I would like to tell you that I have that song in my head, but no, no. I have had 24K Magic in my head for four days now, but not the whole song. Just ONE line, over and over. Every so often I will burst forth with it: Put your! Pinky! Fingers! To the! MOON!, which elicits one of two reactions: my older son will dutifully put up his pinky fingers, my younger son will close his eyes briefly, with the silent agony that comes with having Not A Regular Mom, A Cool Mom.
Speaking of music, thanks to my dad we have discovered a music channel on TV that is called Greatest Hits, and it’s true, every song that plays was a hit at one point. The screen shows the song that’s playing, and the one that will follow, and it is bananas. We have been watching this to guess what could possibly come next, but no one could actually guess what does come next. It’s like someone took all the Top Ten every year for the last sixty years, put them in a giant hat, and randomly drew them out. Whitney Houston will be followed by Bo Diddley, and after that, it’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Justin Timberlake is followed by Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree, and then it’s Heat of the Moment. Hit Me Baby One More Time will be followed by a Shania Twain song, and just when you think you’re in the 90s, the station plays Super Freak.
A small digression about Shania Twain: she is the one and only celebrity I have ever been compared to in my life. This was in the mid-nineties, and I was wearing a denim vest with a tank top underneath, and I would be flattered by the comparison, but the gentleman in question who was comparing me to the lovely songstress was near-passing-out-drunk.
Last night during dinner I asked my husband if he’d put on some kind of Disney music channel: it was Beauty and the Beast, followed by The Rainbow Connection, and he answered with a look only. Immediately after Kermit and Miss Piggy’s duet was Frank Sinatra followed, strangely, by Faith Hill. What is happening at the Greatest Hits station. Who is in charge of the playlist?
But back to Celebrating! We have had a lot to celebrate this week – it was our 20th anniversary, and my son’s 18th birthday, both on the same day. It was also spring break, we were able to come out of isolation, and the snow has all melted!
It’s still March, though, so we have snow ahead of us, but it’s nice to get the base layer off the ground. In fact, I was walking to the little salon in our neighbourhood to get a pedicure, and suddenly I thought “what just blew into my face?” I literally thought small particles of a building material just blew off a roof or something; it’s hard to describe, but it was like being hit in the face with confetti in a wind machine. It was a sudden, out-of-nowhere snowstorm – there were no warning flakes, nothing except sudden total snow and wind. It’s melted now but it was bizarre, even for a lifelong Calgary girl.
To celebrate our 20th anniversary, my husband and I went back to the scene of the crime – Banff. We spent a night at the lovely Banff Springs, and it was wonderful.
So, that was perfectly lovely, and I was grateful that we were out of isolation in time to go.
We celebrated my son’s birthday with cake and a nice dinner, and an afternoon of bowling – he also celebrated with his friends, once THEY were all out of isolation. Covid has made its way through almost all of my sons’ friends, after two years of nothing.
Pandemic Reading
Apples Never Fall. WOW!!! I loved this book! I have enjoyed all of Moriarty’s books, and this one is EXCELLENT! A woman goes missing; her husband is the main suspect. Did he do it? Full of twists and turns, secrets and astonishing, unexpected wisdom, this book was fantastic. Surprise: there is a small pandemic-related storyline. I cannot tell you anything else – you know how Moriarty is, just when you think you’ve figured it out, there’s another twist.
The Mother-in-Law. This was a pretty decent – mystery? Maybe? I’m not sure what to call it. – about a woman who appears to have ended her life, due to terminal cancer. The problem is, after death no cancer is found, nor the poison she apparently took to end her life. So what happened? It wasn’t hard to guess, but a decent read nonetheless. It had me thinking a lot about the mother-in-law/ daughter-in-law relationship. Is there any relationship with such potential to be fraught? This is an interesting “from-both-sides” perspective.
Once when the boys were babies, someone at playgroup said that you never really appreciate your own mother until you become one, and that really resonated for me. Certainly I appreciated my own mother more, once I was in the Mother Shoes myself. But I realized something, and that was that with two boys – two heterosexual, cis boys, as I have – I will be, if I am very lucky, a mother-in-law, and that is a very different relationship, as we all know. It’s something that seems far away right now, but it is something I think about. It’s something I will want to get right, but it is so delicate, and it so much depends on personality and patience, it seems.
Anyway, that was NOT the point of the book, but something I have been thinking about nonetheless.
Enjoy these last few days of March, my friends! I hope it’s going out like a lamb for you. xo
Full disclosure: I had a very different Favourite Things planned for this month, but I decided to write a little about my experience with The Plague instead. You’ll just have to wait for Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Daily Glow-Up Edition! I’m sure you are all dying to know about my new favourite CC Cream; soon, my pretties.
Okay, that’s cruel. It’s by IT Cosmetics and it’s called “Your Skin But Better.”
As I mentioned in my last post, all four of us came down with The Covid, and our experience was that it was very, very mild. I have been pretty sanguine about the whole thing for several months now, but I do not want to tell you how to feel or to negate your experience in any way. I am just sharing my experience.
To be honest, if this was pre-2020, we would have just gone about our normal day-to-day lives with the kind of symptoms we had. Obviously we followed all the protocols as soon as my son tested positive, but remember back in the Before Times, when we would have just Pushed Through? Remember taking Advil Cold and Sinus and just going to work or to school, never thinking of calling in sick unless we had literally one foot in the grave, merrily spreading our germs to all and sundry? Thankfully, those days are gone, and I have to say it was kind of nice to be forced into isolation without being very sick at all. Forced rest is quite lovely, and we were lucky to have such mild cases.
Well, I say “lucky,” but a big part of that was due to the efficacy of vaccines. My husband has a couple of health issues that are largely controlled but that have been linked to severe outcomes, so I credit science and his vaccination status for his bout: he merely had a sore throat for about twelve hours, and an on-again-off-again headache for a couple of days. Had this happened a year or more ago, things could have ended up very differently, and I will always be breathtakingly grateful that this was our experience.
I think it goes without saying that one of my favourite things is VACCINES. I will get boosted for the rest of my life, if needed.
Again, this is my lived experience. Yours might be very different. I have many friends who are very wary and anxious about contracting Covid for a variety of reasons, so I am definitely not minimizing those feelings. I am saying that we all got off very easy – my younger son, for example, NEVER developed any symptoms at all. Many people have reported that they had symptoms like a “mild cold,” but I wouldn’t even say that. The only symptom I had was being tired and low energy for a couple of days. I know many people who got quite sick with fevers and pain, and others who have suffered Long Covid, and I feel very, very fortunate. I am generally a very healthy person, but similarly healthy people have had very bad experiences with Covid, so general health isn’t always an indicator.
This is a very long preamble to say that I wanted to share with you the things that helped me through my bout, and resulting isolation.
Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Isolation Chamber Edition
My Beauty Has Always Been A Curse; Ew, David
My love of the Golden Girls is well known. I have loved that show since the 80s and I was excited to see that it’s on Disney Plus, which is one of the many streaming services we seem to have that I never use. I have been watching one episode week, just like it’s 1985, and at this rate I’ll finish the series in 2029, give or take a few months. My kids like to say I’m binge-watching something if I watch more than three episodes a month, so I guess I’m binging?
The writing is just so good in that show, and I love the costumes and set design. I read that Rue McClanahan had it in her contract that she could keep all of the clothes she wore on the show, so I like to imagine her closet overflowing with super-colourful separates. Also, she was only four years older than I am now, when the show started.
I know I’m about seven years late to the party, but my husband and I have started watching Schitt’s Creek, and WOW, do I love it. So far we’ve finished the first season, and I have heard – from all my friends who have been telling me to watch it all these years – that it only gets better.
She Puzzled Until Her Puzzler Was Sore
I love puzzles, but I never start one unless I know I have time to become obsessed with it and have it completely take over my life. Well, hello there, Covid Isolation!
Isn’t this cute? One of my students gave it to me a few weeks ago, and I felt like this was the absolute perfect time to put it together. It was not a difficult puzzle at all, which was good, as I was kind of fuzzy and exhausted, and it was a really cute and fun one to do. I quibble with the “world’s cutest dog” label though; in my mind, that title belongs to Barkley.
I Heart My Library
I’m always a little surprised when a person tells me that they don’t like to use libraries; when the libraries closed in 2020, I felt like a little part of me died. Don’t get me wrong, I love OWNING books and I HAVE many books:
But I read well over a hundred books a year, and if I were to buy that many books I would be a) broke, and b) drowning in books. I only have so much space, people! I always have a nice big stack of library books on my side table, usually because I put a ton on hold and then they all come in at once, even the ones for which I am way down in the queue. Isn’t that funny when that happens? Luckily I had just picked up several holds before the plague hit us, so I was able to work my way through the stack.
This is my current stack, and oooohhhh you guys, I’m excited about all of these titles. Reviews to come!
Relax and Restore
I love restorative yoga and I do one such practice per week. For those of you not familiar, restorative yoga is made up of very slow-moving, long-held asana, usually with bolsters and blankets. The goal is very gentle opening of the body, while being completely comfortable and supported. To give you an idea, when I used to teach restorative classes, there would be about four or five relaxed, supported asana in a one-hour class. There are a ton of books on the subject, and I’m sure many examples on the internet, but here are two of my favourite postures, that do not require any blankets or bolsters – although you could use them, if you wanted.
Child’s resting pose is so great for the back and shoulders, and if it is painful for the knees to be in this position, you could add a rolled-up blanket between your knees and hamstrings, or support your chest and head with a bolster or pillow.
Viparita Karani, or legs up the wall, is probably my number-one favourite restorative pose. It’s so great for the back and for circulation, as well as allowing a very gentle stretch for hamstrings. If your hamstrings are a bit tight, then simply move your body farther away from the wall to allow for a more gentle experience. I will sometimes lie like this for twenty minutes; if you like guided meditations, this is a good posture in which to listen to one.
I wanted to include these photos to show you that lack of space need not be a deterrent in yoga. You can see how tight we are for space, but it works. Would I rather have a devoted home studio? Obviously yes but I take what I can get, and what I can get is the space between the kitchen and the dining room.
Food, Glorious Food
I couldn’t believe how hungry I was when I had Covid. I certainly did not experience any loss of appetite, taste, or smell. If anything, it was the opposite: even though my activity level was about 1/20 of normal, I was ravenous constantly, and everything tasted great. I am, as you all know, a big proponent of Listening To My Body, and my body was telling me that it Needed Food To Heal. Is this what it feels like to be a teen boy? I was So Hungry, even after a full meal, and so between meals I grazed constantly, for three straight days.
This is a good time to tell you about one of my favourite things: dried fruit. Now hear me out! I am constantly mocked in my family for my love of dried fruit, but if Fruit is Nature’s Candy, then Dried Fruit is Nature’s Gummy Bears: delicious, sweet, and chewy.
These are my favourite dried fruits, which I buy at Costco, but they aren’t always available. Each type is only available a few months out of the year, so I tend to buy a few bags at a time. Am I hoarding? Maybe. I regret nothing!
My sister-in-law (and my brother, too, but let’s be real: it was my sister-in-law who arranged this) sent me this incredible Edible Arrangement and a box of cookies for our anniversary and my son’s birthday – both yesterday! – and I feel that this is the time to mention them because a) Fruit Is Nature’s Candy, b) chocolate-dipped fruit is the greatest thing ever invented, and c) cookies.
Several cookies somehow went missing BEFORE the photo was taken! There are thieves among us.
Those were my Favourite Things this month; this wasn’t what I thought I was going to talk about, but it sure was fun. What were your favourites this month? xo
I have been tracking my sleep on my Garmin watch since the New Year, and although I have no idea HOW my watch knows how much I sleep and how much of that sleep is deep or light or REM, it seems pretty accurate. I generally average between seven and seven and a half hours each night during the week, with more on Friday and Saturday.
This year, Springing Forward coincided with the celebration of my parents’ golden anniversary. That means, in addition to staying up late visiting and drinking wine, the clocks moved forward AND I ended up having massive wine-fueled hot flashes. Here is my Saturday Night Sleep Report:
So I was pretty fuzzy going into the week, and the time change always makes me feel just slightly off for at least four or five days. I would rage about it for a while but a) it looks like there is a US bill to get rid of the time change, and b) if this happens in the States I am hopeful it will happen in Canada. PLEASE GOD LET THIS HAPPEN IN MY LIFETIME.
I Am Not An Anti-Dentite
I had a dental cleaning scheduled for this week, and the dental office sent me the following reminders: five emails, eight texts, and three phone calls, two to my cell and one to my landline. I felt like this was an excessive number of reminders, particularly since I responded to and confirmed at least one of the very many reminders.
It brought to mind the days when my older son was going through orthodontic treatment, and the office would send a text, an email, and a phone call, and that never stopped even though at every single appointment – for twenty-six months – I would ask them to please just give me ONE reminder. ONE. They would make a note, and then nothing would change. After this barrage of reminders from the dentist, I longed for the orthodontic days.
Well, not really, but I was feeling pretty irritated by the time my appointment came around; that morning, I had a text and an email saying “see you soon!” and honestly, I felt like cancelling the whole thing, or maybe burning down the entire office. I was so grumpy about it that my husband commented on said grumpiness. “Why are you so mad about this? Things like this don’t usually bother you.” True.
I couldn’t stop complaining about going to the DENTIST and how I HATE the dentist and argh, I’m going to the DENTIST. I didn’t really understand my own crabbiness, except that it was maybe a Bridge Too Far, what with time change and all. I mean, I do not have a fear of the dentist, as many people do. I have never had a difficult dental procedure. Tooth scaling, while unpleasant, isn’t even painful for me. So why was I so worked up?
The answer came when I got to the office and the receptionist informed me that my “usual” hygienist was unable to see me, so would it be okay if I saw a different hygienist? I shrugged agreeably and said I didn’t even know who my usual was, and I was sure that whoever they put me with would be just fine.
People, the woman who cleaned my teeth was a literal angel of a hygienist. Never have I had such a pleasant dental experience. It was then that I realized that I never learned or retained the names of my past hygienists, which is highly out of character for me. I am a person who gets very attached to people in my life. I mean, I have favourite cashiers at the grocery store and I know all their names. The fact that I seem to block out the names of my dental hygienists speaks volumes, and then I remembered that at my last appointment, the hygienist talked incessantly about her unvaccinated family members, and any time she asked me a question, she would unpleasantly laugh and tell a follow up story about her kids and their superior athletic abilities. She told me I drank way too much coffee, which, while true, isn’t a nice thing to hear.
On the other hand, my new hygienist talked to me about fuzzy dog breeds, told me a lovely story about her own dog and her dog’s best friend, and that her daughter left her job as a legal assistant to become an ultrasound technician. She was incredibly gentle with my teeth and told me that I was doing an excellent job maintaining my oral health. I felt like hugging her at the end of our appointment.
When I told my husband about it, he realized that she is the hygienist that he sees, and that he has been trying to get me to go to for two years, but I kept saying that it doesn’t matter who the hygienist is. He didn’t actually say I told you so but point taken.
Walking Down The Aisles
I am back to my regular, first-thing-in-the-morning grocery shopping, and my faith in humanity has somewhat been restored, as it is too early in the day for Costco shoppers to leave their carts wherever they may be. I’m sure it’s still happening, but I’m not there to see it, and a tree falls in the forest.
My goodness, there are a lot of empty shelves right now. I am not in a panic; there is plenty of food, plenty. Everything is fine.
But also, there seems to be an oatmeal shortage? Regular rolled oats are very sparse on the shelves, and there seems to be only one variety of instant oatmeal. One of my sons likes to have instant oatmeal once or twice a week, and his favourite flavour has been unavailable for many weeks. There is a ton of sugary cereals like Froot Loops and that strange Timbits cereal, but very little of the hippie, high-fibre brands I like. Although, I did find Kashi Cinnamon Wheat Squares, which have been unavailable for well over a year. Mini-Wheats are also scarce, which, again, is not a big deal but something I noticed.
I walked down the frozen aisle to get some fruit, and I noticed that there were whole sections, usually devoted to pizza, that were completely empty. In the produce department, I have noticed that grapes are either completely unavailable or are really gross and wrinkly looking, although that could certainly be a seasonal thing.
My favourite Boom Chicka Pop Light Kettle Corn has been unavailable for over a month, but a few weeks ago I picked up a bag of Skinny Pop Kettle Corn, because god forbid I go without kettle corn. This is where the story twists: IT IS AMAZING. It BLOWS Boom Chicka Pop right out of the water, RIGHT OUT. As Ma Ingalls always said, There Is No Great Loss Without Some Small Gain, but let me tell you, if it hadn’t been for the Boom Chicka Pop shortage, I would have never tried something with such a ridiculous name as Skinny Pop, and now I cannot go back. I have since bought several bags and I may be hoarding, just a little.
Speaking of ridiculous names, I came across this at Superstore:
I didn’t buy it out of principle. I didn’t want to buy into the culture that food is somehow evil if you are enjoying it but this is less evil than other foods. NO. No sir, I will not do it. This may sound rich coming from a person who just admitted to hoarding something called Skinny Pop, but even I have my limits. I marched righteously past the display, thinking angry thoughts about society and putting value judgements on the food that we eat.
Except, strawberry white chocolate popcorn. STRAWBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE POPCORN. I can’t stop thinking about it! I wonder if it’s delicious. Regrets, I have them.
One Slipped Past The Goalie
The biggest grumble is that, after two years, we succumbed to the plague. My younger son’s best friend texted to say he’d tested positive for Covid; my son – who had zero symptoms and never did develop any – took a test and it was positive. The rest of us were negative at that time, but the next day it was pretty clear the negatives had become positives. My husband had a headache, sore throat, and fatigue, my other son had a sore throat, and I was so tired I could barely pull myself out of bed, even having slept an extra two hours. I continued to be exhausted all day, even taking an afternoon nap. My energy level, normally approaching that of Jack Russell terrier, was downgraded to Barkley:
By about day three we all felt “approaching normal,” and more bored than anything. That’s the grumble – the good thing is that none of us were very sick at all – no one even had a cough or sneeeze, I had JUST gotten groceries so we had plenty of food in the house, and we were all able to just take it easy. I attribute our extremely “nothing” cases to the efficacy of vaccines; if this had happened a year ago, I think things would have been very different. As it is, meh. One slipped past the goalie and we are all just fine.
Pandemic Reading
Five Tuesdays In Winter. Wow, did I love this collection of short stories! They were wrenching, heartwarming, and beautiful, and also incredibly varied in terms of character and setting. I want to read all her work now, and have put myself in the queue for her other books.
We Are Not Like Them. This book is written from two points of view, by two different authors, which is interesting. It deals with a white woman married to a police officer who is involved in the shooting of an unarmed, innocent, 14 year old Black kid, and a Black newscaster who is covering the story. The complication is that the two women are lifelong friends. This is a very important story with very important information. I’m glad I read it. But, the book itself? Meh. The characters are cliched and one-dimensional, and the writing itself is pretty flat. It is, in every way, a Book Club Book. It’s very readable, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re looking for a beautifully written book with complex, nuanced characters, this isn’t it.
With Love From London. My goodness, what a sweet, cozy, charming little book about a woman who inherits a bookshop in London, from her estranged mother. Everything ends exactly as you’d want it to, it’s a Hallmark movie in book firm, but better. So satisfying and lovely!
Mitzi Bytes. This book deals with a woman who has an anonymous blog, that gets found out – and the people she has been writing about are NOT HAPPY. It was fun to read about the early days of blogging – remember the Mommy Wars, and how there was actual debate about no-nut policies in schools – and there is also quite a bit of “why do we blog” discussion. If you were a part of those early days, and remember the stardom of some bloggers, you’ll really enjoy this trip down memory lane. It’s a fun read! I obviously do not have an anonymous blog, but this book is also a bit of a cautionary tale about what we write about: my personal view is that I assume everyone I know could possibly read this blog, so I never write anything I would be ashamed to say in person. YES, THAT INCLUDES DISCUSSION ABOUT MY BRAS, TAMPONS, AND CHIN HAIR. But mostly, that means that I don’t say anything about other people that I wouldn’t say to their faces.
Everything is back to semi-normal around here; we are out of isolation today, everyone is feeling well. And it’s Spring Break! Which means…absolutely nothing, although we did have a trip to Mexico planned that we cancelled back in January when all our travelling friends were getting stranded here, there, and everywhere. Two weeks ago I was bitterly regretting cancelling, but now I’m rejoicing, because at least we didn’t have to do a last-minute-scramble-to-cancel! Isn’t it nice when things work out for the best? Take care of yourselves. xo
I have been reading Keep Moving by Maggie Smith, and it’s beautiful; I wish, though, that I had read it two years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic. It’s perfect for Pandemic Life; for any kind of Life that has encountered loss, really.
It was exactly two years ago yesterday that everything shut down, and thinking back on that time, it seems surreal. Did we all just…stay home? We did and what I remember most is that hopeless feeling that came from the schools shutting down, lining up to just get into the grocery store, and becoming completely intolerant of hearing predictions about what would come next, how long this would last, and all the other end-of-the-world prophecies.
It would be wrong and horrible to say that a pandemic that has killed almost six million people, that has caused financial and economic ruin to many, that has brought so much pain and suffering in so many different ways, that has divided us as a people seemingly irrevocably, and that has left us all with skyrocketing inflation and government debt is a good thing. It isn’t. But when I read the above passage, from The Choice by Edith Eger, something pinged.
…the things that interrupt our lives, that stop us in our tracks, can also be catalysts for the emerging self, tools that show us a new way to be, that endow us with new vision.
If that doesn’t describe Pandemic Life, I don’t know what does.
March 2020, I remember, was very cold and grey, and this month has also been very cold and grey. I personally do not feel cold and grey, at least not figuratively. Literally it’s pretty cold and also I need to colour my hair this week. But, you know, I feel fine. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine could be the theme song to my life over the past two years.
We have all come so far and done so well at learning how to pivot and change and roll with the punches. There have been a lot of punches, that’s for sure. Life sure isn’t what I thought it would be, but you know what, I have been thinking that we never know what life is going to be like. We are always going to grow and change and pivot.
The other day, my Facebook memories showed me at my very last book fair, in 2017, and I thought, oh wow! The book fair, and my life as the Book Fair Lady and Chair of the School Council took up so much of my time and energy, and now that time is far in the rearview mirror. Speaking of the rearview mirror, pre-pandemic, I was teaching up to ten classes a week, and now I teach two. It’s hard to remember the frantic pace I moved at to teach that many classes and the kind of energy I had to exude at each one. Those days are also long gone, like my food blogging days, like the days I was at home with the little ones, like the days I worked on a trade floor, like my own youth, but that’s okay. Life is always changing, and sometimes we look back at our past selves and think who was that woman?
For example, I came across the most insane “featured outfits” on one of the fashion blogs I follow. I stared at it for a long while, wondering if it was a joke. Balloon jeans, shorts with kitten heels and knee-length argyle socks, the weirdest looking shoulder pads I have ever seen. But then I remembered that I owned, and wore, red palazzo pants in 1996-97, and denim overalls in the early to mid-nineties. Who was that woman? And why is her hair like that?
Nothing says “night on the town” like a nine-inch zipper and a bandanna-style top.
Anyway, two years! This past weekend we went to a restaurant to celebrate my parents’ 50th anniversary; six months ago I could hardly even fathom doing such a thing, but I am so happy we were able to do so. To be honest, I was worried that we would end up doing nothing for them, and that made me so very sad. For their 25th anniversary, I somehow organized a surprise party; this was pre-email, pre-internet, and so I think I mailed actual invitations, looking up their friends in the phone book. That party was a success but having since been to a couple of surprise parties that were NOT successes – the guests of honour being somewhat horrified about having a party sprung upon them completely unprepared, wearing sweatpants, or being very angry with the surprise party-organizer-who-happened-to-be-their-spouse-who-is-not-coincidentally-not-their-spouse-any-longer – I can tell you that surprises are not for everyone.
Maybe we as a general population are just not great with the unknown, or with anything that causes us to change course suddenly, or to think longingly of the past.
It just occurred to me: maybe the pandemic is like an awkward and unwanted surprise party, thrown by the spouse who you were completely incompatible with and everyone could see the split coming a mile away, not that the surprise party was the catalyst for the breakup, exactly, but it was just one of many symptoms of a larger problem. The party has gone on for much too long, and everyone, upon grabbing their jackets and leaving, will be changed on some fundamental level. Is this metaphor unravelling as I write it? I don’t know.
Oh wait! It’s like The Breakfast Club, complete with all the fat-shaming and slut-shaming and general shaming. We are thrown together in a punishing way and may think that we have been changed fundamentally when it’s over, but are we? At the beginning of the pandemic, I thought we would emerge stronger as a people, undivided, with more gratitude and compassion, and now I wonder if anyone will ever acknowledge Brian in the hallway. Will anyone learn from this?
Well. Two years of Pandemic At The Disco. One of the ladies in my Monday class had a throwaway comment about Covid being over, and another lady got pretty snippy and said that Covid is NOT over and I had to sweetly smooth things over, lest a brawl erupt in Strengthen and Tone Yoga. But I feel that they were both right, in a way. Covid is not over, but I feel like the fear and panic that we have been feeling for two years is subsiding substantially. In any case, the weekly count continues.
Just stay right here, ’cause these are the good old days.
Pandemic Reading
Keep Moving. As I alluded to, this book, which was written after the author’s divorce, is perfect for pandemic life. This would have been a perfect book to read, one page at a time, before daily yoga. However, I got it at the library, so I read it just like a regular book. I wish I had read it in spring 2020. I may get my own copy so I can savor it over yoga.
The Hundred Wells of Salaga. This book is based on the experiences of the author’s great-great grandmother in pre-colonial Ghana. It follows two women, one a princess who wants power in her father’s male-dominated court, one a woman kidnapped and sold into slavery. I was glad there were family trees and a cast of characters as it was quite complicated and tricky to follow at times. It’s an interesting look at internal slavery within Ghana.
Welcoming the Unwelcome. Would you believe this is the first Pema Chodron book I’ve read? I know! Talk about a great book for pandemic life. This was written in 2019 but is perfect for right now; the focus is on opening your heart and working on building community in an increasingly polarized world. The polarization of our world is something I have been thinking about a lot. How do we even come back from this as a society? How do we move forward from the us versus them mentality that, let’s face it, we all have. This book was clearly written to address the then-current US administration, but the lessons can be certainly applied to today’s world, as we start to heal as a people.
At least, I HOPE as we heal as a people.
Happy Two Year Pande-versary, my friends. Take care of yourselves, especially as it’s TIME CHANGE WEEK. Ugh! Give yourself a little extra grace this week. xo
A brief timeline of Covid-related happenings over the past six months, if you will indulge me:
Fall: After “Open for Summer” which had all restrictions dropped, massive Covid outbreaks, ICUs are full, masks once again mandated, and vaccines required to go to restaurants, fitness classes, and entertainment venues.
Mid-December: Gathering restrictions for (largely unvaccinated) children under 18 dropped entirely. Gathering restrictions for adults continue, but there is no differentiation between vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Christmas-New Year’s: The biggest Covid outbreak yet, demand for testing far exceeds supply, PCR tests become impossible to get except for health-care workers and hospital patients, rapid test supply completely runs out and people line up the block, Soviet-bread-line-style, at pharmacies for a chance to get one.
January: The people I know who have Covid exceed the people I know who don’t have Covid. Back to school is delayed, diploma exams cancelled, Fuck Lydia.
Mid-January: School reopens, and medical masks and rapid test kits are distributed to every student, with the understanding that they are all supposed to test themselves twice weekly. Parents are warned that school could go online “at any time.”
February 14: NO MORE MASK MANDATES FOR CHILDREN UNDER 18, INCLUDING IN SCHOOL SETTINGS. This occurred exactly one week after the last delivery of masks and test kits. My kids have reported that “no one” goes without a mask at their school of 2300, including themselves.
March 1: All restrictions dropped completely, it’s a free-for-all.
My friend Janet (HI JANET) asked if I would stop my week counting now that restrictions were dropped, and my response was no. This is not our first rodeo. Let’s see how this plays out, and in the meantime, we are coming up to the two year mark.
My older son is graduating in a few months, and it is also my parents’ 50th anniversary in a couple of weeks, so I had the need for a lot of photo frames, one of which was a kind of odd size. I had run into a photographer friend who assured me that all could be found at Michael’s, which is how I found myself at Michael’s, last Tuesday morning.
Here’s the thing: I deeply admire crafty people. I follow a few very beautifulcrafty blogs, which are purely pleasure and contain nothing that I would be able to do. I have incredibly crafty friends who paint and cross-stitch and knit and crochet and even spin their own wool. My mother-in-law knits everything from dolls to slippers, often making up her own patterns. My mother crochets and sews; she made clothes for us when we were kids, as well as our Halloween costumes and my kids’ Halloween costumes, even when my older son decided he wanted to be an eagle one year, and a pattern for an eagle could not be found.
I, on the other hand, once ripped a gaping hole in my pants when I tried to sew a button on; I almost failed the sewing portion of junior high Home Ec, where I spent three years ripping seams out until my projects were filled with holes.
What I’m saying is that I feel very out of place in Michael’s. As soon as I step through their doors I feel immediately overwhelmed, and the chorus from Creep starts to go through my head. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here. As I stood near a display of Easter items – could I make my own wreath? No. – women dashed around me, grabbing fake flowers and pastel coloured eggs. I felt like an alien who had just been dropped onto the planet and was unsure of the customs or language of the people around me. Where. Are. Frames.
My legs eventually became ambulatory again, and I did find the frames, albeit not before getting distracted by a huge display of baking supplies. Ooooh, there are so many sprinkles. I got what I needed and then, because Costco was next door, I decided to just stop in there rather than rush over post-Superstore on grocery day, which is Wednesday.
And now I will say that I have been in a bubble for many months, as my routine is this: go to Superstore for opening at 8:00, after that head to Costco for opening at 9:00. It’s rushed but civilized, and it’s exhausting but fine.
Costco at 9:00 is very, very different from Costco at 11:13.
It was pandemonium! Pandemonium! There were people everywhere, including one woman who was clearly in a rush, as she kept sweeping past all of us patiently making our way down the aisles, bumping our carts aggressively and sighing as though the state of the union was dependent on her getting out of Costco quickly with her giant detergent and frozen fries. Plus, since the mask mandate was lifted, at least a third of the customers and staff were maskless, and I am just not used to seeing that many faces. Sample tables were open and there were people jammed around them, trying to get a piece of ham or a pickle. My usual quiet, gentle Costco experience was no longer. As I wheeled my cart towards the parking lot, silently admiring the fellow behind me whose cart held nothing whatever except two jugs of milk, the song in my head abruptly switched away from Creep.
That’s me in the aisle, that’s me in the parking lot, losing my religion.
I have not said anything for many months about people not returning their carts, probably because I have been there right at store opening, which is too early in the day to give people a chance to prove that they are terrible. But my god! People are terrible. As Gigi said (HI GIGI), people are VILE and have no conscience. I mean, look. The cart carrel is RIGHT THERE. It is TWO parking spots away. WHY.
Seriously, WHY. I know there are people out there who say ridiculous things like people are hired to collect the carts and those people need jobs, and to the people who say that I say, fuck you. I mean, people are also hired to clean public washrooms but we are not peeing all over the floor and throwing our toilet paper and paper towels everywhere just so those people can have job security. The people are hired to collect the carts FROM THE GODDAMN CARRELS AND LEAVING CARTS HERE THERE AND EVERYWHERE IS NOT HELPING THEM DO THEIR JOBS OR SOMEHOW INCREASING THEIR JOB SECURITY. IT IS JUST BEING A LAZY ASSHOLE.
Well. I am going back to my first-thing-in-the-morning bubble, because as we all know, we cannot control what other people do, we can only control our reactions, and as such, I will just go into my own personal rage corner, this blog. Also, when I see this kind of mayhem like I did this week, I rescue one of those poor abandoned carts that just want to go to their HOME, the carrel, to take into the store for my own use. Small steps lead to marathons, and small gestures can change the world. Even in the Costco parking lot.
Why doesn’t Costco retrofit their carts so that a coin is needed for their use? It would certainly solve the problem. Why am I not in charge of these things?
Pandemic Reading
Life and Other Near-Death Experiences. This was a light book about a heavy topic: cancer. I had recently read the sequel to this book, without knowing it was a sequel. Whoops! It would have made more sense to read it in the correct order. I liked this book fine, I didn’t love it, but it was fine.
My Monticello. I am mixed on this book, which is made up of short stories and a novella. I loved the short stories and thought they were so smart and moving. The novella was a great concept, but it just dragged for me; I could NOT get into it. I would say all in all that this was a very original and interesting book – lots of fascinating facts about Thomas Jefferson and his Black descendants – but the novella was a bit too dystopian for my personal taste.
This book is bananas. BANANAS. It is dark and juicy and hilarious and horrifying and terribly sad, all at the same time. The details are so good! Some are hilarious – “(the waitress) tells us the specials in such a way that we know put some responsibility as patrons in her section us to just go right ahead and fuck ourselves” – and some details made my eyes get wider and wider and my eyebrows started to disappear into my hairline. Whoa Nelly. Like, it’s CRAZY. Every single situation is crazy. That said, it was really good! I was compelled to keep reading even when I was supposed to be doing other things. I am looking forward to more from this author. What a debut!
Happy March, everyone! Next week is our two-year Pande-versary, who would have thought? Take care of yourselves. xo
