SKY GLITTER

I knew it was going to be a cold walk this morning, but I was committed. I have a warm winter coat. I have a hat. I have mittens. I could do this. So, after Xtend Barre, I pulled on a special thermal shirt and my winter coat. I laced up my walking shoes and then I put Josephine’s walking harness on her. She gets so crazy excited about these walks every morning. She starts hopping up and down when she sees me putting my shoes on and the minute I buckle her harness, she takes off for the door. I always stop by Michael’s door and tell him we’re leaving because that’s his signal to get out of bed. This morning, as I walked to the front door, I could see the car parked on the curb in front of our house was covered in snow. I groaned and said to no one, but maybe Josephine “there’s snow on the ground!” but I still opened the door and stepped out into it.

Because Josephine was already in her walking harness. These walks and pooping in four very different places is her favorite thing. I couldn’t turn back now.

As we walked up the street, I could feel wet snow hitting my face. I thought about taking a shorter walk. We made it to the park and we were about halfway around the trail when we saw one of the women we usually see walking there in the mornings. We both smiled and said ‘good morning’ to each other as we passed. Josephine and I kept on walking. I looked up at one point and the snow in the trail lights looked like glitter falling from the sky. I realized I was smiling and then I was all “Wait…am I happy?!?” Everything from my knees down was cold. My toes were starting go numb. We had to stop twice to remove clumps of snow from the bottom of Josephine’s feet so she could walk (she’s going to need her own set of snow booties if we keep this up). Yet here I was almost giggling as we walked in the falling snow. I thought it had more to do with me accomplishing this walk despite my least favorite weather conditions, but every time I have looked out the window today, I have almost started laughing. It looks like a shook up snow globe out there. There is accumulating snow on the ground.

And I am not mad about it.

I mean, I’m not thrilled. Snow before Halloween is lulu crazy pants, particularly when you grew up in a place where you rarely had to wear a jacket or coat to go trick-or-treating. Except I hear that Oklahoma is getting ice and sleet today, which is unusual for this time of year. I don’t know why I am finding the snow to be so joyful today. Maybe I’m having a manic episode. Who knows? Last year, when we visited Heather in Denver for Thanksgiving, we walked almost everywhere we went. We walked the dogs to the park. We walked to the liquor store and the dispensary. We walked to restaurants and pilates class. There were multiple feets of snow on the ground. On our last evening, we were walking back from a lovely dinner. The snow started to come down really hard. We all just tucked our chins and kept on walking. At one point we stopped for a light to change so we could cross the street. I looked up at Michael and his beard was coated in snow. It was like he’d had a misfortunate interaction with some beignets. His beard was completely white. Of course I took a picture and then we laughed and laughed at it. I have been thinking about that moment off and on today. Michael has much less of a beard now because of his mask. He trimmed it short. That day last year though, I got a glimpse of what he might look like as Santa. I have retirement goals and one of those is the two of us working as Mr. and Mrs. Claus during the holidays. I am obsessed. Every time I see a plain clothes man with a Santa beard, I point at him say “Santa!”. Like I’m a four year old. It has nothing to do with Christmas and decorations, but everything to do with the joy of spotting Santa off duty.

It feels really weird and good to not be a frowning grumbling mess about what is happening outside my window right now.

PARTLY CLOUDY

Web dancer

I started a new journal on my iPad which I titled ‘The Happiness Journal’. I haven’t written much, just a few lines really. I asked myself questions on wants and what it is about this current life that is keeping me from at least feeling content. I made a short list of ways to remove or lift this cloud of negativity that seems to just hover and envelop this body. There are three actions written down.

1. Move away from the negative energy coming from others.

2. Salt baths.

3. Spend at least five minutes at the end of each day acknowledging the good moments of the day.

I’m already changing number one to ‘Dance away from the negative energy coming from others’. The idea of busting a crazy dance move or shuffle ball changing away from someone complaining or bitching about something is hilarious. It's making me laugh right now and I haven’t even had a chance to implement it. I’m scratching ‘salt baths’ from the list because I hate baths. Number three is a work in progress. I have not bothered to answer the questions I asked myself, partly because I don’t know. Partly because I am not ready for the answers or the consequences of those answers. I look at my paltry journal entry and think about all of the beautiful journaling I see people doing. Doodles and colors. Neat handwriting. My journals always end up being unreadable. If you can decipher my hieroglyphic penmanship, you will be privileged to reading a dry, straight forward accounting of the day. Even my personal journals end up reading like one of my scientific journals where I write the details of implementing an experiment.

My day, my life, ends up as another protocol.

That seems fitting.

I am trying to be less clinical and scientific with this particular journal. Today’s entry was a description of the view out my office window. I drew a an orange leaf in one corner and a green and brown acorn. This entry was more of building a set and less experimental design than my usual efforts. It is a work in progress. Maybe it will help me answer the questions I asked myself earlier. Maybe it won’t. Maybe my handwriting will improve to legible. There are a lot of possibilities. The best possibility is that it will end up being a nice distraction from the daily COVID case numbers (y’all know I still have access to that data, right?).

Wear a mask.

Wash your hands.

Be like that Police song Don’t Stand So. Except in the non-creepy teacher kind of way. Don’t be the creepy teacher.

CULINARY ADVENTURES

Michael's making dinner. I am apprehensive.

Saturday nights are our nights for kitchen adventures. We hunt down some new ingredient or challenging recipe and then we wreck the kitchen in our efforts to create a culinary master piece. Many of you have read here about the time we murdered live lobsters in our quest to recreate Boston lobster rolls. This is what we do for fun on a Saturday night. The idea for our most recent Saturday culinary adventure started brewing earlier in the week when Michael sent me an email he gets from one of our Asian food markets. Geoducks were on sale. I tentatively replied with “I don’t know.” He then sent me video of some guy preparing one and I quickly responded with a hard NO. He sent me a second video that I did not watch because the image on the screen was too much. I was at work and it was inappropriate.

What is a geoduck?

It’s pronounced ‘gooey duck’ and it is a clam that is too big for its shell. This native West coast clam by all accounts and descriptions is the sweetest, most delicious thing in the ocean. It also looks like a giant porn penis. The soft part of its body cannot retract back into the shell and just hangs out looking inappropriate. If the clam is boiled, the soft part hardens and you get the idea. Eat a dick is the phrase that comes to mind. So I was all ‘nope’ to Michael’s plans for geoduck. We had a long conversation about it and I finally agreed on one condition. I was to have no part in the preparation of Saturday’s meal. My contribution to this particular culinary adventure was to sit on the couch drinking gin. A total win for me and he was making French fries. I would at least have French fries.

Michael prepared the geoduck two ways. The first way he served it was raw, sliced thin and placed on sushi rice. This was okay. It has a weird but not off putting crunch to it and it was kind of chewy. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t my favorite. For the rest of the geoduck, he battered it in panko and fried them. The first time I had whole belly fried clams was when Talaura and I went to Maine. I ate one and thought “MY WHOLE LIFE IS SHAM!” because up until then, the only thing I knew of fried clams were the fried clam strips you get at Long John Silver’s. Those are fried rubber bands. A fried clam, a real fried clam, is similar to a fried oyster. It is rich and meaty and sweet. It is delicious. The geoduck, fried in a panko batter, was very very similar to those Maine fried clams. They were delicious and the French fries were stellar.

The geoduck is totally worth eating. The key is to have someone else make it for you. Just sit back, drink some gin and have no part in the preparation.

BLANK PAGE

I have nothing for this space this week. I have tried. Really, I have. I have deleted two almost completed entries. One on was on women in the pandemic and how our already hectic workload has doubled or even tripled. The other was about the American flag and a super racist meme someone I know personally shared in their timeline. Both topics just exhausted me because I am in a place where I think my words aren’t going to change anything. So I deleted them.

It’s Wednesday and this week is starting to feel like I’m being dragged behind a horse. I finally planned a time to visit my mother even though it will require me to quarantine for fourteen days when I get back. The stress of finding a weekend that would be most accommodating nearly turned me into a ball of goo. In the end I chose to accommodate myself (for once). Then I found fleas on Josephine. Josephine has fleas sounds like the title of children’s’ book about hygiene. She’s been wearing a Seresto collar since May, but I either bought the one for cats or one too small. The fleas are located in the lower half of her body and I have a plan to fix this that doesn’t involve setting the house on fire.

BUT…FLEAS!

I want to set the house on fire.

I am still managing to get my butt out of bed every morning at 5:30 to do an X-tend Barre class before taking Josephine on her walk. I am still managing to get twelve thousand steps in everyday. I am washing face, brushing my teeth and flossing every night before bed. Animals are being fed. People are being fed. I am doing all of the things I need to be doing to be some kind of functioning adult.

I’m okay.

MY EMBARRASSING CONFESSION

Wise

Back during my experiment in online dating, I was virtually approached by a disturbing number of inappropriately young men. Twenty three was the number all of them chose to represent their age, but I am 99% sure all of them were lying. I will admit that there was a part of me that was curious about being with a younger man, but a reasonable amount of younger. Not young enough to be my kid young. The idea of a twenty three year old boy seeing and touching this naked body, horrifies me. I need a man who’s lived a little, had some experiences, seen some things. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with this body. It is a perfectly fine neoclassical body, one that has not ever birthed a child. So, I got that going for my vagina. It’s just that boys that age when I was that age were really good at making fun of a girl’s body. I expect a certain amount of cruelty from boys between the ages of fifteen and twenty six. I also lack the energy or desire to be some boy’s sexual educator.

Then Harry Styles entered my life.

He first came to my attention when he hosted SNL last year. Before his appearance on SNL, all I knew of him came from snippets of gossip and tabloids, things that never really got my attention. Then he shows up on SNL and I couldn’t help myself. I was completely charmed. I was so charmed that I started listening to his music. His ‘Fine Line’ album has been playing on loop for days now. I’ve added his ‘Adore You’ song to my love song playlist. I’ve added him to my list of hair I want to run my fingers through. He comes across as goofy and silly, but has the capacity for seriousness. I believe he might be smarter then some might give him credit for. He also has a look about him that says that he does not need a sexual educator. That in fact, he could probably teach me a thing or two. I would totally let him touch this neoclassical body.

And this not only surprises me, but it embarrasses me.

I don’t know how this punk alternative radio girl turned into a pop radio cougar. In the last two years, I have added artists such as Kesha, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Lizzo and now Harry Styles to my daily musical listening. My reasoning is that the music makes me move my butt. I’ve never been the one to stand still on the sidelines of a concert. When Michael took me to see the New Pornographers, I was the only one in the middle of the crowd moving my body to the beat. I can’t help myself. Music moves me physically and emotionally.

I just wanna dance like a mutherfucker, yeah! - Kesha, Boogie Feet

In the case of the above musicians, the music is just light and fun (mostly). It allows me to be silly and ridiculous when life is so serious and heavy. There is no age you can reach where suddenly you cannot be silly and ridiculous. This is not a method for clinging to a younger version of yourself. It is a preservation of the current version of yourself.

So yeah, I’m gonna just let Harry walk through fire for me and adore me, because why wouldn’t you?!?

THINGS OF THE WEEKEND

Tinkerbell

I paid full price for a pair of pants at Anthropologie because Page, the woman in charge of my dressing room, knew what she was doing. She put those pants in my room, pairing them with two of the shirts I’d picked from the sales rack, while I was still browsing around the store and snuggling a brown velvet jacket. I did not buy that jacket, but I will be waiting and watching for it to hit the sales rack. Then I will have it! The sales clerks at Anthro always do this. They start you a dressing room and then add some items they think you’ll like. I always ignore those items, until this time because the pants fit very very well. It was actually the most enjoyable time in a store that I have experienced since January 29th 2020.

Last weekend, Michael took me to the Container Store to replace our worn out glass food containers. That was the actual bribe he used to keep me from using the medium round one for my lunches. When I pulled it from my lunch bag, there were bits of glass inside it. He gently pried my fingers from the bowl while saying “You can’t use this. We’ll go to the Container Store and replace them this weekend. You’ll like that won’t you? You love that place.” I let him take my favorite lunch container and toss it into recycling because he’s right. The Container Store is my happiest place on earth (Fuck Disney World). Except when we went, it was not a good shopping experience. We had to wait in line to get into the store. Michael walked over to get us juices from a juice place, but he didn’t make it back in time. I went in alone and didn’t browse, mostly because there wasn’t much left to browse. I grabbed the last two boxes of glass food containers from the shelf and stood in line for twenty minutes to check out. When I finally made it out of the store, Michael handed me my juice and asked me how it was. My eyes filled with tears as I told him it was terrible, but my beat/kale juice made me feel a little better.

I’ve never been good with crowds. Michael probably thinks I do the grocery shopping so early on Saturday mornings because I’m just up, but it is because I know that no one is in the store at that time. The longer in the day you wait, the worse it gets. Costco at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon will turn me into the crankiest anxiety super ball. I am amazed every time that we get out of that place without be taking someone out with my cart. On purpose. Now add people who wear their masks incorrectly and get right up in your personal space to a shopping experience. There have been moments when I have walked away from a store, leaving a full cart of stuff just sitting in an isle because I could not keep myself from randomly yelling at people. So when I walked into a mostly empty Anthropologie on Saturday morning with sales clerks wearing their masks properly and encouraging social distancing, I almost laid down in the middle of the store and made pretend snow angels in happiness.

AND I GAVE THEM ALL OF MY MONEY!

No regrets.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Do you know how long it has been since I have spent my morning like this?

Saturday morning, I sat at a cafe table outside with a mug of coffee and my Fortune Cookie journal. It is the first time I have cracked open that journal in months and months. It is the first time I have sat with myself, enjoying the solitude of one at a cafe table, in months and months. I will not say this is a return to normal. There is no normal, only habit. My habitual routines of before the pandemic got placed into a cocktail shaker where it was shaken and then strained over ice. I thought maybe the Saturday morning routine had gotten lost in the straining part. It still might be; this felt like a test run. I went to a new place with ample outdoor seating, but cringed and shrunk up into a ball every time someone walked by my table. Which was often because it was one of those areas where people are out walking or running in the mornings.

The prompt was something about integrity and bravery being displayed on a billboard and I wrote about the pandemic and masks. I might be a bit rusty.

I am for sure a bit of crank pot.

Public interactions turn me into an unstable nuclear core, vibrating from the strain of keeping myself from violently shaking some people while yelling “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!?!?!” But that would require getting close enough to touch them. I honestly thought that my current rageyness was, in part, due to a lack of sleep. I am not sleeping well. There’s tossing and turning, throwing blankets off and pulling them back up. I wake up with some sort of numb digit, sometimes it is one whole leg that has disappeared or disconnected itself from my body. I would wake up in pain. So I finally broke down and bought myself a new mattress. I used some of my rage for fuel to haul my old mattress off of my bed and drag the new one onto my bed frame. Maneuvering bulky items in a small space without wrecking that space takes just as much finesse as it does brute force and I did it. All by myself. Because Michael only has one good arm. The new mattress is nice and I am no longer waking up with missing limbs or pain, but I am still tossing and turning and throwing blankets off only to pull them back on the bed. The anger inside my body is persistent.

The angry eyes I have been looking out at the world with are my eyes. My responsibility. -Sarah Blondin

My anger is formed from loss and grief. It is fueled by a sense of helplessness to effect good changes. It festers in the knowing that we could do so much better than this and it blazes with the idea that at least one person on that lost and grief list would help me find a way to channel all of it into something useful. And that makes me even more angry. These angry eyes are my eyes, my responsibility. I can meet my anger head on with understanding, patience and kindness. I can tell those who attempt to egg-on that anger that they are unwelcome here. I can not control the behavior of others, but I can control my reaction to their behavior. I can flip the tone from positive to negative. I can rotate my view from disparaging to hopeful.

I’m healthy and strong.

I have a job.

My family is healthy.

We all have safe sound roofs over our heads.

We are fortunate.

UNPREPARED EXPEDITIONS

Spa day

I had agreed to go on a kayaking expedition to Cuba with three other people. It was expected that it would take us at least three days of kayaking to reach our destination. As I sat down into my kayak, I noticed my other travelers really packing stuff into their kayaks. I looked around me inside my own kayak and realized that I had packed three cans of Slim-Fast and a bag of potato chips. I also had a broken fishing rod attached to one side of my kayak. Before I could even really think through my choices of things I should have packed, a crowd formed around us to send us off with fan fair. Every one kept asking me if I was sure I really wanted to do this. I have only been kayaking three times in my life and all of those times were simple day trips, tooling around on a lake. I kept replying “Yeah. Of course. I can totally do this. I can do this.”

It is probably a good thing I woke up before I actually headed out into shark infested waters in a small kayak.

It had been a crappy night of sleep from the get go. I struggled to go to sleep at bedtime and then I woke up around 1:00 AM where I continued to toss and turn for well over an hour to get back to sleep. I was hot. I was cold. My hips and knee were achy. Laying on this side wasn’t comfortable. Laying on the other side wasn’t comfortable. When I flipped onto my back, I could feel my sinuses starting to drain down my throat. I just couldn’t get comfortable and when I did finally drift back to sleep, I was in some variation of the above dream, sometimes stopping by my house so I could get a sweater or a granola bar. Every time I’d wake up, I’d marvel at how unprepared I was for a three day kayaking trip. I mean, that’s one Slim-Fast a day and a third of the bag of potato chips, which were already opened and sealed up with a close pin before I even started the expedition. If I managed to catch a fish with my broken fishing rod without capsizing myself, I’d have to eat the fish like a wild animal, just biting into the fish and ripping the flesh off with my teeth. I did not pack a knife.

But isn’t it just like me to insist that I can totally kayak three hundred and thirty miles to Cuba with very little resources? Hell, my kayak could be leaking and I would be bailing water while frantically paddling along and still insist that “I can totally do this.” It is not that I am not willing to admit defeat or that I am stubborn. Except I am stubborn, but I insist only to convince myself. I need to prove it to myself. Though while I’m willing to say right now that I can do this, I’m going to fess up and tell you that I’m going to need more potato chips.

REMOVER OF OBSTACLES

Enlightenment

Ganesh Chaturthi, the Hindu festival celebrating the arrival of Ganesh to this earth, began on the twenty second. It is a ten day festival, so there is one week left for celebrations and eating sweet dumplings called modaka. This is the week that processions start with dancing in the streets as Ganesh idols are carried to the closest body of water for immersion. One of our microscope reps was in on Friday to pack up a broken laser bank. As she stood six feet behind me so I could log onto the system, she noticed my Ganesh tattoo peeking out the top of my t-shirt. “Oh! I always forget that you have a Ganesh on your back! You know the festival is this week?” She said. Then she went on reminiscing about last year’s celebrations and the special saree she wore. You could see the disappointment in her eyes that she would not be celebrating in the same way this year.

I still get a little nervous when one of my Indian co-workers notices my Ganesh tattoo. It is so rarely in full view. It is only on occasion that I am wearing a blouse that slips low enough down my back so that the very top of Ganesh’s head is visible. I’m afraid my tattoo will be seen a cultural misappropriation, which it is. I am not Hindu, yet I carry a Hindu God on my back. I have multiple Ganesh statues. I admit that at first, the attraction was due to my whole elephant fetish. That only led me to wanting to know more about Ganesh. This in turn, educated me on a whole other culture, one filled with spice and color. A culture of people who can express so much joy in the face of so much strife. My tattoo has always been met with surprise and approval. I’ve been told I have made a good choice.

If ever there was a year for celebrating Ganesh, this would be the one. Ganesh, the son of Shiva and Parvati, is the remover of all obstacles, the Lord of letters and learning, but he’s also been known to place obstacles in the paths of those who need to be checked. Which makes me think that he might be behind some of the obstacles of this year. Ganesh felt we all needed to slow our rolls. Maybe he’s hoping that we’ll all come out of all of the experiences of this year a little kinder, more compassionate, more patient. Maybe the obstacles of this year will make us more appreciative and grateful.

Maybe some of us will learn to find joy even in the face of strife.

HOW WE LOSE THINGS

We spent the morning hunting a new dining table. Found one. Then it fell out of the truck in the way home and broke. Imma gonna drink this cocktail now.

I dumped all of my things for the day into my milk crate that I have strapped to the rack on my scooter and zipped home. It was Friday, I had worked a full day and was mentally exhausted. Troubleshooting microscope problems that a user is having on a microscope while maintaining social distances is challenging. I was ready for wine and pizza, but when I parked in the driveway and started unloading the crate, I realized my sweater was missing, one of my favorite sweaters from Anthropologie. So…not cheap. I thought about it for a few minutes and sent a text to Michael. He had left to pick up our pizza. I turned the scooter around and set off to retrace my route home. As I scanned the road and sidewalks, I had a vision of my sweater laying in the middle of the road with tire tracks and tears. I had doubts I would even find it, but suddenly there it was, laying in the middle of Rockhill Street. I pulled the scooter over and ran out into the street to rescue my sweater. I picked it up, gave it a quick look over and shoved it into my scooter seat. When I got home, Michael greeted me at the garage door with “Did you find it?” and I excitedly pulled the unscathed sweater from my scooter seat with a “Huzzah!”

There was a lesson to be learned here that I did not pay attention to.

The next morning, Michael and I went in search of a new dining room table. We started with the antique shops in the West Bottoms, but after rummaging around four floors of two (not air-conditioned) buildings and navigating around people not wearing masks or incorrectly wearing masks, we gave up. I suggested we head over to another store in Westport, one with air conditioning and snacks. We walked into the store and found the perfect table, a new desk chair for me that will double as extra seating at the table and a new stool for Michael to use at his work bench. Plus snacks! We were done. All that was left was to find lunch and make a quick Whole Foods stop. Michael loaded the truck while I paid the bill and then we made our way to a sushi place with great lunch specials. As Michael turned a corner, I heard a noise. I looked back and opened my mouth just as Michael started saying “nonononono'“. He pulled the truck over and we ran out into the street to retrieve our perfect table that was now in pieces.

I am sure my skin changed color as I sat silently in the truck. I was sick with fury. Michael made a plea for me to not be angry with him and declared that he was taking it back to the store. There was no way that store was going to give us a refund and I was angry with myself for not checking that the table was secure in the back of the truck. Did I not just almost lose a very expensive sweater because I failed to make sure that it was secure in my crate? Michael and I exchanged some healthy, but heated words. I refused to go into the store with him. I just couldn’t face the employees. I only partially know what Michael told them, but he returned with a full refund and we went to lunch. We were seated at the mostly deserted outside patio and Michael said “Okay, let’s get you a cocktail.” I started to say that a cocktail was unnecessary, but then I found myself ordering some cucumber, sake concoction for lunch. Then we called around to see if other stores had that table, which they did not. We were sad, so sad that when we made it to Whole Foods, we didn’t even look through the cheese bin.

We kind of lost steam after that. We went to a couple of other places, but didn’t find what we were wanting. A 36” wide round table that is 30” tall is not an easy find. We went home and spent two hours searching the internet for table options. I finally found one that we both agreed with and ordered it. It should be here Friday, but I worry about not seeing the table in person before buying it. Re-doing the dining room is proving to be quite the adventure that started with a speeding ticket I got as I raced to IKEA to pick up some benches. Who knows what calamity will ensue when I replace the china cabinet or when I convince Michael pull everything from the space and repaint that room. I probably should have started with the paint. I apparently do things backwards, but I am learning some valuable lessons along the way.

Such as don’t speed and always secure the cargo.

TORTURE AND STARVATION

Selfie

All of my yearly maintenance exams got rescheduled and landed all in the same week. I spent three days a couple of weeks ago being probed, prodded, joints popped into place, blood drawn and weighed. I waited in three different waiting rooms. It was quite the adventure. When I finally sat down with my doctor that deals with my cholesterol, she told me that I looked great. She looked at my chart and told me that I had lost weight, almost twenty pounds since the last time I saw her. Then she asked me how I’d done it. How on earth did I perform this miraculous feat? I looked her square in her masked face and said “Torture and starvation.”

This is not far from the truth. I started with torture first with a strength training class twice a week. The class consisted of jumping around a lot with weights and I hated it. Every time I did a jumping jack, I felt all of my body fat jiggle. Every exercise we did in that class made me hyperaware of my gross flabby body. Then I would get angry with myself. How could I be so out of shape when every day I spend thirty minutes on the elliptical, do an hour of yoga and walk a bazillion steps?!?! But I stuck with it because the instructor was/is cool and super supportive. She knew that I hated all of the things she made us do and she encouraged me with an appropriate amount of cheer. Eventually, I stopped hating the class. I didn’t love it, but I no longer hated it and I lost ten pounds. So it was obviously working.

Then I started the starvation tactic.

Starvation is a pretty dramatic word. The scientific word that really applies here is ‘fasting’. I did a lot of reading and research about intermittent fasting and then I sent my findings to Michael. He was immediately on board, which kind of surprised me. He usually needs more convincing, but intermittent fasting would mean giving up breakfast and he’s never been a big fan of breakfast. I on the other hand needed more convincing to give up something that has always been a part of my life. I was raised on breakfast. Just ask my mother about that phase I went through at age three or four when every morning for three weeks I requested one poached egg whenever she asked me what I wanted for breakfast. Eventually she stopped asking me what I wanted and made what ever she felt like making that morning, but we ate breakfast every single morning. If we were going to do this fasting thing, I was going to have to wrap my brain around not eating breakfast.

There was something else that made me hesitant to do fasting. I have been aware of my weight for most of my life. I have never ever felt skinny and as a teenager, those feelings created a dangerous relationship with food. There was a lot of eating and not eating and then eating a whole bunch going on, which was made worse by a ‘eat everything on your plate’ rule. The contradiction of being told to ‘watch my weight’ while at the same time being told to ‘clean my plate’ did not make for a healthy relationship with eating. I worried that intermittent fasting would once again lead me into an unhealthy eating relationship. I worried that my growling , hungry belly would cause me to just eat all of the food all day long. Honestly, I was really scared to start an intermittent fasting program. So of course, I went ahead and started an intermittent fasting program. Do the things that scare you and all that jazz.

I lost another ten pounds.

My doctor got very excited when I told her that I had been intermittent fasting during the week. I told her that I have either a green smoothie or avocado toast around 10:30 in the morning. Then I go do some form of exercise, usually yoga, and eat lunch at noon. Then I said “And I haven’t murdered any one yet!” I do not eat all of the food all day long. I eat reasonable amounts of food and I do not deprive myself. If someone brings in apology cake to work, I eat a slice of that apology cake (apology cake is the best cake). My doctor was thrilled with this news. She said that researchers have seen that intermittent fasting has helped Type 2 Diabetes patients get off of their insulin. She also said that I was doing every thing right, which is all that really matters to me, validation that I am doing everything right. So torture and starvation is how I have managed to perform the miraculous feat of weight loss at my age. Though the strength training and fasting thing really do not feel like torture or starvation any more.

It feels more like a mild annoyance.

SOMETIMES I AM A GROWNUP

We installed a white noise machine for the chickens.

The refinance on my house went through right before everything shut down for the pandemic. The plans were to use that money to pay off some credit card debt and maybe spend a little on some home improvement. Then came the moment when everything shut down and there were concerns about job security. So Michael suggested we just let that money sit for a little bit. We paid down a few credit cards. We put some money into building the retaining wall and mulch. The rest has just been sitting in savings.

We have been talking about putting AC in this house for years. When Chris and I moved in here, it did not even dawn on us that there was not an AC unit. Warmer temperatures arrived and I just flipped the thermostat over to ‘cool’. When nothing happened, I called our landlord, who was great but a little squirrelly. He told us that there was no AC, but he’d bring us over a window unit. The day he brought over the window unit was also the day he told us that the had to sell this house. That one window unit has been cooling most of the house for the last nine years. Michael added a window unit to his bedroom when he moved in and I sleep with a fan on. It is not the most efficient method for cooling, but the money involved in replacing our current system just seemed overwhelming. Michael’s had too much time to stare at the spread-sheet he built for our bills and budget.Well, Michael’s had a lot of time on his hands since he finished the wall. It looks the chalkboard from A Beautiful Mind. It is color coded. After some ‘hmmm’ and ‘args’ and days of looking at his computer, Michael said “Maybe this is the year we finally instal a real AC unit and replace the old furnace.”

So, we called a recommended company, got a quote and signed a large check. This is probably the third most grownup adult thing I have ever done. I know some people are rolling their eyes at this and thinking “it’s just an AC unit, Cindy.”, but hear me out. It is not just about installing an AC or replacing the old furnace before it dies in the middle of winter. We are doing this without financing or monthly payments. We are doing this while we have the money to do it. Instead of being tempted to use that money for something stupid like a beach vacation, we are using it wisely. That is the grownup adult part. That is the part that is making me question my identity. Who the Hell is this person?!? I am normally the one who just ignores whatever is broken and hope that it will magically fix itself. Ceiling is caving in? I don’t really need a ceiling any way. That is my usual approach to all things regarding home ownership. Fifty percent of our arguments involve the lint trap on the dryer and it is me that is on the wrong side of that argument. I would never make it past the first day on a bomb squad because I would just let the bomb explode. I am not proactive. So I feel as though I am deserving of sort of achievement sticker. A gold star for adulting. Make that two gold stars because before the AC guys left, we scheduled an appointment for them to come back in October to turn on our humidifier (y’all, I have a humidifier for the whole house; what the what?!?!). At the same time they will replace the water heater that is currently propped up on two rocks (actual rocks) and may be leaking carbon monoxide into the basement.

Despite the large sum of money we are spending, we are giddy with the what a central AC unit means for us and this house. I will no longer have to sleep with my bedroom door open at night or sleep on top all of the blankets. I may even have to add a blanket to the bed if Michael gets his way. I am sure we will still be fighting over the thermostat settings, the age old accusation of “Did you just touch the thermostat?!” rumbling from Michael with my bold face lie of “no” coming quickly in reply, even while my finger hovers over the button. He has threatened to instal a lock box on the thermostat. His threats are empty ones, but I will no doubt be wearing a sweater in the house during the summer months. The thermostat is currently set at 72 and we both seem to be comfortable enough for now. It is a little odd to not hear the window units. The one in Michael’s room has recently started making wet noises. I can’t wait to set that one out on the curb today.

MAGIC CARPET

Old rug

I hate this rug. Hate might be too strong of a word. I don’t really hate it; I just really dislike it. It is old and some of the braiding has come unstitched. It’s dirty and faded and doesn’t really fit in with the rest of my color schemes. I have this rug because it was free and not free as in came out of the dumpster free. This rug came from the house I grew up in and as far as I know it is at least as old as I am. That rug was either the center piece in the den or the anchor to the dining room table. I have zero memories of the inside of that house without this rug being present. Maybe that is why I have held on to it for so long. When I was little, I used to spread out my Strawberry Shortcake blanket on this rug right in front of the fireplace and often fall asleep while watching The Muppets or Hee-Haw or the old black and white Tarzan show. The old blue rug was a witness to countless family gatherings and birthday parties. It was a witness to my life growing up in that house.

Despite the sentimental value of the rug, I had been wanting to replace it for years. I just kept putting it off. I’m cheap and I don’t want to spend the money. Nor did I want to spend the time making a decision about colors and patterns. Except the internet reads minds and has been plaguing me with advertisements for over a year. One company stood out and that is Ruggable. Every time I opened a browser of anything, I was met with a woman ripping her rug up from the floor and stuffing it into the washing machine. It was like this company knew my very soul. That first advertisement looped me with its lasso, slowly tugging me in until I finally just gave in. I did some research first. The biggest complaint seemed to be the amount of time it takes to dry the rug after it goes through the washer. This does not bother me. Some one complained about the edges curling and I was concerned about that. It did not do this out of the box, but I still haven’t washed it. This may be concern later down the line. I’ll let keep you posted. I did get a bit of sticker shock over the price, but you are paying for the washable top and the grippy pad it attaches too. If later on I decide I no longer like the looks of this rug, I can just order a new topper for half the price.

New rug

Now, let’s talk pattern. The new rug goes way way way outside of my comfort zone. I love it. I love the bright colors and I am surprised how much I love the floral print, but I had to push, really actually shove, myself to purchase this particular pattern. This is the kind of rug that I would admire and look wistfully at in the store, but would have never ever purchased because I have let myself believe that I do not deserve nice and pretty things. I let myself believe that pretty cannot be practical or durable and that if I’m going to drop some dimes on something, it better be both of those things. This rug feels like it belongs in the home of a woman who has her shit together, a woman who is not afraid of bold, bright colors. This is a woman who owns and wears beautiful but painful high heeled shoes on the daily. The woman who owns this knows something about design and is often featured in Apartment Therapy or Real Simple. I am not that woman, but I am deserving of nice and pretty things.

Of course, only if those things are washable in the washing machine.

HEADING OFF THE MEAN REDS

Totally not supposed to be there

Like so many of us, I entered 2020 with high hopes and big plans. I had a photography showing scheduled for the months of April and May. I had plans for a digital photography workshop in June. I was moving forward with my art. This was going to be the year! I printed and framed sixteen of my nature photos weeks before the hanging up date and then stacked them in my living room. And that’s where they sat. April came and went. May came and went. I finally moved them to my closet where they are now carefully stacked and wedged into a back corner. My workshop got moved to August. With July and August not looking any better than April or May, I went ahead and postponed the workshop for June of 2021.

Sayonara high hopes. Fuck you big plans.

I feel like I have set everything on a shelf. I still try to take at least one picture every day, but I don’t feel good about those pictures. They look stale, old and uninspired. A reflection of how I feel. I have thrown myself so hard into work related classes, that I leave little room for creativity. I just finished a week’s worth of electron microscopy classes in one day. My daily calendar is meticulously scheduled for each day with group meetings, Python classes, EM classes, seminars. COVID testing. Yeah, add that to the list. That one starts today. There is no predictability in what my schedule is going to be for the next few weeks. My boss, during a lab meeting to discuss the testing process, looked directly at me and said “Cindy, do not stress about this.” My boss knows me. He knows that I plan and I organize and he knows that this is something I am probably hyperventilating about.

He would be correct.

The past few nights I have been up late and awake early with restless sleep in between. Right when I’ve just about drifted off, a loud canon will go off somewhere in the neighborhood, jolting me to attention. The cat has started coming in at four in the morning and loudly yelling at me. A few nights ago he did this and then jumped up on my bed. He rubbed his slobbering face on my face. Then he found my hand and started rubbing his slobbering face on it. Then he bit me, walked to the middle of my bed, plopped down between my legs and proceeded to loudly clean himself. This. This is why I call him ‘jerkface’. This and all the dead bunnies I’ve cleaned up in the last three weeks. So much murder and so little sleeping. The no sleeping part is the rapidly rising hot air that is colliding with the cold air of work stress. It is prime hurricane season.

I’m just a little bit sad.

To keep me falling into the mean reds, I’m trying to focus on the things I have accomplished since the lockdown. I have reconnected with my yoga mat in a powerful new way. I’ve done thirty minutes of X-tend barre every day. I walk the dog every day. I started a new silly writing project. I’ve done some reading. I graded all around the house for drainage. I helped build a new chicken pen and a new retaining wall. I distributed mulch all around the house. I’ve learned some basic programming and the fundamentals of electron microscopy. I have even done a little online window shopping at Tiffany’s. In the movie Up, Carl spends a lot of time focusing on the things he and Ellie didn’t do. So much so that he failed to notice all of the things they did do. There was a long time where I worked really hard at noticing and remembering all of the things Chris and I got to do together, but I failed to apply this to my own life. It is so easy to get hung up on the things I didn’t do or I’m not doing.

Oh, but flipping that switch and looking at the things you did do can really put things back into a brighter light.

WHAT'S IN AN AGE

Collecting the morning sun

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Last week, while being put through some preliminary test at the eye doctor’s, the technician asked me my age and I completely forgot how old I am. I said “47? 46? I think I am 46.” That was my final answer. I went on with the rest of my appointment, reading tiny letters and answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to better or worse, lens 1 or lens 2. My left eye has been irritated and goopy off and on for about year. I chalked it up to allergies and sinus drainage. Turns out it wasn’t allergies, but a scratched cornea. I got my prescription for a steroid eye drop and went home. Then I asked Michael how old I was.

Y’all…I’m 44.

I have a pin number for my bank card, a different pin number I have to remember to use my library card, yet another pin number I have to use when I log time for teaching a yoga class. I have to remember many different combinations of numbers in order to navigate every day life. I obviously have not made it a priority to commit to memory the number of years I have been living on this planet. I am some number of years of age. Apparently that some is at times older than reality. So be it. My friend Sarah suggested that I just start telling people I’m 60 and see if I get offered discounts and compliments. I am seriously considering this strategy. Sixty is a nice round easy number to remember and I have to tell you that the more time I spend as a home owner, the more appealing those retirement communities look. I would move in one today if they’d let me.

Do you remember when you were so proud of the number of years you have been on the planet that you not only kept track of the year, but the months as well? You would happily chirp “I’m nine and three months!” or defiantly declare “I’m sixteen and a half!” as if the half really mattered. Those were the years when you thought that the number really truly mattered. At some point the importance of that number shifts. You start clinging to the years you thought were important because you realize you are creeping into a category of years where you will be invisible. Our attention spans are short. We place a lot of value and advertising space for the really young or the really old. We only want to read the first and last chapters. Those middle chapters are just filler. I am in those middle chapters. The advertisements that show up in my inbox are either geared for a woman ten years younger than I am or ten years older. I will admit that recently, more and more of those ads are geared for an older woman.

So you can see that it would be easy for me to think of myself as older.

The thing about the invisible years is that you get to be all of the ages and no one cares. Some times I’m ten years old, giddily tossing fireworks into a cart. I’ve been known to randomly do a cartwheel for no other reason than to make sure that I can still do a cartwheel. Then there are times I’m eighty and it takes me a second to stand up straight after sitting for a certain amount of time. I’m up at five in the morning, ready to start my day. Age is just a unit of time and time is relative. Is this just some philosophy I made up to make myself feel better about aging? Of course it is. But at the same time, I don’t know why I should feel bad about aging. I don’t feel the need to cling to my youth. A commercial just came on asking the question “Who has time for wrinkles?” I counter that with “who wants to waste time thinking about wrinkles?” I’ve got cartwheels to do and fireworks to set off. I’ve got a mug of coffee to drink while bird watching in my back yard.

These are the things that make me forget my actual age. At least this is what I tell myself to keep me from worrying that it is really dementia making me forget.

THE SLOUCH

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Michael measured the Cabbage the other day and she is 4’9. She will be ten in September and she is just a little over a foot shorter than I am tall. Michael started talking about how the Cabbage is going to be a tall girl and I responded with “that means she’s going to slouch.” Michael gave me an inquisitive look, so I went on to explain how tall girls generally slouch in order to fit in with their peers. That’s where it starts. Then the slouching happens as a way to hide their bodies. Michael said something about knowing what it’s like to be a big tall guy so he gets it, but I’m not sure he really did get it. Sure he makes an impact when he enters a room but more often than not that impact is a resounding positive “wow! you’re so tall!”. The tone of that statement shifts when a big tall girl enters a room. I have rarely heard someone tell me that I look thin without using a tone of negativity and then adding an inquiry about my health. “You look thin! Are you okay?” is not a compliment. There must be something wrong with you at all times. You are either too thin or too fat. Too tall or too short. Really it doesn’t matter to you if you are either too this or too that. All you want is to be noticed for your abilities to think up cool things and do interesting stuff while having a healthy body.

Men are praised for being tall. Boys got Paul Bunyan and girls got Thumbelina.

We slouch because we learn at an early age that more value is placed on the shape of our bodies than the words we have to say. Slouching is way of saying “please don’t notice my height. please don’t notice that my boobs are big or not big enough. please just listen to the smart ideas I have running through my brain.” Sometimes the slouching never goes away because we have discovered that it hides so many insecurities. We’ve discovered a way to fold ourselves around those insecurities as a means of protection. We only discover years later that our spines were not designed for all of that protecting and that in order to relieve the stress on our spines, we must expose our insecurities. And it is hard. It is like having a cast taken off your arm and then having to straighten that arm after it has been fixed in position for months, but worse because the spine has been bent over for years.

I slouch when I’m tired and recently it seems that I am always tired. Michael asked the other day “don’t you just sit around and think about things some times?” I started to answer, but then he kept on talking, never giving me a chance to answer his question. I lacked the energy to straighten my spine and speak up. Instead , I just vaguely listened as he rattled on about his plans for changing the Supreme Court while thinking about my answer to his question. I spend my day thinking up solutions to problems. My job is a scientific puzzle. The spare thoughts I have are on things that I have control over, changes I can make, projects I can work on. I think about stories I can write. I think about how telling him all of this will make no difference. My words will fly in one of his ears and then immediately out the other. Answering his question will not change the things I think about. It dawns on me that it doesn’t really matter to me to have my voice heard. It is not a lack of confidence. It is just , I don’t know, a security in myself that doesn’t need that validation or at least I don’t need his validation. I stand up straighter as I realize this.

“Sing out, Louise!” Well… Louise did learn to sing out, while artfully taking off her clothes. To be fair, it was only a glove at first and if you notice, Louise is standing tall and proud, if not a little bit shaky while she peels that glove from her arm. I am not advocating that you become a burlesque act in order to straighten your spine and drop some insecurities, but if you think about it, it couldn’t hurt. Peeling that glove from her arm is a metaphor for peeling away insecurities. You do not have to literally remove your clothing. For years you listened to people tell you that you’d be so much prettier if you didn’t slouch. They never once said to you that your voice would be stronger, louder and heard if you didn’t slouch. But the song I sing out is meant to be read.

So I sit up straighter as I type.

BABY OPOSSUMS ARE KIND OF CUTE

Dorothy

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I feel like this space has been nothing but talk about the retaining wall or ‘woe is me I’m stuck at home’. Nothing of interest happens around here. We are boring. Our Friday evenings look something like this: Michael brings me a glass of wine at 4:30 while I am in the middle of watching presentations in Friday Science Club. We order dinner and then get all excited about our Door Dash notifications. I know many of you are already experienced with food delivery apps, but ordering delivery for other than pizza or Chinese food is still a new thing for us. We get really excited about our possibilities. Our food arrives and it is consumed. I drink the whole bottle of wine and then go to bed at 10:00.

I am not a party animal.

If I had to pick an actually animal to represent a party animal, I think I would chose the opossum. Except I imagine that their parties are very much more banjo moonshine and less fancy Thai and a smooth Malbec. The opossum is the group of Frat boys out on Spring Break, drunkenly wandering down a street trying to find their hotel. They are the kind of drunk that when one spots a slice of pizza in the garbage, they all dive in and fight over it. You know that drunk. Opossums have a definite drunk walk and I’ve seen a number of garbage cans with an opossum inside snacking on a greasy banana peel. Look. I know they’re good for the environment and eat the bugs that drive us crazy, but they still give me the creeps with their beady eyes and long snout with horrible British teeth.

I woke up around 4 AM on day last week. My head was pounding and I got up to take some aspirin and use the bathroom. Josephine went outside during this time and when I came out of the bathroom, I could hear her barking in the back yard. I tapped on the kitchen window. This usually works. She hears the tapping and comes right on in, but this time the tapping at the window was not getting her attention. I put on some shoes and opened the back door. I could just barely see Josephine. She was furiously barking and running from one side of the chicken pen to the other. I hesitated in the doorway and thought “crap…there’s something in the chicken pen that is not supposed to be in the chicken pen.” This is the moment I go out in the dark and either discover a cute alien like E.T. or the horrifying Alien that wants to lay it’s eggs inside of me.

The first thing I do is go out and grab Josephine. As I lean down to pick her up, I can see a small furry white opossum inside the pen. Josephine has become this hard statue of herself; she is so furious. I walk Josephine back to the house so I can put her some where safe and grab our claw that Michael uses to pick up the dead that Albus brings home. Wait…did I say we’re boring? I go back out to the chicken pen and I don’t see him. I thought “Yay! he got out!”, but then I look over and see that he has climbed up the side of the pen about level with my face. He’s just hanging there, looking at me and hissing. Then I try to grab him with the claw, but he just slips right out of the claw every time. So I go back inside and wake up Michael who stumbles out into the dark with me. So now both of us are out there chasing this baby opossum around the chicken pen. Every time the opossum turns to hiss at us, we jump back a little. Finally, the little guy squeezed out of the pen probably the same way he squeezed into it. There’s a tiny gap between the ground and bottom of the pen in the back just big enough for something his size to squeeze through.

We checked on the chickens. They seemed oblivious. Foghorn was sleeping on top of eggs in the nesting box, so we know the opossum didn’t get any eggs. The chickens are at least three times his size, so we know he didn’t get any of the chickens. He probably squeezed himself into the pen to drink some water and eat some chicken feed. Once he filled up on water and food, he probably just fell asleep inside the pen. Just like a drunk Frat boy. I’m sure Josephine scared the bejeebus out of him. Good girl.

Note that I do not have a picture of that baby opossum. I was not thinking clearly enough at four o’clock in the morning to grab my camera. You’ll just have to trust me when I say that this baby opossum was actually kind of cute. Despite his hairless tail.

NAVEL GAZING

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Apr 22, 2020 at 3:39pm UTC

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I was sitting at my desk, working on my Journal Club presentation, while Michael was sitting on the couch watching a documentary about people who believe the earth is flat. I could hear the documentary and suddenly my eye started twitching. The eye twitch has been happening a lot since I’ve been working from home. It started about three weeks ago after spending a whole day working on a coding assignment for the class I’m taking. I thought it had something to do with spending too much time looking at a screen. I spent a weekend not looking at a screen and it didn’t solve the problem.

The eye twitch is a stress response.

I spend a fair amount of time reading the latest publications and statistics. I’ve learned more virology in the past four weeks than I learned in my first year in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics department at OSU. My brain is filled up with science and what that science could mean for our future. And there’s so much crap misinformation floating around. All of it makes me want to take my brain out of my skull and scrub it with a scrub brush. I’ve taken to just reporting the misinformation and hate speech memes so all of it just gets taken down and I don’t waste my time on validating research. Because that is exhausting.

One would think that I would have more time for internal reflection and I did do some of that today. I thought about stubbornness. I thought about stubbornly holding onto a belief even when the facts and science do not align with those beliefs. For me, it has always been easy to change my belief when faced with the evidence. It has happened to me so many times in my own career and I have heard it hundreds of times from other scientists when presenting their research. “We believed this thing would happen, but when we performed the experiment, something else happened instead.” So many times, the outcome turns out to be not what was predicted. I recently watched a presentation from a scientist working with amyloids. Amyloids are aggregates of proteins and anyone who is paying attention to Alzheimer’s has heard this word. The general consensus is that amyloids are bad news, but a lot of what we know about amyloid buildup is from research done in a test tube, not a living system. Not all amyloids are bad. In fact fruit flies use amyloids in memory formation. We are starting to discover that the way proteins fold together to form amyloids is actually more important than the presence of amyloids. Scientists are having to change the way they think about protein structures and function. The questions are constantly evolving.

I stubbornly hold onto the quest for truth while recognizing that truths are not always constant. So… that really makes me no different from those who stubbornly hold onto a belief.

TRENCH WARFARE

Trench warfare

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I have alternate titles for this post. “That Time We Re-enacted WWI” and “Never Start A Construction Project with A Math Teacher” are good alternate titles. Both pretty much sum up this project. That picture up there is the west side of our house. That ever growing pile of dirt is in our neighbor’s driveway. Michael has promised to power wash their driveway when (if ) we finish this thing. There used to be a retaining wall where that trench is now. That retaining wall was made of old railroad ties and the top one just fell off one day. The wheels and cogs started turning inside Michael’s head and now we have two pallets of stone, half a pallet of sand, and a pile of rocks sitting in front of our garage door. After digging out the old railroad ties, we then had to dig a new trench for the stone wall that is(?) going to replace them. And digging that trench has definitely been an adventure.

Not only is our soil full of clay, but we also had to contend with rebar left over from the railroad ties, two old fence posts that had been cut at ground level (Surprise fence post!), and some ridiculously sized roots from a dead tree in our neighbor’s yard. Every time Michael pulled a rebar free from the ground, he declared himself King of England and started reciting Monty Python. There was a tree root about as big around as my leg transversely crossing our trench that Michael had to cut out with a chainsaw. We came across another similar root, but this one was rotting and soggy. It broke apart in spongy pieces that I inspected with great curiosity and even said something like “I’d like to put a section of this in a petri dish and inspect the fungus that is growing in here.” Michael replied “Do I need to build you a lab in the basement?” You can take the girl out of the science lab, but you can’t take the science lab out of the girl. We dug through layers and layers of clay and probably have enough clay to make a new set of dishes, but we did it.

Finally, after three rounds of reciting Monty Python and The Holy Grail and a whole story about a man slowly digging his way out of prison and escaping two weeks before his release at age 97, we finished our digging. The next step is to tamp down our trench and then lay down some ground cloth. Then, we fill with gravel and tamp, check to make sure everything is level, add sand and tamp, check to make sure everything is level, add a layer of pavers, check to make sure everything is level. Well…you get the idea. While Michael is obsessing over levelness, I will be loading the wheel barrow up with all of the dirt we’ve excavated and then distributing that dirt around the perimeter of the house so we can re-grade for drainage. That is a whole other project that will involve digging out and replacing all of the window wells around the basement windows and mulch. Lots and lots of mulch.

Homeownership is a scam.

This morning, I’m catching up on Killing Eve and nursing my soar wrists and swollen hands. I discovered last night that sleeping on my back causes my right hand to go numb. It has something to do with my shoulder blades and all of the shoveling. I have already called my Mom to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. She received the plant I had sent to her earlier this week. I’m about to go box up the new coffee maker that arrived Friday to send back. It is leaking and I am very sad about it. Then I might work on a wire stand for my baby Yoda so that I can pose him for pictures. Above all, I am being really quiet in order to let Michael sleep in because as soon as he wakes up, we’ll be out and back in the trenches.

MAY THE FOURTH

Surviving

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I was in the middle of a desert fighting Nazi’s with Indian Jones when Michael nudged me. I woke with a jolt, sweaty and eyes swollen. “Did you make a $33 purchase from Disney?” He asks me. Confused, I answer his question with another question “An online purchase from Disney?” I have no idea what he’s talking about and so he asks me very carefully “Have you made any online purchases recently?” I shake my head and say “No” and then flop back into bed. He replied that he would call the bank to contest the purchase. I laid there for one or three breaths and then I fly up out of the bed to catch him. I open my door and point at him and say “baby Yoda.” He raises an eyebrow and says “baby Yoda?” I nod and say “Yeah, baby Yoda.” Then he laughs because he finally understands my sleep ramble and says “Okay.”

Months and months ago, I pre-ordered a baby Yoda plush doll from Disney. I had almost forgotten about it. I guess the purchase finally went through and I should be expecting a delivery. Michael and I watched the Mandelorian together and I don’t know what came over me, but when The Child, who everyone immediately started calling ‘baby Yoda’, showed up on the screen, I melted into goo. I almost couldn’t stand the cuteness; it was almost painful. I would squeeze Josephine and tell her she’s my real life baby Yoda. I became obsessed and a little bit mad the Chris wasn’t here to see for himself just how cute baby Yoda is. As soon as I found out about the pre-order for Disney, I had my bank card out and ready. Yes, take all of my money. I don’t care, just give me that baby!

Today is Star Wars Day. Disney’s not stupid. What’s a better day to finally release their baby Yoda than Star Wars Day? I haven’t received an official email with a tracking number yet, but I can feel that my baby Yoda is on it’s way to his new home. I have adventures planned for him with photoshoots of him frolicking around the city. People talk about the crazy online purchases they have made since the stay-at-home order and I can’t even use that as an excuse because this purchase was made well before we even knew COVID-19 existed. I did almost buy $150 coffee maker the other day, but is good coffee really considered a ‘crazy online purchase’? Now that I’m thinking about it, I might just go put that coffee maker back in my cart. I’ll do it for Chris. In the meantime, I am anxiously awaiting the delivery of my baby Yoda.

It’s giving me something to live for.

Side note: The cotton candy dipped ice cream cone from Dairy Queen is also giving me life, but it is also the closest thing I had that looked Yoda like.