The Day After..... and Handy Pandemic Gadgets

The day after seeing the bone doctor last week I woke up at 8:30 which was a full hour to an hour and a half later than I’ve been waking up during the pandemic. I’m not a morning person so it felt good to sleep in. I sprung out of bed as fast as a septuagenarian can spring which, in my case, is more like Red Foxx’s Fred Sanford character moseying around his junk yard while complaining about his aches and pains. I put the coffee pot on, then sat down at the computer like I do every morning. Fast forward two hours later I was still going down rabbit holes on the World Wide Web and I had forgotten to drink my coffee. I never forget my coffee. Never! Two cups usually goes with me when I'm chasing rabbits. I didn’t feel sick but what else could explain my coffee lapse? And don't say it's my age. I was only two days older than the last time the internet sucked me into its black hole of wondrous and fascinating things.

Not coming up with a logical explanation for missing my caffeine fix I got my act in gear and went to grocery store/pharmacy where my primary mission was to get my 65-flu shot. I waited until October last year and they ran out and I couldn’t get one until January and I wasn't about to let that happen again. My temperature at the pharmacy was 98.4 but the day before at the doctor’s office it was 97.6. Both within the normal range but pandemic paranoid me turned the burner up on my worry pot and I didn’t turn it back down again until a few days later when my temperature dropped back down in the 97s again. For several months last winter my temperature was holding steady down in the low 76s and, of course, I went to Doctor Google to find out why it was below the normal range and found out it "...usually happens from being out in cold weather. But it may also be caused by alcohol or drug use, going into shock, or certain disorders such as diabetes or low thyroid. A low body temperature may occur with an infection.”

I have a thyroid gland that operates at two-toed sloth speed, so I quit worrying that my low temperature meant that it was getting ready to spike high with Covid-19. Quit worrying until lately with all the back-to-back temperature checks required. And wouldn't you know it, just when I've gotten hair long enough to have bangs every place I go is asking me to push them off to the side so they can zap me with their temperature taking gun.

At the store I used my cool, new tool (photo at the top) to cut down on the things we touch. It opens doors on cooler cases, pushes buttons on key pads and acts as a stylus to sign screens. You can even use it in public bathrooms to flush the toilets and turn faucets on and off. I felt like I had a super power and I left the store feeling happy and upbeat. I had gotten my flu shot, bought some groceries and brought fewer germs home to breed and multiply.

Then on the way home that darn Prime Country radio channel ambushed me when they played Tim McCraw’s Don’t take the Girl. If you don’t know the song it starts out with an eight year old boy begging his father not to take the neighbor girl fishing with them and it ends with them both twenty-five and her life is in endanger after giving birth to their child. He gets down on his knees and prays:

“Take the very breath you gave me

Take the heart from my chest

I'll gladly take her place if you'll let me

Make this my last request

Take me out of this world

God, please don't take the girl."

Out of now where tears were racing down my cheeks. And I don’t mean just a few. It was like a dam broke and I had no clue where they came from. I’ve never particular connected with the song other than thinking it was cute in a sappy kind of way. But later on when I deep-dove examined my cry-athon I realized I was crying because I really, REALLY miss having love in my life. Duh, a widowhood issue, long buried and thought to be in the past. And it crossed my mind to question if maybe I’m reading too many romance books…or maybe I'm not reading enough romance books. I’m going with the latter theory because I’m not giving them up anything soon. They've become a pacifier to get me though the pandemic, taking the place of the human contact I was getting beforehand just being out and about in the world and down at the senior hall.

I’ve been reading the genre off and on since my 40s and the new crop on the market are holding my interest because they are so different from those I read back in the last century when I was hot and heavy into them to the point that one year in the '90s I even had a press pass to get into romance writer's conventions. The banter is different, most of the heroines are stronger, more independent and the sex/love scenes---well, they often have me thinking about the Twister board game and I’m not kidding. More than once I’ve stopped reading what I can only describe as bedroom gymnastics and tried to figure out how on earth it's possible for a hand or set of lips to be here or there while doing this or that some place else on the human body. And I've wondered if authors actually "fact check" those logistics with their husband’s. Do these guys have--- Okay, I need to stop writing before I embarrass myself.  

The bottom line: After having tried and failed to write a passable romance book or two I have an insatiable fascination with how authors work and I'm a sucker for non-fiction books about writers and writing. Do they have Zen-like offices, write in coffee shops, keep regular hours or do writing marathons when the inspirations strikes them? And why on earth is one of my favorite authors of romantic comedies so hung up on the number seventeen that she's used it a zillion times in at least two books before her editor made her quit? I did just learn from watching the You-Tube launch of her latest book that since the pandemic started she's been writing in the back seat of her car after parking it outside her local coffee shop while her husband is at home helping their kids with online schooling. I love how gender roles have blurred since my youth. But that's a blog topic for another day, isn't it. ©

 

NOTE: The no touch tool came from Amazon but I can't make the link feature work to give it to you. It’s the second one I bought. The first one I found at the grocery store near a mask display but it doesn’t have the retractable hook up or the sink faucet cut out at the top which are both great features. There are lots of other styles at Amazon, just put 'no hands tool for opening doors' in their search line if you want one.