A bit of company, a dreary day, and some work

 

These may not be my salad days,
but tonight was a salad supper night

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. Today was gray and dark, as most of you know. Not a day to inspire great joy. But, yay! I got a bit of a break in my isolation. Jordan came out this morning, masked, and I quickly put on my N95 mask. She only stayed ten or fifteen minutes—I guess I’d hoped for an hour of conversation or some such—but she did many of the small chores I can’t reach to do. Putting things on high shelves, retrieving mailing envelopes from behind the couch where my walker and I cannot go. Christmas is still up, and she said since it will be for a few more days, I might as well go ahead, light the lights, and enjoy it. I was delighted for her company. And she came back out tonight, all dressed in her cowgirls duds, to show me her outfit as they headed out for the Grand Entry of the rodeo.

Burtons a Rodeo 2022

And there’s the rub. I figure if they go to the Grand Entry—I presume Christian’s company has a box—with 14,000 other folks, they’re going to be exposed to the omicron variant. Christian has said he won’t change his lifestyle, and he figures everyone is going to get it. In my early eighties, I don’t subscribe to that philosophy. I feel quite healthy, but I know I have a couple of chronic conditions—age being one of them—that could compromise my survival of even this mild variant. I do not want to risk it, and if most people are going to get it, I am determined not to be one of them.

So I guess we are back to five days of isolation, asking them to test, etc. In some ways I am almost getting used to it; other moments, I am full of despair. Woke up this morning with a real feeling of dread—of what I don’t know, perhaps a dream. It soon disappeared.

Sophie had a bad night too—at 5:30 this morning she had a prolonged spell of coughing and snorting from her allergies. She wanted to go out, but I resisted that fearing she stay out, and I’d have to fetch her in the morning damp. Gave her a Benadryl instead—magic! She slept until 8:15. Early this afternoon, she had another bad spell, and I gave her another Benadryl—more magic! She took a longer nap than I did. I know about those people who overmedicate their dogs—and children—for their convenience, and I promise to resist. But oh my, it did work well.

Late this morning, I attended a Zoom session on plotting your mystery, taught by Hallie Ephron, who is a renowned mystery writer and teacher in her own right and the sister of the late and perhaps more famous Nora Ephron. It was good—not much I didn’t already know, but it’s good to hear some things again. As a result, I totally revised my thoughts on my work-in-progress and set about tonight reworking the paltry 5,000 words I have. Instead of losing words, I gained. Yay me!

And I baked the cranberry cake I’ve been wanting to make for days. It’s so simple, and so good, although a piece after dinner made me think it needed more oven time, and I baked it a bit more. I’ll try again in a bit.

And that was day—what? Seven of my isolation. An indication I’m ready for it to be over—I have a list of restaurants, new and old, that I want to go to. How soon, O Lord, how soon?

Stay safe, everyone. I hear reports from that great big world outside my cottage that few people are masking. Whatever is wrong with them? Please get your N95 masks and war them! Think of it as a kindness to your neighbor, if nothing else. We are all in this boat together.

Here we go again

 

Set-up for a cancelled party,
I think it makes a nice still-life.

When you begin the day by getting the tea bag string so tangled with the spoon, you have to use scissors, you get a hint it might not be your best day! Yesterday I cancelled the small open house I’d been planning for New Year’s Day—come and go for black-eyed peas, ham, and good luck. Only at most twenty people and, I prayed, not all at once because twenty people would crowd the cottage beyond conviviality. The guests were my closest friends, people I knew would be vaccinated, masked, careful. Even so, one good friend wrote that they would come only if they could stay outside, and a neighbor couple sent heartfelt regrets. Still another friend said she was relieved and they had planned to stay on the patio. A grandmother planning a trip to see grandchildren said she was refusing all social invitations as she kept herself virus-free for the visit. As a final blow, the wonderful woman who was going to “spiffy up” the cottage that morning reported she has tested positive.

This was particularly poignant for me. For fifty years or more, I gave an annual tree trimming party with sixty or more guests. I began cooking and freezing things in November. The week of the party I laid dishes out on the table with little notes in them of what went in which dish. (When he saw that, Christian said to Jordan, “You and your mother have a screw loose.”) It was a big deal party—cheese ball, caviar spread, smoked salmon, an annual tradition that I looked forward to and so did my guests. I haven’t done it in at least six years—hard to cook like that when you need a walker, and then in the cottage there was no room.

So this was to be a mini-recreation of tree trimming, and I was excited about it. I’m a bit surprised that instead of sadness, I feel relief. I wouldn’t want anyone to get sick because they came to my cottage. I will say planning a party that doesn’t come off is a great way to straighten your living quarters—Jordan and I put away a lot of the clutter in the cottage, most of it in places where it will not appear again at least for a while. And I sure have stocked up on liquor, including that really good eggnog with the nog in it.

I did offer curbside pickup on the patio for black-eyed peas in the late afternoon on New Year’s Day. I expect it will be a tad too cool for much patio sitting.

I am sad, relieved—and a bit angry. For myself, I am going into quarantine again, just when I’d been working to convince myself I didn’t want to be a recluse. Having stayed home for almost a year, it was hard to get into the routine of going out again. But I was enjoying restaurant dinners and the like—and now, boom! Yesterday alone, there were a thousand new cases in Tarrant County, and the total for the last week is something like 5,500. If people had listened to the science and not the politics and followed the advice, vaccinated, worn masks, kept social distancing, the omicron would not have had so many hosts.

I honestly don’t understand anti-vaxxers and, yes, I am angry at them. They are so self-absorbed with their indignation that they fail to see their folly could not only kill them, it affects the rest of society. We’re all in this damn boat together. It was philosopher John Stuart Mill who believed that individuals should have absolute freedom except when their actions could harm another or the community in general!

This morning I put a pot of peas on to cook (you don’t know how badly I wanted to fill out the alliteration with pickle instead of cook!). Tonight I’ll still be in my jammies, and I’ll cook my favorite comfort food—salmon croquettes. TV? Probably not. Rather a good book, I don’t know if I will last until midnight or not, but I will treat myself to a nightcap of eggnog. I’ll be perfectly happy, but I hope that my New Year’s Eve doesn’t set a pattern for the year.

A Scottish blessing, traditional on Hogmanay (the last day of the old year): “A good New Year to one and all, and many may you see.” And there’s an Irish custom you should know. I’m told it’s traditional to open the door to be sure the old year leaves! An especially good practice this year.