What our family learned being together in quarantine

Years from now, when we look back on it, our family will be grateful for this quarantine. Not for the epidemic, but for this fortnight.

This is the sequel to last week’s column: two weeks after we learned Zane’s school roommate tested positive for the coronavirus. I worried this was one more tragedy in a year of endless bad news. We moved Zane back in, and began our quarantine in the outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior.

Thought this would feel like a long exile, but instead we learned to enjoy just being together. And we beat Aunt Rita.

Turns out that Zane had one of the mildest cases of COVID19 possible. He slept most of the time and had one headache. If you’ve been reading the news, you know how lucky he is ... must have been all the candles you readers lit.

Our family had never spent 14 days just spending time together. I work a fulltime job, and Brian typically juggles about five parttime jobs. During the average December, he’s been known to perform in as many as two different Nutcrackers and a Velveteen Rabbit.

But we were on lockdown, where we couldn’t go out. We got to stop rushing around. We got to sit. And we got to listen.

When I think about it, this was a lot more fun than going to work.

We also must thank our neighbors. It’s not until times like this that we remember to be grateful for this community, for Terry Asten Bennett who dropped off milk and potatoes. When Deirdre had pate and brie delivered, I said, “This is a lot better than walking around with a 20pound duty belt on.”

My father’s sister, Aunt Rita, turned 97 this year, the last of her generation. There’s a rite of passage in the Paulson family: When you get your own separate Christmas card from Aunt Rita, you know that you are an adult. I had lived for 27 years on the planet before I was no longer part of “Hap and Viv ... and Family.” But “Kevin Paulson ... somewhere in Hoboken.”

And it was always the first card to arrive. She must have started the day after Halloween, but always on Black Friday, every one of us could count on a highclass envelope with silver foil lining from Hicksville.

Not like the FisherPaulsons. We’ve done 35 Christmas cards, and all of them with high production values but little class. The last 20, we’ve done after Thanksgiving with Crazy Mike driving us to Sutro Tower or the Cliff House, to photograph four humans and various hounds dressed as pirates or the Village People.

But quarantine changed that tradition. We couldn’t even let Crazy Mike into the Bedlam Blue Bungalow. And so this year, just the four of us, with festive sweaters on, took a picture and sent it off to production a week before Thanksgiving.

On a lazy Wednesday afternoon, we sat and addressed a few hundred envelopes. Brian, who is not competitive, said, “Hurry up and put them in the mailbox.”

It took 62 years, but our cards finally arrived before Aunt Rita’s. Nothing makes me feel more Christmassy than beating my nonagenarian aunt. Somewhere in the world, there is a Paulson nephew saying, “Next year, we’ll beat Uncle Kevin!”

I got my second negative test result Dec. 3 and was cleared to return to the Sheriff’s Department.

I’m happy about the badge and all, but a part of me will miss these cozy mornings, when the dawn comes late and lazy. When Zane asks for hot chocolate and Aidan for waffles, and we get out the Avengers waffle iron and sit at the table with a fresh batch of Hulks and Captain Americas, our mugs spilling whipped cream as we toast.

Queenie sits under the table, wagging her tail, because she knows: We are together, and without this quarantine, we might not have known how blessed we are.

Turns out that Zane had one of the mildest cases of COVID19 possible. He slept most of the time and had one headache. If you’ve been reading the news, you know how lucky he is.