I’m running late because I slept in. Goodness, that throws me off! I woke up in the middle of the night and was awake for at least an hour or so, all the time wondering if I’d get back to sleep. I guess I did – when I came downstairs, Don said he was getting ready to come upstairs and check on me!
Anyway, I have a deadline for posting if I want the post to go out via email. I have yet to make our second cup of coffee because I’ve just finished the first and Don is now in his morning meeting, well after our normal coffee-sharing time.
But hey, I got a good night’s sleep.
Yesterday, both of us were having a hard time with the continued isolation. We’re restless. It’s been five months, nearly half a year – and a year at this stage of our lives is precious. We’re doing well, we are grateful that we have each other during this crisis, we are usually pretty positive. But the state of our country, the selfish Covidiots who continue to add weeks and months to our self-isolation because they need to go to a restaurant or bar or to the beach, Orange Man, who won’t do anything about the coronavirus but will put all his energy into stealing the election – it’s too friggin’ much.
We’re restless. We want to flee to some other sane country.
Hopefully, we’ll have a better attitude today. I know I’m saying nothing new. We’ve all experienced this in the past five months. It’s to be expected. We took a short drive yesterday and that helped.
Back to being positive!
I finished the new Michael Connelly and I’m back to Hamnet. I’m going to give myself a nice chunk of time today to really immerse myself in the story. I also have the newest Country Living and Country Home set aside to read.
It’s a beautiful day.
Stay safe.
Happy Saturday.
There are times Canada looks pretty good. …….
Stay safe,
Eileen
Yes, and mom was born in Canada…Hmmmm.
Love to you, cousin!
I really don’t know how any of us can take another four years of Trump. It crosses my mind, what we’d do if he got a second term. (Meaning, I don’t know what we’d do [my husband and I]. Frankly, my husband feels the country could erupt in civil war.) But I’ve read enough opinion pieces by now, from credible authors, which say enough to convince me I’d never see a recovery in my remaining lifetime. Well, wasn’t it Biden himself who said with four years, we still have a chance to turn around the damage. But eight years? It’ll take a generation.
It will take a long time, for sure.
Stay safe, Vicki.
On the other hand, my husband looks at a lot of polls out there (he’s always had to do research of this sort for his former job) and, although I’ve never put much faith in polls, he says it’s enough polls (from enough diff organizations conducting the polls) to show that the spread between Biden and Trump is widening in Biden’s favor, and with the key states. It’s a bigger spread than the last election with Hillary and Trump. So I’ll take this to bed with me for those wake-in-the-middle-of-the-night times.
As strategist James Carville has said, “Americans want change.” We want it enough that we’ll surmount the voting obstacles and make ourselves heard. As my husband says, “Vote. And vote early.”
I hope he’s right! Actually, I pray with every fiber of my being that he’s right.
xo
glad you slept mostly better. a day of reading (including two favorite magazines) sounds great. enjoy every minute!
emptying my refrigerator and freezer this morning after last week’s power outage (recycling all containers possible) then grocery shopping for several households, a socially-distanced lunch with some of my family, a shower and then hope to start the agatha christie book.
here’s to better days ahead for all of us. while long overdue, they are on the way!
happy, easy, safe saturday, everyone!
kathy in iowa
Praying that is true, Kathy!
Enjoy your weekend and your time with family.
Stay safe!
Kathy…the A C you are reading is not one of my favorites…email me at bburke701947@gmail.com and let me know how you like it. I love Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot…don’t miss Murder on Orient Express…brenda b
thanks, brenda.
i read what i thought was the first chapter today and thought it was okay. started onto the next chapter only to find it’s not a chapter but a separate short story. i am not excited about that. i read almost exclusively non-fiction (when i read and it’s been a sad while … short attention span and awful virus) so trying fiction is a stretch. and if i find fiction i like, i want it to go on and on, not end in twenty pages. argh (a little one).
are you not a fan of short stories or is there something else you didn’t like about “mysterious mr. quin”?
will try “murder on the orient express” for sure. thanks, brenda!
hope you’re having a nice night.
stay safe!
kathy in iowa
Hi,
I feel just as you do. I grow weary, resentful, afraid and now the attack on the post-office/voting. I feel this country is on its knees and I want more than ever a reckoning for the enablers may they reap the consequences they deserve.
I long for the magic of ordinary days.
I am sorry for the doom and gloom comment
I do wish you and Don peace . Stay safe …
Kaye,
Park City, UT
kaye, I’ll jump in before Claudia; you’re just speaking your soul and I echo your sentiments EXACTLY, so thanks for expressing them so poignantly!
Thank you, Vickie..you have one of my all time favorite names.
It’s a family name but, as a kid, I got tired of being called, “Vicki Icky Sticky Bubble Gum” and the like! I always felt I wanted a more elegant or sophisticated name like Elizabeth or Catherine or Claire (or Claudia!).
Don’t apologize! We’re all feeling the same thing.
Stay safe, Kaye.
Waking up in the middle of the night. Check. Us and Michelle Obama; was just reading an article about her in a piece on The Hill, referring to when she disclosed she has felt she may suffer from a low-lying depression due to everything going on that’s so troubled in our wounded country. The article was talking about her much-anticipated speech which will be just day after tomorrow, Monday, opening night of the Democratic convention on TV; that she can say more than her husband can, and they’re hoping she will, saying this (I edited), “Democrats expect the former first lady to dial it up a notch. Last time, we didn’t know what exactly Trump could do. We could only imagine how bad it is; now, it’s real. We’ve seen the damage he’s done. We’ve lived it. She’s grown increasingly frustrated with the current climate because she’s seen firsthand how a president can shape the overall mood of the country.”
What did you think of the new Michael Connelly? I’m thinking of buying it for a shut-in friend.
I am never disappointed in his books. Uniformly excellent.
We’ll be watching as well. I was very comforted when I read that she had been suffering from depression. I think we all are. It’s very powerful to hear it from her.
Stay safe.
Yeah, I’ve just recently learned of two people I know who have made the decision with their physicians to go on anxiety and/or anti-depressant medication. They both have xtra-heavy loads due to Covid. (The workplace more challenging; kids at home trying to learn virtually; worried ALL the time that someone in their household will get the virus and infect all of them [so, you know, like with any of us, all this extra time to disinfect and sanitize]; lots to pick at the nerves. and then the other person is just plain out of work and the money is running thin. [I don’t think the Senate should be off til after Labor Day. These aren’t normal times. You’ve got all these furloughed people with rent and mortgage due at Aug 31-Sept 1; gracious, it doesn’t bear thinking of, yet it’s happening.])
I’m managing to keep my head above water, but my moods are all over the place. There seems to be something now, every day in the evening news, which always brings me to tears. Yet I can’t seem to stay entirely away from the headline news either. And, sure, it’s the frustration over the election and the postal service … you name it with Trump … but it’s also the stories of so many people suffering with the virus; too many unknowns about it yet; and your heart just goes out to so many good folks who’ve lost loved ones; lives being cut short; or dramatically altered after weeks and weeks of illness.
We just want our lives back. And to feel hopeful for our country. Safe and secure, I guess. I blurted out the other day, “I want a magic carpet ride to a different life.” But it sounds like we’re in for a rough phase in Fall-2020. And I suppose when winter sets in, like Northeast and Midwest (all that snow and gray), home confinement is going to feel even more claustrophobic. I don’t know if I’d have the focus of work from home, but I’m wishing I had work from home to help occupy my mind and I know my husband definitely needs the structure of some work, which he’d planned, as a freelancer but, like you and Don, Claudia, he couldn’t even get it off the ground with Covid.
So, make a plan for sanity, think about anything to accomplish, like more projects; new hobbies; a diff exercise plan to suit the weather; maybe intricately planning that first fab vacation post-Covid. I’m going to keep trying to learn how to cook (me and Amy Schumer; have you seen her show with her husband on the TV Food Network).
Well, must go face my Saturday; we’ll likely reach 100 degrees outside in SoCalif today. We’re in ‘excessive’ heat warning from yesterday through next Weds; not watches, warnings. On edge yesterday due to possibility of rolling brownouts/blackouts. I’ve still got the old frig stuffed as well as my new one; I do NOT want to lose that food! Between 3pm and 10pm yesterday, we tried to do everything the power company said to do; we tried to use ZERO electricity but for the air conditioning (I can’t be without it due to my breathing issues/asthma) and one shared lamp. We grilled; didn’t cook indoors. I didn’t watch my recorded shows on TV until after 10pm.
This morning as dawn gave way to that earliest morning light, my husband’s long patch of giant sunflowers turned their heads to the east. I totally watched it happen; they looked like stick people up there on the top of the hillside!
Both Don and I really miss our work. And there will be nothing for us until next year. He can’t even take photos at the Farm Market like he did last year and the year before. We need the money, yes, but we really need our work.
xo
Oh, Claudia, I really am sorry; a lot of us definitely could use the supplemental income. And for you two, it also feeds your creative genes; it’s another part (and a significant part) of your ‘identity’ and what you’ve spent a lot of time doing, to hone your craft.
I had counted it up one day and, come to find, I knew, or knew of, more retirees working part-time to supplement Social Security and pensions (if they’re lucky enough to have them) than not. It’s not our parents’ generation where some of our dads (not mine) got the gold watch, retired early, had more than twenty years to go on vacations and enjoy full-time, full-on retirement. Of course with the boomers, it was noted early-on that many would continue working after retirement to do some new thing they’d always wanted to do. But also to feel productive, keep the mind in good shape; just so much a part of wellness.
So, yes, we’re all on ‘hold’, but the work will come again. It’s a real test of our patience and strength, but we’ll catch up eventually. Just have to tighten the belt for longer than we’d thought; but we can do it! (If you and I can make our mortgage payments right now, we’re luckier than some, true?) There’s a lot to look forward to, Claudia; we must BELIEVE that 2021 will end on a better note; and, with you and Don, I’m just waiting to enjoy your next trip to beautiful Paris!
That’s all we can do. Hope and believe. We have no other choice.
xo
i have taken to track how many days i cry – sad thing to track
dq
hej, dq …
you are in the best company … “tears came to Jesus’ eyes” / “Jesus wept” (john 11:35).
also, through crying (tears), our bodies expell a chemical that is part of a stress hormone/toxin and relieves some physical tension … so i hope you let it out!
still, i am wishing and praying for you to have more reasons to laugh and smile. and safety, wellness, groceries and hobbies you enjoy. and bleach wipes.
kathy in iowa
ps … i cry every day.
dq …
meant to add on my second point … i am not a medical professional at all, but think i heard that point while working in a hospital. if you like, search online about tears and toxins, the benefits of crying.
:)
kathy in iowa
I think I’d be more worried about us if we did NOT cry.
hi Kathy
i have everything you mentioned except bleach wipes – have not been aboe to get them since this all started! But i have the spray stuff and i am not worried about lack of the wipes. good point about Jesus crying!
good … except about the bleach wipes (what is taking so long to get more?!?). glad you have an alternative and all the other stuff.
hope you stay safe and well and have an easier week ahead!
kathy in iowa
dq: I hear you; feel my hug over the cyber waves…
Same. I think we’re all crying and, frankly, it’s a good and healthy thing to do.
Stay safe!
This strange year has really been too much! I’ve been escaping to Venice by reading Donna Leon’s next in series—Death in a Strange Country. (Never read so many books in my life, but it does help to escape reality when I can.) I’m grateful that we are well, but the constant worry that that may change is wearing on us.
In other news, I saw your bookstore, Oblong Books on CBS This Morning. Looks like Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his wife (actress I don’t know) live in Rhinebeck and are activists in trying to keep the store and town in business. It looks so much like the upstate towns near us. Of course, all small towns are struggling right now. Sorry to be rambling, but…?…
I’ll have to look that up. His wife as written a memoir about moving to the country and she has made it a mission to sell it through Oblong. Good people.
Stay safe, Shanna.
You summed up exactly how we’ve been feeling. The ‘at this stage of our lives‘ really hits home. While I am trying to stay positive on the outside, I quiver in fear on the inside.
At least there are like minded people here at Claudia’s Place! Gotta keep the faith! Stay safe!! ;)
We can support each other here. And God knows, we all need it.
Thanks, Donna.
Stay safe.
Yes, and Claudia, such a thank you for your generosity. You and your readers are just a lifeline.
xo
hej, donnamae …
i agree with everything you said!
hope you and your family are well, safe and have all you need.
and claudia …
many thanks to you for creating such a warm and welcoming place. same hopes (prayers) for you, don and your families and everyone else.
kathy in iowa
We woke up in the middle of the night to take the dog out and realized the whole watermelon we left on the kitchen counter had started to ferment foaming juice all over the floor. I always put fruits and veggies in a bowl for just this reason. No more cantaloupes or watermelon on the counter! I hope everyone can find some sunshine in their day today!
Oh no! That was probably not fun to clean up!
Stay safe, Cindy.
It is simply overwhelming. If he would just shut his stupid mouth for even 4 hours, but he has to make a headline every hour. I wish the news outlets would stop following the birther madness and not give it coverage at all. It is simply nonsense, but he doesn’t care. He just wants it repeated 200 times a day on each station and then there are likely 200 people who hear it who spread it further and the madness continues. Just stop. Lies aren’t news. Lies are lies. When it is repeated as news, it gives it credence. The Post Office horrors need to be talked about. THAT is news. But crap is crap and we don’t need to hear it over and over just for him to hear his name repeated to give him happy feelings. Gross. He has helped to kill over 160,000 people, and he goes golfing for another weekend of fun and money raising as we, the taxpayers, pay his golf course for the “honor” of hosting him, his WH staff, Secret Service, food and wait staff, etc. and add to his coffers. How does this continue week after week, with very few people really making an issue of it. I guess because he has done so many horrific things every single day of his administration, that there aren’t enough people to take up each cause. He accomplished exactly what he wanted. He has the power along with millions of our tax dollars into his and his families pockets. And it goes on and on and on. That is reason enough for him to fight for no voting/ limited voting/ and the rest of it on Nov 3. He won’t go quietly, so even if by some fluke the Russians can’t accomplish his victory, I am afraid there will be violence in our streets everywhere. I think I actually feel worse right now than I did in Nov of 2016.
I am so glad you had a good night of sleep. That really does help. Happy reading!!
He can’t win without cheating. He has cheated all of his life. Everything he has accomplished has been bogus. He’s a sham, a fake, a loser, a liar and a cheat. He may not go quietly, but he WILL go. That’s when the armed forces or Secret Service will show him out the door. I’d like nothing more than to see a soldier or agent on either side, forcing him out the door.
Stay safe, Chris.
I am so glad I found your blog| My husband and I are following the “rules”…..social distancing, wearing masks…..haven’t eaten out or even take out since March 15th…..No visits to children and grandchildren. We live on Long Island, and the beaches are packed….people are congregating without wearing masks, I have friends I talk to at length on phone but they are going to restaurants together in the same car. It defies logic.
As much as I would love to hug and have a visit with my friends, I will not. One friend has medical problems and coughs hard every minute or so. The other is driving up and down the East coast visiting family and friends with NO quarantine. And they think I want to sit in a restaurant having conversations and a meal together? I don’t want anyone telling us what to do but I am staying home. It’s no big deal to some until unfortunately it hits their family.
It certainly does, Maria. I don’t understand these people. We feel the same way you do.
Stay safe!
I know, I know! This is driving me nuts. I had the friend whose brother finally came to see her and help with some things, not having seen each other since Christmas, and she was oh-so-careful to wear a mask and make him wear one (at times; he’s not careful with Covid at all, and she knows this, that he resists the mask); made a point of eating outside in the yard. He’s over age 70 and I don’t know if she could get him to wash his hands in her house, but he WAS inside, using the bathroom, touching surfaces. After telling me how careful she’d been to sanitize the table and chairs, etc., before he arrived and in anticipation of what she said was a well-planned, full-day visit, she then told me that they went for a long drive just to get out and share some more quality time with one another; so, what is the point of all the other mitigation when you then shut yourself up in the car together for a couple of hours? (She has a small car!! They went in hers, not his. You can’t physically distance in her car. This is an intelligent, articulate, thoughtful and good woman; college grad and career woman. Where has her brain gone at age 69?)
I’m not personally putting myself in that position, but I can see/imagine/understand where it’s hard with your own ‘family’, who you desperately miss in your normal, daily life, to physically move away from them as if they have body odor or something; to not hug, etc.; maybe a false security sets in after a couple of hours of visiting, that you’re both ‘okay’ and things seem safe; but we don’t know if any of us are okay and who’s a virus carrier and who’s not; we’re not Trump in his bubble with all the people around him getting tested and temperature-checked all the time so that he doesn’t have to worry about his own exposure; WE have no choice BUT to worry about our own exposure.
Just want to knock my head against the wall in frustration as I observe these behaviors from my at-home, isolated perch. But the bigger thing giving me that quiver inside (donnamae), or adding to it I should say, is that I’m becoming very concerned that people I know well and who I very much love are going to become victims of this virus due to their lack of ‘thinking straight’ about it, and I just don’t want them to get really sick and/or die. It’s almost like people have become desensitized about the threat aimed at them. They’ve held on so long, to be careful and safer; but, now, they’re letting go and are taking too many chances.
I’m supposed to be at a mini family reunion tomorrow/Sunday with 10-12 people and I said, over the phone, “Are you crazy? I cannot gather with you. No.” One of these people has leukemia, another with terminal cancer; two of the people are in their 80s; another has diabetes and high blood pressure. Defies ANY logic.
And the obvious response – at least to me – is that you stay away from your family members because you love and adore them and don’t want to risk their health.
The other response to those people? Grow up. Be an adult. Make the responsible choice.
I am in total agreement with all of he comments, so won’t bother to even add mine!!
Thinking all we can do is try to make our days the happiest we can until something really good happens. Hopefully, that is on Nov 3.
Very, very hot here in OB. Rolling blackouts all over SD County. Not good. Just hoping the freezer continues working ok! Full of Covid 19 excesses!!
Stay well, Claudia. We’re really all in this mess together. It’s wonderful that we are able to at least communicate this way!
Sorry about the blackouts, Priscilla! Hang in there.
Stay safe!
Ha! The Covid-19 excesses; LOVE THAT (my latest indulgence is popsicles/fruit bars; I can’t stop that icy refreshment). My husband did go out to the grocery stores this week and I said, “I don’t care what you get as long as you don’t forget MY POPSICLES!”
I’m so glad you got a good night’s sleep, Claudia. I think you need it. The stress is definitely an issue. I’m very OK with the isolation (for the most part) but I worry tremendously about winter when it gets snowy and icy and we can’t meet outside. We will need to be extra vigilant then. When I was reading “The Wild Remedy,” which might be one of my favorite books of the year, much was written about depression and winter, SAD and more. For those of us in the north, I think it will get a little tricky.
And I have a definite problem when it comes to winter – most likely, SAD.
Stay safe, Jeanie.
Staying positive . . . I’m positive he’s a crook, a con, a grifter, and responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. LOCK HIM UP!!! Take care, friend.
Thank you, Chris!
Stay safe.
When I get a good night’s sleep and wake up to news from the Orange One, it is totally ruined. Why destroy sorting machines? does he think they open up the ballots and change them??? No, the republicans want an excuse to take over the Post Office and sell it off. Since Amazon, the Post Office has been doing well financially, and the republicans want to get it into greedy private(the 1%) hands.
Everything they do is either to cheat so he’ll win or to make money.
Or both.
Stay safe, Jan!
Sleep deprivation? Check. I can’t count the number of times these past 5 months I’ve woken up with that “fight or flight” impulse pounding through my nerves. It’s all related to the pandemic and the Orange Man ignoring it. I too am angry at those who want to act like they’re going to go out to eat, to a bar, to the beach, etc., because they stayed home until May and now they’re bored and want their old life back.
Got a text – complete with pictures – from one of my old bosses wanting me to know about her annual vacation to S. Carolina. Her daughters joined them from the far flung cities they live in. I tried not to “vacation shame.” But, darn it, I haven’t even hugged my own adult children in almost half a year much less thought about having them in our house. Or, in her case, sharing a beach house with them for a week.
So, yeah. I think we’re all getting restless. And PO’ed. Some mentioned Michelle Obama and her “low grade depression.” She brought that up in her second podcast. I listen to a few different podcasts, but there’s something about hers that is so comforting. Kind of like you’re sitting and listening to an old friend chat with you.
Take care.
Kay
What are they thinking? That because they’re family there is no threat? That they’re touched by magic?
Love Michelle Obama. Absolutely love and respect her.
Stay safe, Kay.
Ditto ditto – you took the words right out of my mouth. Just how I feel, except your idiots are not our idiots, but we have just as many of our own. This pandemic has brought up all of the idiots and loonies as well as lovely people in our society.
Yes, we have to remember the good and caring people, as well.
Stay safe, Robyn.
Hi Claudia,
Well, I’m reading the Orange Man’s story by his niece. Wow, wow, wow!! What a terribly sick, disturbed family. Mary T gives a wonderful insight to that beyond human’s life.
Hot, hot, hot, here in OB & in SD. Oh well, it’ll pass …that’s my new mantra!!
Even with your drought, your yard still looks wonderful. Ours is so dry:(
I don’t know if I could read it, Priscilla. I know a great deal about his family already and that may be all I want to know!