it immediately changes. It becomes a "thing." I love how my pandemic experience with Sophia and my mother, shared on social media, has connected with others dealing with their own times of isolation. I'm a firm believer that humor helps us connect to the truth. But I don't want to use humor to avoid my other feelings, of anxiety or sadness. I'm living this project in real time, and don't know where it is leading. I can be funny. Moody. Political. Angry. And pretentious. It's hard to do artsy stuff and not be a little pretentious. Basically, I'm revealing to myself that I don't know what I'm doing. Do any of us? The hardest part of the last seven months hasn't been figuring out how to live with my mother and ex-wife in a small apartment in Queens, but how to spend so much time with myself.