Here I sit, on this chilly March day, about to enjoy a cup of coffee. I am alone. But I know I do better, in all ways, when alone than with others. I am solitary by design and nature and oh yes, the stay at home orders from our local governments.
As Idaho has, as of today, joined other states with the shut downs. Oregon took it seriously last week. Washington State, of course, did as well. California declared that people should amuse themselves at home. Probably not that exact wording.
I’ll not write the oft-repeated name of the Virus.
My dad, he who watches Fox News far more religiously than he ever attended Missouri Synod Lutheran Church services, does not take this seriously at all. It’s getting better, my brother said not a couple days ago.
I have stocked up. I managed to find some toilet paper yesterday while running errands for a friend of mine who’s put himself into self-quarantine. I dropped off his order by his mailbox. He has helped me in the past and I feel this is a tiny way to repay some of that. If people need help, I find I help them if I can.
I do the same with baby birds, stray dogs, starving kittens with broken jaws. I have a kernel of utter kindness somewhere in me yet.
Today I am making ham and beans. From scratch. I’ll add hot biscuits. The American version, not the British cookie. The broth tastes fantastic. I added a bit of liquid smoke. I had oregano from my garden to toss into the pot. A cast iron pot, at that. I cooked the beans yesterday, all day. They are gorgeously perfect, somehow. Yeah, it’s not that hard to cook dry beans, okay. I’ve cooked dry beans before. I will again, perhaps.
I’ve been listening to podcasts mostly. Cheerful ones. The God Awful Movies boys have kept me in raunchy stitches. I enjoyed Maggie Mae Fish’s video on T.S. Eliot and Cats. I learned a lot about that poet and how the musical is the antithesis of everything he stood for. Sort of, anyway.
I try not to obsess over EVERY LAST UPDATE on the Virus.
I’ve also been obsessed with Pet Saga Animal Rescue, something like that. It’s free, so hey. Instead of writing or oh, sewing or pickling things, I am trying to match up colored blocks, bombs, earn rockets that can take out a whole row, puzzle out the puzzles. Instead of writing.
My mind seems empty.
I am saving actual quotes from this time period. Actual awful things said. Such as the elderly should just sacrifice themselves to save the economy. That America will re-open by Easter, with packed churches. That we should give even more money to the super-rich because the super-poor are super-poor. And then I have to retreat.
My dad is now sneezing, joking he ‘might have it’. Sigh.
I haven’t watched puppies herding ducklings since yesterday. I have a raspberry plant now. Jaws snoozes on the bed, belly exposed.
ANN WUEHLER 