Signs of Revival

I rode my bike past the market today. I didn't really need anything so no stop was made. But I noticed a sign has been hung announcing a new bakery to be opened in the strip. What a bold move. It felt incongruous to attempt to open a business as so many around it are still shuttered. There was no estimate on when it will be opened. It seems that even getting the correct licenses and permits would be a monumental task. If it opens, I will probably try it out. Though, I have never had Chinese takeout from the shop right beside it. 

My grandparents were children during the Spanish Flu pandemic. They never really talked about it. My grandmother talked about being taken out of school after her 4th grade year. That would have been about the time the second wave of the pandemic would have hit. She made it sound as if she'd been taken out to work in the boarding house her parents ran. She said that she was kept home to help cook and do the laundry. She was taught how to play the piano, garden and sew. I thought that she meant that was the end of her formal education until I found a high school picture of her on Ancestry. I suppose that what she was really talking about was the year or so she may have spent home while the flu was in the community. She was an only child. It would make sense that her mother wouldn't have been too keen to send her out to get sick. I wonder if my ten year old grandmother hadn't understood the reason that she wasn't allowed to go to school that year. The kicker on this is that while my grandmother was a very intelligent and curious woman, the skills she used her whole life, she probably learned in the time she didn't go to school. The only paying jobs she ever held were teaching and playing the piano and organ and sewing clothes for other people. 

I wonder if my grandson, like her, is developing the skills that will help take him through life during this time that he is being home schooled. 

Imagine That!

I walk away from blogger of ten minutes and the whole thing changes! I'm kind of up in the air on whether I like the new changes or not. Mostly right now, I'm thinking not. Really I think that right now when everyone in the world is dealing with their whole lives changing, making us adapt to changes on this platform is a bit sadistic. Can't we have any place that seems familiar and safe? Sheese!

Yes, it has actually been far longer than ten minutes. It's been about three weeks.  My head has not been in a good space. I produce quite enough words that I need to chew on that I was hesitant to spew them here. Truthfully, this is all new to all of us. A couple of months ago, I thought that it was fine to go to a birthday party because there weren't likely to be many children at it. Turns out, that party on the ninth of March was a really poor idea. But it seemed moderately safe and noble at the time. Likewise, closing everything down, it still seems like the right thing to do now. But there are people who are desperately hurting because of this. 

Recently I read a Facebook question posed by my friend, Warren. He is a chef and restaurateur who has spent months with his sole source of livelihood shut down by the virus. He asks:

"Okay Corono-folk. No BS here. I'm posting this cuz I want to hear what YOU'RE doing that is working, and how. Lemme explain: I really don't want to hear from anyone who's drawing a paycheck right now. You're advice might be legit. But right now? I'm thinking, 'Screw that". You know who you are. If you want to tell me how 'we're all in this together'? Post it somewhere else. I want to hear from folks who're actually trying to pay their rent or figuring out how to feed their families."

The question goes on, but Warren's frustration was just being vented and it isn't necessary to the discussion. 

Mindy answered, " I have been stuggling since February to pay my mortgage. No work and being let go in January was a huge hit to the family income. My husband is a painter and we live in the wettest state in the US. That means no work for months for him either. I have been getting unemployment since January but that is a measly $245 a week. My mom has been helping out with food for my kids and animals. I told hubby he needed to do instacart until painting starts back up. That has helped. Still can't pay mortgage and we are 3 months behind. The stimulus check that came went to one of the payments and the rest to our power bill. I have been applying for jobs, but we are still on lockdown and no one wants you to just show up. I have been denied for all the jobs I applied for. 2 were for the unemployment office doing intake reviews. So right now, we are just barely getting by."

Gloria answered, "We are losing over 2000 to 3000 a month with our business dried up"

Katie answered, " My husband and I saw our Airbnb's empty. We shut down our mortgage payments for a few months. We shut down a couple credit card payments. We rented our places out for a huge discount to short term renters.

There were many more answers, Warren has a lot of friends. I was struck by their frustration and their sadness more than anything. It is easy to say "Someone shouldn't have to die to protect your bottom line." until you are saying it to the person who is desperate and has no where to turn and no idea how long it will last. Shutting up and listening to them has given me if not a new perspective, at least a kinder one. There are no simple answers here. Many places in the US have reopened restaurants, including the one Warren lives in. But starting back up isn't as simple as unlocking the doors and putting out the menus and silverware. It gives a new perspective when I want to simply say that peoples lives are more important than a bank account. Yes, it's still true, but people need more compassion than that.                                               

 

 

 

 

Cheeseburger in Quarantine

The truth is that I'm a natural born hermit. Mother Earth sends us all to our rooms to think about the harm we have done, and I pretend to stomp off down the hall. But on the inside I'm a child skipping for joy. I get to spend an hour or so alone in my room with my books and my crafts. YIPPEE!!!

But I am only halfway a hermit. I have always been a friendly person. I put myself out there and meet people. I make friends every where I go. I have been friends with a lot of them for decades. I enjoy their company. But then I go home and I shut the door behind me. My shoulders relax. My anxiety melts away. I read my books. I poke at writing one. I knit and sew. I pinch sprigs off of live plants and turn them into another thriving plant. I pray. I remember. I introspect.

I prefer being alone a very large amount of time. It's difficult to accomplish when I live in 600 sq ft with 2 other people. We are blessed by being alike in this. All of us need our space a good amount of  time. We aren't perfect in balancing it, but we do pretty.

I was thinking today how lucky I am that my life basically hasn't changed that drastically yet. While it's true I can't go sit down in a nice tea room or restaurant, I have tea and food. I can ride my bike around. Karen and I can still drive into the passes and admire  the overwhelming beauty. I am blessed.

The reality is that the whole world has changed on a dime. People are struggling to the point of desperation. People are getting sick and dying. The whole world is out of work and on the verge of bankruptcy. The food supply chain is broken. How can famine not follow? And I don't believe that much is going to get better in this country for a very long time. My bubble looks nice right now. How long can it last.

Still, I was home inside my house today. The weather was nice enough to open the windows and let the fresh air in. I rode my bike around town. I found a pink dogwood tree in full bloom. It was lovely. On the corner of J Street and Main there is a house where the elderly sisters sell cuttings from their garden. I left a note on their table yesterday asking if they were willing to sell me a cutting from their geraniums. Today I rode by and there were 3 cuttings sitting out with a note asking that I pay $1 each for them. I only had a $5 so I left it. It's more like what the plants are worth anyway. The cuttings are healthy and I'm sure we will enjoy them. We have some violas that have self seeded from the baskets we had last year. I dug them up and put them into the baskets. The mint is coming back too. My brother doesn't like mint, but I have convinced him that it repels pests. It does, but cats are better. He wants to cut down the black berry and raspberry vines. I didn't argue. But we may need them if things get bad.

 I spoke with Mollie on Messenger for three whole hours. She was having a spell and needed someone to talk with. While we were talking Pippi Longstockings decided she liked the conversation and wanted to join in. Soon Max and Cheese joined us too. Mollie fell in love with Pippi. She wants to keep her. Good thing she lives in Chicago and can't come get her. Mollie found out that the bar she has been working at for the past 4 years will not reopen. She is upset because it was the reason she moved to Chicago in the first place. She wants to get out of that business anyway. I told her that she needs to start researching the community trade schools and colleges in the area. To get the country running again a lot of people are going to need to be re-educated to do different jobs. I will bet that there are going to be tuition assistance to bring about recovery. She needs to be in a position to move quickly when that happens. I think that she may have listened to me this time. But she doesn't believe me when I tell her that 28 is prime time. She is young enough to change her life and take it in a better direction. I hope she does anyway.

So now it's late. And it is in the wee hours of the next day. Maybe, just maybe something good will happen today. We can always hope.

Baked Potato

I make a mean baked potato. I really do. I make baked potatoes that are moist and delicious inside with crispy skins. Serve them with plenty of butter and a pinch of salt. It is a real feast.

When my mother died I had been over at her house for about a year taking care of her in the day while my sons were in school. I'd make dinner and leave it warming for when my brother came home from work. He took care of her in the evenings. I took care of her in the day. He got used to my cooking then, but for some reason he thought that I boiled those potatoes. So, my mom died and I didn't think that I needed to be over at the house every day. We were young, but he was 28 and I was 32. I thought for sure he knew how to cook a little. He didn't. About two days after all the family left he called me to ask how to boil a potato. "Mmmmm...you put it in a pot with water and put it on the stove. You turn on the eye and let the water boil until the potato is soft."  Then he asked me if that was how to boil a hotdog too. I lost a little faith in his intellect just then.

The truth that keeps missing me is that my brother loves potatoes. He especially loves them baked. Over the week we had gathered bits and pieces of left overs in the fridge, enough roast or sausage gravy for just one person, a couple of scoups of sour cream, assorted vegetables, but not enough of any to make a serving. I put the vegetables in the stone soup freezer bag. Then put potatoes on to bake. I cut a small head of broccoli and steamed it. Then I cut the roast up finely and added it to the sausage gravy. I heated that up in a frying pan by adding a quarter cup of water, and sour cream just for variety. And there we had dinner. And we used up left overs while keeping dinner fresh. My brother really doesn't like leftovers if he can identify them from another meal. There were too many kids in our family to have ever eaten them as children. So we are spoiled that way. But I am adverse to throwing even a few scraps out right now.

Here is the thing. I think the food distribution system is on the edge of collapse right now. We might be on the brink of a famine. Crops aren't being planted of harvested. And meat packers are showing themselves to be the hustlers they are. We can't afford to waste anything. I have a freezer full of meat and a pantry lined with canned vegetables. I have dried beans, rice and pasta. I'm pretty sure that I could feed us through the summer. But what happens in the winter?

I used to grow potatoes in plastic garbage bags. I thought that I could do it here, but Ken pointed out that it would draw pests to our house. We live by the railroad track. It will. He's going to bring me some of the 5 gallon buckets that people are so fond of using for almost everything. They throw them away where he works. I'm going to attempt to grow them in those. We can put a sturdy wire mesh over the pails. Someone told me that I'd need to get seed potatoes to do that. I've never bought a special potato to grow plants with. I just use whatever potato that is getting past it's prime and growing "eyes". Then I get really crazy and start thinking where I could put a chicken coup and rabbit cages. No, I'm not really planning to do that. My brother is a picky eater. I don't think he'd eat a family pet. And that is what he make them. He doesn't remember when the older ones of us were small. We almost always grew our own meat. I'm sure if I cooked a rabbit I'd be accused of slaughtering Thumper. It's just that the short term future isn't looking so bright to me. And that is if we manage to survive the Pandemic.

It's time for me to stop, to go to bed. After all, "Tomorrow is another day."

Whatever!

This is Grumpy Cat. He doesn't live here.

It's been a hard day here. I knew it was going to be one when I woke up. I was making my morning pit stop and my brother was outside the door in the hall talking at me. I could hear him talking, but without hearing aids, I had no clue to what he was saying. Then he started knocking on the door. There are two really easy ways to put me in a rage. The first is bother me while I'm on the toilet. The second is to talk to me when I first get up. I'm not a morning person. I never have been. I spent years after my children moved out of the house not having to talk to a soul for hours after I got up, and I prefer it that way.

The City decided to wait until everyone is working from home and dependent on their own bathrooms to do maintenance on the sewer system. As a result they blew debris into our end of the pipes and clogged them. We have been trying to get them out to "fix" it for a week. Apparently they came by before I woke up and told my brother we shouldn't run water for a few hours.

Ken is on vacation this week. He has a few months of vacation backlogged. He finally decided this would be a good time to use some of it. But with the stay at home order, after one day he is finding himself bored and antsy. Karen wants him to clean his room so she can paint it. I don't think he wants it painted.

The real problem is Karen. She was in a mood. Instead of asking for what she needed, she snapped at us. If I was doing something in the kitchen, she needed to get to something in what ever cabinet that I was standing in front of. When I was vacuuming she stopped me to ask when I'd be done with it. She was doing the same kind of mess with Ken. We both finally went to our own rooms and closed the door. The message got across to her. She apologized to both of us.

I think that we are all beginning to feel the unsettledness of all this. We are less effected than most, as we all retain our incomes. But it is more than income, though I'm sure that there are many who aren't getting far beyond that part of it. There is wondering when we can see the people we love. What will be left when all this is over? What part of the economy are perennial weeds that will continue to flourish and what will be lost to us forever? We say that our lives turned on a dime after 9/11, but not like this.

We watched "Resistance" tonight together. The movie is intense  We didn't talk while it was on. It's a fantastic movie. Maybe just not what we needed tonight.

Covid Isolation Day 2002, or who knows?

Really. it seems like forever. Even when my logical brain is telling me that it's only been about five weeks. I gave eight months of my life up to cancer treatments. This should be a piece of cake, right? Right? Anyone, right?

Yeah, well that's how it feels. The reality is something different. The only real correlation is the time of year that it's all happened. There is just something eerie about the timing of plagues coming just as spring arrives. I hope that this one won't last eight long months, that there will be a return to a more normal way of life as the summer months find us. Hopefulness is good, right?

An argument for social distancing

Back in the day, the days when I lived in Georgia and had three Walmarts on my way home from work, I used to stop at one or the other at least three days out of five. Usually it was picking up something that I wanted for dinner. But sometimes, shamefully, I was out of clean socks or underwear and didn't want to wash clothes until the weekend. Yes, Shameful. I know it. My sister doesn't like Walmart very much. Neither do I really. And there are alternative s here. What we called Kroger in Georgia is Fred Meyer on this side of the country and they actually do a good job at giving Walmart a run for their money. There were five Krogers on my way home. If any had been a Fred Meyer, I may never have stepped into a Walmart. It used to be a game with me to try to not go into Walmart for a whole week. I failed much more than I was successful. I realized to day that I haven't been into Walmart since the beginning of February. That has got to be some kind of record for my adult life. Sad as it is, if I'd been forced to social distance from Walmart back then, I might be a bit richer now. But that is a hindsight sort of thing isn't it?

I did break the stay at home order a bit today. Karen came in and asked me to take a ride with her to Enumclaw. It was supposed to be just a stay in the car, site seeing kind of trip. For the most part it was. The weather is just so nice. It's a pity that we can't go anywhere. So we drove there and the weather was beautiful, the mountain was wonderful and the air was fresh. We got to the town only to find out that the pie shop that my sister has been obsessed with for the past month is closed due to the virus. It's a good thing, really. I'm sure that if they were doing curbside pick up, we'd have ordered a pie from her phone and waited for it to be done. I tried to get her to tell me what kind of pie that she is wanting. I'm actually pretty good with pies. I think what she really wants is a pie from a fancy shop. Kind of like I just want to sit and have tea and a fancy pastry at a tea shop. Not happening right now.

On the way home I got her to stop at Safeway. I thought she might tell me what kind of pie she wanted if she knew she could have it. We call the one here in Auburn, Slow way. They have closed one of the entrance and exit doors. I'm not sure how that helps social distancing, but it's their door and their decision. The other door had taped off distancing marks and a sign at the door saying they were limiting the amount of people in the store. There was no line and no one at the door to enforce a limit. Karen and I walked right in. The store was packed. And sadly enough most people had no masks or gloves. Many of them were clueless about keeping distance. The items that we "needed" were no emergency. They were things that we could have done without. But while we were there...you know. I did stock up on quite a bit of meat to put in the freezer. I also got some french bread and mushrooms for tonight's dinner.

Going into the store was a mistake. It was frightening. Really frightening. I get that everyone is over this and just wants a trip to the grocery store to be normal. It's not something that we can accomplish right now. If you aren't concerned about getting someone sick, you should be concerned that they can get you sick. The line to check out was long at all the registers. The self check line was chaotic. It seemed like they didn't know how to form one. I never use them anyway. I just don't like them. There was only one line open with a cashier. Another opened while we waited, but both were 20 or so people deep. The person in front of me was a homeless woman who had a couple of sandwiches from the deli, a bottle of water and some chips. In front of her was a woman who had a packed out cart. I know she had looked back and seen the homeless woman. If it would have been me, I would have let her in front of me in a hot minute. But not this woman. She stayed in line while her partner went back and forth across the store to pick up even more items to add to the cart. After we checked out we went outside to find the packed cart woman and her partner standing, waiting on their ride. Karen and I walked down past the closed door to see a taxi with the window open. The driver was saying loudly "I'm here, but I don't see you anywhere." Neither Karen, nor I stopped to help. If the couple had been a little more charitable to the homeless woman, I think I may have. But Karma is a known bitch.

There isn't much point to the blog today. Sorry for the ramble. Hope you are fairing well.

Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel

It's been sixteen years since the pink tee shirt was handed to me. Every year it's been a time for me to stop and gasp. I survived another year. To be honest, I didn't really expect to survive the first year. My oncologist put it this way.

"We hoped you would survive. We did everything we could to help you. But we didn't expect it. You are that miracle  that we hope for and never get."

Now, in light of everything that is happening, it seems like...I don't know. It just doesn't seem so shocking. Maybe it's the passage of time. Sixteen years is a long time. If I had planted a tree, it would be a mature tree by now. If it was a child, it would be learning to drive. Maybe not. Can you teach a child to drive during a quarantine?

I'd hoped there would be a cure by now. I've heard there is, but it's for those whose cancer is fed by hormones. Mine wasn't. I was ER/PR-, HER2/neu+++. If you know breast cancer it means something. If you don't it's better to not need to know. The president said the cure can't be worse than the disease. I wanted to take him on a tour of a cancer infusion center. The cure is pretty damned hard. And it's not a cure. It's a treatment. Nice fucking rock he has to live under. I'd like my language to be better, but it is what it is.

Sixteen years and I've survived.

A Different Easter

Last year I celebrated Easter with my home church thinking that I'd never be able to do it again. I was a few short weeks from moving all the way across the country. If you would have told me then that a virus would have the whole world confined to their homes this year, I would have told you that it wasn't possible. Churches don't close on Easter. But as a result, my home church like every other responsible church put their service online and I was able to worship with them again.

At Christmas one of the stores was having a buy one, get one sale. They had overstocked on hams  and were trying to get rid of them. We bought one for our Christmas dinner and put the other in the freezer. It was a fortunate purchase. We are well stocked on the basics and my brother works for a food distributor. He was able to get us fresh asparagus and four dozen eggs. We had deviled eggs, ham, asparagus, home made rolls and twice baked potatoes for dinner. But it is more food than we could ever eat ourselves. We knew it would be and had made arrangements for Nora to come pick up half of it to take home for their dinner. It wasn't the same as having everyone together, but not a bad alternative.

At sometime during the morning Carley called to tell us the Three Little Kittens wanted to come show us their Easter dresses and sing the song they had been working on for us. We hadn't seen each other since the beginning of March. I had purchased three chocolate bunnies and a small amount of candy to have as a treat for ourselves, and Karen had some plastic eggs left from other years. We filled the eggs with the candy and hid them outside the garden gate. We also gave them the bunnies. It is sad that we couldn't get close to them, or to Nora. But we did get to see everyone. Next year we will have a proper Easter afternoon.

After everyone left, I went to my room and Face Timed with my oldest son, Tim. I instant messaged with Mollie and tried to reach Matt, but wasn't able to get him on the phone. He told me his National Guard unit might be deployed to help with the virus, so he might be busy. I hope he's okay.

While I was talking to everyone, Cheese decided to join me in my room and napped on my bed. I don't know how he does it. If some cats have 9 lives, this cat must have 90. He gets so sick that we think he isn't going to make it. The other cats go on death watch with him, lying with him, grooming him, and even bringing things to him. Then the next day he's rebounded and is hobbling around in his usual manner. The only cat who doesn't pamper him is Pippi. I have to scold her for being mean to him. She will attempt to attack him when he is down. But she is our most feral cat and we tease that she has Virgo risings. This afternoon, she sat at my feet brooding because he was in the spot that she prefers. As soon as he got up she jumped into it and stayed there until it was feeding time in the evening.

I almost didn't take a bike ride. But the weather has been so good and I guilted myself to do it. But I really didn't have a lot of energy to put into it. Still, the view of the mountain was so breath taking, I'm not unhappy that I did.

If you celebrate it, I hope your Easter was wonderful despite physical distancing. And I hope that you have a wonderful week.

The Doughnut Robber

Jack has several videos that he has been working on. I can't wait to see how they progress. Though I will admit that I would rather see him be able to return to school and playing with his friends than having to fill his time with hobbies.

My hobbies have me filling my time with knitting and riding my bike. Right now I am knitting another pair of socks from yarn that I have had in my stash for many years. It is called Josh's Cat and is a typical sock yarn. That is a fingerling weight yarn comprised of wool and nylon. I have attempted to knit several things out of this yarn, but have never really been successful with any of them. I love the colors, but the variegation knits up strangely. I think the yarn was meant to be knitted into socks. But even as socks it makes an odd pattern that I'm not sure that I am in love with. They will be thick winter socks, and I already have plenty of those. I may just add them to the collection of things that I will sell in a flea market when flea markets are allowed to exist again. If they are allowed to exist again. I could just open an Etsy store, but that seems like a job. Flea and Farmer's markets seem like an adventure.

Do you wonder what our society and economy will look like when we all come out of this? I have been giving a lot of thought to it. In the fall, a lot of towns around her seemed to be waging war on the homeless and those who were living in alternative housing. Now the same people who championed those strict laws have found themselves suddenly unemployed and facing the prospect of being homeless themselves. I wonder if they will be so unsympathetic to the plight of low income people when this is over. I hope they will in the least be more compassionate and understanding. Not all homelessness begins with addiction or mental illness, though just the fact of homelessness tends to promote it. The same goes with access to medical attention and a whole host of other social needs that tend to be ideologically politicized at the moment. If nothing else, this crisis has shown a spotlight on how broken the medical establishment is in this country. The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 nearly bankrupted the insurance industry. Too bad it didn't. Maybe this pandemic will be able to in the least, reign it in.

The Boogie Monster

This is what happen when a kid gets bored and parents get tired of educating/entertaining him. It's only 20 seconds long, but it's pretty good for an 11 year old. I told his father to stop limiting screen time. The kid is working on a career.

I've been entertaining myself with the fresh air and beautiful sunny days we've been having. It's been perfect weather to get out on my bike and ride around. It is amazing how fresh the air is with so few cars on the roads. And the temperature has been in the mid 60's and seems like it's going to stay that way through the weekend. The nice thing is that for the first time since I've been here, a lot of our neighbors are out in their yards. Many of them are doing yard work, but some are out playing with their children. Though, I can't imagine how hard it is to keep the children from wanting to go play with their friends. They can all see each other, but they aren't allowed to be close enough for the games we played as children. When my kids were young, I don't think that I could have moved Heaven or Hell enough to keep them away from their friends. I really don't envy the jobs of these parents right now. But from what I've seen around here, these are some awesome Moms and Dads.

The mountain was out in all of it's glory today. So I rode over to the park where I could get a better picture of it. The playground has caution tape around it. It was eerie to see it on a warm spring day empty. A month ago there was never any fewer than 100 kids there. There were a few people out walking, biking and skating. But we were all staying very far away from each other and no one was interacting with another group. I stopped here and there on the trails to snap a picture or two. But mostly, I rode my bike for the exercise. There were a few people who were on computers. The library is at the same location as the park. I wondered if the WiFi was still working. But then, I can't imagine why they would do that.

I rode around the neighborhoods around the park on my way home. Part of it is a great neighborhood that reminds me of the one that my grandparents lived in. But then the next street over is a derelict neighborhood. It made me wonder it just one person went out and tended the garden or at least picked up the trash if the rest of the neighbors would do the same. The houses aren't much different from one another, so I don't really know how to explain it. I loved the garden at this house. We had made plans to go to the Tulip Festival, but like everything else this spring, it is cancelled. It didn't stop the tulips from blooming and this gave me a happy peek at what we are all missing.

I'm home now. I had a chicken sandwich and some potato chips for lunch and working on another pair of socks. I have decided to call the sock pattern that I have been coming up with my Corona Sanity Socks. Knitting them keeps me sane. Though Maxx, the puppy cat has decided the circular needles  that I'm using are a good cat treat. He's been trying to eat them every time I pick them up.

What is keeping you entertained and sane through this very hard time?