Standing on shifting ground

I think many of us feel we are standing on shifting ground, the earth beneath our feet so uncertain that we have quite lost our balance. Schools and churches are closed, sports events and conferences cancelled, travelled advised against. Even grocery shopping sounds a bit perilous for some of us.

My mom always told me some good comes out of all bad situations, and we are seeing that today. Someone online pointed out that the closings show that we are coming together, as communities, as a nation, to protect each other. When my church announced a two-week closing, the minister wrote that it did so “prayerfully and carefully” because the health of the congregation was most important. When Left Coast Crime, a California writer’s conference, was cancelled at the end of the first day by order of the county, many attendees turned down their registration refund and donated it to the sponsoring group that had worked hard for three years and incurred many debts to sponsor the meeting.

Of course, there are the price gougers out there. I have heard of $20,000 airline tickets from Europe and $150 bottles of Purrell. Those folks are always among us, but most Americans are rising to the occasion and meeting this crisis with common sense and caring for others.

And still life goes on. I spoke at a luncheon yesterday for the Arlington Woman’s Club, a lovely bunch of women who apparently like to read and talk about books. The mood was upbeat, and you’d almost not have known there was national panic about COVID-19. But there was an undertone. The president of the group said to me, “We may have to quit meeting. Most of us are of the at-risk age.”

One of the things I worry about is whether or not I am making a contribution to the common good. Over the years people have tried to reassure me that my young-adult books foster the habit of reading in children, and my adult books bring much-needed pleasure and distraction from reality and its frequent difficulties. Still I often feel a bit frivolous.

Yesterday I unknowingly gave these women a gift. I told them school children always ask, “How much money do you make?” and “How old are you?” I said the answer to the first is “Not as much as you think,” but for the second question, I said, “I’m proud to tell you that I am eighty-one and still writing.” My audience cheered, clapped, and laughed. Afterward. Sue Hogg, president of the group and a wonderful woman with a great sense of the joy of life, said to me, “You gave them hope. You told them that they too can do something at our age.” Her words really encouraged me.

I am not an easy speaker—I work myself into a tizzy beforehand, sure that I will embarrass if not disgrace myself. But usually, with good preparation, I’m okay once I get going. But I was a bit dismayed yesterday to come away with four new invitations to speak. Not sure I can screw up my courage that many times.

Friend Subie and her lovely sister, Diana, went with me to the lunch, and an old friend among the listeners made me laugh by referring to them as my “staff.” When I told Subie I had four new invitations, her response echoed my thought: “I’m not sure I can do that many.” Subie and Diana hauled books for me and sold them, and several women said now they were going to read more of my books. I left in a glow.

But I have the feeling that’s my last public appearance for some time. That ground has shifted, and I’ll be pretty much staying in my cottage. How about you? How is the virus impacting your life?

Sunday dinner and other food matters

Jordan and Christian have subscribed on a temporary basis to one of those food delivery services that sends you meat, spices, recipes, etc.—everything you need. The one they chose is HelloFresh, and I’m wondering if it’s the one that is Fort Worth-based.

Tonight, we had meat loaf, oven-roasted sliced sweet potatoes, and fresh green beans. Delicious. Sunday night dinner is a tradition in my family, as much as I can make it continue, and the Burtons help me cling to it. Jordan, I think, appreciates the tradition, and Christian likes the opportunity to cook.

I had toyed with the idea of these delivery services—one daughter-in-law has tried one, and another has become a rep for a company that sends recipes and spices, while you provide the meat and other fresh ingredients. I was stopped by two things: I really like to cook, follow (or deviate from) recipes, and a food delivery service is a bit much for one person. So it was fun to experience the meal tonight. Jordan tells me pork chops are next up, after Christian cooks the roast he’s had in the freezer forever. Problem there: I wanted to cook it with my recipe—red wine, onion soup mix, and mushroom soup. Another time.

 After dinner, Jordan and I sat out on the deck, and when I mentioned that I wanted her to take a picture of the bougainvillea, she said she'd take it with me in front of it. I don't look so great, but that is the most gorgeous potted plant I've ever seen. It doesn't measure up to those that grow free on rooftops in California, but in a pot, in Texas, it's pretty spectacular. It would show up better in daylight. With the patio at my door I don't sit on the deck much and this too was a treat--with Sophie at my feet.

Grocery shopping has been a problem for me lately. Getting used to new medications has been an ongoing process, and I frequently had no appetite or interest in exploring new recipes. When I did find something I wanted to cook, I’d buy the ingredients and then something would come up—Jordan would fix a family meal, leftovers demanded to be eaten, dinner invitations came, etc. I’d buy ingredients for something I wanted to fix, and then life would interfere, and the ingredients would sit in my fridge. Right now, I have a really good ham slice meant for chicken and ham croquettes, which sounded good to me at one time but when I reread the recipe, it was too much trouble and required cooking capabilities I don’t have. I threw it out and decided to make ham salad tomorrow. But now I have leftover meatloaf—life’s dilemmas.

And sometimes I find something I want to cook right then—I don’t have the ingredients. Were I mobile, with a car, I’d just go get it—used to do that a lot. But I can hardly ask Jordan to take me to the store for one ingredient. As she says to me frequently, we need a better system.

Meantime, with cabin fever threatening, I am making a concerted effort to get out more and have people in more often. Grateful for the friends who have stuck by me during my bouts of less- than-ideal health and for new friends I’ve made in the last year.

Which reminds me. A post in Facebook this morning sent my mind to thinking again about how many good, kind, caring people there are in the world and in this country. Specifically, it was about a plane-load of truck drivers who heard the call that help was needed in Puerto Rico and, as one said, made an instant decision to join and fly down there to do whatever they could. I can’t help wondering how, in a country with so many wonderful people, we turned our government over to a bunch of selfish, ambitious, egocentric men.

Pollyanna speaks again

Today was Meet the Frogs day at TCU, and Jordan, Christian and Jacob were first in line (no, I did not go with them). Christian went to talk to Gary Patterson, but Jacob visited with his special buddy, Ju’juan Story, a wide receiver. Last year, Christian found Ju’juan’s wallet in a parking lot and returned it, and the football player has been Jacob’s hero ever since. The kindness that these football players show to star-struck youngsters at this event makes my heart glad. It’s one of the feel-good stories that convinces me there are a lot of good people in this world, and maybe, just maybe, American is growing kinder.

Take the three Americans—not Marines as originally reported but childhood friends—who were heroes in the terrorist attack on a French train. Or the firefighters who are working so tirelessly, at risk of their lives, in the State of Washington. Or the young man who sensed something wrong about a couple arguing at a bus stop and stayed with them until he could call the police—turns out the man was trying to kidnap his ex-girlfriend and the young man may well have saved her life. When I fell recently in a restaurant parking lot, a crowd of people was almost immediately upon me, offering help, expressing concern. I see other instances—not all of which I can call to mind right now, of the goodness of our people. I firmly believe that most people, given the chance, will do the right thing.

I am subject, as most of you know, to sudden attacks of “I can’t take a step away” from whatever secure thing I am holding on to. It’s that first step, and after that I’m off and running. I have asked a wide variety of strangers to help me, and each and every one has been helpful and concerned. It has occurred to me that I could be asking the wrong person—a purse thief, mugger, who knows what—but so far my faith in people is confirmed.

But then I read pure ugly hatred and fervent misinformation on Facebook, and I’m appalled. Obama is the son of Satan; Planned Parenthood is selling body parts from live fetuses; Boehner and McConnell are ready to sacrifice the security of America over the issue of Planned Parenthood; and on it goes. Politicians are playing to the ignorance and fear of too many Americans—what happened to public servants who had the good of the nation at heart? It too often seems that politicians have their egos and pocketbooks at heart. Disheartening. Call me Pollyanna again, but I believe good will triumph, and we will elect in 2016 a moderate, reasonable, capable president. Of course, being me, I know he’ll be a Democrat, but hey! That’s just me.

We live in interesting times, and I so often think of my father, a yellow-dog Democrat up north where that term wasn’t even known. He’d have apoplexy over our current political situation. But those of us out of the political spotlight? Most of us are good people, good Americans.