Box, away and LOTR.

1. A large box of crafting bits arrives. Bettany chastises me for not ordering every bit of plastic tut that she ticked in the catalogue, but eventually settles down to painting wooden Halloween decorations. 

2. Both children are whisked away on the same afternoon for socially distanced activities. We spend the time trying to remember what we like doing. In the end Nick watches baseball and I work on a short story.

3. Alec is with my parents this evening and I read to him over Zoom -- more tedious tours of Minas Tirith. Reading  aloud a list of marching allies, without feeling invested in the action and the plot, in Tolkien's wonderful prose is all right.