Don and I are tired out. Don, of course, is even more tired than me because of Lyme. I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the yard (except for the downed tree, of course.) There were torn branches, downed branches, bushes that were hanging by a thread – everywhere. I had my loppers and a small saw with me and did what I could to clean up low hanging branches and all the debris that was scattered everywhere. The coleus that was planted in my vintage pots was broken in some places. Most everything looks a little tattered.

Such destruction with one huge gust of wind.

Then the arborist stopped by without even telling us he was coming. He didn’t have on a mask, but he kept well away from us as we stayed on the porch.  Not only did he examine the tree, he looked at all the trees surrounding the house. I know that the big maple by the porch needs pruning. And I’m sure others do, too. I’m dreading the estimate, but nothing is going to happen right away, anyway, as he has to take care of people who have trees blocking their driveways or, even worse, that have landed on their houses.

There was a huge amount of damage from the hurricane and there are many who still don’t have power.

Today, we’re laying low. It’s been a surreal couple of days and I can see it taking a toll on Don. He’s been through a lot lately.

This morning, – for a split second – I thought it was August 15th. Why? This – everything, the pandemic, the insanity in DC, Don’s illness, the hurricane, self-isolating – has left my brain in a muddle and no amount of coffee seems to be cutting through the fog.

It will get better, I know.

I’m quite enjoying Melmoth. I should finish it today. Then, I think, I’ll move on to Hamnet, unless the Michael Connelly arrives in today’s mail. If that happens, I just may move onto Connelly first because he is always a guaranteed pleasure to read and a wonderful escape.

That’s all I have energy for today, my friends.

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.

If you follow me on Instagram, you already know this. We are mourning the loss of fully half of the huge maple tree that is right between the house and the corral. It happened in the late afternoon, when what we thought was the worst of the storm had left and winds kicked up.

They were some of the scariest winds I’ve ever experienced and even though they were only around for an hour or two, they did a lot of damage, the worst being the tree.

This was a huge tree and the limbs extend far beyond what you see in this picture. We are feeling numb this morning, trying to come to terms with this loss. There was a wind gust that was unlike anything we’ve ever seen, except for the microburst of a few years back, and I heard things falling on the porch (because I was in the den) and Don heard a crack from the back of the house. It wasn’t until we felt safe enough to go outside and look that we saw what had happened. The other half of the tree is still standing but we want to have an expert look at it to see if it’s secure. It also fell into another tree, so we have to examine that.

This will have to be removed professionally and that will cost money. We’ve already put in a call to a local company. There was apparently a lot of damage around here and our friends who live closer to the town center lost power. The positives – We never lost power. It didn’t hit the house (and it’s right next to the secret garden and could have slammed into the kitchen). We’re okay. Although I would have willingly traded losing power for the tree.

We went out and hugged the tree and told it how sorry we are that this happened. Some may shake their heads at that, but I know – and scientists know – that trees communicate with each other, that they feel things. It’s heartbreaking.

There’s also a lot of damage in the woods.

The last time I said this someone criticized me in a comment, but I will say it again: 2020 has been horrible. I believe I used the word ‘sucks’ last time, and I still maintain that. Yes, there are good things here and there and I always acknowledge them. I also express gratitude daily. But that doesn’t mean I’m Pollyanna. I’m not. This year has been terrible. We just found out a friend of ours is suffering from COVID. Don has Lyme. Over 155,000 people have died from the coronavirus. Our country is in a freefall. Corruption is rampant. We have no one leading us through this pandemic. On a personal level, we are both out of work and will be for many more months. We have no income coming in other than the basics and the basics don’t cover everything. I worry about money constantly and I also constantly work on trusting that all will be provided. But it’s a battle. Both Don and I practice gratitude; privately through meditation and prayer, publicly on this blog, and in our daily talks with each other.

And it’s all relative. There are people suffering far more than Don and me. Far more.

Nevertheless, this is our reality and that’s where we live.

Anyway, I have to get out there and do some cleanup.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

• Last night: thunder, lots of it, really loud. Oh good! Rain! Nope. This is the way it has been around here most of the time this summer. Radar shows storms heading our way – nothing. The rivers are shockingly low. We really need rain. The latest? Possible rain this morning.

Claudia’s forecast? Highly doubtful.

• Woke up far, far too early this morning and it isn’t pretty. But Don and I had nice chunk of time for our second cup of coffee – we sat on the porch glider and chatted and it was lovely. Now he’s playing the guitar while I write this.

• We got the results from his Lyme test. Yes, he has Lyme. And it sure looks like his numbers are high because his doctor called in a prescription for two more weeks of Doxycycline. We were as sure as we could be without an official test result that it was Lyme. As I said before, we are very familiar with it. Don’s had it before. I’ve had it before. The dogs had it more than once. Though he’s been feeling better, he has the ‘foggy brain’ that often is a part of Lyme. He’s very tired. He runs out of energy quickly.

The first round of antibiotics knocked out the acute symptoms; the fever and chills and general aches, the way in which it hit his nervous system. This round will hopefully knock out the rest of it.

• I received a sad email from Hartford Stage yesterday. Due to COVID-19 and the fact that there will be more than one round of it before we get a vaccine aided by the fact that people aren’t following social distancing and the imperative to wear a mask, they have decided to cancel the winter/spring part of next year’s season. That means no performances until next fall. A year from now. My concern has nothing to do myself – there is new management there and I don’t expect to get any more work from them. I am concerned, though, for all my friends who work there. They have been on furlough since March. Now they will be on furlough until well into next year. How will they survive? This is heartbreaking. It really hit me when my friend Samantha, who is the company manager, posted on Facebook that she is leaving. She had been studying real estate and I knew that, but her hope was to start to work part-time in real estate and keep working at Hartford Stage. Now that there’s no hope of coming back from furlough for another year, she has made the decision to leave.

These people are like family to me. I always said that Hartford Stage was my second home.

I imagine we’ll be hearing more of this from other regional theaters. It’s maddening because this cancellation of the entire 2020/2021 season didn’t have to happen. It most likely wouldn’t have happened, at least to this extent, if Covidiots had heeded the advice of medical experts, stayed home, practiced social distancing and wore a damn mask. This is on Trump and the GOP. They proudly flaunt the fact that they don’t wear a mask and then the almost inevitable headline: “so-and-so has been diagnosed with COVID-19.” I don’t wish this on anyone, Republican or Democrat. It’s awful. Herman Cain? No mask at the Tulsa Rally and proudly tweeting about it. Louis Gohmert? No mask sitting in a hearing, no mask in the hallways of Congress, no mask in his office around his staff who were made fun of if they wore one. And on and on. Was all that bravado worth it? Is it worth their lives? Is it worth the lives of everyone else they have come into contact with?

Is it worth the tanking of the economy, which means that the GOP/Trump/DeVoss now push to send kids back to school, putting everyone at great risk, because they have to get people back to work because Trump did nothing, constantly tweeted misinformation about the virus, disbanded the NSC Pandemic Unit, ignored the book that the Obama administration passed on to them about how to handle a pandemic, ignored it simply because it was from Obama and Trump has the thinnest skin of any living being? Over 150,000 dead and no end in sight.

Hearing Barack Obama speak at John Lewis’ funeral was a breath of fresh air. How I long for the days when he was President. Articulate. Compassionate. Leading us at a time of great loss. Speaking to the pain in our hearts. And forcefully and passionately compelling us to fight for our country. He is everything that Trump is not and could never hope to be.

Okay.

• I’ll close with a Happy Birthday to my mom. She would have been 93 today. I miss her so, so much, especially today. I’ve been on the edge of tears all morning; lack of sleep, the state of our country, the loss of John Lewis – and how I wish I could hug my mom, inhale the scent of Oil of Olay that always was a part of her essence, make her laugh, sit on her lap (which I did even as an adult.)

I love you Mom.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.