Busy and Grateful

I have to say one thing for the pandemic. Between my caution that severely limits the buildings and stores I will enter and the scalper’s prices a lot of craft items go for online, not to mention shipping charges and the potential for delay, I find myself giving very serious consideration for the supplies I already have. I’ve been making Super Mittens for my girls the past few days and I had to go to my yarn stash to do so. Limited amounts of various colors in the worsted weight category made me decide to use 2 colors per mitten/pair creating the body of each mitten in one color and the cuff in another. The lack of access to all my usual choices forces me to be creative and it is a great stash buster assisting me in using up stray balls of yarn and other supplies that have been hanging around. I’m also getting to projects I’ve been procrastinating on. I finally made the napkins for Harry Potter Xmas.

I also find myself appreciating what we already have more than I used to. I misplaced a pair of mittens in the grocery store on a rare in-person run for a few items, and I felt just awful about it. They are not the best pair of mittens or anything, I made them from a felted wool sweater and lined them with fleece cut from old PJ pants all acquired through thrift shops (over a year ago at least). They hit the magic sweet spot of being cheap, homemade, and recycled all at once. And they’re cute. I left a note with customer service and they called after a few hours. The mittens are safe at home again and I promise you, I will be much more careful with them in the future. Our dog also did some damage to the quilt I had on the bed and I thought the only replacement I had was languishing in the laundry room but I found a third bedspread I had completely forgotten about in the hall closet! And again it is cute. Why do I have so many bedspreads? Oh yeah, in the before time I used to thrift a lot and having pets means needing back ups of such things.

We are so, so lucky. We have so far gotten through this pandemic pretty ok. I mean, there’s definitely increased anxiety and stress, we feel uncertain about the future, worried about getting Covid 19, nervous about what may happen to our jobs, and the kids… All adults now, one in his senior year of HS, not able/willing to work because of scarce jobs & jobs they could get would be risky Covid-wise. Their lives are on hold. The girls are waiting for it to be safe to go job hunting again, for it to be safe to work again. We are a million times lucky that we’ve hung onto our house where there’s room for everyone and that we are still paying our bills, getting food on the table. So far we are still employed as long as that holds true we should be ok. My middlest child hasn’t had any min-painting commissions in a long while, not surprising, but she found a little place for herself online where she can use her creativity to make at least a small amount of money. I’m very proud of her for that and I hope that it boosts her self-esteem.

The bare fact that I can find any positives this year is amazing and speaks to how very fortunate we’ve been. I know people who are doing better than we are and some who are doing worse. It’s a mess out there and we are all hoping big for a much, much, much better year in 2021. I have never wished away a year so hard as this one. But, I have much to do before the new year and only scant few days to do it in. Be well. Stay safe.

I’m trying

It’s December 7th and it just doesn’t feel like it. I’m trying to get into a jolly holiday mood but it’s tough this year. There are over 280,000 people dead of Covid 19 in the U.S. so far and that is a whole lot of grieving families. There are 20,000 people with cases severe enough to be in the ICU right now and many more infected. In many places around the country our healthcare system is close to collapse and we still haven’t even gotten to the post Thanksgiving spike. Cases are on a massive upswing while at the same time my library is continuing to open back up. This scares the hell out of me. I love my job, and I need my job, but if I bring Covid 19 home to my husband it is likely to kill him. Every time I see my mother, from 10 feet away, outdoors, masked, and brief, she cries and says she can’t take it anymore. She 74 with a heart condition and this whole thing has worn her down. So fa la la la la and stuff.

Still, I’ve been trying. We went and picked out a tree and set it in the stand… like a week ago… and it still has no lights. I set up our advent calendar and we keep forgetting to open the drawers and read the little slips. I got the kids involved in a bit of holiday baking, that went pretty well, everyone loves cookies. I played Christmas CDs and tried to keep things light and happy for a while. This was the most successful I have been at getting into the holiday mood lately. I’ll keep at it.

Cookie making festivities… (to be continued soon, I like to bake.)

There are many cookies still to bake, there are some presents to be wrapped, we are all here together and as safe as we can be in these mad times. So well, bake, we’ll game, we’ll wrap up the presents, we’ll keep the wood stove going and we’ll get around to decorating the tree real soon. I can’t believe all the protections put in place to help people weather the pandemic will probably be allowed to expire soon. I just cannot fathom the heartlessness that would see a massive wave of evictions during this time of crisis and in winter. I can only hope the incoming administration will leap to the rescue of the American people and do everything they can to get help and relief to folks, and PPE and other critical support to our frontline healthcare workers. Too many people already struggle to get enough to eat, too many have already been evicted, too many are stuck in a whirlpool of tragic events, grief and despair. It’s all too much and I’m not personally facing these issues, yet.

Watching the cars outside my window…

So we’re ill again, somehow, despite a million precautions. Husband gets a Covid test later today and then we wait to hear back. UGH. The worry is hard to keep at bay but I’m doing my best. We’re okay, our symptoms are pretty mild and if Covid wasn’t a thing we wouldn’t be concerned about them at all.

We have so much on our plates it’s insane. I don’t know how we’re doing it sometimes. But we are so that’s good. I am tired and achey and I’m going to rest. Be well, Everyone. Be safe.

Remember, Remember…

So, to catch me up to today: democracy still hangs in the balance, we topped 100,000 infections yesterday, wow, and my hometown voted over 90% for the side of sanity, human rights, and compassion. A mixed bag. I don’t know how many died of Covid19 yesterday but it’s usually around 1,000. One thousand, it’s just a number, so abstract to hear it like that: 1,000 died yesterday. That is 1,000 people, 1,000 human lives cut short in a horrific way. 1,000 people dying pretty much alone, isolated, every single day from just this one disease. I say all that to remind myself of the 10s of thousands of broken hearts happening because of those deaths. I need to be patient, be safe, keep everyone safe by continuing to wear a mask, keeping a nice 6 ft distance from others, staying the course.

Still no word on whether democracy will be renewed for any further seasons. I’m trying not to think about it. I’m trying not to think about the awful people out there threatening the poll workers with guns to try to get them to stop counting votes because they don’t care about democracy or freedom only the continuation of their orange faced baboon in chief’s reign of idiocy and destruction. So, good job me, there I go thinking about it!

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Think about art, think about gardening, think about books and reading. It’s all good. It’s all good. Everything will be ok, sanity will prevail, it will. When it does there will be a fuckton of work to do to get things back to anything approaching normal or good, again. And there will be even more work to do to bring about universal healthcare, racial justice, and human rights for all. Things are bad, and the flames have been fanned by a madman for nearly 4 years now, so it’s going to suck, and be a huge amount of work to fix it, but we can fix it. Ok, here’s me not thinking about it again.

I’ll be stress-eating if anyone needs me.

Hello Darkness

No matter how I try I just can’t seem to drum up much enthusiasm for Halloween this year. I don’t have the mental energy to come up with the wonderful ideas to salvage this one. Or so it seems today, with only 3 days left to pull a rabbit out of my hat. Normally I would be busily working on costumes, making zombie sugar cookies, decorating with our Halloween stuff, and ordering some scary movies from the library or planning a one-shot horror run for the family. I’m tired. I’m drained right now. I know my sweet husband feels the same.

We started this year with the horrifying wildfires in Australia and California. Gods, those seemed like the worst thing, didn’t they? I have loved ones in Australia and CA and I was so worried about them and about all the animals and other people caught in such shockingly bad situations. Obviously the year had to get better from there but it so Did Not. The fires in Australia were brought under control eventually, and even CA had something of a respite but the world situation just got worse. CA is on fire again, has been for what feels like ages and that is almost the least of my worries, not really, it’s still a big worry. Most of my worry time is used for the newest rise in Covid-19 cases and the political unrest in the US. Watching a sitting president fan the flames of hate and violence is not something I ever thought I’d see. My son came of age watching it, and hearing how the climate is collapsing, and now a global pandemic… and people wonder at the nihilistic sense of humor Gen-Z has. My son literally turned 18 in quarantine. So did a lot of kids.

This year horror is all too real and it’s everywhere. I feel like I can’t turn on my computer without finding out yet another unarmed POC has been blatantly murdered by police. The protests over police violence continue but get less and less coverage even as the police use tear gas on peaceful, unarmed pregnant women, small children, and everyone else who dares ask that POC be treated as human beings. I can’t open my computer without seeing yet another highest cases per day report as thousands die and other thousands flock to the President’s super spreader events and refuse to wear masks and scream their approval of the continued denial of science. And there is so much more. So much hate and violence, so much despotism and inhumanity. Even my dreams are filled with stress.

So, I don’t even know why I want to salvage Halloween. Horror is the new normal. 2020 is such a shitshow. And yet, whatever distractions we can manage should be managed. My son, a freshly minted adult, needs me to find the good, to focus on the brightest hopes I can, to provide whatever structure I can in this, the upside-down I never thought we’d live in. Things are crazy enough for him without mom abandoning the rhythms of the seasons and all the celebrations that mark the passage of time. So I keep fighting to stay as positive as I can. I cook our meals, plan and run RPGs, provide the little luxuries of favorite foods when I can, and talk about the future as if everything will be alright because he, and my girls, need to believe the future is worth showing up for.

So I guess I have a Halloween feast to plan, some zombie cookies to bake, and I’ll need some pumpkins to carve into Jack O’Lanterns too. The bridge to the future will lit by candles and guarded by leering pumpkins.

Halloween in a Pandemic

So, I’m sorry for going all “Winter holidays” there before enjoying the Fall. Halloween is probably my favorite holiday of all and I shouldn’t short change it like that. How rude! So I’m here to talk about candy, costumes and what’s going on instead of trick-or-treating and in-person parties this year. First, I love this idea for little kids or pretty much anyone:

How fabulous is this? Obviously, I think those with sensitive little ones should play fast & loose with the word “scary.”

Decorate for Halloween, make Halloween themed snacks, and have everyone in your household dress up in costumes. Then mix & match from these ideas:

Take out some Halloween themed books or collections of ghost stories from your local library and have a read-aloud by candlelight or flashlight.
Make a Facebook group and ask friends and family to dress in costume and post pics or do a Zoom gathering to show off costumes and socialize.
Hokey monster movie marathon. (Godzilla and that era or any of the wondrously bad/hilarious sci-fi channel monster movies.
Create and decorate a Halloween Tree. My middle daughter started this when she was 3. We were getting ready for a little Halloween party and she asked; “What about the Halloween Tree?” I was like; “whaaat?” and asked her if she meant the tree with the lights and decorations because that was definitely the Christmas Tree… yep that’s what she meant alright but it was a Halloween Tree and she obviously thought I was suffering from extreme early-onset dementia or something because i was clearly misremembering. SO, I made a Halloween Tree. All you need is some smallish dead branches and something of sufficient weight to hold them up. I used a vase full of stones. Just arrange the branches to look like a dead tree, add some lights and spooky decorations and you’re done. Our first tree had a small string of white lights but you can now buy orange or purple Halloween lights. For decorations We make ghost out of Kleenex and string with faces sharpied on them, and some pumpkins and cats cut out of colored paper. Ours is usually sized to make a great centerpiece.
Bake some Halloween themed sugar cookies, the kind you cut with cookie cutters, and let the kids decorate and eat them. You could make this part of a Facebook group w/without costumes. Have friends and family share their kooky cookies.
Find out what, if anything in these crazy times, your local library is offering for Halloween. I am having a Make-Your-Own Monster event with a randomly drawn prize, and offering take-home crafts of Fall lantern kits, shadow puppet kits, and friendship bracelets. My counterpart in children’s services is offering several take-home kits for the little ones. Some libraries might be having costume contests by having patrons submit photos.
Some radio stations are definitely having costume contests w/submitted photos. One in my area is offering a prize of $100 or $200 on a debit card. (I can’t remember the amount)
Make a round layer cake and decorate it to look like a Jack-o-lantern.
If you and your kids or housemates play tabletop RPGs (Role Playing Games) run a special one-shot Halloween game. The possibilities here are nearly endless and can range from a child-friendly, goofy Scooby Doo vibe all the way to a Creepy, gritty, gorey Walking Dead/horror movie vibe. Call of Cthulhu is my go-to. One shots are perfect for it as player characters generally go insane when exposed to the Mythos anyway.
Create a LARP, if you’re feeling ambitious, and have enough people in your household. LARP stands for Live Action Role Play and it can be a lot of fun. This one takes more prep than any of these other ideas because you need to have a plot, props, maybe an accomplice, etc. The simplest way to do this is to get your hands on a boxed Murder Mystery game that contains all the characters, clues, etc. A few years back I created my own LARP for my youngest when that’s what he wanted to do for Halloween. I had 3 days and no money to spend so it was unpolished to say the least. But it was fun. It involved splitting our group in 2, a scavenger hunt for one group so they could find a book about Halloween that contained clues as to what they had to do, and the other group had to come up with 2 word clues to try and help the first group when they got stuck. The second group had accidentally been pulled into the afterlife and were stuck in a waiting room with a booklet of their own outlining their situation. They also got snacks and hot cocoa. The first group had to find the clues, figure them out, and conduct a ritual to get group 2 back through the veil between worlds. I wrote the booklets and decorated them with woodcuts of skeletons and such from online and set up the afterlife waiting room in our shed.

I have a bit of a headache so that’s all I’ve got for right now. Please feel free to add your awesome ideas in the comments. Or your really dumb ideas, those can be a ton of fun! ^_^

Just a couple of pics I dug up: goofy jack-o-lantern idea and one of our Halloween Tree centerpieces.

Allergies or Plague?

I’ve been fighting a headache for a few days and woke up this morning with a runny nose, sneezing jags, a scratchy throat and my current usual amount of coughing. Ugh. I reported my symptoms like a good citizen and my Director said not to come in tomorrow. Ah well, better safe than sorry. It might be allergies or it might be a cold or flu or covid-19, who knows? Such a lovely time to be alive, isn’t it?

At least I got to run my game last night. That went well! At one point the halfling sorceress grabbed a chalice that was clearly meant to be left alone, waking the clay golem and causing a panicked and disorganized retreat through the dungeon. Not everyone had a light source and we were using the lighting on Roll20 so the poor half-orc barbarian, who had the lowest initiative, got left alone in a room with a homicidal golem in pitch darkness. Since all players have their own screens they can each have a unique, separate view of things so after the first PC ran out of the room the second one would have no idea which way they went, which hallway they took or if they had ducked into a room to hide or something. At one point the cleric took a wrong turn and strayed into a room they hadn’t been to yet and woke up another golem-like creature, this time made of stone. The whole thing was hilarious and the halfling kept wailing; “I’m Sorry!!!!!!” as she ran through the dungeon. A good night’s gaming!

for when you’re overwhelmed

I’m overwhelmed and tired. How about you? I see a lot of my friends and acquaintances posting about their struggles. Struggles to get things done, to feel any sense of accomplishment, feelings of restlessness, trouble sleeping, etc. The extroverts are going nuts in isolation and even the introverts are starting to get sick of it. I recommend library curbside pick up to folks who tell me they’re bored and I hear odd things like: “I’ve already read some books, I’m tired of books.” … I’m sorry, I know all of those words but they don’t make any sense in that order. I do understand, even I can’t read all the time. People who are more active and sporty than me want to get out to DO THINGS. They want to play tennis, or rollerblade or something.

Let’s just agree that we all thought, or at least hoped, this shit would be over by now. It isn’t and it isn’t going to be any time soon. As schools and colleges are opening cases are spreading. Weddings and funerals are helping too, hordes of maskless partiers, beach-goers, and folks visiting bars and restaurants are helping too. Not to mention indoor, maskless political rallies. Oh, and we can’t forget all the folks who refuse to wear masks in public. I don’t know exactly what our next moves as a country should be but a nationwide mandate for masks and social distancing is probably step 1. Enforced with serious fines and possibly jail time for repeat offenders. It would have to be in conjunction with masks being freely distributed to all of course.

Over here on the homestead, we are prepared to stay hunkered down as best we can until it is actually safe again. My husband and I are both working, me in a closed library providing curbside pick-up and take-home crafts etc, my husband mostly remotely. He does go to his office a few times a week, after hours when no one is likely to be around, so he can do all the things he can’t do from home. It’s gone pretty well so far. He has been coughing kind of a lot the past few day, me too, I think it’s just allergies probably but it’s hard not to worry. In any case, we are not going out to eat, we are not attending weddings, funerals, or gatherings of any kind. Our social life continues to be exclusively online gaming and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. It’s not what we want but this is where we are. Anyway, I was talking about being overwhelmed…

Virtually everyone I know is having some problems with the enormity of everything, with overwhelm, with depression and/or anxiety. One of my friends posted something about how making massive to-do lists and not getting much or anything done is such a disheartening experience. We make the lists because we have a lot to do and we don’t want to forget to do any of it. Crossing things off gives us a little boost, it makes us feel like we’re making progress. I have a thing I do when I am having a bad time, when I am overwhelmed and super tired, out-of-spoons. I make a Done List. I write down things after I do them and cross them out. If I build up a little momentum I might write a single task down just before I begin it and cross it off when I’m done. It probably sounds silly, but it’s a way I get myself started.

Even like today, I have a headache, woke up with the damn thing, so today is a good day to do this. I do have things I really need to get done today and all I want to do is lie here with an ice pack or a heating pad on my head, maybe both, so to get myself going I will write down some little things I have already done, even if they are things I wouldn’t normally put on any to-do list.

~~feed cats~~
~~make tea~~
~~wash dishes~~
~~make breakfast~~
trash & recycling

That last one there I haven’t done yet but for me putting there at the end of a list of “accomplishments” gives me maybe 1/4 Cup of encouragement to get up and get it done. I look at all the struck through items and it makes that last one look smaller, easier, more doable. Anyway, feel free to use this little trick if you think it might help you. Another little psychological trick I use on myself is paying my bills from most expensive to least expensive. I write the big check for our mortgage first, followed usually by our stupid-high electric bill, on down through whatever bills we have for the month till I write the last one, the smallest bill. It feels slightly better that way. A bit like coasting down a hill instead of laboring up it. It helps that we can pay all our bills. That hasn’t always been the case. When we were really struggling I was agonizing over which bills to pay and which would have to wait, juggling to keep those we owed happy enough so they wouldn’t shut off the lights or whatever. I’m grateful not to be there at this time but I know we could be there again with a little bad luck. Those are my 2 tricks for now. My head is getting worse so I am going to try to get the trash run done. I’ll tell you more tricks when my head feels better and I can think straight.

3 Ring Circus

Though it often feels to me as if we lead boring lives in which very little happens the reality is a little different. Here is our year so far:

January: Happy New Year! First few days I see at least a dozen memes on FB about how right around every year “20” there is a terrible plague. heh, cute. Coincidentally, we start hearing that there’s something going on with a virus in China. Within a short time we’re still hearing everything is under control with the virus, but we’re seeing images of people in hazmat suits disinfecting the streets and the first city or province gets shut down. I begin stocking the house up a little more than usual; extra pasta, meat for the freezer, beans, rice, etc. (I always keep a good supply of food etc on hand in case of emergencies. I just increase our stores a little, fill in gaps.) Our tenant lets us know she is moving out and can’t pay February’s rent, we remind her she already paid when she moved in so, no worries. She tells us she is pregnant and moving in with her boyfriend.

February: I continue buying extra and stocking up, the news out of China isn’t good, the virus has spread to other countries, it is inevitable it will come here. I begin to get nervous about our son’s upcoming wisdom tooth extraction. It’s supposed to happen in March, he’s in pain, he needs it, but we’re starting to get a little nervous about going out in public, we’re wondering if we actually are going to have to isolate ourselves at home to stay safe. As the numbers everywhere start racking up, we wonder When do we pull the trigger? how do we decide it’s time to stay home? I get sick, it seems to be the flu, Tamiflu puts me right. We wonder how we will deal with the loss of rental income as we have no intention of looking for a new tenant as this virus continues to spread.

March: The boy has his wisdom teeth out, all goes well, yay. My husband gets ill, really ill, the doctor won’t see him. They prescribe over the phone, he takes breathing treatments 3 times a day, he takes pills. I worry. The doctors say they are assuming he is Covid-19 positive. My boss tells me not to come in. Our daughter works at a pharmacy and they aren’t taking precautions, she quits. Schools close. We are all home now. We don’t go out. We clean, we cook, we play video games and catch up on our reading. I worry about my husband, he’s exhausted. I begin working from home as best I can. My husband’s work won’t wait, they text and call, he begins working remotely through coughing fits. It’s unreal. He’s starting to feel better! His work hours keep expanding. We’re lucky, we both still have jobs, many don’t.

April: We mail our tax stuff in. We keep working. There’s hardly any traffic going by. I cook, a LOT, I start baking again. My husband is doing better, still coughing, but better. We start gaming more, lots of RPGs are started or picked back up where we’d left off. Isolation isn’t so bad. We meet online with friends to play Cards Against Humanity. We get groceries delivered! Huzzah! We’re using the empty apartment as a work space/art space/extra video game space. I turn the shed into an art studio/space to get away from the kids with my hubby.

May: Everything is still weird. We’re working from home, gaming online, getting groceries delivered, etc. This is the month we start to hear that people at only a small remove from us have gotten Covid-19, friends of friends… it’s scary. My husband’s aunt gets it, some of our friends get it. We stay home. We try not be paranoid about it, but we are not going to get this damn thing. The list of symptoms keeps growing, the ages and health condition of people getting this and suffering horribly from it keeps expanding.

June: We celebrate our son’s 18th birthday at home with cake and few presents we’ve gotten him online. It’s low key. We play an RPG, eat pizza and drink root beer. We finally begin to feel the sting of not seeing our friends and family in person. We keep working remotely. Our lives have something of a rhythm now, the kids are learning remotely. Our daughter gets her associate’s degree, our son passes all his 11th grade classes. My boss starts talking about the library reopening. Eventually I hear we will be back in the building in July. I am not happy about this, I don’t feel ready, I worry we will reopen to the public too fast.

July: I go back to work. It’s surreal working in an empty library. We do curbside pick up and delivery now. I devise and assemble take home crafts. Our budget is slashed way down but we all still have our jobs. I buy a few books for the collection. We struggle to keep up with cleaning all the books and other materials after their 3 day quarantine in the Community Room. Everything is confusing and different. Everyone is overwhelmed. We start feeling pressure from some people to loosen up our restrictions, to visit, to have lunch outside and “socially distanced.” My husband gets pressure from his job: What would make him feel safe so he can return to campus? Nothing, he tells them, honestly nothing. It’s an international boarding school and we’ve been hearing how many more enquiries they are getting from Texas, California, and Florida… You don’t say? How shocking that the uber-wealthy living in states where the virus is completely out of control want to send their kids to the relative safety of our neck of the woods! We promise we are 100% shocked by this. My uncle is diagnosed with cancer…

August: My husband continues to work from home, he digs in his heels, he is high risk. We get a note from his Dr. stating he is high risk for this virus and must be allowed to work remotely. The school continues to pressure him, suggests more isolated offices but when he starts to say that one in particular might actually work they say; ‘oh, you can’t have that one. A person that won’t even be teaching needs to use that room to write their book… ” because the huge free house they have all to themselves … doesn’t have room? As happens from time to time, my husband is contacted by a headhunter. Would he like to work in the field he just got a degree for? My husband starts seriously contemplating leaving this job. My uncle is rushed to the hospital and dies 2 days later on his daughter’s birthday. My husband is interviewed for a very cool job. He gets a second interview. We contemplate what life would be like if he actually liked/loved his job. We get the apartment ready so a friend can move in. We talk about having less money with the new job. We talk about how much notice he ought to give if he is offered this new job. I see a glimpse of a less stressed-out version of my husband.

September: Today, the first of the month, my husband’s assistant quits. He does not want to go onto campus either. He will work the next 2 weeks if he can do so remotely. Unfortunately, he was supposed to be the boots on the ground so that doesn’t help at all. How does one hire someone during a pandemic? How does one train someone remotely? We’re not sure. We are about to find out. We hope very much to receive an offer from the company my husband has been interviewed by because what is going to happen to the school is going to be an absolute shit-show. OMG. FUBAR. Our friend/new tenant is moving in today! The apartment is clean and shiny, the weather is good, I can’t wait. I know we can’t hang out like we want to but she’ll be here and we can sit outside and talk maybe? ^_^ Our son starts his senior year next week. My library may open at the end of the month and I have mixed feelings about that. I’m still worried about the virus numbers spiking a few weeks after school resumes.

And that’s pretty much our year so far. (Banner credit: “circus” by fsse8info is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Isolation Interlude

How crazy is the world right now? It’s almost a sincere question because I am trying to keep my head down and not look at the news because I’m trying to preserve my sanity. Some stuff still gets through and a lot of it is depressing and enraging and horrifying in the extreme. I don’t hide from the news all the time, just when I need a break.

I’ve been reading a book called Mark of the Demon; by Diana Rowland and I’m really enjoying it. I ordered the next couple of paperbacks in the series because I had a Barnes & Noble gift card. I’m reading tons of other stuff, The Color of Law; by Richard Rothstein, The Witch must Die; by Sheldon Cashdan, plus many more and I’m still waiting for my copy of So You Want to Talk About Race; by Ijeoma Oluo. But Mark of the Demon is my escape read at the moment so it’s getting gobbled up in a hurry.

The other ways I’m distracting myself from reality are working on a project that may or may not be anything at all, work and the Summer reading preparation that is swallowing me whole, replacing instacart shopping because gods, does instacart SUCK. We had good luck with them for a few months but when they fail they fail BIG. Wasted my entire day dealing with it and I’m DONE. We did the curbside pick-up at Hannaford’s for the first time today, it went well so I’m hopeful. It was also way cheaper! We grabbed the farmshare on the way home so the fridge is full to bursting and I will be committing acts of vegetable preparation and loads of cooking in the next few days.

My roses have gone ballistic! I harvested at least 150 blossoms this morning. At this rate I will have enough for tea all year long. I just need another couple of harvests like that. Since we finally have rain, the mint should start going crazy too. Yay! I need a lot of mint to keep me in tea through the winter. I still possess exactly zero apple trees though and that is sad. I bet they take forever to get established and get going too. I’ll have to look into it. I am not good at growing plants for food. I do okay with house plants but I’ve been frustrated for decades at my inability to get even the hardiest herbs to grow. But I DO have mint now. It’s a ray of hope that I am determined to capitalize on. The golden raspberries look like they will do well this year, as do the wild blackberries. What can I say? Little dreams keep me going through the dark times.

Everything else is continuing on as normal. We’ve got 4 or 5 RPGs going at the moment so that keeps us busy. The kids are all staggering along doing their best to keep occupied and sane too. I look forward to a day when we can do regular stuff like run out and get yummy soft-serve ice cream, or stop by a store to pick up that one thing we forgot, or maybe get haircuts or something. It’s so weird right now and it seems even weirder with people rushing to get back to normal. I hope things will start truly improving soon but I don’t know. I keep dreaming of tornadoes.