Today seems like a good day for a poem I wrote last year after I wandered a grocery store trying to find ingredients. I submitted this to a virus poetry contest. You can read the winning entries here. Public Poetry is also producing a virus poem anthology which looks amazing.
Hungry For Thought
The over-proofed dough falls with my IQ
While I make bad art with pasta and glue
My brain resembles last night’s lasagna
Cold as a scope the doctor puts on ya
Maybe a chicken too dry to enjoy
A letdown, some say, like coffee with soy
I wish that I knew how I used to think
My julienned thoughts are all in the sink
Pureed with peas to a mushy green mire
A soup, if you will, with one rubber tire
Covid I curse, it’s this virus’s fault
For 19 plus pounds of junk in my vault
I long to create a thing that’s quite smart
Clove mixed with peaches, a tasty pie chart
One thought every day is all that I wish
With luck by next year I’ll finish a dish
In honor of my cooking poem, tonight I made fried chicken. Messy but delicious!
I listen to music while I’m writing. Since I write for six or so hours a day, that’s a lot of music. This morning, my Spotify playlist selected “September,” a song you can’t listen to without getting a mood boost, even if you’re already in a good mood as I usually am. There’s nothing better than sitting down at the computer and fighting with my characters while listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire.
As I’ve said before, I no longer experience that late Sunday dread that used to ruin half the weekend. Monday is, as it should be, just another day marking the Earth’s rotation around the sun. This particular Monday is cloudy and springtime-warm. My windows are open and birdsong intermingles with the music.
While out to do the shopping last week, I took some baked treats to my son’s apartment and put them on the porch, wrapped in Clorox wipes. He came to the door and for just a moment, he stood there, while I stood in the street, and we talked — not close enough but almost too close for safety.
In the early days of quarantine, there was a frantic feel to shopping. Many people were over-buying, their voices shrill with fear. Last week, it was different. The shelves are mostly still empty and there are only a few people in the store. Costco limits the number of customers now so I waited by a cone they used to mark proper distancing until I was offered a sanitized cart.
In the refrigerated section, a very confused man was trying to select a container of milk from the cooler while his unmasked partner berated him from behind the cart. “The one with the BLUE label, Bill.” She coughed into shared air space several times while I watched from a safe distance, waiting for my turn to get milk with the blue label. She saw me watching her and coughed into her elbow.
“OH MY GOD, Bill, what’s the problem?” She looked at me. I think she wanted to bond over her shopping partner’s stupidity but I was — and still am — totally team-confused-guy. Not getting the response she wanted from me, she walked around the cart, coughed onto the glass cooler door and picked out a bottle of milk, while making tsk noises at her poor partner.
“Oh,” he said. “I couldn’t tell which one was the blue label.” I’m still wondering if he’s colorblind or if he didn’t realize that he was in the cooler section where there are ONLY blue-labeled bottles. Did she confuse him by insisting that he get a bottle with the BLUE label when there was no other choice available to him?
Although her cough was decidedly smoker-ish, with an abundance of caution, once they had passed, I selected my blue-labeled milk from a different cooler.
Leonard Cohen, “Who by Fire,” just started playing. He was once described by Scott Simon on NPR as having “a growl of a singing voice that seems to simmer and grumble up through the chords, almost like an earthquake.” Isn’t that lovely?
The rain has started, quieting the birdsong but creating its own accompaniment to my playlist. The sound also reminds me that there’s a clog in one of the gutters. I can hear the splash of water overflowing onto the patio. Either I need to borrow the neighbor’s 30-foot ladder or call someone to clean out the gutters. I hate to put the neighbors to additional risk, which is the only reason I’m not automatically doing it myself. I’ll have to enter their house to get the ladder because they’ve reached the point where it’s too heavy for them to move. I know this because I borrowed the ladder last spring to clear away the ivy growing up our back wall.
Back to the shopping: They have a table on their porch where I’ll leave food treats (she loves cookies but doesn’t bake much anymore) but when they see me, they insist on opening the door to come out and talk. Inevitably, their older spaniel bolts out the door and drops on his back for a belly scritch. He’s a cutie but I feel like I should stay back to keep them safe.
When I do their shopping, they’re supposed to text me the list (she’s an enthusiastic texter) and sometimes they do. She’ll text me, out of nowhere, something like “white flour no hurry,” which makes me laugh. It reminds me so much of text conversations with Ken. He used to text a single word and allow the recipient to build the meaning.
Anyway, last week she insisted on giving me a handwritten list, wrapped in a clorox wipe. Have you ever shopped for someone else? I used to get a list from my mother-in-law but I’ve fallen out of practice. Last week, I made the mistake of accepting the list without review but of course there were questions:
2 pizzas. You know exactly what to do with that if you’re shopping for your own family but what kind of pizza does your 90-year-old neighbor like? “No pepperoni” was the texted answer. Turns out there wasn’t much selection left, just lots of pepperoni (stuffed crust, extra cheese, etc) or the last two vegetarian pizzas that weren’t on a cauliflower crust.
2 apples. First, apples don’t seem to be a big quarantine staple. The store had an abundance of Fuji, Red Delicious, Macintosh, Granny Smith, Yellow Delicious, Kante, and Gala. “Gala,” she answered after a lengthy delay.
Small dog bisc. I almost bought Milk Bone without asking which would have been a big mistake since she wanted no-dye biscuits which I took to mean no red and green Milk Bones. Even so, I definitely got the wrong brand but she texted that Busby is enjoying his new treat.
She says that she too is enjoying her new food experiences. Her poor, long-suffering husband — who she is definitely going to murder before quarantine ends — was apparently in a food-buying rut. Regarding the flour situation: although there’s no flour at our Giant Eagle (Well, that’s not entirely true. You can still buy Quinoa flour. Hehe.), Costco offers a 25 pound bag for about $6; she took 10 pounds of it off my hands.
That huge bag in my pantry makes me hear my mom’s voice in my head — “Add bay leaves,” she’d say. “They’ll keep the bugs out.” We’ll probably use it all before summer but I’ve already added bay leaves just to be safe. The food shortages have been interesting to watch — I know, I know. Everyone is saying that it’s a distribution problem, not a food shortage problem. You say toMAYto; I say toMAHto. Whatever the reason, the end result for the consumer is lack of product on store shelves.
Anyway, the first week or so of quarantine, there was no ice cream in the store. The next time I shopped, there was no bread, no jelly, no eggs, no packaged luncheon meat/cheese, no frozen dinners, no flour or yeast. Now, there’s no pizza, no fresh lettuce, no meat or chicken, no flour, six packets of yeast(!), very little dairy, but they have ice cream.
Cars lined up to receive fresh produce, frozen food and dry goods from Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank April 6, 2020. Photo Credit: KDKA
If you’re poor, the distribution problem can be life-threatening. Our food pantries and food banks are amazing but it can be hard to connect to people who don’t have access to a vehicle to wait in an hours-long car line for food. I’ve been thinking about the woman I’ve talked about before, the one who showed up as we were cleaning up a food bank distribution years ago. She was late because she had to borrow $2 so she could buy a gallon of gas in order to drive to our distribution site. How is she managing now? Even if her situation has (hopefully) improved, there are many whose situations went from precarious to catastrophic.
Spotify has now served up some Aretha Franklin, “I Say a Little Prayer,” a solid way to end this particular post. If you live in a walking neighborhood, like I do, I encourage you to take a walk around. It’s okay. You’re allowed to go for walks. Look at the empty storefronts of the little businesses in your community — the pizza shop, the movie theater, the diner, the consignment store, the neighborhood bar or coffee shop.
Look at the signs on the doors; as I’ve said before, some will not recover. Believe me; these places are, for some, their family business, their lifelong dream. They’re going to try to be there when this is over.
Those small business owners are losing sleep, just like the furloughed workers. They’re wondering whether they can continue to pay the bills while there’s no money coming in. That cruise line, that airline, that major hotel chain — they’ll be okay. But your neighborhood is going to be forever changed by the loss of the businesses that define it.
Please be patient.
Wear a mask if you’re going to encounter other people.
Send help. We’re baking too much. Our neighbors can only eat so many baked goods. We’re in isolation: I can’t go out and buy larger pants!
Seriously, though, we (when I say “we,” I really mean my daughter; my only job here is taster) … anyway, “we” have made macarons with blackberry compote for the filling , banana bread, and chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies just in the last 5 DAYS. That’s in addition to all of the delicious savory dishes we’ve been making. I made a pot roast with lots of root veggies. She made stuffed pork chops. I grilled a flank steak. She made spicy baked chicken (with lots of garlic). It’s been fun and one of our biggest successes in all of this has been learning to cook smaller so we don’t have a lot of leftovers.
We’ve spent a few evenings playing scribble.io, an online version of Pictionary that allows you to create a private group. Since one of the family lives in an apartment, we can’t be together physically but that hasn’t stopped us! Because we’re also a gaming family, we put on our gaming headsets, create a group call on discord, and set up a private group on scribble.io. For at least an hour, we talk, tease, connect, and draw (some of us — me actually — quite badly).
If you are struggling to connect with family or friends, I recommend trying an online group game/tabletop simulator. Physical distancing may be a hellscape but technology does enable social connection in a variety of healthy ways beyond skype calls. Let’s all acknowledge here that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are not included on any list of healthy ways to connect.
This is the first time we’re going to mark a birthday without being together physically. I KNOW that many people are struggling with loss and distance. Missing a birthday together is part of my personal grief. It doesn’t dismiss the devastation felt by the first responders and health workers who encounter the virus and counsel the families and transport the sick and dying. It doesn’t devalue the grief and loneliness of the isolated, especially those who are alone and elderly. It doesn’t reduce the struggle, as real and relevant as anyone’s grief, of our extroverted friends who find ALONENESS as difficult as some find togetherness. Most of us are struggling. As some Twitter-stein said, “It’s okay not to be okay right now.”
So, what will we do to celebrate the 14th year since my son’s birth? I think we’ll have a meal he likes and a treat of his choice that we can make at home and for the rest, we’ll see. There will be no stress, though, no virus talk, no discussion of risk models and vaccines.
We’ve been taking more family walks, looking for good rocks, bird feathers, acorns, blossoms, and other hidden treasures. On Friday, we were walking our three dogs down a less frequented path in the neighborhood when we discovered a bird trapped by a fallen snow fence. I would have taken a picture except that I held all three dogs’ leashes while my daughter released the bird and the dogs tried desperately to .. er, help?
After I finish writing this afternoon, we’ll probably take another walk and then I’m going to work on my new backyard project. I’m dry-laying a brick raised bed garden. There are approximately sixteen gazillion (just an estimate) bricks all over our backyard from some long-ago project of a previous owner. (He also left approximately one and a half gazillion golf balls). After some planning (and stalling), yesterday, I broke ground, hauled a small fraction of those bricks (I’m hoping that I hauled the heavy portion yesterday and that all the other bricks are lighter), and then, started the work of removing roots and digging trenches. It’s great fun. I have an extra hoe if you’d like to come over and try it at a safe distance. In fact, just to be sure we’re appropriately distancing, I’ll stand inside the house and watch, while you’re digging.
We have a routine — not perfect — that keeps us mostly on track, appropriately fed, and somewhat active. Every day, my son has his first call at 9 or 9:30. We get together after that to check Google Classroom for upcoming assignments and plan his day around his schoolwork. He has a daily video conference from 12-2 (all of you adults who video conference know how hard THAT is) and then we break again, take the dogs outside, and eat a light lunch (peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time!).
Monday Fondue
Yesterday, I was feeling a little peckish at like 4 and had a snack epiphany. Several years ago, as a joke, I got the kids fondue mugs (“personal fondue” if you’re looking on Amazon). They’re fun for an occasional small treat (each mug holds maybe a half cup of fondue). Yesterday, I pulled them out of the cupboard, melted a little chocolate and ransacked the pantry for a handful of dippables — Ritz crackers, chocolate chip cookies, marshmallows, pretzel sticks, potato chips, strawberries. It was a fun, silly break. One of these days, we’ll try cheese instead of chocolate.
Dinner explorations continue. A couple nights ago, we had flank steak and home fries. Last night, it was chicken and a lovely salad with field greens and some of those fondue strawberries. Late yesterday, I grabbed a couple small roasts (BOGO!) while I was out picking up a prescription at our local grocery store. We’ll probably make one of those tonight with some po – TAY – toes and carrots.
Meat and potatoes was a standard meal at our dinner table growing up. I have a vague memory of my mom browning the roast before putting it in the oven with potatoes, carrots, and little white onions. Did she season it? I don’t remember, honestly. It was delicious though; and then, a couple days later, since this is all before microwave ovens made leftovers tasty, my sister and I would “get” to put the remainder through the meat grinder and we’d have hash with a runny egg for dinner.
Peach tree is blooming!
Most nights, we play a game together after dinner. We aren’t tired in the same way, now, but we are tired of the monotony already. We stayed outside as long as possible over the weekend. The weather was lovely and we puttered in the backyard, sat in the sun, played with the dogs. I could hear the birds and the neighborhood kids squealing in their yards. Once I heard an airplane and, while I had noted their absence, I was startled by the sound of one, which tells me they are becoming rare.
I’ve seen some jokes about what dogs will do when we get back to life after quarantine. But I worry more about what WE will do after quarantine. Do we have enough mental health professionals to treat the healthcare workers suffering from PTSD, the family members whose loved ones died in isolation, the service workers whose jobs don’t return, the small business owners who lost their dreams to quarantine (I hear a poem, do you?)….
We act like we’ll just return to life pre-quarantine as though it’s the day after vacation but that’s not reality. Think about the places you visit in your communities. Which of those won’t survive or will be drastically changed? The breakfast places, the independent booksellers, that hole-in-the-wall bar or pizza place, or the little DnD store. Those owners, right now, are trying to figure out if they can re-open, if they can re-hire their staff. Our communities are going to be forever changed by this pandemic and by the way our state and federal reps, governors, mayors, and … yes, president … manage through it.
Who knew pancake mix and syrup are quarantine staples?
I’m not being political here. This is just truth — look at New Orleans (or Puerto Rico) and my comment in an earlier blog. Some places will never recover. Oh, sure, Target and Walmart and Starbucks will probably be fine but will Ritter’s re-open? How about D’s Dogs n Suds? Or Cafe on Main? Our communities are bound up in these places. If we lose them, we’ll lose a part of ourselves. I can’t help but wish that our economic focus was on saving our communities rather than the cruise industry.
If you came here for an uplifting “we’ll get through this together” post, I recommend that you leave now. We can all pretend that leaving a blog unread is like opening the conference room door, realizing that you’ve accidentally joined the wrong meeting and scuttling out, embarrassed but, at the same time, grateful that you didn’t sit down. If, on the other hand, you aren’t sure why you’re here, welcome; I’m not sure why I’m here either but we’ll be here together. Some days, that’s all we can ask for.
Over the course of my life, I’ve spent a lot more time in hospitals than the average healthy non-healthcare-employed person does. There’s a quiet rhythm to the experience. You figure out how long you’re allowed to be with the patient. You pick up on the hospital routines. You learn how things like food, testing, room temperature, and parking work. After a while, if you are there long enough, you get to know the hospital workers and sometimes they get to know you.
One time, in the midst of Ken’s illness, the lady working the register in the cafeteria looked at me and said, “You’ve been here a lot. Lunch is on us.” Since lunch was usually 2 or 3 hard-boiled eggs and an iced tea, it didn’t cost the hospital anything, really; but I remember the experience and the way it made me feel — a small “I see you” kindness. I made a similar connection this past week. In the hospital cafeteria, very late in the day, I asked the grill cook if I could have a bun to make a chicken tender sandwich. He looked at me and said, “Shh. I am making you a ‘burger’.” And then he proceeded to make me a chicken tender sammie with melted cheese, fresh lettuce, and tomato slices. Honest to dog, I nearly cried. I was so tired and so sad and there he was being gently kind. I told him how much it meant to me and he just smiled and said, “good.”
I readily admit that I am flailing blindly through my life, no self-burn intended. If life is a series of plans fulfilled, my life has been a series of, sometimes intricate but more often simple, plans made and then discarded because of … everything else.
More than half of March has been just that. First, I was knocked askew by some sort of non-COVID-19 respiratory illness. As I’ve mentioned before, I have moderate-to-severe asthma. I can go weeks without needing my emergency inhaler but a respiratory illness usually means a daily puff or two for me. With this recent illness, I used more than 50 doses in four days. It was as bad, if not worse, than epiglottitis. At least with that, my throat just closed entirely and I didn’t have to ask myself if I needed hospital care. (Okay, so, actually, even that time, I didn’t go to the hospital; I went to the urgent care facility. They panicked and called an ambulance … but that’s a whole ‘nother story of me being stupid.) The point is that, if I get COVID-19, I’ll be one of those people who takes up a hospital bed.
Shortly after I was back on my feet, someone very dear to me was hospitalized for a completely unrelated reason. I spent the next 11 days living by the hospital rhythm, dozing through the night on ridiculously uncomfortable chairs or curled, knees tucked, on “sofas” clearly designed for very short people. While all this was happening, the world was shutting down. New protocols were being implemented every day at the hospital. They limited visitors to one person at a time and I started to worry about being banned altogether.
Because I was spending so much time at the hospital, I didn’t do the usual shopping and had a bit of a list when I finally had the opportunity to visit my local Costco. The things we needed were readily available (please don’t tell my dogs that there were only 4 bags of dog food left at the store!) but I’ll confess to being surprised to see people pushing two carts, one with six or eight cases of water and the other with stacks of other shelf-stable things like bleach, vinegar, 25 pound bags of flour and rice, sugar, pasta. I knew about the pandemic but I did not expect the hoarding.
Over the years, we’ve had students from Nepal, Sri Lanka, The Maldives, and Bolivia stay with us and all of them have asked to see the glorious abundance of our grocery stores, something they’ve heard about but never experienced in their own countries. Yet, here we are: hoarding toilet paper and bottled water. I don’t understand hoarding generally but I’m especially puzzled by the bottled water. Are people expecting a complete breakdown of our infrastructure? Or are they panicking because they lack basic information about what to expect? I fear that it is the latter.
Since we’re distancing, we’ve started cooking more elaborate meals, with my daughter usually taking the chef role. Over the last several days, we’ve made meatballs and sauce, chicken pot pie, pork stew (heavy on the veggies), cottage pie, and pizza, homemade crust included. In addition, we were treated to a delicious roast, a gift from a friend.
We’re liking the family meals in the midst of all the crazy. We’ve always been close but as we hear people “joking” about how much they dislike their families, we feel so unable to relate. Tonight, during dinner, we played (and cheated) at cards with alacrity and a great deal of laughter. Earlier today, we gardened and played outside. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be home with them.
My son starts distance learning tomorrow. I think it will be a challenge to keep him engaged while I continue to work at my own job but I am reminded of my husband’s advice when our kids were little. He said that our role, as parents, is to create a love of learning. If we engage with our kids about the things that interest them, and we encourage them to explore those things, we create a world in which exploration is their reward. So, we’ll follow the distance learning requirements as best we can and then when we need a break, we’ll go outside and break geodes, dig in the dirt, watch bugs, and maybe take a walk or two.
And if you start to despair, jump on Twitter (who would have guessed I’d ever say that!) and visit Sam Neill (yes, the actor) for poetry, BroadwayWorld for living room concerts, Earyn McGee for “Find the Lizard,” the Urban Birder for bird trivia and pictures, Steve Martin (yes that Steve Martin) for Banjo balm, and so many more. The more you physically isolate, the more opportunity there is for social connections, even for introverts like me.
