Old friends

Through this whole global pandemic thing, three friends and I have had a weekly phone call. We started out taking a Coursera class together, and as the class wound down, we started asking important questions of each other. It's led to long, thoughtful, winding conversations with people I respect and trust and know I can be vulnerable and wrong around, and I really appreciate that.

A heavy rain

How nice to stand outside for a few minutes, covered on a balcony, during a brief, intense downpour.

Jeopardy!

How neat to see a kid I went to high school with on Jeopardy! today. And after a bit of a rough start, he ended up doing quite well. I felt like I could have succeeded, by proxy. (Even though I would not have, not at all.) A nice diversion on a Thursday night.

Deliveries

Today, I accomplished two things: I got produce and I got a new windshield.

My windshield has had a crack in it for way too long, and I have basically been ignoring it because that's easier than doing something about it. But last week, I made an appointment (and discovered a company discount!) and today, a man came to my house and put a new windshield on my car. And that it fabulous!

Then, while he was working on my car, a CSA box arrived. I'd wanted to do a CSA years ago, but never was home often enough. And now things have changed! So it's a thing I can do to get a variety of produce (and today, some bread) and figure out how to experiment with things that I didn't often use.

I'm excited about both things! Probably more the food than the car, if we're being honest, but the next time I drive somewhere and don't have a pit-of-my-stomach worry that the windshield's going to shatter will be wonderful, too.

Matching

I have this ridiculous pair of pants I picked up last summer in a south Georgia CVS on the way to Florida. They're bright and colorful and patterned and loungey and I don't really know how to match them. So I put a black T-shirt on top.

Today, I pulled them on with a blue shirt that I was instructed to wear for some other thing I'll probably tell you about later this week. And lo and behold, that shade of blue was in the pants, too! It matched! They looked OK!

It's really the silliest thing, but it's like it opened up a whole new world of acceptable lounge wear to me. I just kept marveling at the pants' blue stripe, thinking of the many other things I might be able to wear together.

Tomatoes

A friend gave me a tomato plant this weekend, and I repotted it today -- a first for me. I tend to have bad luck keeping things alive, so here's hoping.

Birthday party

Sitting in a park today with a nice breeze and three other people, celebrating one of their birthdays from across an open field.

Buttercream

I made (raspberry) buttercream frosting for the first time today. It went on top of lemon(ish) raspberry cupcakes. And most exciting of all, it was an experiment in combined recipes. I brought them to some friends and they seemed to go over well. So I'm declaring it a success!

Check's in the mail

It never hurts to get an envelope of money, does it? This one come from FPS evaluations, even though it took me forever to send in my tax forms. Hooray for being a little richer, especially since the normal gig that would have started this weekend is taking the year off.

The Price is Right

In the Before Times -- all the way back at the end of February -- I went to Los Angeles for a wedding. It's a long flight from Atlanta, so I stayed a couple days. And one of the things I did while I was there was go to a taping of The Price is Right.

It's a ridiculous experience -- the whole thing took four hours? Six hours? -- but it was so neat to see everything up close, to hear the background banter, to see them pause everything after a light bulb exploded. (A light bulb exploded! You wouldn't know that from TV.)

The episode aired today, and I got to watch myself high five someone in my row who got called down, and scream and cheer (and also look insufficiently enthusiastic when I didn't know the camera was there). I wasn't a contestant, but I was there, and it was such a thrilling thing to see myself enjoying it.

That same day, I went to a taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live. That aired immediately and I could only see myself if I knew I was there. On The Price is Right, if you know me, you can definitely see me. It was a cool vestige of Then. My last one, probably, though maybe something else will float down. In any event -- it was great to see.

Brussels sprouts

Back in March -- do you remember when it was March? -- I went to the grocery store and bought a shopping cart full of potential-quarantine food that soon turned into real-quarantine food. Like many others.

I planned to share much of the bounty with my sister and her roommate, and they took some of the shelf-stable things I bought. But a lot of the produce, dairy, etc. ended up in my refrigerator for the long haul.

Which is how I came to finish, tonight, a bag of Brussels sprouts I bought in March.

And they were good! I roasted them; they browned. I had to peel off a couple leaves that had yellowed, but other than that, my two-month-old Brussels sprouts were perfectly delicious.

I'm just so impressed that they lasted as long as they did. And I appreciate them for it! I still have some apples from March, too, but I think that will spell the end of the Original Produce, as I have taken to thinking of it. Still -- quite a feat.

Donuts

Can I take a moment to tell you how excited I am?

A box of donuts showed up at my front door today. A dozen of them! With a note that said, "If I have donuts, you have donuts."

A friend and I have made donut tours of our respective towns the last two times we've visited each other. So when she found a donut delivery near her, she sent me a picture.

And then she sent *me* donuts!

It's kind under normal circumstances, but under pandemic circumstances it's literally the most thoughtful thing in the world. And it totally made my week.

And then I got to call her and tell her how excited I was and we talked for an hour and that *really* made my week.

It's a pretty exciting day, is the long and short of it.

Panagram

My spelling bee obsession knows no bounds, and even extends into a spelling bee that is not a bee at all. It's a puzzle, published by the New York Times, that derives its name from the fact that letters are in a hive shape. And you have to make words.

A friend and I have been doing them pretty religiously through quarantine (she is better than me). And she's particularly better at finding the long words. My eye tends toward the short.

Every day, there's (at least) one word that uses each of the seven letters -- the panagram. For me, either you see it or you don't. And I usually don't.

But today! Today I saw it! It was my friend's name! And I was so excited to send her the screenshot of her name, using all the letters that were on offer. We're both keeping it for posterity. (No, it wasn't really the panagram. There were no points for it. But it was the best panagram that ever was.)

And, between us, we got all the words today. So we were pretty proud of ourselves.

For the birds

I was sitting outside this afternoon, watching the squirrels jump from branch to branch when I saw two winged creatures that made me smile: a hummingbird and a cardinal.

It's the second time in the past few weeks that I've seen the hummingbird, and at around the same time -- so maybe it's a regular occurrence? The cardinal makes me smile with its bright flash of red, and because it reminds me of home.

Seeing Newnan

Over the past few years, a friend and I have created what we call adventure club, where we look for interesting things to do around town. As you might imagine, that's a little harder in a pandemic. But today, we found a way.

Several of us went to see a public art exhibit, Seeing Newnan, of 17 portraits of residents taken in the town. May I just tell you: it was fabulous.

On their own, the pictures are well-done portraits on the side of buildings. But this was so much more than that.

The artist spent two years in the city, getting to know people and taking pictures. And the context for her project is really interesting; Newnan is a city of about 40,000 that's about 60 percent white; it was also the site of a neo-Nazi gathering in 2018. But as this story will tell you, the perception of the city hasn't kept pace with the population of the city. And that's where Mary Beth Meehan came in. Her website has really fabulous biographies of everyone she shot, and the context made for a really wonderful experience -- particularly, for me, in some of the placement of the portraits.

In this one, a fifth grader in her Cotillion clothes is on the side of a building she wouldn't have been allowed into in another era. And that's just one.

If you're in Atlanta, it's worth the field trip.

For me, the other thing that was so great about it was the humanness. No, I couldn't give my friends hugs, but I could walk around town with them (an acceptable distance apart) and have a picnic (same) in an empty park and share one of the only social experiences I've been able to of the pandemic.

Plus someone brought houseplants, so now there's something green (and alive!) in my house. Not shabby at all.

Dragon

I quite love a Kinder Egg, and they've come to be a sort of pick-me-up on days that aren't the best. There's nothing particularly wrong with today -- but I learned (not unexpectedly) that I'll be working from home all summer (and, I think, likely after that too). So I broke out a Kinder Egg.

The chocolate is fine, but the toys are really the best part. And today's toy is a dragon who flaps its wings as it flies. It's pretty swell.

Other good things today: an accidental phone call from a friend that ended up being a long conversation. A text that led to buying a ticket to the drive-in to see Clue. Knowing that berry-picking might still be an option.

Wine

I opened my first bottle of quarantine wine yesterday, amazingly. It turns out wine can be tasty! Especially when paired with chocolate.

Kismet

Finding out a friend was thinking of me at the same time I was thinking of her.

Reading

I'm a library kind of gal, and I've been a little thrown by the inability to check out books. True, there's Overdrive and electronic options, but without an e-reader, it seems like a lot -- to try to read a whole book on my phone.

So I'm trying something new -- audiobooks. So far, it's been really neat to hear the tone and voices change. I don't know that I'm processing as well as I would if I were reading... but I'm trying something new. And that's never a bad thing.

Home Fire

I just really loved this month's book club book, Home Fire. It was elegantly written and thoughtful and interesting and really just a joy to read and discuss. Even more amazing because it deals with serious topics and issues, which is not where my brain has wanted to go during this pandemic. But it was gorgeous. I'd highly recommend it.

Letters

I've been sending letters lately, because why not? They're wonderful, and it's felt really awesome to put stamps on things and put them in the mail.

It's been equally nice to learn that they've arrived! And one friend -- whose birthday is this week -- told me she planned to save the "happy holidays" card (who just has a stash of appropriate cards laying around?) as a memory of what weird times we're in.

It's meant calls and texts and maybe some pen pals to be? We shall see!

Smash cake

At an online first birthday party today (my second of quarantine), the guest of honor was presented with a lovely cake, covered in sprinkles, for eating and smashing and smearing frosting (in this case whipped cream) all over everything.

So what did he do? The first thing every child does when presented with a cake, of course. He stuck his foot in it.

It just made me giggle. He figured out the hands part, too. Eventually.

Slipper socks

I finally had to close my windows the other night because my heat kicked on while they were open. Which is far preferable to 90-odd degrees, I think.

I left one window open and turned off the heat, because I've liked having a breeze. I pulled my blankets tight. But I was still cold! And then I had an aha moment.

In the back of the pajama drawer, I found an old pair of socks with grips on the bottom, purple with green frogs. They're old and holey and kept my toes warm and made me grin.

Long conversations

It's very easy to feel separated right now, but there are a few things that make me feel connected. Namely, long mostly meandering conversations with people who mean a lot to me. I got to have two of those today, and I feel richer for it. Phone calls are the best.

Winchester Mystery House

I've long wanted to go to the Winchester Mystery House, a wacky, sprawling mansion in San Jose. But I've never been there, and have never had plans to go, so it's just been on a someday list.

Until tonight!

The house has a 40-minute video tour that I watched with some friends, and it was kind of amazing -- I mean, it solidified my desire to go (even though someone who has gone called it a tourist trap) instead of making me feel like I'd seen it. It was weird and interesting and made no sense, all in the best way possible.

And it made me feel like there's a way to do at least some of the things I like doing, even if I can't actually get to them.

The height of fashion

I pulled a pair of sweatpants out of the drawer that I had apparently not worn for a very long time, because I could feel the elastic cracking and crumbling as I pulled them on. The waistband was soon far too large, and with no elastic spring, they were suddenly eight sizes too big.

What's a girl to do? I suspected the other pants in that drawer were in a similar condition; after all, these were the ones on the top of the pile! But wait -- there was a rubber band. Perhaps that could solve my problems.

I gathered the extra waistband (into a very unflattering silhouette), wrapped the rubber band around the excess and voila! I had pants that fit!

It's absurd and mostly functional (I did have to re-wrap the rubber band two or three times today) and saved me from doing laundry for another day. And luckily, when I forgot I was holding my pants up with a rubber band and went outside anyway, there was no one else around to see me. Success!

Friends forever

Haaaaave I mentioned I'm watching Project Runway? (Yes, yes I have.)

It's a nice distraction in the midst of ::gestures wildly:: But I guffawed recently when one of the designers -- who I happen to like quite a bit -- walked into the workroom humming a song from Saved by the Bell.

It's catchy, isn't it? You can't go wrong with Zack Attack.

(Also -- if you're looking for a wonderful novel depiction of the rockumentary, I can't say enough good things about Daisy Jones & The Six. Super refreshing read.)