Category essay

Friday Funday

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

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!

Unboxing and tasting video here: April 2020 Scandinavia Universal Yum Box

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.

Are all cockatoos ridiculous?

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

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.

One day she even found a peanut.

Boxing

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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.

The found t-shirt

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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.

New white T

Pandemic Ponderings Wednesday edition

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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.

Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic: Controlling who gets in

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I finally was able to put into words today what I’ve been thinking since the shutdown started.

There has been a lot of discussion among friends, family and electronic connections about the introverted and extroverted responses to social isolation.

The introverts love it.

The extroverts might need strait jackets soon.

Compared to the teenager’s father—with whom I lived with for 20 years and neither one of us has filed for divorce yet despite living apart for the last nine months—I am not an introvert, but I do have empathic qualities so I need to be careful how I spend my time.

I wonder if my anxieties in life come from the energy I absorb from the world and people around me, and if that is why I spend time in balanced chunks of “alone in my room” vs. “with family and friends” vs. “with the outside world at large.”

I know that’s why I struggled with my job in retail.

But today, when walking with a neighbor after a day that challenged me, I realized why this pandemic has preserved my sanity.

I suddenly have control over who I let into my space. Complete control. Sure, work meetings over the phone can still be stressful but there is a physical distance that makes me feel safe.

I can’t go out arbitrarily. Or I shouldn’t. I have to plan my outings and chose where and when I go.

I control who I reach out to and who I let into my life. I certainly control who comes into my home.

Maybe I should practice some of these techniques after Covid-19 passes and protect my emotional space.

DIY hair and drain projects—hopefully one will work

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It’s Sunday night. I’m succumbing to the stress of facing another Monday. So rather than watch excessive amounts of my main squeeze Gordon Ramsay, I decided to scrub the tub, work on the drains and update my hair.

I thought I’d trim my hair— the teenager offered to help me but the timing hasn’t worked out. I thought before I cut it maybe I’d dye my hair. When this is all over, I can get a short haircut and remove the color if I get sick of it or it causes trouble at work.

Phase I

I don’t have any hair bleach at home, as it’s been at least two years since I ventured into Manic Panic realm. But I did find some old cream bleach so ancient that it had burned the inside of the box. It has been at least a decade since I started waxing my upper lip instead of bleaching it.

So I mixed it up and smeared it into my hair. As it percolated, I scrubbed the tub with baking soda and poured about half a large bottle of vinegar down the drain while plunging. That should help free our pipes.

This is probably a bad idea

Next I’m going to start the tea pot and pour boiling water and ammonia down there before I rinse the bleach off my head.

Phase II

Poured some ammonia and the boiling hot water down the tub drain. Now to rinse my hair of the bleach mixture.

My hair has a few paler spots — a little redness here and there. My drain didn’t fare much better. I even used the barbed snake thing and I don’t see a difference in water drainage speed.

Phase III

The teenager is smearing Manic Panic into my hair— we have an aquamarine color from one of the times we dyed her hair in her pre-marching band days and some Green Envy Intensified. We also found Argan Oil Hair color in green and magenta.

The teenager has splattered hair dye liberally.

Your head looks like a fifth grader’s art project and a unicorn threw up on your face.

The teenager, remarking on the quality of her work

Phase IV

The only time I use my hair dryer.

Now to watch TV— my main squeeze Gordon Ramsay— while my hair dries some more. I used the blow dryer but my hair is so thick I’d have to bake it for days.

My buffalo chicken spaghetti squash casserole did not hit the spot for the teen, so we ended up splitting a can of Spaghettios with meatballs. Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, approved.

Phase V

Shower. As soon as this episode of Hell’s Kitchen is over. There’s a contestant on the red team from Bethlehem, Pa. That’s where my husband and I met at Moravian College while earning our English degrees.

My hair is nice and crispy. This should be interesting.

The magenta hair dye went everywhere in the shower, and despite all my efforts with the drains I was standing with dark purple water up to my ankles.

Phase VI

I plunged the tub while waiting for the teenager to come up and give my hair a trim. The plunger split. Which might explain why I haven’t had much luck with the drain. The plunger has not been getting a good seal.

Phase VII

The teen — who has no experience or knowledge in hair— gives me a haircut. I wanted her to trim a few bushy errant pieces but I told her to cut what she wanted. She used my sewing scissors.

It looks good. Can only see some magenta in this evening light.

My new haircut and color

Easter Sunday Pandemic Stream of Consciousness

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I started today with the debate of whether to blog about Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, or my thoughts on what makes a good day or a good weekend, something the teenager seemed insistent upon us having.

But the cats started climbing the parakeet cage, I made the “mistake” of reviewing some news coverage of Donald Trump’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, and frankly, I’ve lost my train of thought more times than I can count.

So while I’m still lost in a sea of randomness, watching Mistofelees (my daughter’s formerly feral/stray kitten) decide how to get off the budgie cage without crossing Nala’s path, let me also say I used the hydrating hair mask from last month’s Ipsy Glam bag and my dry curly hair is remarkably not puffy today.

The first time I tried it, I didn’t see any results. This time was very different.

(For more on my Ipsy experiences, see here: Review of my Ipsy April 2020 Glam Bag)

It’s Easter Sunday, but the teenager opened her basket on Good Friday (I’m suddenly realizing how disrespectful that was of traditional Christian culture). Oops.

To see our silliness on that, I have YouTube videos:

Mom prepares the Easter Box

Teen opens her Easter box

I washed her new sheets and hung them on the line yesterday. I helped her make her bed and I hope she had a lovely night of sleep on them. She picked the most colorful ones first.

In the next order of randomness, I think I’m going to make a Buffalo chicken spaghetti squash casserole for Easter dinner.

Now, shall I even expound on my thoughts on the Coronavirus situation. Perhaps briefly.

  • I think the isolation vs. develop herd immunity arguments both have merit. It’s hard for anyone to know what is “right” in any major situation. What makes a good leader is the depth of response, the logic behind it and how organized the implementation is.
  • Those who have resources and power will always sacrifice those who have less to maintain their resources and power. It is true of most humanity. Even those will less. Look at the hoopla over toilet paper.
  • I think this change in how we live and work could have some broad implications. I would like to see, in my Pollyanna nirvana, a world where we all slow down, shop less, and spend more time with our loved ones. But in reality, I think we will see shifts in service delivery (perhaps huge changes in public education), reductions in consumer goods available/continued shortages, and more poverty.
  • Our civil liberties have changed since 9/11/2001 and they will continue to decrease. The notion of privacy is almost completely dead if not buried. I remember when science fiction warned us we would all be microchipped and have our physical money taken away. Now, the core of our lives are tracked, spied on and connected to a mini-supercomputer we carry with us everywhere we go. We call it a smart phone.
  • Technology companies are developing identifiers for each of us via our phones to track who may have been exposed to Covid-19 and alert those they with whom they came in contact. This technology will no doubt track us all in other ways in the future but I’m not against it. Because, see previous bullet, in today’s world there is no real privacy boundaries left.

So let’s enjoy this sunny Easter and celebrate life and spring.

With the pandemic looming, and people still struggling in the every day ways, you have to rejoice one moment at a time.

Review of my Ipsy April 2020 Glam Bag

Angel Ackerman 3 Comments

My April 2020 Glam Bag came yesterday and the teenager and I did an unboxing video (that features more kittens than make up) here:

April 2020 Glam Bag by Ipsy unboxing

For those of you who don’t know, Ipsy offers a mail order cosmetic subscription “box” that, in the small “Glam bag” size offers a custom make up bag and five items, one of which is usually full size and the others are samples. It costs about $12/month. And they offer add-ons.

I treated myself to a mascara this month.

This service is perfect for me as I have a bit of fear and inexperience around make up. I want to try more, but don’t have money to invest in products I will probably not be ballsy enough to use.

So this allows me a chance to explore.

This is literally all the make up I own before Ipsy. (I love blue mascara. Would love forest and/or emerald green but haven’t found it.)

My go-to eyeshadow is gold, with a touch of red on the outside. I call it my “Monet sunrise” look.

This was last month’s Ipsy bag.

See related posts here: Lighthearted Ipsy Review of the March 2020 Glam Bag

My first Ipsy Glam Bag—pre-unboxing

So now to check out the April products:

  • Buxom mascara, black, $3 add-on, 3 ml
  • Seraphine botanicals 100% vegan lip gel, berry + juice, 6 ml
  • Aromatica Calendula Juicy Cream, vegan formula, sample size, maybe 15 ml
  • Oryza Beauty Nude Shimmer & Contour eye shadow palette, vegan
  • Estate Dew Me Lit baked highlight powder
  • Araceli Grande Blending Brush

Let’s start with the Aromatica lotion. Now, if you saw my video, you’ll know I tried it as soon as I got it. I didn’t notice anything remarkable about it at the time, but today I’m going to try again.

Smell appears neutral. That is good for me as my skin and my senses can’t handle heavy scents.

Applied quickly and smoothly.

But let’s compare to last month’s Hey Honey lotion.

The honey smell is intoxicating. The lotion this month by Aromatica is thicker and offers more coverage. So I think I like them both. But would use the Aromatica for hands and maybe Hey Honey on the face as it claims to be a calming lotion.

I put a layer of the Hey Honey lotion on my face, and I might have rubbed it in roughly as now my cheekbones hurt. I’m going to put on some of last month’s Tarte Quench hydrating primer. I love this hydrating primer but it’s my first experience with any primer so don’t take my word as gospel.

Now, the Seraphine lip gel smells amazing. (Why do I keep commenting on smells?) It’s smells like berry in that candy-that-is-berry-flavored way.

Here I am wearing the lip gel, with my old glasses, badly in need of a haircut and my Goth troll t-shirt.

Estate Highlighter Powder. No idea how to use this product. Watched some videos on YouTube. Applied some to my right cheekbone. Not seeing it. Okay, well, let’s keep going and see if I can notice it in different light. Maybe I’m too pale. I bet the teenager would look good in this.

Now the eye shadow palette. So excited as these are glittery neutral shades like the ones I favor.

I love every one of these colors on my face. And the Buxom mascara is a very long brush with shorter bristles that goes on very even. And looks natural (but in an enhanced way).

Very pleased.

I think these are some very practical products with some fun and sass thrown in.

Saturday rumination—how do I move forward with athletic aspirations?

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I woke. My birds started chirping about 6:30 a.m. due to the light that creeps around the edges of my black-out curtains.

I had coffee, started some laundry and dishes and came up to clean the bird cages and touch up my room.

The lack of activity is causing more discomfort in my S1 joint. It makes me think about how my awkward gait from cerebral palsy might be destroying what fitness I have. For a while, I was quite athletic.

The issue is on my left side. It started when I started working more or less full time at my retail job which was a few months after I broke my ankle.

I wonder if I will ever be able to fulfill my dream of running a 5k or if my body just can’t handle it.

After I broke my hand, I started weight training to regain strength. I added cardio and walks of 2-4 miles a day (in addition to working on my feet/walking a mile an hour at the cafe) when my weight became an issue.

Life has changed— and my job leaves me sedentary, the gym is closed and I just don’t seem to have the energy to work out at home.

But before I started working so many hours, I was muscular and my back rarely hurt. Only twice a year or so when I “threw” my lower back out.

And sometimes I did that sneezing or standing up from a chair.

Just something to think about— how to rebuild a strong body from an aching one. Or do I attribute it to my age and move on…