In a previous post, Another Woman’s Life, we met our intriguing heroine dumpster diving at a Goodwill depot center. (Wait…no… that makes it sound like she was doing the diving when actually I was in the dumpster…Sigh. Go read that post, it makes more sense.)
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Continue reading A Tale of Two Lindseys
My sheets attacked while I was sleeping. I thought we had resolved our difficulties and reached an accord. But, I was wrong. So very, very wrong.
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Continue reading What Happens Among the Sheets…
Through a friend, I was invited to join fellow service women in an community-based artistic endeavor of a most mysterious kind–one with the thrill of possibly ending up shellacked and put on display!
How could I say “No” to that?
Continue reading Artful Creations of Pain and Vision
I’ve been afraid to state an opinion.
Afraid to rock a precariously tiny boat on very troubled seas.
A friend recently suggested I “Woman up” or, in essence, to stop being a coward.
So here goes:
I am truly terrified of COVID-19. Everything I’ve read convinces me this is a plague of biblical proportions. And that’s saying something coming from an agnostic!
But even more than a highly contagious disease, I am afraid to lose friendships because of COVID-19. So afraid, that I have not asked people to wear masks when I’m in close proximity. Even though I have worn mine in my yard…while by myself…while weeding.
I desperately cling to friendships, even when the cling-ee isn’t that keen on tolerating the stranglehold I have on them. I have lost friendships before. I will likely lose friendships again. Possibly over this. And I truly hate the thought.
I have been a coward; and I’m going to try very hard to stop. But even contemplating telling my friends my position, I’m feeling a welling, choking sensation I haven’t felt for years.
TIME TRAVEL SEGUE–NO, NOT THAT KIND OF SEGUE—A BACK TO THE PAST KIND:
I had a job once at a place we’ll aptly refer to as “DeepHell University.” It was in the fundraising department. I had a very challenging boss who, in her defense, had a very weird secretary. Me. I was the secretary.
(TRUE CONFESSION: I accidentally read a highly personal email from one of her friends when the I.T. guys accidentally linked my new email to my boss’s mail system–and I read it…and replied to it…at length…because I literally did not understand what the internet was and how it differed from emails.) This happened the very first day I worked there, but the boss forgave me. Kind of.
We managed a rocky half-year of an increasingly challenging relationship. This boss made me nervous. Like cat-on-a-hot-plate-in-a-room-full-of-rabid-pit-bulls, nervous. I took everything she said as criticism or complaints. I felt stupid, clumsy, and unsuited to the job. Everything I heard sounded like blame and hostility. I became so nervous I would plot a course around the entire department in hopes of avoiding seeing her. (Her office was right next to me, but around a corner.) It got so bad, I started doing a thing. A thing I did NOT know I was doing. I started holding my breath. I passed out several times before finally wising up and seeking professional help. I’m lucky I didn’t give myself permanent brain damage via concussion or oxygen deprivation. I have never been so grateful to be fired from a job in my life.
BACK TO THE FUTURE…MEANING THE CURRENT OR PRESENT DAY:
So, if you see me, and I keep a six foot distance from you while you are unmasked, do not be surprised and try not to take offense. Please understand, I am not judging anyone. I am not trying to make any kind of political statement. I’m just trying to make the best choice I can in a very bad time in our world.
I’m supposed to see family tomorrow. They prefer to go maskless. (Apparently they didn’t have the same fantasies about becoming Zorro I did as a child.) I really want to see them but I’m also a ticking time bomb of terror–albeit one with a love of alliteration. It tears my heart in two when I’m faced with this dilemma. I don’t want to be considered a nagging worrywart. And yet, if the wart fits…
So I’m asking them to move the get together into the backyard. And crossing my fingers that I am not dropped from future invitations of this kind–especially seeing as I organized this one. But my family has forgiven flakier behavior than this. [More on this topic in another blog post. I’ve confessed enough for one day. It’s best to spread the crazy out a little bit at a time.]
I’d like to think someday we’ll be safer and these extreme measures won’t be necessary. But that future isn’t here yet. (I’m feeling an overwhelming need to throw in another Back to the Future reference, but I’m coming up blank. You’ll just have to picture me driving a Deloreann and wearing a white, fright wig.)
And for those of you too young to get that reference, here’s a YouTube clip. (Proving I am slightly more technologically capable than my younger self.)
Back to The Future Present Tense–Plague Edition
Do you hate me now?
If you knew that, by catching COVID-19 there is no one who can watch my son, would that make a difference? Any sign of even a cold nowadays, and I lose all the help that comes into my home throughout the week. Help that keeps me from going bat-guano crazy. If I really caught COVID, I would be on my own, struggling to take care of a special needs child and afraid to ask anyone to help because I just couldn’t risk exposing somebody else to the disease.
So I will wear a mask. I will try to stay a six foot distance away. And I will not hold my breath waiting for others to understand. I am scared. For all of us!
In parting, I ask you, my viewing audience:
What would you do if you had to choose between friends…and safety?
What would you choose?
…a question that tempts me to include the following:
Head Rush
I was complimented recently on my writing, it came via someone with a tenuous Facebook connection. It’s the first time anyone who wasn’t a friend or blood relative (and therefore obligated to like my writing or at least lie to me and say they do) told me they found my writing funny. (But funny in a good way.)
It made me feel, just for a nano-second, what it must be like when famous people get recognized. It was awesome and I thanked him…and then felt like a total fraud because I haven’t given two thoughts to my blog in months!
You can thank/blame him for this post.
Continue reading Out-of-Focus Musings of a Disturbed MindLast night I tried to write a blog post. I was struggling to put into words how I feel about the situation in Minneapolis. The anger that permeates all the news regarding race in our country. The helplessness to change anything.
And then I went upstairs to check on my son and was reminded of WHY you never leave him alone for any reason…
This happened because I told him I was going to cut his hair the next day.
I often wonder whether my son is actually listening to me.
Now I know.
He is listening with a vengeance.
And a plan.
Below is a link on Facebook to my reaction to his styling techniques.
If you are struggling to get through depression or the continuing of Covid-19 isolation, or you could just use a laugh, it is my gift to you.
Also, you won’t be feeling so bad about your own hairstyles now, will you?
https://www.facebook.com/Kirizar/videos/10157361845595868/
It is entirely possible there is such a thing as too much isolation.
It leads one to very odd flights of fancy.
…especially when shopping after hoarders have ransacked the produce aisle.
You end up bringing home a quirky specimen.
I’ll admit, I’ve been curious as to what these things might taste like.
A session of mad shopping–the kind where you duck and cover whenever another shopper comes anywhere near you–results in a new and unusual purchase.
I’ve successfully nabbed some much-needed cleaning supplies when the victory over the nearly-empty shelves turns sour. All it takes is a near-hostile exchange with people unaware that a pandemic is taking place.
I’m stopped by dawdlers at the wall of cheeses. I glare at the young couple with their two kids standing in front of the refrigeration display debating the merits of one plastic wrapped cheddar over another for approximately an hour until I want to scream “IT’S ALL THE SAME DAMNED CHEESE, JUST PICK ONE!” and make their kids cry.
[NOTE: I don’t actually scream. But I do seethe for about five minutes waiting with toe-tapping impatience until I loudly interrupted them, “I would just like to get some cheese, if that’s okay?” in a most passive aggressive appeal.]
It is on my way to check-out that post-anxiety, impulse shopping occurs.
Back home, the dragon fruit sat on the counter, as it aged enough to get the required ‘wilted leaves’ by which point it was a lot less photogenic.
Once cut into, the white interior with its plethora of tiny black seeds is revealed.
If I had to describe the taste, I would tell you to go buy one yourself. It tastes nothing like I imagined it would. Pear comes close. If you took that pear down a back alley and blasted it full of buckshot until all the flavor and sweetness had been drained like life blood into the garbage strewn darkness.
Or, as a friend said when I asked her whether she’d like to try some.
“No thanks. I’m good. I’ve had it before. Once.” She paused and added, “It’s not bad or anything.“
I joked, “Yeah, but it’s not good either.”
She laughed and said, “Yeah.”
“At least the seeds aren’t noticeable, unlike kiwi, which are crunchy when you eat them, or as bad as pomegranates!” I spoon up another pallid mouthful.
I chew a few more bites. The tastelessness does not grow on me, despite my desire to like the fruit. The stuff is probably a delicacy in the arid regions where it grows. A king among fruits in a desert. This makes me think of something else.
“It’s like an old boyfriend, where you pretend that they aren’t the problem before breaking up with them. Except that in this case, you’d tell the fruit ‘It’s not me, it is totally you!‘”
“Yeah, it’s the fruit no one would pick if they had a choice.” The friend obligingly humors me on my line of thought.
I wrap up the second half of the much despaired cactus flower progeny and toss it back in the fridge. It was at least filling.
“So much for the exotic potential.” I say. “Dragon Fruit-–the ex-boyfriend of fruits.“
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Stay Tuned as the mind numbing boredom of the stay-at-home-or-else order continues. I may break down and try that Durian that’s been giving me the stink-eye whenever I see it.
A trip through life with fingers crossed and eternal optimism.
Anna Fonté; the things she writes want you to look at them.
One woman's observations on her way through life
sharing the stories of interconnection
"Nothing that happens to a writer -- however happy, however tragic -- is ever wasted." ~ P.D. James
Financial Services Executive
Erm, what am I doing with my life?
by Peach Berman
A trip through life with fingers crossed and eternal optimism.
Anna Fonté; the things she writes want you to look at them.
One woman's observations on her way through life
sharing the stories of interconnection
"Nothing that happens to a writer -- however happy, however tragic -- is ever wasted." ~ P.D. James
Financial Services Executive
Erm, what am I doing with my life?
by Peach Berman
Like Mother Teresa, only better.
Nature needs Nurture
Happiness is Baseball
Watercolor stories project - Finished 2021
Never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer.
Looking forward...from back here, a journey through the second half
محمد القربي
The Wanderings and wonderings of a sentient cloud.
TheDustSeason 