The best-laid plans

 

My social life got in the way of my creative goals today, but it made it a good day. The weather was perfect for patio entertaining, which made it even better.

My day began with a message from Linda, a dear friend who moved to Taos last year—from Granbury, so it’s not like I saw her frequently, but still I knew she was fairly close and would occasionally come by. She’s only a medium communicator, so there are long stretches when we’re not in touch, and I was delighted today to have a chance to catch up. Moving is always hard, and she’s feeling that—three major real estate transactions in one year. Her first winter in Taos, although she’s spent many summers there. I expect after a year, she’ll be totally happy and acclimated, but the change is hard. She misses her Texas friends, and we miss her.

Linda’s covid report was most interesting. She is appalled at the absence of masking in Texas. In Taos, she cannot make a dinner reservation without including proof of vaccination. She also has to show that at most public events, and she says you never ever go to church or the grocery without your mask. She keeps one on her wrist most of the time and says it is off and on several times a day. From the start of pandemic, New Mexico has always been stricter than Texas. But then, so have many states. Our county alone had over 7,000 new cases (it doesn’t say what period that covers, but the spread level is a red alert high).

Linda came at three when the patio was warm and sunny. In fact, the sun was so strong I had to look the other way or shield my eyes. By happy hour when Mary and Prudence came, the sun had sunk below the neighbor’s garage, but the evening did not bring on as much chill as I expected. We were quite comfortable sitting out there and had a wide-ranging discussion on everything from omicron, schools, politics, and books. Love it when we talk about ideas and not always things or people.

My bit of trivia for the day—which turned out not to be so trivial. Someone posted on Facebook about the dark ages’ custom of two sleeps. Apparently until the Middle Ages, people had two sleeps—one in the evening, and one in the morning. The custom stems, according to the poster, from the days of cave dwellers when someone always had to be awake to tend the fires and to ward of any predatory beasts that might be after food, animals, or even humans. I thought the fact was interesting if irrelevant in today’s world until I read some responses. People wrote to say they were relieved to find that they were not insomniacs but were simply following ancient body clocks when they were awake from 2:00 to 4:00 am or thereabouts. Pru said tonight she is usually awake form 2:00 until almost 5:00, just gets back to sleep when it’s time for her husband to get up—I remember that from the days I too was married to a surgeon. I generally sleep soundly until 5:00, even 6:00 but then I am semi-alert for Sophie to need to go outside. After she does and I entice her back in with a bit of cheese, I can go back to sleep for an hour or so, and I find myself really looking forward to that second sleep.

When we talked about this tonight, Mary said she sleeps about five hours a night (I would be a walking zombie) and cannot nap during the day. It makes her fuzzy headed. I on the other hand can sleep a solid two hours in the afternoon, and often do. Linda and I talked touched on napping when we talked about routine. She said that was one of the things she had to learn. She thinks I have long known it in my career, whereas she was in retail for what? Thirty or forty years. Whatever, the reason, we found that these days our routines are similar: in the mornings, she paints, and I hope to write; afternoons, we rest, though I suspect I am more devoted to a daily nap than she is. She often uses afternoons to read. But evenings we part company—she says dark comes so early in New Mexico, she has to force herself to stay awake until nine, and she is up early. I find myself at my computer often until midnight, but I am sleeping later and later in the mornings. My routine also includes regular meals—something for breakfast but not much, usually around nine-thirty; lunch near twelve-thirty, and supper at seven or seven-thirty. The late evening hour is an accommodation to the Burtons’ schedule that I have learned to make—sometimes I get a bit hungry and snack.

But I am a big believer in routine—and today, mine got thrown off, which is why now, at eight-thirty, I am about to start my thousand words for today on Irene Keeps a Secret. Wish me luck--or unexpected inspiration.

Thoughts on masking--and nonchalance

My pity party is over. I’m thankful that such episodes generally don’t last long with me. Today I’ve been much more upbeat and busied myself with some household chores like laundry, getting rid of stuff for the party that wasn’t, etc. Jordan and I have sort of perfected our delivery system, which means a lot of trips between houses for her. Today we exchanged laundry, and I packed up the wine caddies and things for the party—emptied a wine box that was perfect for that—and set it outside.

Tonight I made an experimental dinner, took out a portion for myself, and put the rest on the doorstep for Jordan to take inside. It was inside one of my treasured Corning Ware casseroles—and when I set it down, even with the stool for help, the lid bounced off. I watched in horror as it crashed to the cement driveway, but miraculously it did not break. (More on the dinner in tomorrow’s Gourmet on a Hot Plate blog.)

I may be over self-pity today, but I have a healthy dose of anger, indignation, whatever. I vowed this year to be kinder, to think of the other person’s viewpoint, not to leap to conclusions, and—this is a weakness of mine—not to assume that I am right and the other person’s opinion has no validity. But then, today, I read an essay from The Atlantic, titled “Where I Live No One Cares About Covid.” The writer, editor for a Catholic literary journal and a contributor to The American Conservative, lives in rural southwestern Michigan, an area I knew well as a child. I suppose now it is extremely conservative—Michigan is such a teetering state with a liberal governor who is always under attack.

This writer seemed to think that concern over Covid was strictly an urban matter. In rural areas like his, he claimed, people go about their business as if it’s over. His children have continued to go to day care, unmasked, and to see extended family every weekend. The only time he has seen masks is when he went to D.C. and was astounded. Frantic concern over Covid, he writes, is a folly that urban elites are imposing on others. He believes sooner or later they will realize their folly

Part of my indignation was that he seems to nonchalantly overlook the deaths of nearly a million of our citizens (we are truly moving up close to that number), let alone the long-term effects of those who survive. We have the long-haulers, and we don’t even know what complications will arise in survivors thirty or forty years from now. I think of chicken pox, which I had at the age of six or seven (no, I won’t say how long ago, but you can guess—it was a long, long time). Last year I had a case of shingles, because that chicken pox virus hiding in my body all these years decided to make itself known. Similarly, polio survivors are having complications—muscle weakness, joint degeneration, etc.—some sixty or more years later. Who knows what Covid will do?

More than that, the writer seems to dismiss the anxiety many of us feel as bureaucracy instigated. He apparently doesn’t believe the CDC. He is not worried that he does not know one person who has had a booster (data has suggested that the booster makes the difference with the omicron variant), the controversy over masks is silly. And this, apparently, is an educated man with some intelligence. Although he writes for a conservative publication, I found nothing in his essay to indicate that his stance is politically motivated. So I am at a loss to understand it.

Meantime, tonight a friend in an assisted living facility says that today they are near lockdown. She can come out, but restrictions are severe. There is no communal dining; she must wear a mask at all times, until she is in her own apartment; no guests are allowed. Our county has high statistics of cases, though as is the case elsewhere with the omicron variant, deaths are not as high as with the original or delta strains.

I am angry that there are people in our country, even our world, who take this so lightly, ignoring the tragedy it has brought to so many families. Masks are not major protection, but they do help. I saw a chart recently that said if two people both have KN96 masks, it takes two and a half hours for the virus to transmit; if they are not masked, it’s something like ten seconds.

Me? I’m going to isolate and mask and wish the rest of the world did. If they don’t—and I truly mean this globally—we’ll never eradicate the virus or even tame it.

Stay safe, everyone.

Tangling with bureaucracy

    Turkey burger with souvlaki flavorings
Really good, a keeper recipe

It wasn’t as bad as I feared. I had to go today to get an official identification card from the State of Texas. My driver’s license expired over a year ago on my 82^nd birthday. At that age, you cannot renew online but are required to appear in person at the Department of Motor Vehicles and either convince them that you are cognizant enough to drive or take a driver’s test.

Before online renewal was possible, going in person to renew my license always gave me the willies (I get them too easily). I felt like a kid going for a test I was about to fail. The eyesight test became a particular hurdle for me, partly I think as I developed cataracts, and I’d get so nervous I’d botch it. I let the whole driver’s license thing become a “big thing” in my mind.

With that history, I approached that significant birthday. We were in the midst of pandemic, and I was not driving because I was not going anywhere—we quarantined. So, masked or not, I did not want to go to the DMV and sit in a crowded waiting room for who knows how long. I simply ignored the whole thing. My kids were all okay with my not driving—maybe even relieved. Jordan was always afraid when I went places alone that I would be so preoccupied getting my walker in or out of the car that I wouldn’t be aware of my surroundings and would get mugged.

But with vaccination and the relative safety of moving about in the world, it began to occur to me I’d like to have some identification—to vote, if nothing else. I’d heard you can vote with your passport, but I wasn’t sure I trusted it. So I went online, waded through the complicated DMV web site, found the directions, and made an appointment. Every time they gave me a date and time, I’d check with Jordan to see if she could take me, and by the time I went back to the web site, that slot had been filled. Finally, I made a morning appointment—at an office at least twenty minutes and twenty miles away—for today, 10:20. That was months ago, and I put it out of my mind.

This week it dawned on me that Jacob has a golf tournament today. Jordan had to have him at the course, twenty minutes in the other direction, at 6:15 a.m. I thought perhaps she would stay or be too harried to take me. I think a part of me was secretly hoping we could reschedule the DMV for another three or four months away. No such luck: with too much enthusiasm, she said, “I can take you!”

The day was sunny and not too hot, and the trip was pleasant. We took crossed Lake Worth on Loop 820 and marveled at the view—the blue lake up close and way in the distance the now-tiny tall buildings of downtown. It was like seeing two disparate worlds at once. With one “Oops,” we found the office and arrived ten minutes early.

The facility was clean, most people were masked, chairs in the waiting room were distanced—I thought it would all be okay. The online directions were so intimidating—if you’re ten minutes late, you lose your slot—that I hoped they’d take us on time. Not so. But the wait was less than thirty minutes. Jordan and I thought masks were a requirement for both staff and the public, but as we waited, I saw more and more unmasked people, and I found myself resenting them, angry even. We’ve had such high controversy in Fort Worth over masks, while our numbers of new cases and deaths have skyrocketed, that I really am alert to who cares about others and who doesn’t.

The representative who talked to us was young, relatively new to the job, and thrilled to meet an author—that part made my day. But she spoke softly and rapidly, and Jordan had to take over the session. I recognized an old feeling—people see an elderly woman with a walker, and they don’t talk to her but talk around her to whoever is with her. It’s a little like being invisible. Jordan had to sign an affidavit confirming my address because utility bills no longer come in my name. She even signed my name, which she does a lot, until the young woman said no, I had to sign in person. And then Jordan insisted I had to put on lipstick for the picture. I worried all along that the voluminouos documentation we brought would not satisfy their strict requirements, but all was well. By 11:30 we were headed home, greatly relieved to have this behind us. In two weeks, I should once again be official in the State of Texas.

Tonight, relaxation. Jean came for supper, and I fixed souvlaki-flavored turkey burgers with tzatziki, broccoli, and leftover potato cakes. Jean and I loved them; Jordan missed eating with us and ate an hour later because she got caught at the golf tournament. No matter because Jacob is doing well.