Tag Archives: #quarantineliving

Growing Things

On Friday we planted new pentas, vincas, coleus, and marigolds. Daughter and her fiance helped MUCH. We left a lot of the old flowers, although they were a bit leggy, mainly because of the cost and also because we have been so busy that we didn’t have time to do more.

When the pandemic began, I was eager to be a pioneer woman and even froze eggs and lemons in case we had a shortage. Now I am very ragged around the edges, having been overworked by all the dealings with the government and business-in-the-time-of-coronavirus. I am used to always being busy, usually thrive on it, and yet I will say that I am too exhausted at this point. And I don’t see a letup. Plus, when I get this tired, my legs and feet swell miserable (from my primary lymphedema). That aggravates my “hip-leg.” I have a painful condition with my left leg up near the groin that I refer to as my hip-leg. It feels like a twisting nerve and is particularly and suddenly painful when I put my foot down on the ground. The swelling makes it worse. And the exhaustion and work-work-work makes it worser yet.

But I don’t have the virus. And neither does my family. And my kitties are a lot of work, but so cute. And I have new flowers. So there you go.

We also have lizards galore this year. And the quail couple with their single file of bobbing babies. You see, I can keep finding cool stuff to distract myself!

My friend who wrote this very popular essay years ago (Lake Erie) teaches creative writing to seniors. Because of the pandemic, her classes now are on Zoom, and my mom is taking one! I am so happy she is doing so because it’s good for her to interact with others, although it’s on phone Zoom (no video) and not in person. Also, she is a reporter for the community newspaper (used to be an editor for it), but with the pandemic she can’t interview people in person. My mother’s community has a big apartment complex, a nursing home, an assisted living, a rehab facility, and garden homes (duplexes). She lives in a garden home, so she has more space and more freedom than if she lived in one of the other buildings.

I call my mother regularly, but it’s hard to find new things to talk about when you’re not out doing new stuff! And she’s not going to doctors or seeing friends, so she doesn’t have that to talk about. She does read my genealogy blog The Family Kalamazoo, so that makes her happy because I am almost always yapping about her family. Most recently I’ve been working on my 3x great-grandfather who was a “prosperous celery farmer” (according to his obit) in Kalamazoo. I had no idea when I was growing up there that my ancestor was one of the farmers who raised Kalamazoo’s “famous” crop. The thing that interested me most about him was discovering that as a widower he married and divorced a woman after he immigrated to the U.S. It almost looks like he married her so she would help raise his six children. I wonder what he discovered he didn’t like. How I would love to see the divorce papers! I have all kinds of fictional scenarios popping up in my head.

When I was growing up, my dad planted a plum tree in our backyard in Michigan. He used to take pix of us next to the tree, watching the tree and us kids growing, I guess. After my father passed away five years ago (last Thursday), my mom had a plum tree planted on the edge of the woods behind her house at the senior complex.

This weekend I found out I got the Volunteer of the Month award for April at the shelter. Yes, well, so many of the other volunteers couldn’t do their jobs because the shelter has been closed to volunteers for the pandemic. However, my work increased because I make the adoption calls (more adoptions!) and do data entry for those. I also took on the shelter’s Twitter account, which is a challenge right now because just as soon as I get info on a new dog it gets adopted :)! The reason this is occurring is in part because people are stepping up to adopt during this period. But it is also for another reason. Our shelter is a no-kill that functions largely by rescuing e-list dogs from the county kill shelter. (The cats seem to magically appear at our shelter, by the way). Our shelter is only bringing in a limited number of animals because without volunteers, the staff can only take care of just so many hungry mouths.

Take care of yourselves, peeps. If you have Instagram, be sure to check out Bobthewritingcat! That big-hearted curmudgeon makes me happy and teary. As Bob always says, go wash your hands!!!

 

 

 

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Filed under #writerlife, #writerslife, Arizona, Family history, Flora, Garden, and Landscape, Memoir, Nonfiction

Reporting In, Part 3

I want to reach out and say Hi and hear back about how everyone is doing. I really want to know how readers are faring in the midst of the pandemic.

There is such a wide variety of how the pandemic is affecting Americans. I’m blessed that so far Arizona is not overrun with Covid-19 cases, that my family and I seem well, that the kitties seem well, and that we have food and shelter and a sunny sky.

I might get to see my granddog Riley today or tomorrow if things go well and her Mom and Dad stay far enough away from me. Isn’t she cute in her University of Oklahoma jersey?

Riley’s big sister Isabella Rose is a proud Sooner, but not a proud Tshirt wearer.

There might be a shortage of soda, beer, and seltzer coming our way. I guess we can handle that. There is always wine and vodka. And I have a soda machine for my soda water.

But the stories I’ve heard that others are enduring upset me. It’s impossible to push aside their pain and not absorb it as my own. It’s also upsetting to see that the NYC subways are still packed with people who have to go to work that way. They don’t have the luxury of holing up in their apartments and waiting it out.

We all have different coping methods. Praying is always a good one. So is self-care, like meditation, yoga, essential oils, healthy food, and kitty love. Or doggie love.

I like to keep my sense of humor as much as I can because it really does help. It boosts the immune system. But sometimes my sense of humor fails me.

We focus on the mundane tasks, as well as the tasks we have to learn to do ourselves.

On Saturday I used the hair color kit my stylist made for me and covered my roots. Well, most of my roots. Or if not most, enough . . . because I have nowhere to go anyway. My hair is very very resistant to color. It always has been. Therefore, it takes superwoman efforts to cover the gray. Over time, stylists have figured out that my hair has to be covered twice, with cap and dryer each time. Trying to just keep the color on longer and only doing it once does not work. Nobody can figure out why my hair is like this. It might be hormonal, but in what way? Anyway, I don’t have a dryer, so couldn’t do that part. And after I colored it once and showered to remove the Redken, I figured, screw it–this is good enough for now. So there are some patches of gray left. Who cares?

I had considered buying a box at Walgreens, but my daughter and daughter-in-law were horrified that I would ruin my hair. I guess they would have been shocked at the grad school years when the gardener used to color my hair with a box of Clairol. His method was not the “comb and part neatly” one used by stylists. His method was a chaotic attack from all angles that tangled my hair beyond combing. If I survived that, I can survive these gray patches.

Lots of my friends have gone gray, either over time or suddenly when they stopped coloring their hair within the last few years. But I doubt I will do so as I’m not fond of how pasty I look with “ash tones.”

Yesterday I did a supermarket pickup. They have it streamlined so I don’t have to sign anything and the employees are not allowed to accept tips. The young man put the bags in the back of my vehicle, and I just sat in my car. Of course, when I got home I exhausted myself sanitizing everything. I had ordered 3 kinds of jelly beans in the hopes that there would be at least one bag for the gardener (I hate jelly beans, by the way). He was not in luck. But I did score a big bag of russet potatoes, so I have real potatoes for the first time since before we went to Costa Rica mid-March. Last night I made latkes!!!

One smaller thing that has been weighing on my mind in the midst of all the big worries is my daughter’s wedding. She has it planned for March 2021 here in Phoenix. She’s continuing to plan it. The guest list will be about 95% out-of-towners, from New Jersey, New York, California, etc. I think one of the reasons this stresses me so much is that it forces us to look eleven months ahead and predict the relationship we will have with the virus at that point.

On another note, writing is a good focus for me, but I have not been able to do too much writing. Happily, I’ve had a lot of publications coming out this spring. Still at least four more journals before summer. I guess this year publications, rather than new poems, are my contributions to National Poetry Month.

So tell me about you. 

 

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Filed under #AmWriting, #NaPoWriMo, #writerslife, Arizona, National Poetry Month, Publishing