I'm Sick of Everything!

I’m so sick of life right now! I mean it! I’ve reached my limit of tolerance. My give-a-damn is broken in half. Yup, I’m sick of everything to do with anything especially the cold and snow that's finding its way to parts of the country where it doesn't belong rubbing our noses in the fact that it's still winter. If we didn’t have a world pandemic still taking people out like balls rolling near the gutters at bowling alleys take out the seven and ten pins I’d say I need a vacation. A nice trip to any place, even to the local sculpture park would brighten my mood. When are the butterflies coming to their tropical conservatory? March? April? Oh, ya, they’re be there for both months but will it be safe for humans to attend the normally shoulder-to-shoulder exhibit? Will school kids be bused in one load after another, day after day? I have gone most years, often meeting my youngest niece there with her grandkids. After not seeing her for a whole year, I’ll bet she wouldn’t even recognize me with my pandemic hair style. Make that two years! The pandemic closed the butterflies down last year, and I'm sorry World but emails, text messages, phone calls and Facebook postings aren't slicing and dicing my loneliness enough to make a tablespoon of cure.

I suppose the state of my mind was inevitable after weeks and months of being invested in things I have no control over like the pandemic, the state of our political climate and now with Republican Senator Ted F'ing Cruz making his "excuses tour" on the media for flying to Cancun while the people of his state were/still are suffering during a nearly state-wide power outrage due to a harsh weather event. In the meantime, Democrats and private citizen Beto O'Rourke and Senator A.O. Cortez stepped up to do what Cruz shoulda'/coulda' have done---care about people, help them! Beta organized a massive phone bank to check on seniors and AOC raised 2 million dollars to fly food and water to Texas food banks.

Is it possible for an entire nation to have a collective mental health breakdown? If so, call me the Indian scout who goes out to test the route the tribe behind is about to travel. You all, turn around, find a kitten to pet and calm down! Meditate. That's what scouts did, they'd find trouble up ahead and warn the tribe to change course. Yes, I’m of that generation who grew up watching Western movies, double features on Saturday afternoons which begs the question: What were our mothers doing with their time when we sat in the movie theaters for four hours? I don’t remember ever going to the grocery store with my mom as a kid. Did mothers in the 40s do their shopping after dropping us off to see the latest shoot-em-up or Lone Ranger film? It was the only day my mom had access to the family car. Did they also have ‘private time’ with our dads? Yuck! Parents shouldn’t have sex! Gouge that image out of my head! My dad was perfect, my mom had her faults but I don’t want to think about them playing kissy-face even though I know they did it at least three times. (They miscarried a baby in between me and my brother.)

I’ve often wondered how much different my life would have been if I’d had a second sibling, a brother closer to my own age. Would we have shared friends, done more things together than my older brother and I did? As kids we did our share of ice skating, sledding, playing board games and hanging out in the woods behind our cottage growing up but by the time he was a teenager with a large posse of friends we grew apart. Then he got married right out of high school, moved a good distance away and they spent the next few years popping three babies into the world while I finished up high school and started college. I don’t think my brother understood me at all during the entire 1960s when I dated a lot but didn’t get married. I’m pretty sure he thought I was freakish for not having the same goals that most of the girls he graduated with did---the big wedding, babies and a nice house. He even told me once that I was too picky. It’s not that I didn’t want those things and a white picket fence I just had other goals as well.

Boy, has this post gotten derailed from the original topic I started writing about. Oh, well, that’s probably a good thing because my little I’m-sick-of-life temper tantrum wasn’t getting me anywhere…and they never did. As a kid my mom had little sympathy for my tears and she discouraged my dad from showing empathy when I cried. And clearly empathy was his first reaction to any sign of discomfort anyone around Dad was experiencing. Hardened by life, I never saw her cry. Around her ninth birthday her own mother had died and my mom got separated from her siblings to earn her keep working in a boarding house. She was a product of her times---a child during the last world pandemic, a young woman living on her own during the Great Depression, a mother during WWII and, boy, did she come out the other side of all that societal stress a strong woman.

Looking back, people all tend to put on rose colored glasses and think past generations had it easier than we do in real time. We romanticize. We generalize. We gloss over. And some day in the far future people will look back at 2020/21 and do the same thing. They will romanticize our pandemic driven stay-at home orders and generalize it to the point they'll only remember the closeness many families were able to achieve during this time---the TicTok videos, the zoom choirs---like the fun stuff they portrayed in all the USO movies of WWII. Pain always lessens with the passing of time. People in the future will gloss over the political unrest, too, that we are living through and only remember those among us who get through it stronger and more principled than before---the political heroes yet to rise to the top. Until then I’m taking two aspirin and living in a house of silence for a week which has always proven to be cure for what ails me right now. Sensory overload. My media block out will be akin to my mom sending me to my room until I quit feeling sorry for myself. ©

The snow now piled at the top of my driveway

Snow along the sidewalk to my front door. I just shoveled what I could reach off my shrub.

The path I shoveled on my deck for the dog to get to his pen.

Snow in the dog's pen. That fence if 3 foot tall.

 

And last but not least my front mailbox and the path I shoveled to its back side. All photos taken to remind of what I'm leaving behind if I start missing this house next winter.

A Pandemic "Poem" for Christmas 2020

  My Pandemic "Poem" for Christmas 2020 by Jean R.

It’s beginning to look a lot like a lonely Christmas

Everywhere I don’t go

Been stuck at home avoiding catching the virus

Haven’t even been to the store to see

If toilet paper and hand cleaner is still being hoarded.

 

It’s beginning to look a lot like a lonely Christmas

With everything I don't do

Haven’t sat down to write a single holiday card

Don’t have a wreath hung, no tree is up with tinsel

And Christmas catalogs all went in the trash unopened.

 

It’s beginning to look a lot like a lonely Christmas

Everywhere I don’t go

No holiday luncheons or parties are on the day planner

No Christmas movies are playing in the background

Not even Miracle on 34^th Street, Buh Humbug!

 

It’s beginning to look a lot like a lonely Christmas

With everything I don't do

Didn’t do any holiday shopping except for a goat

I thought about giving through Heifer International

But I gave the money to the homeless shelter instead.

 

It’s beginning to look a lot like next year 2021 Christmas

Everywhere I go

Will be filled with merriment and penned up good cheer

Making up for this year while the virus ravishes the earth

Until then please wear a damned mask, stay six feet apart! ©

 

Granted, it's not much of a poem. It might have lines and stanzas but it's got no rhythm and the meter off by a mile. But in my defense I wrote in less than fifteen minutes and within an hour I had multiple copies printed out and stuffed in thirty Christmas cards. It wasn’t until after I had them sealed that I realized I had a mistake in the last line. (Don’t look for it because it’s gone from this edition.) It was just a tiny ‘s’ that didn’t belong at the end of the word ‘mask’ but it was so typical of what happens when I don’t proof-read a zillion times and do it a few days after I write something. Oh, well, most of the people on my card list are not in the Wordsmithing Police except for one. She teaches high school English so the professional side of her brain is fine-tuned to catches errors like that. I thought about putting a note on the back of her envelope explaining that I originally wrote, “wear your masks” but I changed it to “wear a damned mask” but I forgot to delete the offending ‘s’ and to beg her, “Please don’t kick me out of the wordsmithing family club!”

 I’ve had a decade-long tradition of sending out self-depreciating attempts at humor otherwise known as my annual Christmas letter and it’s hard to stop doing them. But last year I did stop and I heard a lot of feedback about missing my letter. Still, this year I planned on holding firm. “No Christmas letter for you!” said in my Soup Nazi’s voice. So why the last minute change of heart? I was cleaning out my cards and gift wrapping chest of drawers---yes I have/had one. (Don’t judge. Martha Steward have entire rooms devoted to gift wrapping.) Anyway, I found thirty Christmas cards and enough stamps to go with them. I had a choice to make---either use them or send them to Goodwill. My addresses were already in my computer so in no time at all I had them printed on labels. The 'poem' just popped into my head while accidentally hearing Bing Crosby singing It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas in the background on TV as I was getting the cards ready. I say 'accidentally' heard that song because I've been avoiding all things Christmas this year.

Since the pandemic and keeping a blog makes for strange bedfellows, I decided that Christmas Poem would fill up one of my twice a week slots because after the epic week I’ve had of closet cleaning I needed an easy-peasy post. But I promise Saturday’s purging post will amaze, disgust or/and shock you! Maybe all three. ©

 

Thanksgiving 2020 - Hell Yes, I'm Staying Home!

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and all through the house not a creature is stirring except Levi, my four-legged spouse. I have no place to go tomorrow, no dish-to-pass to make in the kitchen. No problem. I’m a big girl and I am thankful that I have a warm house and food in the refrigerator. Okay, I actual wrote those opening lines last year for my day-before-Thanksgiving post and while on a personal level not much has changed since last year when I wrote them, on a broader level everything in the world has changed. And since Thanksgiving is about giving thanks I am thankful I’m not one of the thousands of people who've had to wait in long lines to get Covid-19 tested and I am thankful I’m not like so many others who, for the first time in their lives, found themselves waiting in long lines at food banks. But I am heartbroken (and angry) that so many others are victims of the world-wide pandemic not only those who are sick or the exhausted essential workers but also those who have lost jobs and businesses and loved ones they’ve had to bury. It didn’t have to be this bad. Politicizing wearing masks, not modeling social distancing. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, I'm also thankful we're getting a new president in 54 days. Okay, Jean, time to put your snarky remarks back in the box. It’s a holiday after all, the opening bell to the season of joy and peace on earth and all that good stuff .

Since starting this blog I’ve written about Thanksgiving thirteen times and while preparing to write this Thanksgiving post I skim-read all those other posts. The first two years after my husband died I spent the day with relatives on his side of the family, feeling like the proverbial fifth wheel. The third year I came home with food poisoning which wasn’t fun but I was thankful my husband wasn't with me. Can you imagine managing a guy in a wheelchair while you're both upping your cookies and purging your bowels? I’ve written about Sarah Joseph Hale who lobbied politicians for 40 years to get Thanksgiving celebrated national on a fixed date. (Talk about being dedicated to a passion project!) I’ve written about overdosing on Hallmark holiday movies, about making turkey soup and surprisingly I’ve written very little about my childhood holiday memories. (Look at me, using two words on the no-no list---‘very’ and ‘little’---that serious writers should never use and I strung them together no less. Oh well, I have a bad habit of over populating my posts with too many no-no words. Try as I might I can't help being smitten with starting sentences off with 'and' and 'so' even though it makes me sound like a Valley Girl. But I digress.)

Several years into widowhood I turned down all the invitations I got and I wrote: “My determination to stay home alone this Thanksgiving was part of an experiment on aging, on widowhood? Does it really matter which? The point was: 1) I didn’t want to be someone’s charity case, an old person/widow only invited because others felt sorry for me being all alone on a holiday; 2) I actually wanted to see what it felt like to be alone on a holiday since I'd never experienced that in the past. And you know what, it turned out fine. I didn’t wallow in loneliness, self-pity or memories of happier times. I didn’t go hungry as an elderly relative predicted I would, forced to eat stale crackers for dinner, and I didn’t treat Thanksgiving like any other day on the calendar. I planned a big meal with a few comfort foods from holidays past. I cooked, cleaned up and froze my leftovers for Christmas dinner. I also realized that I do have a post-Don Thanksgiving tradition: Watching the annual National Dog Show with Levi. We saw it last year and this year both and that dog actually watches the TV, barking and whining at his favorite canines on the screen. He is my core family now that my husband is gone.” That was written 5-6 years ago and Levi and I have continued our Dog Show tradition but that turned out to be the last year I cooked a special meal.

Levi is not feeling well today and I’m concerned. He’s clinging to me like white on rice which is not normal for him. When I put him outside for his first morning pee he laid down on the deck which in itself wouldn’t be alarming but the temperature outside is 38 degrees and he just got a haircut. Tomorrow I will be thankful if I don’t have to spend Thanksgiving Day at the animal ER. ©

Eating During a Pandemic

I made my last trip to the grocery store until after Christmas. I felt like a mouse, filling up my nest with food to get me through the pandemic and winter here in the frozen north. Why the mouse comparison? The summer when I downsized everything out of my basement I opened up a box and found a stash of probably fifty safflower seeds collected and carried from my bird feeder---a long trek across the yard, down a cement wall and to the box that was sitting in the middle of the basement. I had to admire that mouse’s industrial work and forethought but when push came to shove that stockpile and its owner had to go. That’s when I made the hard choice to stop feeding the birds. I had a vision from my childhood of a time when I was helping my mom clean our summer cottage in the spring and we found a nest with a mother mouse clutching her nursing babies and if that mama mouse had been wearing pants she probably would have peed them; I'll never forget the panicked look on her face. My mom had my brother carry the dresser drawer with the nest out to the woods where he was instructed to carefully re-locate the nest and family within it. Later that same day my mom was running around the cottage with a broom trying to smack another mouse died, probably the daddy mouse for which my mom had run of sympathy. If he had been wearing pants she probably would have told him death-by-broom served him right for not keeping “it” in his pants.

Anyway, back to 2020 and I have so much stuff stuffed in my pantry that I can barely close the doors. I need to make a list by expiration dates and start using things in a planned pattern. Recently I had to throw out two boxes of “fake” almond milk that I don’t like but I buy every fall just in case I can’t get to the store to buy real milk during the winter. There are a few things like milk that if I don’t have it in the house I practically have a panic attack. Cereal is another one. Can you see a pattern here? I eat cereal every morning. Hot cereal. Cold cereal. Soggy cereal if I get interrupted half way through breakfast. I’ve been known to have cereal for dinner since becoming a widow. Some of my favorite snacks are made with cereal and that fact didn’t slip by my best friend since kindergarten because back in the ‘80s she gave me a cookbook of all snack food recipes made with cereal. One of the neatest things about being a Septuagenarian is that everything we do and see can trigger a memory. One of the most annoying thing about being a Septuagenarian is that everything we do and see can trigger a memory.

I don’t do much food pick up or drive-thru since the pandemic started, once or twice a month tops. But the other day I was going past a local chain that will hence fore be known as the Dutch Boy Restaurant and the marquee announced that turkey dinners are back. My car must have sniffed the air and before I knew it she was rolling up to their drive-thru speaker. I got thoroughly hooked on their seasonal, turkey dinners three years ago. For just under $12 you get (real) turkey, (real) mash potatoes with gravy, stuffing, a dinner roll and pumpkin pie. Why no cranberries, I can’t understand and the people who take your money can’t explain either. But it’s enough food for two meals and by coincidence I had some deli cranberries in the house so I pronounced my mood high on the matrix grid as I drove my box of happiest home so Levi my Mighty Schnauzer could get his cut.

Going to the Dutch Boy, though, usually makes me feel like I’m cheating on my husband. And I’ll repeat a paragraph explaining why from a prior blog post: “Why did we avoid the place? Because the owner wore his religion on his sleeve and he reminded Don of the members of a church who hassled the owners of a movie theater where he grew up. Imagine going to see The Lone Ranger and Gene Audrey at the Saturday matinees and being told they were ‘evil’ and the theater was doing ‘the devil’s work.’ Imagine knowing the owners kept the theater open long after it was turning a profit just to give the town’s teenagers something to do on the weekends besides drag racing on rural roads. Imagine all that and you might understand why my husband absolutely refused to support places like the Dutch Boy Restaurant with its judgmental religious tracts all over the place. Over the decades most of the religious tracts have disappeared but Don never let go of his dislike for the place.” I've gone there occasionally since becoming a widow because they have some good quality meals and they are known for their homemade pies and cream puffs. Little known fact: Back in the day I'm pretty sure a guy could have gotten into my pants if he’d been smart enough to show up at my door with a box of cream puffs. ©