social distancing

Day Thirty-Five

April 17, 2020 at 10:11 am by Claudia

Day Thirty-Four. Governor Cuomo has extended stay-in-place, lockdown, self-isolating – whatever you want to call it – until May 15. At least another month. This isn’t a surprise, of course. But it does overwhelm.

I’m not in a very good mood today and it is what it is. I’ve been feeling under the weather for a few weeks and though I’m much better now, it was a pain in the tush. The weather has turned cold. Tonight, we might get 2 – 3 inches of wet snow. That little bit of news sort of set me off this morning. I started to worry about my plants that have buds and flowers, I felt resentful (how dare Mother Nature?!!) and the ‘Overwhelm,’ which is the best thing I can call it, took over. The temperatures around here are 20 degrees less than normal for this time of the year. This is the time of year I love to be outside working and the combination of the cold weather and not feeling well has kept me from doing that. And then, of course, there’s the self-isolating.

Anyway, I’ll pull myself out of it. I’m a strong believer in letting myself feel whatever mood I’m in, not apologizing for it, and then moving forward. I’m betting we’re all battling this kind of thing, especially during this pandemic.

Life seems to be reading, eating, doing dishes, doing the laundry, trying to grab a slot for grocery delivery, watching old reruns – on repeat. I know I’ll feel better when I can get outside and accomplish something. Don mowed the front lawn for the first time on Sunday, which is something I always look forward to doing.

Okay. No more feeling sorry for myself. It’s very cold out there but it’s sunny. I can hear bird song. I have to clean the bathroom. We ordered a few more groceries – we start a new list as soon as we’ve had a delivery – and couldn’t get a delivery date, but to my surprise we did snag a pick-up opening, so we’ll drive to the store tomorrow with masks and gloves on and pick up our groceries. And then maybe we can take a break from it for a while.

By the way, I called the main number for this grocery chain to ask a question about our bill and in the course of the conversation was told quite firmly that drivers are not allowed to take tips. Hmmm. I suggested that, given the circumstances, it would be nice if, during checkout, we had the option to add a tip, as we all know we are not dealing with “business as usual.” He said he would pass on that suggestion.

Then I called our local nursery to see if some sort of protocol was in place for plant shopping. The nursery is connected to the farm stand I mentioned earlier. There is a protocol in place for the farm stand, which is indoors, but not for the nursery, which is primarily outdoors but is also in three different greenhouses. So far, plant buying traffic has been quite low, given our crazy weather, but in a couple of weeks it will increase. Since I don’t plan on buying anything for at least another week, she suggested I call back as they will probably have to come up with a plan by then.

Obviously I’d go there in a mask and gloves, with hand sanitizer. (Governor Cuomo has an Executive Order requiring anyone who is out in public to wear a mask.) I’d be armed with a list and would only get those items on my list, with no wandering around looking at things. That makes me sad, as it’s one of my favorite things to do. But efficiency is a must. Both Don and I would take our cars, so we could load everything at once. I’m very clear on what I need, having done pretty much the same thing for years – plants for pots on the porch, the funky patio, and in the secret garden. Two big bags of potting soil. Three hanging plants.

If I can make my porch the haven it usually is for us, I’ll feel much better about things. I’ll feel a bit more free and certainly more at peace.

Thanks for being patient with my clearly meandering thoughts today. Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

Day Thirty-Four

April 16, 2020 at 10:11 am by Claudia

It’s coldish today. Tonight and Saturday night it’s going to go down below freezing. For all of our hoopla about an early Spring, Mother Nature decided to show who’s boss. The month of April has been fighting Spring tooth and nail.

Somebody asked me to show the cover of Modern Nature, one of the books I received from John Sandoe Books. So here it is. Coincidentally, I just finished The Lost Pianos of Siberia, so I’m contemplating my next read – this may be it. Pictured is his garden in Dungeness, with the nuclear facility in the background.

Don took his early morning walk. I finished the book. Now we’re in our respective areas – he on the sofa in the living room, me in my chair in the den. Some of you may know that Don has been sober for – I’m trying to remember the exact number of years – around 44 years. He works his program, going to frequent meetings, sponsoring several people. He’s done this the entire time he’s been sober and he never wavers. He has helped so many people and, of course, has been helped by many. Obviously, physically going to meetings is not possible, but he’s discovered a meeting that he goes to every day at 9 am via his phone. He really likes it. So our morning routine is a bit different these days. Instead of sharing our second cup of coffee together on the sofa, I make our coffee in time for him to sip it while he’s attending the meeting. And then I come in here to write this blog and sip mine.

For someone who grew up with an alcoholic father, Don’s longtime sobriety was incredibly comforting when we first started dating. I knew he was committed to his program. Both my sister and I made the decision long ago not to drink, so it wasn’t as if Don had to deal with alcohol in the house or me ordering a drink when we were out and about. And I didn’t have to deal with it. After so many years with the fallout from my dad’s alcoholism impacting my life – well into adulthood – Don’s wisdom helped me. More importantly, he taught me to forgive. I’m so proud of Don. And I’m enormously proud of my dad, who fought his demons, and was a good and kind and loving man who helped everyone he knew. Gosh, he was a good guy.

I miss him so much.

Didn’t mean to get into all of this, but this is the way the blog often is. I get a thought and start to write about it and, suddenly, I’m off. I feel such profound love for my husband and my parents. My mom spent the last years of her life in a nursing home. I can’t imagine how worried we would be if she was still there during this pandemic. Or how worried we would be about my dad. And I know there are so many people out there with parents and loved ones who are extremely vulnerable. It’s so heartbreaking.

A reminder that during the Spanish Flu pandemic, people got tired of self-isolating and when the First World War ended, went out in huge groups to celebrate. Unfortunately, the virus was still there and many died because of their impatience to get back to normal. My grandmother lost two sisters within a week of each other; she had gone home to nurse them. Adored sisters/aunts that I never got to know. So, stay safe. Stay home no matter how frustrated you feel. Don’t listen to that man. Listen to scientists. Listen to Governor Cuomo – that’s who I’m listening to. Don and I have already discussed this; we’re sure that, even when we get the all-clear, we’ll probably stay in place for a good deal longer.

Happy Thursday.

Day Thirty-Three

April 15, 2020 at 10:00 am by Claudia

The new reality. No green things growing in pots on the porch, not even the Boston Fern, because it’s too early to bring it outside. Groceries delivered and placed on the former kitchen island. By the way, we made a decision to call it The Potting Bench now, even though I don’t actually pot there. I do store lots of pots and gardening stuff inside those drawers and cupboards.

Right after I took this picture, we disinfected everything – wearing gloves, of course. Then we transferred the items to other bags and moved them into the house. Then I folded up all the brown bags and placed them in our recycling bin.

I know I’m exaggerating (but only slightly) – it’s all exhausting. Who knew that an actual trip to the grocery store without gloves and masks, which I used to find tedious, would turn out to be the equivalent of a trip to Disneyland? Or maybe not Disneyland, as I hate crowds and the incessant playing of “It’s a Small World.” Maybe the beach? Anyway, you get the picture.

But score one for getting more paper towels! And this time, the ones I actually like.

My only complaint about the grocery delivery service that we use is the fact that you can’t include a tip during check-out. We don’t have any cash sitting around – well, we did, but we’ve used that for previous deliveries. So we scrabble around for change and magical dollar bills that might turn up in our cabinets. Yesterday, I remembered a five dollar bill that had been sitting in one of my china pieces in the den. I don’t know why it was there, but thank goodness I remembered it.

Moving on.

A bit of background on the Penguins we’re collecting, which are not the same as Penguin Classics, or any other Penguins that have been published or are currently being published. Those I have in abundance.

No, these Penguins came from Allen Lane’s frustration with the “poor quality of reading material on offer at the Exeter train station.” It inspired him to create “cheap, well designed quality books for the mass market.” These books were sold not only at train stations but at Woolworth’s and high street stores for a total of sixpence. “Penguin’s success demonstrated that large audiences existed for serious books.” Since paperbacks at that time were largely pulp novels, this was groundbreaking. The first round of books were published in 1935 under the imprint of Bodley Head, the company Lane and his two brothers owned. The next year, the books began to be published as Penguin Books.

This truly revolutionized the publishing industry. The design of the books was also groundbreaking. Eschewing the lurid cover designs of other paperbacks, the publishers went with the tri band. “Penguin opted for the simple appearance of three horizontal bands, the upper and lower of which were colour-coded according to which series the title belonged to; this is sometimes referred to as the horizontal grid. In the central white panel, the author and title were printed in Gill Sands and in the upper band was a cartouche with the legend “Penguin Books.” The original design was created by 21 year old Edward Young.

Orange/White – general fiction, green/white – crime fiction, cerise/white – travel and adventure, dark blue/white – biographies, yellow/white – miscellaneous, red/white – drama, purple/white – essays and belles lettres, gray/white – world affairs.

American publishers drew on Penguin’s model and started publishing Pocket Books in 1938.

Quotes are from Wikipedia. Another great source is this article from the Smithsonian Magazine.

Anyway, there you have it. We’re collecting a very specific imprint – which consists of tri bands and other variations on that design – that lasted about thirty years. I encourage you to read about it; there’s a fascinating section on publishing during wartime.

Hey, it’s sunny today. Huzzah!

Happy Wednesday.

claudiahillsparks

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