I will head to Ann Arbor, Michigan to lay eyes and hugs on my beloved youngest son. I will hug him harder, longer and more often than he would prefer. He is a psychiatrist and will understand. Damn, I love that boy! He has been there two years and I haven’t see him in his place yet.
Then I want to drive the 300 miles to see my sister in Iowa and just hang out at her house. Drink coffee in our robes all day, read, knit, watch some tacky TV. You know, all the good stuff. Browse cookbooks, enjoy baking and cooking in the same kitchen. Spend more hours planning and daydreaming about cabin camping in a state park together than we will actually spend in the park. Drink more coffee, read some more, talk about cooking and books some more, read, drink coffee… go to the bathroom a lot.
Get my short hair cut again by the same friend/stylist that has been cutting it for 25 years. Sigh…
Hope my daughter and SIL leave town on a much delayed trip so my 3 year old granddaughter and I can spend round the clock days spoiling each other thoroughly. Hope they don’t come home without warning before the mess is cleaned up.
When the plague is over, I want to go to the botanical garden. I hope it’s open by next spring. Last spring, I was just starting to get sick. Nowhere near as bad as I am now (I could still walk. I got my first cane around May), but not up to an outing like that. I had wanted to go and take photos of the spring flowers, but it was always kind of like… I thought I was going to get better and maybe I could do it the next weekend. That didn’t happen. Who knows where I’ll be by spring of next year? I give myself about a 20% chance of even being alive at this point. Who knows where the rest of the world will be?
On the topic of nicknames, I’m solidly of the opinion that you should be able to pretty easily tell or at least figure out to whom the names refer without having to ask. I know that’s kind of a boring approach, but… what can I say? I’m a boring person.
It’s time to put in a grocery order again. My freezer supply is dwindling and my last recipe only yielded about half of what the rest have. Depression is really, really taking over, though, and almost nothing sounds palatable. Plus, as my function/strength deteriorates more and more, cooking is harder by the week. So right now, my grocery list is- peaches, cat food… that’s it. Maybe I could go with a spaghetti bolognese with veggie “crumbles.” Dump the contents of two packages and a jar into a pot and call it a day (maybe with some optional bonus veggies/aromatics). And maybe I should give up the ghost this week on that and just get some canned soup and pre-made frozen dinners. Or just… screw it, maybe I’ll just get chips and sweets and forget about real food altogether. Does pumpkin pie count as a vegetable?
Yes, pumpkin is definitely a vegetable and if you put whipped cream on it, that’s dairy. The eggs in the pumpkin filling count as protein, so have two pieces.
swampy, it was good to get the Jawja weather report! I’ve missed that.
As for the OP, going on road trips to see family, get a haircut and hanging out with the heathens in person.
I went to my formerly quarterly checkup this morning. My old PA left the practice, so I’m seeing another that I’ve seen before. He says that I’m doing well enough to go down to twice a year now. I swung through Tar-jay on the way home for some toiletries, came home and finished up some small tags for Sis to include in the bag with the masks that she makes. I’ll send them with the tee shirts that she wanted to make the earpieces with.
I took another step on the road back to normality today: I got a haircut (my first one since March).
I also visited a Barnes and Noble. They’re having one of their half-off Criterion sales. I got The Awful Truth, Until the End of the World, Woman in the Dunes, and Young Mr Lincoln.
Hiya, everyone! I walked five miles this morning.Have to tell you about a dream I had last night: I had COVID, was having trouble breathing. Docs and nurses wanted to put me on a ventilator. I was afraid if they did, I’d never wake up, so I kept trying to BS them into believing I’d be OK. I finally consented but made them memorize messages to give my family. One no-nonsense doc started putting in the ventilator while I was awake and got mad when I choked and waved him off. Then they put me to sleep, and I woke up.
Someday when the crisis is over, I want to see my kids. I moved out here to be closer to them (They’re 1 and 5 hours away respectively.), and now I may as well be on the moon. I was about to join a political group and take another yoga class when the crisis hit, so those things. See friends. And hopefully next summer get to see my siblings again. There are more things I’d like to do, but they entail driving. I wish there were a cure so I could do that.
Thel is fine with me, but I do like the creative nicknames, maybe because I don’t have one (which is OK). Since Thelma Lou worked at the Mayberry Diner, how about Mayberry? Or May for short?
Swampy, what was your profession before you retired? Did you and OYKW work in the same field? Did you both retire about the same time?
ThelmaLou didn’t work at the diner. It was Juanita who worked at the diner, but we never met her. I’m not sure what ThelmaLou did. I like Thel, but I’m not sure I get a vote.
To the OP: I want to be able to hang out with family and friends. I also want to be able to get back to Columbus. I’ve been in Mexico City since February and have no idea when it will be reasonably safe to travel again. It’s fine where I am, I can order everything in and there’s a nice garden around our building, so I can take a walk every day and go sit on the terrace when I feel like being outside. But it’s a bummer not to get to see my cousins and their families. And I really miss my house, my nephew and my friends in Columbus.
I’m planning the remodel of our apartment here, so I’m really busy. We have a cousin who’s an architect and his guys were able to measure everything in the apartment the day before the lockdown, so we’ve been able to work on detailed plans in the meantime. I’m reviewing everything, organizing and packing stuff up so that it’s not in the way while they’re working. I’m going to stay with a cousin who lives alone in a pretty large house so that we can stay isolated from each other.
Have had lots of online interaction with friends and done lots of online lectures, discussions, etc, but it’s not the same as in-person interaction.
Anyway…I guess I should get something done here. Or maybe I’ll just curl up and read a book. Got a lot done this morning; maybe that was enough.
rosie’s sig to all. Will come back and reply to others later in the week.
Speaking of disturbing dreams, I had one that led to me having been up since 3AM. I was at the local junior college trying to find the sheet music for my piano class final - something by Bach. What was disturbing about it: as I was waking, I truly couldn’t remember whether or not I’d taken a piano class!
For the record, no, I hadn’t. But it messed me up enough that I couldn’t fall back to sleep, dammit. So I just popped a melatonin and I’m about to mosey off to dreamland. I’m not going to weigh in on nicknames - you guys figure it out! Nighty-night!!
Howdy Y’all! I survived the loooooooooooooooong Vestry meetin’. Lots of information to digest. We sent out a survey about openin’ things up last week and got an eighty-four percent response rate. That is phenomenal! Anywho, we set a tentative date of August 16th to have a service. Actually two services as no more than fifty people will be able to attend at a time. We also set two other tentative dates in case the 16th does not work out. Some worries as there was a little bit of a spike here last week. It was a productive meetin’ however, so worth the time.
nellie I worked in human services before I retired. OYKW is a RN and managed a home healthcare organization. We are both so over dealin’ with people. We are truly retired grumpy old men.
I’m rather pessimistic and think this is pretty much the “new normal” but having just moved to where I don’t know anyone, it would be nice to see Friday fish fries and block parties and other simple get-togethers reopen. (Right now, the fundraisers are drive-through, which is … not the same thing. I’m not here for the cod. I’m here to get scrod! )
It would be nice to meet people in a low-key environment, not a “date” date. Masks make flirting a right bitch, too.
That reminds me of the story about the guy who was going on a trip to Boston. All his friends said, when you get there be sure and try scrod, the local fish.
When he arrived and got into the cab at the airport, he said to the cabbie, “Do you know where I can get scrod around here?”
The cabbie replied, “I’ve heard that question asked many different ways before, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive.”
It was a while ago now, but after our 5 week shutdown I was desperate to just sit down in a café with a nice coffee and no kids. First world problems eh?
Edit: No obvious location at these new boards! That was in New Zealand.
Edit 2: When the rest of the world gets their shit together we would like to travel. We had a Fiji holiday booked and are still hoping to use the credit.
I swung through Tar-jay on the way home for some toiletries, came home and finished up some small tags for Sis to include in the bag with the masks that she makes. I’ll send them with the tee shirts that she wanted to make the earpieces with.
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