The governor has canceled school for the rest of the school year as of today so for the next seven weeks the teenager will be completing her sophomore year at home.
For dinner I did something decadent— I made thick cut black pepper bacon and cooked cabbage in the bacon grease. I piled the bacon, cabbage and some extra sharp New York cheddar onto a bagel.
And the teenager spent some time today recreating her mother on the Sims. Here I am:
And thanks to a college friend getting a vibrage wringer washer for her birthday I actually spent some time today watching YouTube videos of men doing laundry on washing machines more than 50 years old. The teenager found that amusing. And so dreadfully boring of me. I subscribed to this appliance man’s channel. I love this 1952 Frigidaire with the antique box of Tide.
After all, this washing machine is older than my mother. Give it a watch. Go on.
It’s important on days when the world is fighting a pandemic or if your mood is not quite right to remember the bright spots.
The sun was bright. The air warm. My house windows open.
My daughter and I had a picnic on my bed at lunch.
My boss likes one of the projects I submitted today, which almost made it a good day.
Fog the kitten curled up in a tight little ball and slept in my lap. She looked like such a dainty baby.
My daughter— how I wish these days at home with her never had to end— cleaned the kitchen and made dinner AND shared a piece of her peanut butter Reese’s Easter Rabbit.
We watched another episode of the Waltons, a throw back to my daughter’s childhood and my own. We both envy the Norman Rockwell rural Americana depicted there. When she was a baby, I used to watch the Waltons while she nursed (with the sound on mute so she wouldn’t hear it and I put the subtitles on). As a preschooler, we would often watch an episode to settle down before bed. And the episode where Elizabeth broke her leg spurred a decade of my daughter having a fascination with broken legs. And a brief desire to be a surgeon. Her reaction to the show now is priceless— I never really thought about the fact that the Baldwin Sisters were alcoholics. That was one of her first observations.
Tomorrow the teenager plans to make banana bread.
My daughter had planned a cookie and coffee break for me today, but my work day (even a home) that my 9-plus hour stint at the computer didn’t allow it. So I hope we can try again tomorrow.
For those interested in the things the cat stowed in the couch series, I haven’t found much lately.
My last day in the office was March 17. We were practicing social distancing— not allowed to pass each other in the hall, speaking from inside our offices, wiping down doorknobs and the copy machine.
It was George’s mother’s birthday and he couldn’t go see her in the nursing home. That made him sad.
Tomorrow will be my 13th day of working from home. The fourth day of my second year with the agency. My first full day working on my new laptop. I had to reset windows and I managed to send myself this old picture from my phone for my desktop photo:
Traveling
I took it on the road between Djibouti City and Lac Abbé four years ago. Other than my daughter, I’ve shown one person this photo and they didn’t even ask what it was.
“Some random African photo,” he said when I asked if he noticed it, “I know your fascination with Africa.”
So I explained. “Ah,” he said, “that makes sense.”
This is the original photo that I took in January 2016.
On the Road
There is beauty in that photo, and oppressive dry heat, and the implication of hardship. Where are they going? Is it far? Yet, such color and contrast. Simplicity.
The man in the front is wearing a traditional man’s skirt. They say it helps you stay cool in the heat. The women have such light but colorful layers, lovely hijab blowing in what appears to be a slight breeze.
This photo takes me away when I look at it, and for me, it offers perspective and optimism.
I do have a critical theorist’s fascination with Africa, but my passion is actually post-colonial Francophone Africa and how their colonial experience and subsequent (ahem) immigration issues and Muslim relations provide lessons for American imperialism in a post-9/11 world.
Though recent political upheaval in South Africa may provide an interesting cross-examination of the British colonial experience… and what that means for the next generation of African citizens across the continent.
But I digress… not uncommon.
I have some goals I want to set this week.
Have several meals with my daughter at our patio cafe.
Take 3 walks.
Do 5 push ups tomorrow, 10 on Tuesday, and as many as I can each day as long as it is at least the same as the day before.
I didn’t sleep much last night, wide awake at 5:30 a.m. After tossing and turning for an hour, I got up, fed the cats, reset windows on my newly arrived computer and decided to do my grocery shopping at Lidl when it opened at 8.
There were about 8 of us in the parking lot when it opened and the population of the store doubled in the first ten minutes. I did a lot of shopping in about 20 minutes, with everything from bathroom supplies to Easter Candy, plums to the last of the Brussel sprouts.
Lidl still has toilet paper, hand soap, various wipes, acetaminophen and disinfectant spray.
Many of the shelves are completely empty but others are untouched — so some of my protein choices are unorthodox. I bought some things I prefer not to eat, like frozen black eyed peas, because they are cheap and will keep. I also bought processed foods I avoid for health reasons for the same reasons, namely hot dogs. I also snagged the last carton of liquid egg whites. I’ve never cooked with those but they have a freshness date of June. So it’s a protein I can store.
I bought the teenager a bag of lemons and a bag of plums. I treated myself to a large cantaloupe. I will surprise us both will pre-cut watermelon— a luxury I never indulge in but we can use the extra fruit.
And while everyone else ran to things like meat and toilet paper, I went to the bakery and put on the disposable gloves they offered, grabbed a pastry paper and selected warm croissants— you know before everyone touches them.
I also bought juice, again which I never do preferring the fiber and extra satiating qualities of real fruit, but if we’re not going to the store, we need some vitamin c source.
And one man noticed how quickly and efficiently I shopped. He made robot gestures and called me a machine.
And I got a big old bag of lavender Epsom salts. That was my treat.
I’m proud of my daughter. I’m proud of her teachers. I’m proud of her school district.
This was the first week of her traditional public high school functioning virtually. She started strong.
She struggled a bit with geometry.
She downloaded all the apps she needed and kept up with all the work.
But yesterday her dad’s internet proved unreliable then my provider had an outage throughout our entire neighborhood.
Today she got up at 8 a.m. We both started work then, and neither of us finished. I clocked out at 6:15, after problems with the work server all afternoon.
Over dinner, at 7 pm, my daughter mentioned that she was exhausted even though she wasn’t tired.
I explained that was mental exhaustion.
“Now I understand how you feel when you get home from work,” she said.
I mentioned that’s why I watch so much Gordon Ramsay. Mindless.
My HP elitebook arrived today. My daughter got it charged and working and on the internet.
She brought it to be and I downloaded the remote server file for work.
I worked on the new machine for about 3 hours but I kept having issues. It didn’t occur to me that the work server was having problems. So when I saw the message that I had windows updates I restarted.
When I came upstairs, it was still lingering on the screensaver.
I had a stressful week so I hope the computer isn’t broken.
It wasn’t supposed to arrive until sometime between April 7 and 10. So it was 4 days early.
My teenager wanted junk food and wanted out of the house so she accompanied her father grocery shopping. At Target. Her choice.
I made her a list, downloaded the Target Circle app to her phone, logged her into my account and loaded all my coupon.
We weren’t at the point where we needed groceries, but if things are going to get scarce, I want to be ready. I’m not hoarding but I’m trying to stay ahead of what people want next.
I use a lot of bleach, white vinegar, Borax powder and baking soda when I clean because of all the animals so I asked her to grab them if she saw them.
Flour, cooking oil, tuna fish, peanut butter. Things like that. Well, tuna is getting more scarce so I asked her to get canned chicken. It was that or the expensive tuna. Next time we’ll grab some Spam.
She even nabbed a bottle of acetaminophen— PM. But hey, if I need the acetaminophen I might need sleep, too.
This morning for breakfast we had the last of our homemade crepes, turkey bacon, scrambled egg and smoked Gouda (with pickles).
The teenager and I FaceTimed my parents— which was a riot because I don’t think they ever FaceTimed before so they were struggling with the camera angles and my stepmom was showing me pages from her cookbook while my daughter chased cats around the house.
And then I got a text. My prescription was ready at CVS.
The teen and I had a 30% off coupon expiring today so we walked the half mile to the pharmacy. I got my prescription. We got a bottle of acetaminophen without sleep aid. And she got a gallon of Arizona iced tea. We got some other impulse buys that included a strawberry Twinkie, which resulted in a very silly video of us:
Some of this might be repeat for my regular followers, but I thought it would be nice to compile some of the animal news here.
Lord knows happy pet news can be beneficial to everyone’s spirits.
Oz
Opie and Oz, our two male tiger stripe cats, both turned 9 this month. Nine! The teenager and I raised Oz—the big, dumb, cuddly teddy bear—from a three-month-old kitten rescued from the local animal shelter.
The teenager, then turning seven, wanted an older pug but her father said no dogs and certainly not a pug. So we explored the kittens, basically because my husband trusted me more raising cats.
Oz was one of several kittens from a litter the animal shelter named after Pepsi products and his original name was Dasani. Oz was the tiniest kitten with the biggest damn paws. He grew into a big cat, with an even bigger docile personality.
The teenager named him after The Wizard of Oz but also after Scott Green’s werewolf character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then her favorite TV show.
I made the decision to put Oz down when he was three because he had recurring urinary crystals and we couldn’t afford the $1000+ surgery he needed to flush the crystals out of his urethra or the even more expensive surgery to cut off his penis and make him a bigger hole to pee from so he could pass future crystals.
Luckily, the veterinary practice had a young vet who had never performed the surgery and offered to use him as a test case for $600. At that point, that is what I was almost spending to put him down. I think it was $200 more expensive that killing him. So I took the deal.
That’s why Oz can only eat wet food.
And Oz had a fear of drinking water— because he associated it with the pain of passing the crystals when he urinated.
He has since learned to drink lots of water.
But he still has an obsessive desire to eat kibble.
Opie
Opie, our other male cat, is a major badass. Super loyal. Super cat-like. Some cats act more like stereotypical cats that others. Opie is pure feline.
In addition to a birthday this month, Opie also celebrates the one year anniversary of his leg amputation. Opie is a kitty cat bone cancer survivor.
We took Opie in when he was seven months old after friends rescued him from a feral mama. They had planned to keep him but their other cats picked on him.
Oz was still a kitten at the time and the two got along beautifully and look very similar.
Opie is on the top, Oz to the right, Fog left
Opie was our head mouser, but the kittens might give him a challenge.
Mistofelees (Misty)
Misty was the first of three kittens my daughter trapped between late December and late January. They were born probably in late October under my neighbor’s porch.
Misty was the runt. When the others went out to hunt with Mama, he stayed behind.
My daughter worked very hard to tame him and earn his trust.
I think Misty is on the right
We trapped the kitten that later got naked Smoky next. The neighbor named it. And it found a good home. But now a theme was developing.
Fog
Fog was the last one trapped. I named her to fit the theme. She was on her own for about two weeks after Smoky. She would reach into the trap from the side, slip her paw into the food and ladle it out of the trap lick by lick.
When we reunited her with her brother, my heart melted and I couldn’t give her up.
The Budgies: Boo, Wink and Yo
Peek-a-Boo (Boo-boo), so named because she was so spastic when she came home we thought she had a hurt wing, is the dominant bird in the group. And the fattest. She is pure yellow.
The teenager bought her and Periwinkle (Wink) for me as a Christmas present. Wink is the pale blue bird and the most skittish of the group. She and Boo were bonded from the pet store.
I added Yo-Yo (Yo) to the group last fall because I really wanted a traditional green parakeet and to add a male. He is vivid green with some yellow and this amazing navy blue tail.
The teenager made a lot of progress hand-feeding them but hasn’t maintained the training.
And that leaves… Nala.
Nala
Nala is a four-year-old Goffin’s cockatoo with a lot of attitude. I have no large bird experience but she took to me. We brought her home in early January.
She can be very obstinate, which is very common in cockatoos, but we are progressing well.
In the beginning, toweling too often became necessary to keep her from being too aggressive but now that we have learned more about each other it is easier for me to work with her and I can often get her to do something she really doesn’t think is fair— like go to bed—without even threatening to towel her.
It helps that I finally found a treat she can’t resist. She turns her nose up at everything.
She’s displaying a new behavior that I call the “step up” noise and she uses it when she wants to confirm my step up command or is asking me to come get her or sometimes as a demand, like when I won’t let her have my coffee.
1. Pets can really brighten your day. And steal your earrings. And make you laugh. And make a mess. And sleep next to you in the sun. I think every dog in my neighborhood loves having everyone home.
2. Thanks to my office colleagues and teenagerI can now make a FaceTime call with multiple people.
3. I eat less when at home. I realize how big of a stress eating problem I have. When I’m home and calmer, I eat smaller meals so even though I am exercising less, I am losing weight.
4. I don’t miss my bra, but I have to wear real pants even in my home office. For some reason I can’t focus in my pajama pants or comfy pants. It makes me want to be lazy instead of productive.
5. I love lists, but they are a reaction to stress. The more I am distanced from the rat race mentality of our typical American lifestyle, the less I make lists. My to-do lists are created out of a frantic need to prove my productivity to my family, myself and my colleagues. I find myself more in control and less driven to make lists as my lifestyle gets quieter.
6. There is no such thing as free lunch. I’ve been watching the news coverage on the stimulus package and average Americans— the barely middle class ones like myself and those struggling—need to understand that this appears to be an advance on your 2020 refund.
That makes me uncomfortable. It’s an election year, so who knows what will be happening to our tax structure in the future and this bill is enormous. We will have to pay it back somehow or it will damage our economy in the long run.
Plus, for many of us, our jobs and income are unstable right now. And even if we do have good jobs, we might not be seeing raises. And how will this all impact inflation?
I understand it’s a measure to help us survive right now. But I hope this situation helps more people understand that we need to spend less and save more.
7. I’m eating myvegetables. And taking my vitamins. And tracking my moods—because I had been having issues with my blood pressure and no doctor, no matter how much he cares, is going to check my blood pressure right now.
I was talking to a colleague that I last went to Wegmans more than 2 weeks ago. She asked how I have any produce. I taught her my trick. I bought apples, oranges and green bananas. I bought fresh Brussel sprouts, potatoes, spaghetti squash, radishes and a giant cabbage.
Root vegetables for the win!
8. Sunshine saves the day. Working, via extension cord because I have the old laptop with no battery power, on the enclosed porch beats the dining room table.
I have truly enjoyed working at home, alone, just me and the menagerie. It gives me a little bit of emotional distance from my office and keeps my stress levels lower.
My house has a lovely enclosed from porch. It’s an old house, so it’s nothing fancy but it’s picturesque and sunny even on cold winter days.
When we first bought the house, my husband would tease me because I spent so much time on my porch— he said my superpowers would fade if I stayed away too long.
So today I had several really nice bright spots on my day.
1. Nala, my naughty Goffin’s cockatoo, was cuddly.
2. I put on real clothes. No bra, but a real outfit. Like office attire.
3. I found two generic knock-offs of dark chocolate Petit Écolier cookies in my cupboard and they weren’t even stale. They were breakfast.
4. Nala finally started ripping apart her huge paper toy. I was starting to think she didn’t like it
5. I have only left the house 4 times in the last 8 days and 3 of them were for work. Today, the mailman in my neighborhood was late and I had a very important grant application with proper postage and everything. I decided to go to the post office.
The experience ended up being a really good one— they verified the amount of postage, didn’t mock my packaging skills, added a tracking number and estimated the package’s arrival time.
Here’s where my isolation shows.
The postal worker looked at me and asked if I needed anything else like stamps, blah, blah, blah.
I got ridiculously excited.
You know, I am down to my last stamp at home. I would love a book of stamps.
I have the free Co-Star Astrology App which actually creates your birth chart and plots your daily horoscope from there.
At 1 pm daily, I get a push notification that reads with whatever message is on that lightbulb line.
I really liked today’s. It made me quiver a bit in excitement.
You are here to develop an intimate, magical relationship with yourself.
Hell, yes.
I’ve been working 8 a.m to 6 p.m. for about a week now and every day I say, “Today is the day I will clock out on time.”
Today I was driving home from Staples. I had to have photocopies made of a grant proposal. And they could only have ten people in the store at a time.
There was no traffic.
And somehow, alone in my house, those ten hour workdays are less stressful and exponentially more productive than 8 in the office. But I think that’s because the world itself has slowed.
I got a compliment from my boss today. A small one. I haven’t gotten one of those in a while. She called a letter I composed for her to sign, “very nice.”
It’s also fun to see how various colleagues react to working from home and the amusing casual messages we exchange because we don’t have that office interaction. Like George asks me every day if I’m having anything good for lunch.
So right now is a good time to develop an intimate, magical relationship with myself as it’s just me. And the cats. And the kittens. And the birds.
At least until the teenager returns home from her dad’s.
Angel Ackerman 