Snow plows

It's snowing all over the place today (though not where I am). Because I am jealous -- and because they're hysterical -- I was delighted to learn that Scotland names its snow plows, the better for tracking them.

Some examples include The Great Grittish Flake-Off, William Wall-Ice, Sled Zeppelin and Salt Disney. But there are many, many, many more. And they are glorious.

Power

Glad I didn't lose power today, as so many did. Some coworkers had to go to the office because there was no electricity at their houses - where we've been working since March. What a concept - having to go to the office as a backup for the first time in ages. I'm sure it would have been nice to see some friendly faces. But the snacks are better at home. 

Fortunes

I love fortune telling in all its various forms. So I was thrilled yesterday when a box showed up on my door and it was a kit from a friend teaching me how to read tea leaves.

There's a mug and some loose leaf and instructions about how the whole thing works. But the best part is the list of symbols - what everything means. 

I can't wait to practice it. 

Dessert

For months, I've been craving rice pudding. I had some leftover rice this weekend and thought, aha! Today will be the day! I stuck some milk in my freezer back in March and finally I would use it to make rice pudding! 

As it turns out, milk takes, like, two days to defrost in the refrigerator. So two days later, I finally made my rice pudding, prioritizing it over dinner because I knew if I waited, it probably wouldn't happen. (There was a lot of leftover rice as it turns out, so it may have been a fried rice and rice pudding kind of evening.)

But now the rice pudding exists and is creamy and delicious and I suspect I'll be making it again very soon. 

This weekend

I watched a movie outside, picked some apples, sat around a fire and talked with friends. If not for the masks and the distance, it might have felt like any other October. It wasn't ideal -- after all, there's still a pandemic -- but it was something.

Newsrooms

There's a lot happening today, and it's maybe not something that makes me smile -- but man, am I grateful right now for all the big news days when I've been able to be in a newsroom. No matter the newsroom, it's a group of thoughtful, engaged, curious people who are willing to talk about the biggest happenings of the moment. 

I'm missing it right now, in month seven of working from home, but not in the same way I did when I was home on an election night (for example). Then, I knew the conversations were happening and I was not part of them. Sure, there are conversations happening all over the country. But very few of them are the newsroom conversations I long for. It's not that I'm left out of them. They don't exist. (At least not in my newsroom, today.)

So I'm grateful for all the times I could turn to the reporter next to me and raise my eyebrows and point and begin a tirade or a winding conversation that would inevitably end up somewhere unexpected. I hope I get to have that again. I don't expect it to be soon.

In the meantime: What a hell of a day. What a week. What a year.

Conversation

Discussing important topics this afternoon with a handful of people, thoughtfully.

Here, kitty, kitty

I visited a friend on her porch last night, and was surprised when a cat greeted me as I pulled into the driveway. She's always been a dog person, but it had been six months, and maybe she'd added a pet.

The cat was friendly and followed me into the backyard. It hung around after I slipped and fell in the mud. (That's a different story, but it's been so long since I fell in the mud! There was something weirdly nice about that, too!) And it walked up the stairs with me to the porch.

It did not belong to my friend.

But for the whole two and a half hours I was there, it made itself at home. It leaped on the chairs, the table, each of us. It challenged her dog, who had come to the door to see what was happening. It strutted along railings and went after some bugs. It was the most self-assured cat I've ever seen.

And when it was time for me to leave, the cat followed down the stairs. I had to lure it out the gate. It scampered among the rosemary as I picked some on my way out. My friend joked that it was going to follow me in to my car, but I made a (mud-covered) run for it. The cat was nonchalant, and meandered away, to the next house.

I'm not an animal person at all, but it was really sweet and soft and friendly. If it had jumped in the car after me, I would have been hard-pressed to kick it out.

Awareness

There's a lot happening in the world, which I know I don't have to tell you. As we see a real-time shift in culture and understanding, I very much appreciate having conversations that let me gain perspectives I didn't have.

Being able to talk to people about their own reactions to social change isn't common. I've been doing it for work and with friends, both.

Today, after some of the work conversations, I got thanked for talking to people and for the questions I was asking. I hope that the articles I write live up to the discussions, and the people who felt like they were benefiting by talking to me are also pleased with the results. It's a privilege to be able to tell others' stories and I'm particularly aware of that this week.

Fans

My windows are open, the fans are on and it's 84 degrees in here. So it's probably my last night without air conditioning, since I'm basically covered in a constant sheen of sweat. I wish it was cooler in here -- just a touch! But I'm savoring the quiet of not having the A/C kick in and enjoying feeling like I'm a little closer to the outside world (what with being separated just by a screen). While it lasts.

Leftovers

Cooking took too long today,  but it was tasty. So I'm glad there's enough of it to eat later, so I can get the benefits of new concoctions without the annoyance of standing in front of a stove when it's so warm outside.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

Heating pad

One of my assignments at my first job was to go to a school where students were studying something to do with entrepreneurship and had created products that they would sell to their classmates. I don't remember if they used real money or fake (my guess is the latter), but I remember perusing the various items that the elementary or middle schoolers had made and not really seeing anything that I, an adult(ish) person, needed.

And then! One kid had made those microwaveable heating pads that are basically a sock filled with grains. His were cloth rectangles that he (or a relative) had sewn together and I immediately knew that I wanted one. Mine was fuzzy blue material and this kid was so excited that I was getting it from him. I wish I could find the story, but I still have -- and use -- the heating pad. I did last night. And I think of the smile on that kid's face and I wish I could tell him these (12? 15?) years later that I still use this little thing he made. He's probably a college grad now, maybe is deciding what adult(ish) things he needs. I love the thought that he's got one of these, too, and there are a whole group of us from this classroom sale still excited about these heating pads (which have held up so well).

Book club

I've been going to the same book club (practically) every month for nine years, so it was a bummer when it looked like that whole staying-at-home thing was going to put a damper on it. But lo and behold, Zoom. We were still able to meet.

I most appreciate the thoughtful, intellectual (and often not) conversations we have about characters and choices and motivations. And especially working alone in a room, I was really glad to be part of a long, windy conversation with a bunch of smart women.

And amazingly, we (for the most part) didn't talk over each other and conversation just flowed.

Plus, a friend (who I hope also enjoyed it -- if not the book) was able to join, too, from another state. It was great to see her face and to hear her weigh in on the book, too. So I feel a little closer to her and to the group, both.

Spellbound

I've been to the Scripps National Spelling Bee eight times, and I somehow had not seen the documentary Spellbound until tonight.

If you, too, haven't seen it, it's available on Tubi for free and documents the path of eight students to the 1999 Bee. It's, uh, more casually racist in the beginning than I would have expected. But then it's a delight. And knowing that I'm not going to the Bee next month (like many other things, it's not happening as originally scheduled, if at all) it was really spectacular to see it in action 21 years ago. The film cameras! The hair! The clothing choices!

There were a few things in particular that delighted me, having been a part of the program for the better part of a decade:

• The calming tones of Mary Brooks, the head judge, and glimpses of other judges.
• Dr. Bailly, then the associate pronouncer and now the head pronouncer, asking "What's a Corolla?" in response to a speller's question. (This is totally in character.)
• The eventual 2000 winner, George Thampy, as an 11-year-old who went by "Georgie." He's also a judge now.
• Seeing the childhood bedroom and rivals of Nupur Lala, the winner, who I became friendly with after meeting her as an adult.
• The amazing, incredible, brilliant kids trying so hard and with such verve.
• The words! Zwieback was in an alphabet book I made in fourth grade; I swear I heard xeropthalmia (which also has a fourth grade reference for me); and of course kookaburra, he of the old gum tree.

(Dr. Bailly more recently, gettin' jiggy with it.)

This was not my favorite day of the quarantine, so those smiles were more appreciated than they would even have been on other days.

I've also been listening to Fountains of Wayne after learning that Adam Schlesinger died today. You probably know Stacy's Mom, but there's so much more that he did -- including writing That Thing You Do! and many of the songs from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It's a loss and I'm bummed about it, but glad that I'm able to listen to his music and that a little bit of him can live on.

Downpour

I'm enjoying lying in bed, listening to the rain. It sounds like a rainstick in the middle section, when everything is going at full force and you wonder how it manages to make that much noise.