I keep a list of potential blog topics on my phone. That way if I feel like writing and don’t have an idea— there is one waiting.
But I’ve had a bad stomach ache for a while (I blame the food choices I’ve made over the last 24 hours) and I just don’t have the motivation to write.
For dinner last night I had half a medium pizza from Dominos (spinach feta), with Cheezy Jalapeño sauce from Little Caesars, half an order of BBQ bacon wrapped specialty chicken, half an order of Parmesan bread bites, Sweettart jelly beans, Yuengling, and Diet Coke. (While watching Hoarders.)
I had chocolate coconut cookies and peanut butter eggs for breakfast and the remaining half of the pizza smothered in crushed red peppers for lunch. And dessert was several handfuls of Tums and have a bag of generic jelly beans.
And several cups of coffee.
I have my first official library board meeting tonight, of my official library comeback tour, via Zoom but first a challenge…
First person to suggest a topic in the comments— I will write it.
You can take an idea from my list OR suggest your own.
Some of my ideas:
Anything related to Tarot
My parenting philosophy regarding teens and behaviors like drugs & sex
Eminem
My daughter’s observations after having her adenoids removed (hint: she “regrets” the surgery)
Cute cards with cats
Cats vs dogs
My stuffed animals
an overarching review of Gordon Ramsay’s television shows
So, after the kittens spilled charcoal lighter all over the floor in the mud room last week, the teenager became adamant she was going to lay a real floor in that area.
It’s had only a subfloor since my husband and I bought the house more than 17-years-ago.
Last week, I took her to the independent hardware store to get the supplies (and I also got copies of my house keys, drain clog stuff, a plunger and wasp killer— and when your backroom absorbs an entire bottle of flammable liquid because you have no floor out there, those items all count as necessities).
She worked on it three hours today and actually laid it twice. And now some of our friends keep pointing out that she didn’t stagger the interlocking laminate.
Well, the room didn’t have a floor for 17 years and it has one now.
I was just about to make this when another friend, one who used to be in my writers critique group when the teenager was a small child, called for a long chat. This spirited woman moved away a few or more years ago and as it goes when you’re older than 30, life zips by and five years feels like five minutes and you realize you’ve lost touch with people who meant a lot to you.
This particular person participated in some sort of virtual writing workshop and posted a video of herself reading the opening of her manuscript. I watched the video and remembered this character from our time together and commented how far her voice as an author had come.
That’s how we reconnected.
And if that person wants to share her video, she is welcome to post it in the comments.
PS— I made the recipe as directed but poured *all the servings* of coffee into about 10 ounces of milk. So you may want to be smart and NOT do that. Because my heart is racing.
I am sipping a matcha latte (a Tazo concentrate and it’s very sweet) and about to enjoy a pistachio muffin.
The last thing I need right now is a 400+ calorie muffin but I went to Weis yesterday because they have beer. And wine. And I like to have beer on hand to “pay” my neighbor when he automatically cuts my front lawn when he cuts his.
When my husband and I bought this house— almost 20 years ago—we intentionally picked one with a small yard. If you’ve read some of my earlier posts, you may have seen my backyard and never even realized how small it is. Just enough for a small garden and a clothesline.
That’s more than half my yard and my huge detached garage—split level
My husband used to cut the grass with a weed wacker. But it died. I used an old 100-year-old manual push mover. The one with the rotating blades. A gift from a friend who once lived in a similar neighborhood.
But my neighbors usually do my front yard. Our front yards are small and I think they figure if you have the lawn mower out might as well keep going.
My neighbor who currently cuts my grass has a habit of opening a cold beer when he’s done. So if I see him cutting grass, I bring him a cold beer. If he does it while I’m not around, I leave a beer on his porch.
So, if I want to continue to foster this good neighbor behavior, I need beer.
At Weis, they have this display right inside the door with preboxed muffins. I go to Weis for three things: pistachio muffins (why are they the only local store with the sense to back them????), their store made fried chicken (which they don’t appear to be making right now), and craft beer mix and match six packs. (The damn store is in a trifecta triangle with my gym, my bank and Dunkin’ Donuts.)
I walk into the store and there it sits— two very troubling decisions. There are two four-packs of muffins that include pistachio.
Do I buy muffins? Oh, so nutritionally void. But delicious.
Do I buy the four pack of pistachio or do I buy the four pack that includes three pistachio and one corn? How did that one corn muffin get in there? Why corn?
I had to buy the one with the corn. Who else would buy such a bizarre combo of muffins? And do the pistachio muffins bully the corn muffin?
I also bought a six pack of Yuengling and a six pack of Brooklyn Brand Sour Raspberry Ale. And a strawberry parfait.
The parfait was amazing. It was a strawberry shortcake with pudding and mountains of whipped cream. I thought it might have yogurt in it but no, it was pudding. I can’t even pretend that was healthy.
Weis Strawberry (Shortcake) Parfait
Throughout the day, I ate an entire bag of Sweettart jelly beans. I’m not disappointed in myself for eating 1300 calories of jelly beans. I’m disappointed in myself for binge eating jelly beans I didn’t even really like.
Yes, jelly beans and a diet A-treat
And then finally for supper, I made spinach feta sausage patties from our local small grocery, butcher and best deli ever Park Avenue Market. More on my shopping trip yesterday here: The Uplifting Side of Pandemic Days. The teenager was mmmmming and smacking her lips.
Meat courtesy Park Avenue Market
The sausage tasted fabulous on the day-old deeply discounted bakery rolls I picked up at Weis.
And the ale was good. The fruity sour taste was a tad off putting at first because I wasn’t quite prepared for it. But it was refreshing and smooth overall.
I have to do better with my eating today.
Sidewards glance you the huge, nutritionally void pistachio muffin next to my latte.
There is just something about life in these pandemic times that I find uplifting.
Maybe the sense of nowhere to go or a certain carefreeness that reminds me of being on summer vacation as a teen.
Our grocery trips focus on the present more than ever. I normally only grocery shop once every two weeks but find that now I’m going once a week, buying less and rotating stores.
Today I went to a local small independent grocer, Park Avenue Market, where they are known for their amazing sandwiches and in store meats.
I treated the teenager to her first taste of olive loaf from the deli, slab bacon and their own feta spinach sausage patties. I also bought some stew beef and a small steak.
I discovered, in the middle of the store, with my order and my blind friend’s order, that I did not have my wallet. I found myself staring straight at a local cop and wondering where my wallet at fallen out of the back pocket of my jeans.
I told the teen to keep shopping and went home to look for it— it had fallen out of my pocket when I used the toilet before beginning our journey.
After the market, I took Nan her items and took the teen home before heading to Weis. There I got bananas, muffins, some discounted chicken and frozen vegetables. Half off fresh bakery products that weren’t so fresh any more. Milk, eggs, half and half and two six packs— one of Yuengling and one of a raspberry ale with a name I don’t recall.
We got some other items between the two trips: broccoli and cheese whipped into something akin to mashed potatoes, bread, mini shoo fly pies, A-Treat soda and lord knows what else.
Because suddenly life is shorter and the carbohydrates and sweets provide a taste of celebration.
I ate a vat of spaghetti squash when I arrived home and helped my daughter design a marching band show for her music assignment. Her dream has long been to play Cake’s Short Skirt Long Jacket in band. So she was ecstatic when the web sure her teacher posted had the music.
It was hard to unify songs since we didn’t have enough Cake songs to do a Cake theme. She found a lot of Green Day and thought maybe she should do all Green Day. But I couldn’t let her dream die.
She found the theme from Die Another Day— which I believe is Madonna performing in the James Bond film. I didn’t think mixing a movie theme and alternative would work. And her band director has done a Bond show.
Finally I researched early 2000s alternative rock in a Google search and we decided on Nickelback. Green Day’s Basket Case for the Opener, followed by the Cake song, closed by some Nickelback song that I’ve forgotten already.
So the theme would be alternative rock from the era in which these musicians were born.
And here’s Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, rocking out to Green Day.
Today had some elements of greatness among the toil of a long work day in the midst of a pandemic.
We had a lovely walk.
We had pizza.
I got a free doughnut.
We got a Yum box.
We went to Family Dollar for school supplies and found some other surprises.
My truck is only $5,000. Maybe I can really buy it.
I got a new plunger.
I helped my blind friend Nancy open a Twitter account.
If none of that sounds interesting just skip this entry, but you might enjoy this “a day in the life.”
I had to go to the local Goin Postal to print and mail a grant for work. I brought the teenager along so she could grab some Little Caesars pizza and school supplies from Family Dollar as I figured I’d be in the shop for an hour.
The dollar store had clearance jelly beans for 75% off! I got three bags for $1!!! The teenager got lead for her favorite mechanical pencils and pens for my home office. We also got two really big cans of cat food. Because four cats.
The teenager procured some food items too— though some may not qualify as food. Lemon sugar wagers, pickles, blueberry muffins, beef ramen, generic pop tarts, sour freeze pops and Slim Jim’s.
We came home and she did school work while I did office work. At 2 pm, I took my meal break to go to the local hardware store. We needed caulk, wood patch, drain unclogger, a plunger, and items for a floor in the mud room.
I’ll have to take some photos of the nice laminate plank flooring the teen picked out for her floor. I even got wasp killer and some keys made.
Spent $180. But that includes 60 square feet of flooring.
That was also when I noticed my old aging truck was only $5,000.
I’ve had my eye on this beauty for four years.
I want this truck.
So we then stopped at Dunkin because it’s Free Doughnut Friday and since I only leave the house about once a week might as well make it exciting.
I worked late. Went straight to a telephone meeting with Nancy, my blind friend who I do computer stuff for. Long story short— we ended up putting her on Twitter and she followed a whole bunch of NASA stuff. Try explaining Twitter to a blind person. Just try.
Then once we finished, the teenager and I had her Universal Yums box for dinner. It was amazing! Scandinavian goodies for the win!
And then I tried the new plunger. It worked so well the gunk was coming out that little hole in the drain circle where the flipper for the tub plug goes. Under the spigot.
And that was my exciting day. Everyone even hung out with me.
I added a 4-year-old Goffin’s Cockatoo to my menagerie in January with little real bird experience in my past.
My stepmom had a full-sized cockatoo when I was a teenager so I know they can be moody, noisy and demanding pets.
And then Nala took a liking to me.
I don’t know why. But it was clear from the get-go that she wanted me.
The day we met
I think Nala recognized what a soft-hearted sucker I am.
So having a cockatoo like this little lady is like having an agressive toddler with the sophisticated yet immature brain of a teenager. Nala is having a mini-tantrum right now because I’m not paying attention to her yet she refuses to step up.
But what I wanted to mention today, is I noticed an amusing behavior. She has a nice bowl of pellet and seeds in her cage. I check it and clean it every day.
On days when I am too slow to feed her, and she is hungry, or if she’s picked out all of her favorites from the bowl, she peels up the newspaper from the bottom of her cage and uses her toes and beak to forage from the bottom of the cage for things she discarded earlier.
When the teenager was a wee thing, she idolized Buffy The Vampire Slayer. So much so that as a seven year old she named her kitten Oz after Seth Green’s werewolf character.
Shortly thereafter— I can’t remember if it were a birthday or a Christmas present—but we got her a real Everlast punching bag and boxing gloves.
So she could train for her superhero career.
Today, my boss asked me to work late. And I had a library board meeting at 7. At 4:45 pm, since I had no lunch, I clocked out on my 30-minute meal break and went to the garage with the teenager.
Slamming on that punching bag released a lot of tension from my shoulders.
And the teen has another unorthodox gym class to add to her log for her phys-ed teacher.
I logged back into work at 5:15 and worked until 6:30. I’m beat. But I’m glad I took the time to box a bit.
In the fall, I bought myself a new very warm coat and cashmere lined gloves from Land’s End. I was very excited about it, and in the enthusiasm of potentially being warm this winter, the t-shirt I ordered was forgotten.
It was a simple white t-shirt, but not fitted the way I like them, so I suppose that’s how it got relegated to the back of the closet.
Today I found it.
It’s a tad wrinkled, but it’s gleaming, crisp and white. In this Coronavirus pandemic, it’s suddenly exciting to have something new in my life.
So amid the decisions of today—Can I start wash and hang it outside it is my work day too busy and my boss might get upset if I step away from my computer for ten minutes? Do I use my lunch break to take the teenager to the hardware store? Should we visit two grocery stores this weekend or is that too irresponsible?—I feel new and put together.
I’m spending time with my cockatoo, having already completed the Wednesday evening trash collection.
Nala and I
The teenager is carting garbage from the basement and organizing the tool bench in preparation for a trip to the hardware store. She hopes to lay a new floor in the mud room— the same mud room where the kittens shattered a bottle of charcoal lighter fluid.
I suggested the teenager use the basement experience for her gym log. I’m encouraging her to find unorthodox ways to fulfill her gym requirements.
We opened a mini-container of Oreo cookies today and I can’t even remember the last time I had an Oreo. It was delicious.
I have cat food and cat litter on auto-ship from Petco. With the four cats, we go through a lot of kibble, three cans of cat food a day and about 60 pounds of cat litter every three weeks.
Petco had my litter listed as “on back order” and I was almost out. To be on the safe side, I ordered 60 pounds of cat litter from Target.com. I ordered them at the same time.
All of the Petco order came today— but the lid of one of the cat litter containers smashed and led to 10 pounds of cat litter leaking out of the corners of the cardboard box.
Only two of the three Target bottles of litter came today, so I suspect we’ll see the FedEx driver again tomorrow.
Finally, my stimulus payment arrived today. I immediately transferred $1000 into savings. I plan on using $200 for groceries and the hardware store. The remaining $500 is going onto my American Express to pay off most of my medical bills.
I’ll have to reconfigure the budget I’ve been working with. March turned out to be a very expensive month.
I’m also not looking forward to the next round of utility bills— electric, water and sewer are going to spike.
I thought maybe something insightful would emerge as I typed this, but no.
