Buttermilk sky

 

I love you, Wikipedia.

Wouldn't it be amazing if I could capture my own mackerel sky photo to go along with the above? I see this once every ten days or so (in fact, I just noticed it a couple of days ago on a walk with Mark and Clover) and it's one of my favorite skies, but I never had a name for it before. It's also known as buttermilk sky. Or ciel moutonné in France (fleecy sky) and Schäfchenwolken in Germany (sheep clouds). Fish scales, milk curds, curls of wool.

What an exciting few days, post-fully-vaccinated-day. On that exact day I greeted my oldest, best friend at the door of my house and then hugged her. My tears surprised me! She cried too! That was one of the best hugs of my whole life. And then just a couple of hours later, I went to the Jetport and watched reunions, crying again as I observed parents gathering their young adult daughter (I assume) into their arms, the mom and daughter sobbing audibly as they held each other. I was actually at the airport to meet one of my two beloved brothers, and it was fitting that there were already tears rolling down my face when he appeared. Just talking, indoors, masks off, with people I love who I haven't seen in person for so long, is wonderful and exhausting! 

Melissa came by for tea yesterday. We sat together and chatted and drank our tea. So normal! Like the Before Times! When she was leaving, she said, "You know what happens now, right?" And I got to have another one of those hugs.*

*Warning: I may have become a person who boo-hoos every time I'm hugged. I'm fine with it if you are.

This year

I have zero cause for complaint. I'm extremely superstitious about mentioning this, but my loved ones are safe and healthy.

But here I go: this is the year in which a predicted snowstorm is likely to cancel Isaac and Edna's scheduled COVID-19 test tomorrow. They also have a test today, but they will have to wait longer for its results, and they're waiting in a generously donated—but very cold—space. This is the year that is keeping most of my beloveds, including my sweetest girl, far away.

Lucky: to have a kid who could drive here, to have a friend who would offer his empty house for isolating. To have enough money to feed ourselves and also buy out the frozen section of Trader Joe's for said kid's quarantine. To have a warm puppy and a warm catfriend and lights on a perfect little tree and batteries for window candles and a tube of almond paste for macaroons in the meantime. To have a car WITH HEATED SEATS and a beach ten minutes away, to walk in the cold wrapped in a warm coat. 

Things I observed recently:

• Crows congregating in a circle, something happening in the middle, but what? 
• A man wearing bright yellow trousers smoking a pipe over his lowered mask. 
• A sweet pit bull in a sweater gazing up earnestly at me, a loving, begging face. 
• Clover at a loss, looking like she forgot something, searching for Mark across the beach, on a day we'd gone without him.
• A police car running a red light, no lights or sirens on, just coasting slowly, brazenly through it.
• One lone bird trapped inside Trader Joe's (I keep thinking and worrying about this bird, days later).

The work of wings

It must be November, because I just found myself googling "heated office chair," and yes, there is such a thing, but no, I don't want one because they're ugly. I wouldn't say no to a sheepskin throw, though. I'm clearly already spoiled by the heated seats in our new (to us) CAR. I am in love with the heated seats.* Also with the windshield wipers that actually make it so you can see through the windshield in the rain, instead of smearing the water around. A pandemic is not the optimal time to buy a car, but it had to happen. Our trusty old girl nearly made it to 250,000 miles! We are I am calling the new one Virginia Woolf. She's a wagon, so there's room to toss a litter of puppies in the back! 

I keep taking photos of COVID signage, for after. We're back to constant mask wearing, to spending as little time in the store as possible, to stocking up on flour and toilet paper and lentils, and strategically planning grocery deliveries so they don't coincide with the constant construction on our street. So many interactions are with a masked face in a window, or a masked face so far away that I can't hear what they're saying and I just smile (smize) and nod. It's going to feel weird to eventually go back to being unmasked; I expect to feel exposed.

As Isaac said back in March when they shut down the basketball courts, put caution tape across the hoops, "THIS IS THE WORST PANDEMIC EVER."

*I swear I wrote this the day before yesterday, before this article came out. I agree that heated car seats are the antidote to our grief, but unlike the author I experience nothing erotic about it. It's 100% "child in the lap of some warm, benevolent bear" for me.

What we love flutters in us

Best: That woman who runs past our house and pauses to pick and eat a rose petal did it again this morning! Also, the poignancy of the road workers we like* out in front of our house, all sitting in a row on a pipe eating their lunches today.

Worst: Did I mention the lady in the gauze mask printed with THIS IS TYRANNY at Whole Foods? Also, Zoë was here and now she's back in Chicago.

Fun fact: Elon Musk mispronounces Tesla.

*who would've thought the water guys would be so objectionable, while the gas guys are perfectly delightful?

Let the world dream otherwise

In line at Trader Joe's after the rain had suddenly stopped and the sun trumpeted out from behind the clouds, I thought Ohhhh, I am being a person who complains about wearing a mask, only I'm doing it silently inside my own head. Hoo boy, it was hot inside that mask with my breath all steamy and exiting in little puffs I could feel on my chin and neck and cheeks. I felt woozy and suddenly remembered that I'd dreamed the night before of fainting and afterward being cheered up by my friends, who brought me to the tour bus of a famous musician I didn't recognize, though I anticipated being able to impress someone with the story of eating Cheetos with him.

Ahead of me in line was a sort of punk-rockabilly guy with hair shaved on the sides and tattoos and rolled-up black jean shorts and boots, chatting at length (from six feet away, masked) with an older lady in polyester and a slight hunch in her back. White hair, animated body language, both of them were laughing and chatting and smiling (smizing). I loved them.

Beside me in the line parallel to mine was a 70-something couple, the woman talking so loudly I thought for sure I'd get some good Overheard material. I did, eventually, but mostly she lost her train of thought or forgot the punchline of story after story. They started out so promising! "So she says to me, she says, 'I'm okay with babies, babies are fine, but when...Now what did she say? I can't remember.'"

Reader, I did eventually make it into Trader Joe's. I also visited the library (or, the table in the doorway of the library, where, by appointment, you can now pick up books you've requested) and the post office. Three places in one day!

I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water

I'm a NEXTDOOR nnarcissist

I forgot my credit card at Trader Joe's the other day and burst into tears, but not until I was safely back in my car. My body clearly would've preferred to sob all day for no concrete reason, but I had to bribe it to stop so we could get some work done (see above, it is very CAPITALIST work I am doing).

The month after the month they say is cruel

I want to make a record of sorts, but will it be a record of a brief, strange period in history? Or a record of the moment when everything changed forever?

Is that too melodramatic?

Detail: when I queue up, approximating six feet from the person in front of me, I picture my brother Adam lying down in the space, head to toe, approximately six feet.*

Sweet was the walk.

*It's funny, I could also picture my dad or my brother David, both also approximately six feet long. But for whatever reason, it's always Adam lying there. :)

I would swim the seas for to ease your pain

Reminding myself of the chill I got the first time I got a New York Times breaking news email that was coronavirus-related but didn't specifically mention coronavirus. The assumption that 100% of everybody knew exactly what they were referring to. And then a Portland Press Herald headline: NEW CASES SURGE. Just the fact that there was no need to specify cases of WHAT.

Isaac ventured out to the grocery store for the first time in a while, and he wore his suit to do it. It was an event. I've been going the opposite route, hair scraped into a ponytail for maximum mask ease. Gray mask. For a while I was carefully applying mascara before I went into the world, because we're all 100% eyeballs now, but the last few times I didn't even do that. It's all about comfort, and pockets for keeping my debit card handy. Last time I went to Hannaford, I got carded for my tiny box of cooking wine, and I had to scrabble around in search of my wallet and then rifle through it for my driver's license (these masks, they hamper downward peripheral vision, have you noticed?). The whole time I was thinking Really? Do you see these eyeballs? I'm fifty-two goddamn years old and I'm buying 12 ounces of bad white wine.

We've had some days warm enough to open the windows, and it's made this whole situation feel a little easier, although from the look of things it's also made people feel like it's probably fine if they meet up with friends and stand close together, and in the case of my cigar-smoking neighbor, smoke stinky cigars en masse, defiantly. Even Isaac and Edna can't stay away from Christian, who comes by in his sharp outfits (brightly colored jackets and crazy shoes, velvet and suede and satin) so they can take long, socially-distanced walks together and sit, spaced apart, in the back yard.

Gus has stayed with us long enough to celebrate his eighth birthday! He naps so deeply these days, buried deep enough in sleep that I have to put a hand on his side to make sure he's breathing. At night, he snores more loudly than ever. He's taken to eating dirt sometimes, seeming a tiny bit confused at others, but mostly he's still 100% Gus.

I took little Clover to the beach this morning. I like to think that we both looked at this cottage and dreamed of living there, a step away from the sand, with the constant sound of wind and waves.

Come visit any time!

Palimpsest

Okay, hear me out: Sicilian twins playing Coldplay on violins.

Here's a capybara getting a massage from a chicken.

And...we're down two appliances in this pandemic. At least it's the dishwasher and the microwave and not the stove and the refrigerator UNLESS I JUST JINXED MYSELF!

I keep writing this blorg post, a few words a day, and each day things get stranger, my friends. We were without running water for one day, one brief strange day of using those crinkly plastic bottles of water (city-supplied, thanks Portland!) to wash our hands and rinse our toothbrushes, and scooping buckets from the tub into the toilet to flush. Since I wrote the above, we've replaced the microwave, but the dishwasher will have to wait awhile, since a person can purchase a new dishwasher, but a person has to haul it from the sidewalk into the house on their own these days. Mark and I keep fearfully pressing our ears to the refrigerator: is it making a weird noise?

And while washing dishes by hand is a stress-relieving activity for a couple of us (Edna and me), we need the refrigerator, which is so full it feels like Christmastime. 

I feel like I'm playing pandemic bingo, and I'm almost there:

• Made our own sourdough starter
• Made the whipped coffee
• Sewed a bunch of masks
• Started a 30-day ukulele class on YouTube
• Made the beneficial biscuits
• Made a comforting soup
• Got carryout from a local restaurant
• Had groceries delivered to our porch
• Donated three N95 masks (discovered in the basement) to a local hospital
• Made no-knead bread thrice
• Watched Tiger King
• Joined a family Zoom meeting
• Cried when a beloved celebrity died
• Canceled a haircut, a dentist appointment, a mammogram, a blood test, and a follow-up shingles vaccine
• Made baguettes
• Had bagels delivered to our porch
• Stood in line for 45 minutes to get into a grocery store

Things are about to enter a new strange phase as the DOT starts work this month on the roundabout project that involves our driveway. Today I gazed out the window, distracted from work, watching two guys with a...circular saw? Cut a line across the bottom of our driveway?

I went to Trader Joe's for the first time in weeks, and their system felt very organized and as safe as can be expected, with all the workers wearing (homemade) masks, and very few shoppers in the store at a time. It's like a dream, drifting around the grocery store peering over the top of my own homemade mask, my own breath like a little ghost caught in front of my mouth. I put a small container of heavy cream in my cart and then wove my way up and down the aisles before I realized it had a leak, and I'd left a long, winding Hansel-and-Gretel trail of white drops through the entire store. I pantomimed my apology to a worker. I don't know how he felt about it, since we were both wearing masks and it's hard to interpret mood through them. But in general, the TJ's folks were not their usual cheery selves.

Rabbit rabbit

April, please don't be the cruelest month.

The catastrophe of my personality

Sign of the times

So I suppose I should call this "Diversions Part II." Here are some of my all time favorite favorite wonderful/hilarious classics from the annals of the internets.

The guy "submitting a vocal audition to be the new backup singer for M83."

The talking dog who wants bacon.

Pearl the landlord.

Adorable French girl talks about animals.


And here are some beautiful/specific/inspiring/scary things:

"Quarantine teaches me what I’ve already been taught, but I’ll never learn — that there are so many other ways to be lonely besides the particular way I am lonely."

People from New York are fleeing to Maine — people with fucking summer houses here.

Samin and Hrishikesh have a podcast and it is just as sweet and funny and calming and amazing as I hoped it would be (I've listened to the first episode three times now).

Oh boy, I totally want this!

Rufus Wainwright is playing a song a day on his Instagram, and Yo-Yo Ma is posting songs of comfort on YouTube.


Edna and I are baking vegan cinnamon rolls today. Mark and I found an open beach this morning where we could walk the dogs in the brilliant sunshine at low tide, far from other humans and their dogs. Isaac and Mark are playing basketball today, just the two of them, and Mark spent some hours yesterday fixing an old turntable of Isaac's. Our neighbor's son, having just driven to Maine from LA, came to our door yesterday asking if we had any rope he could borrow, and it was like a horror movie. Mark basically said, "NO!" and shut the door, which if you know Mark...is really something.

"Now I am quietly waiting for 
the catastrophe of my personality 
to seem beautiful again, 
and interesting, and modern."

Diversions

You'd think this working at home thing would be a breeze around here, but my number one priority these past several days has been finding a way to focus and do any work at all, given the distractions, the generalized sense of anxiety in the air, the limitations real and imagined caused by near-quarantine, and the fact that there are now four humans attempting to do this in the same house at the same time.

Still, my second goal is...not to accomplish anything in particular, but to focus on some things. I am hoping to read many books, catch up on my pile of New Yorkers, binge some good TV, cook and bake many delicious foods, buy a ukulele and learn how to play it, go for the longest walks. I have a couple of suggestions for you!

• On SkillShare, you can take classes from experts on a nearly infinite number of subjects, from singing lessons to vegan baking to chair massage to how to do calligraphy. If you sign up for Erin Boyle's class, you can get two free months of SkillShare Premium (you can find this offer all over the place right now, this is just the one I actually clicked on). Even if you're not interested in minimalism, you can be like me and take a personal essay writing class with Roxane Gay or memoir writing with Mary Karr!
• Joe Pera Talks With You is so odd, so quiet and strangely charming, so deeply calming. I find it just as good at reducing stress as The Great British Baking Show et al.
• The YMCA has exercise classes and yoga classes online, as do lots of other places!
• I made a Pinterest board for COVID-19 cooking/baking, and I'm keeping track of what we've cooked and adding notes. So far, I have done the lion's share of the cooking around here, which I am (thus far) extremely happy to do, since I find it really soothing. We'll see how long I can keep it up (last night Edna exclaimed over my soup and no-knead bread: "This is like a really expensive farm-to-table restaurant!!")

What else? I have a pile of books, but if I make it through them I'll probably check out the New York Public Library, which has 300,000 free books you can download (as well as the ebook offerings at my local library). We have been too sleepy to watch movies the last few nights, but we've got plans to view all kinds of good ones this weekend. The sun is due to come out any day now (I mean this literally). 

Thanks, neighbor.

Love in the time of COVID-19

(Updated to add links)

Oh I keep meaning to write something here, but I find myself scribbling in a journal instead (literally, scribbling little sketches of stuff, i.e. dogs, as well as writing words and lists and so on). Here's what's been happening in my house/life:

• Isaac and Edna are here, in limbo as they wait to learn how online instruction will work for the remainder of their semesters. It's a bizarre, sad way for Isaac's undergraduate career to end.
• We've been watching movies:
• Knives Out
• Jojo Rabbit
• And TV:
• The Plot Against America
• High Fidelity
• Better Call Saul
• Homeland
• Even after searching the stores for flour in a frenzy, once Mark had come home, victorious, with a bag from Whole Foods, it took me a few days to decide what I wanted to bake and to actually start baking. Here's what we've made so far:
• Socca, eaten with two friend eggs on top (chickpea flour required)
• Vegan pumpkin pecan bread
• No-knead bread (this is rising right now, and if it works out we'll eat it with this soup tonight)
• Isaac whipped up some focaccia last night, topped with rosemary and flaky salt

It was a more innocent time.

Good things:

• Bare footprints in the sand on the beach 
• A V of Canadian geese flying north overhead
• Clover in her new bed, looking like she's asleep in the arms of a stuffed animal
• The calming properties of a piece of buttered toast
• A video of a man playing Moonlight Sonata on a piano for an elderly elephant's listening pleasure

And finally, notes on getting a massage, which I jotted down over a week ago, which now feels like the distant past (when will we be able to do things like get a haircut or a massage again?):

It sure is weird right now, at this moment in history, to be doing something that involves a stranger putting their hands all over your body.