Yesterday was a busy day – 80 degrees and very humid. We tag-team mowed the front lawn, then dragged four tarps-full of debris across the property to that place near the shed that I never photograph. Then we donned masks, etc., and drove to the post office where I had two packages to pick up – dear friends who sent me packages, I now have them, though I haven’t opened them yet as I usually wait a couple of days to open them in these times. Then we drove to Lowes where I had to pick up an online order of a new watering can and two pruners. Lowes was incredibly busy; in fact, I heard an employee say it was the busiest it has been since lockdown started. Then we drove to the shop where we order chocolates – slightly decadent, though to us, an essential item. The only sweet I eat is this shop’s sugar-free chocolates. We had ordered via the phone. When you arrive, you call them and let them know you’re outside and they put the bag on a bench outside the door. No contact.
The only snag was this. There is only one person allowed in the counter area of our post office at a time. Somehow, though I was initially the only person in the post office box area which is a separate room, there ended up being three of us in there at one time. Thankfully, we were all masked and the brief moment when we numbered three was just that, about two seconds. Our little post office is incredibly small as this is a very small town. That’s why I avoid going there for long periods of time during this lockdown. Still and all, everyone in Lowes was wearing a mask. Everyone at the post office was wearing a mask. I did see some young idiots walking around town maskless, and – get this – a young father pushing a stroller down the street and neither father or child were wearing masks. But the vast majority of people I saw were wearing masks.
Anyway, at the end of it all we were exhausted; physically because of the outdoor work, emotionally because of the stress involved with running any kind of errand these days. Once again, washing hands, disinfecting doorknobs and purchases, washing hands again, showering.
Today it is supposed to rain and we’re staying home. Unfortunately, Don has just talked me in to cutting his hair with a pair of clippers he is borrowing from Rick. I told him he can’t blame me for whatever the end result is. The exchange? He will trim my hair – and by that I mean whack about four inches off – when I order a pair of hair cutting scissors. I cannot abide how long my hair is!
Let’s hope this doesn’t send us to Divorce Court.
Okay. This arrived the other day:
One of my bookseller contacts (via Instagram) has a bookshop in Ironbridge, Shropshire, England, and she sells a lot of vintage Penguins. I knew there was a vintage Penguin edition of To Kill a Mockingbird that was issued within a a few years of its first publication in 1960 and I asked her to keep an eye out for it. Sure enough, a copy came into her hands and she messaged me. And here it is! This fits in two collections, my collection of various editions of my favorite novel and in my Penguin collection, as well!
Then, another bookseller – Maureen of Fine Preservers Books in Ithaca, NY – sent me a message. She remembered that I had asked her to let me know of any Tri Band Penguin editions of P. G. Wodehouse that might come into her possession. Sure enough, one had. And here it is:
Wodehouse is truly the funniest writer that ever lived. Don and I sat on the sofa this morning and I read a few pages aloud and we couldn’t stop laughing. Don knows far more about Wodehouse than I do, but I’m going to remedy that.
Wish me luck on the – gulp – haircut.
Stay safe.
Happy Saturday.
Every Saturday am we are the first customers at our local French bakery for bread. I just feel so much anxiety at the thought of store shopping.
I want so much to go go our local nursery but I just feel so anxious.
It is amazing to me the number of tourists that are here this weekend
Just crazy
I will just hang out with my book!
Stay safe and read today, Linda!
glad you can take it easy today … except for the part about cutting don’s hair. i’d be anxious, too, but clippers will make it easier. just learn from anderson cooper’s self-haircut (can probably find it on youtube): double-check that you’re using the right guard for the length don wants. :)
those books will be great additions to your collections. love the hand-written cover.
same status here … bleh … however, there were a couple unusual things last night. maybe around 8:00, i was trying to reply to my sister’s text message while laying down in bed. signed it as always by telling her “i love you” and sent it out. wanted to add another thought so pulled up our string of messages to write more to her, but could not find what i just sent. and who had i mistakenly sent it to? the nice neighbor who brought bleach wipes and reminds me of keith carradine. :o i quickly sent him a message with an explanation and apology … embarrassing to me, but he was gracious about it. lesson learned already that i need to check the recipient before sending messages!
then after 10:00 last night, i heard a knock on my door. didn’t answer it, then got a call from same neighbor … an alarm was sounding and the basement was full of smoke. fire department required everyone to evacuate for about thirty minutes. there was no fire, just lots of smoke from food left unattended on a stove in one of the two apartments in the basement. glad and grateful that someone called the fire department and the situation was not worse.
now i am exhausted.
hope you all have an easy, peaceful day and stay safe and well!
kathy in iowa
That’s a lot of drama for one night. And while being sick? Twice the drama. Thank goodness for quick thinking neighbors. Fingers crossed for your quick recovery! ;)
kathy, it just doesn’t stop, does it?? I have done the same thing with a reply. Thankfully the ones I have done have been pretty benign, but I did have to chuckle at your telling an apt guy that you loved him. Sometimes a laugh does help, right? I am glad that your sense of humor still can surface. Keeping you in thoughts & prayers!!
Hi Kathy in Iowa, hope you’re getting a lot of rest and recovering as quickly as you can. I hope an excellent support system to assist you with getting food and supplies and medications that you need. At least you’re getting bleach wipes from “Keith Carradine”!!!
Oh my goodness. As if you don’t have enough stress right now, Kathy. I’m late getting to comments today but I hope you’ve had a chance to rest today.
Don already had the guard number figured out as he wrote down (a long time ago) the numbers his stylist uses. It looks okay. He’s pleased and heck, it will grow out. Take care, Kathy.
Definitely want a picture of the haircut! My hubby badly needs a cut (but not cut badly)!
I’ll share it tomorrow. It may need some tweaks, but it’s fine. His hair grows in several directions (I’ve discovered) and it makes the whole thing quite the challenge. Stay safe, Melanie.
We’re having the fight over the haircut, too (his). The challenge for me, if he’ll let me, is that he’s got a full, long crop of very curly hair, and I’ve never trimmed curly hair before, so I’m thinking maybe I should cut it wet but I really don’t think he’s going to let me touch it. I’ll tell my husband about you and Don! But my guy is really looking like The Wild Man right now and it can’t go on much further. No haircut since January.
The errand-running. Talked to my friend yesterday who goes out too much. This is a college-educated, 73-year-old who was once a Controller for multiple companies; a CPA. And she is leaving me head-scratching to understand what on earth has happened to her intelligence. She went out on Friday to two different grocery stores looking for one ingredient: Currants. She begged for physical therapy due to some arm thing she did; and, after a tele-med with her primary-care doctor, did get a referral to therapy, with the therapist wagging his finger on the one-lone appointment he gave her at his clinic, saying it wasn’t safe for her at her age to be out in our Covid environment and certainly not several sessions with him for something that wasn’t urgent , so he sent her home with some written instrux for exercise and comforts/relief. And she has house cleaners who now come every week again, and neither they nor she wear masks. She is in some sort of denial I don’t understand but also has a husband with a heart problem who’s older than she, so I feel there’s a selfishness involved but, you know, I can only avoid the subject with her now. It upsets me too much.
I did inquire, “Why?” Why be cavalier about Covid? She said, “I need any excuse to get out of the house. I look forward to getting out every day, doing anything; any excuse to get me out.” It’s too fast. But from the beginning with Covid, she got too relaxed about it too soon. And these are precisely the people who are causing the problems. Like my cousin in another state finally DID get his haircut by his barber with the reopenings … and his barber refused to mask up and said he couldn’t cut the hair with my cousin wearing a mask. So my cousin said, “One of us has to wear a mask and it’s going to be you or I’m leaving.” Begrudgingly, the barber put on the mask. And he’s been doing my cousin’s hair for 15 years, but my cousin says he’s never going back again to that guy.
I’m grumbly today because my neighbor, another one who doesn’t physically distance and routinely has too many people in his house (like paying tenants, none of whom are related, so I expect to learn it’s a hotbed of Covid at some point, right next door to me, like five feet from my back door), woke me up while I was still sleeping this morning, pounding and banging on a full drum set (amplified) in the backyard with crashing cymbals and I just think at any time, but particularly before, say, 10am on a weekend morning, not to mention a holiday weekend, that’s a bit much and NOT neighborly. The guy was also not a very good drummer at all, so it was cacophony.
A day where I’ve gotten nothing done. I guess I’m in a real stew.
What idiot would start playing his drums outside early in the morning? The same kind of person who is clueless about social distancing, I suppose. Sorry that happened!
Stay safe, Vicki.
Oh, it got better.
I went out later in the day, and their deliberate retaliation for me looking their way, although I was a good 7-8 feet away from the fenceline, was that they took a battered old piece of a closet door that must have been in an industrial space somewhere, since it’s like 9ft tall, and wedged it in between their overgrown tree (that’s breaking down our block wall) and an old beat-up shed they have, so that now all of that is jammed against ‘their’ side of the fence but entirely intruding on our aesthetic because we have to see it every time we go out the back porch and when we’re grilling on our small uncovered patio at that wall; AND, I can even see the top of this eyesore-door from my living room windows. It’s amazing, the audacity, in general, that they can just do what they do with absolutely no thought in mind how WHAT they do affects their adjoining neighbor; the thoughtlessness of it. The missing chip.
So petty; so uncalled for; I’d never even said one word to them about the noise; I was just trying to figure out what was going on in my stupor, out of a sound sleep. I am allowed to stand well within my own yard and look to the east. It’s really rather astounding because we’ve overlooked SO many things with these people over 15 years, even when my parents lived here, and my husband and I both grit our teeth but continually try to make nice with them in order to self-protect and keep a dialog going for anything that really gets TOO out of hand; but, you know, they always push it to the limit with us…and, this time, they’ve gone too far. I don’t have anywhere else to go: I’m sheltering in place, aging in place; this is my domain. They’ve intruded enough.
THEY are the ones in the wrong. They have us, the quiet couple, next door on the one side. They have a single, quiet, elderly neighbor who’s been generous to them about using part of her yard, on the other side. They clearly don’t recognize how lucky they are to have two sets of senior-aged, quiet people flanking them but instead are discourteous, thinking only of themselves. Frankly, they don’t seem to know how you live in a typical, suburban housing tract with single-family dwellings in close proximity to one another, inside the city limits. They need to be out on a ranch with multiple outbuildings so that everybody has a place to sleep and park their vehicle, where they can make all the noise they want, gather as many people together in one place (none of course wearing a face mask) to their heart’s desire … and only disturb each other.
I was beyond-upset. I really let it get to me. I cried, I cursed, I spewed. My husband got very sick of my ranting, but I just couldn’t let it go. The next morning, I awoke at 6:30 a.m. with this ‘hammering’ racket, and I flew out of bed and into the backyard to see what those people were doing THIS time (all kinds of things flew thru my mind) but all it was, was a bird scratching around on the corrugated roof of my rustic covered porch (I guess it was a woodpecker but, man, it was LOUD). I came back in and had to have a laugh, ’cause what else can you do. But I saw the absurdity of it, and also the damaging effect of letting these neighbors have power over me.
So I talked to a friend about it and she laughed it off, too. Like who would NOT be trying to figure out where crashing drums and cymbals were coming from on a sleepy weekend morning? They expect us all in the neighborhood to constantly make excuses for them, their likely-illegal tenants (too many people in a house is what I mean), their 9-10 cars at any one time in front of their house, on their lawn, in their rear yard with all the other junk; even cars parked on the side of their house. So, it’s one of those cases where one has to consider the source. Know with whom (and what) you’re dealing and up against; be focused on solutions, realize it’ll never be a team effort, and don’t steep to their mentality. Be the smart one.
And my husband had already decided that in light of everything going on in the world, and knowing things like this with neighbors can change (even hoarder-neighbors like this who do all the wrong things and junk up their yard, neglect their dogs and try to break every neighborhood rule) and that nothing ever stays the same, a battle over this effrontery is just not worth it.
But I did make a decision. First up, we need a new frig, and one came up that we want pretty quickly, so we’re about to order it; got a heckuva deal because it’s brand new but got dented in the factory, although the dent only shows on the side where, in our house, it’ll go against a wall. So, that’s one expense among about a hundred we currently have (doesn’t everybody?!). However, I’ve decided I’m going to try to again sell my vintage car this summer, which seems wild because of the economy and how much some people are suffering, yet what I’ve also found is that a lot of other people seem to be unaffected and they do have disposable money (and are spending it; my husband has a highschool-days friend who just bought a custom Corvette [I’ve learned there are some old guys out there with cash, who did all the right things for a healthy retirement, like pension-wise and investment-wise, who look for vintage cars to work on and sometimes completely restore…find me that guy!]), but I’ll then take the money from the sale of the car to build a property-length wall (I can’t go over six feet, but it’s a big diff from 4 feet in height that I’ve got now, and I’ll be glad to no longer have to look at the current set-up which is a hodgepodge of diff fencing materials from years of patching [them, not us]) to cordon me off from these awful neighbors. I’ve been wanting to do this for the past couple of years anyway, and I even have the guy to build it, as he built one on our other side of the property six years ago. We’ll build it on our side of the existing short-in-height wall, all the way from the very top of our hillside, through the entire length of the backyard, down the side, and to the city sidewalk in front. We’ll have to graduate it in certain places due to city code, but we will do it right and be done with having these people intrude on our enjoyment of our own property. Out of sight, out of mind.
I obviously need a more-private ‘compound’ (sanctuary!). And I’ll still hear their noise, but at least I can feast my eyes on something other than a broken-down rusted & dented industrial-height closet door in my face. Their message was taken loud & clear; they made their point. Now I’ll make mine. They have nothing to lose; they’ll get their privacy, too, and at no cost to themselves as my husband and I will foot the bill in order to have the control, just like we did on the other side of our property (has worked out well). I’ll build the fence well within my side of the property line, even if I have to give a couple/more inches over to them (I don’t care).
Be glad you live where you do and as you do, Claudia. You and Don made such a beautiful choice for such a nice country home and landscape. I know the couple of acres is a lot to maintain, but look at what you get in return. (Beauty and exercise…and privacy!) The photo you posted on Memorial Day was so serene and green; heavenly. Just looking at it lowered my pulse rate. It’s so nice you have enough acreage to give yourself lots of breathing space between neighbors, when you can’t choose your neighbors, and can hope they’re nice, but it’s always a risk…and with most people’s biggest investment, their home, it’s not a risk to be taken lightly; I mean, you can work really hard toward ‘live and let live’ but, like, in my case now, I’m fed up. You just have to sometimes fight for quality of life. (But maybe they’re saying that about me, too. So … fine. Let’s separate!)
Thanx for listening. End of subject. By the way, Don looks very nice with his Claudia-haircut. His courage (and your confidence) paid off.
Good plan for the fence.
Listen, everything isn’t idyllic here. Our neighbors to the right are Jehovah’s Witnesses and they’ve tried to convert me several times. And their son has a new motorbike but the DMV is closed so he can’t get a license, and we’re treated to endless loops around their yard when we trying to watch television in the evening. Wherever you are, there are potential neighbor problems. xo
I need to be done with this because we’re several days of conversation beyond this now, but thanks for weighing in and I’m sorry you’ve got the neighbor doing the loops. (And I had a chuckle of trying to envision ANYbody trying to convert you to anything, Claudia; it must try your patience.) You’re right about always having some kind of neighbor problem. I’d thought back over it during all this recent mess, remembering the years I was single and living in apartments and condos (and what I sometimes had to go thru with some people; I really could write a book on it). When I lived in Santa Barbara in a four-plex, I was the younger one with three other really-nice older, quiet people and I hope it wasn’t me who sometimes might have disturbed THEM. (I had some late nights for sure; a bit of the party girl in me in those days. Beautiful-beautiful Santa Barbara is a mecca of fun things to do and fab places to go, and there wasn’t much I didn’t take advantage of back then!) I guess I can never forget the guy who lived underneath me once, at a condo I owned, absentee father, whose latchkey-teen son would play acid rock (badly) on an electric guitar at 11pm when I needed to be up at 6am to get to my job. When we had the little cottage on the hill before this house we’re in now, I had absolutely lovely neighbors, all of whom I still keep up contact with; so, you gotta take the good with the bad.
Quick change of subject before I end this and get to May 27(!), I neglected to tell you how gorgeous that completed Van Gogh puzzle was; aren’t the colors of the blue and yellow SO vivid and striking! Eye candy; really visually stunning. You must have had a little-bit of regret to have to collapse it after all your hard work. I’m not a big student of Van Gogh and you’ve made me want to go back and see more of his work. I love his bold color.
Good luck on the haircut, kiddo. Good idea to heed that suggestion of checking it twice when it comes to the blade being used.
We are up to about 90% of our planting being complete in the yard. Happy about that. It looks like rain for us the next 6 days, so I do hope there will be enough times when we can be out to do a pot here or there. I’m thinking all of this May rain is going to bring quite a batch of ‘squitoes. ugh.
Hope you have a good day. Take care!!
We already knew what guard/blade to use. Don wrote down those numbers a long time ago when he was going on the road, so that if he had to have his hair cut, he’d be able to tell whoever was cutting it what to use.
Our planting is done, unless I want to add something extra, but I’m happy with what I’ve done. Glad you’re almost done! We had rain all day today and just now (6:30) the sun came out. Stay safe, Chris.
Oh…The Haircut. So far, Jim hasn’t said anything…but, I’m sure that’s coming. Salons and barbershops aren’t open yet in Dane County…soon I hope. I guess it depends on your level of trust. I have little trust that I can cut my husbands hair. Good luck to you!
The wearing of masks seems tedious and to some uncomfortable, but it does so much good. I don’t know why so many don’t understand that. We went back to our local nursery yesterday…and everyone, including employees, were wearing masks. And, we were all outside. Can’t be too careful as far as I’m concerned.
Lovely additions to your collection you received. Enjoy your day! ;)
My daughters and I have always cut each other’s hair. My 20-something daughters have never had a professional hair cut in their entire life, so sheltering and not having outside salon services are ok with us. I’m sure both of you will look great, no matter what! Afterall, hair grows back!!
Speaking of penguins, have you seen the video of Kansas City Zoo penguins taking a trip to the local art museum. I have great affection for penguins, so the video highly amused me: https://mymodernmet.com/kansas-city-penguins-visit-art-museum/
OH yes, I’ve seen it. I think it was showing up on social media about a month or so ago. I have no concept of time right now. Anyway, I loved it and I showed it to Don, too. Stay safe, Wendy!
We’re not all that anxious to go get our hair cut in a salon or barbershop. There’s no way to keep a safe distance. So we’ll go this route until things are absolutely safe or we get a vaccine.
Thanks, Donna. Stay safe!
Yesterday I was thinking about cutting my hair—just chopping it all off! Haven’t done that in about twenty years, but because I am twenty years older and probably not as agile, I talked myself out of it. Also, when I remembered that shorter hair requires a cut more often I decided to just let it keep growing. I have cut Mr. Wizard’s hair, though, for many years. Lucky for me he just likes it buzzed super short. Now if Glory and I could come to some sort of agreement. We both lose patience long before the job is done. I just hope nobody who knew her as a show dog ever sees her walking around with only one side clipped. One ear, or one leg done is a regular occurrence, too. Courage, dear heart.
I got a little overly zealous around his ear – too close to the scalp – but it’s fine and no one will notice. We don’t see anyone anyway! But he says it feels a lot better, especially since this coming week we’ll have temps in the eighties. Just as I suspected, we’re going right into summer. Stay safe, Shanna.
We need to see your new hair cut, Claudia! I’ve started calling my son Prince Hal. He normally keeps his hair very short at the sides and a bit longer on top. He styles it daily as otherwise in his words he resembles a medieval cherub! It’s grown so much now that he bears a startling likeness to Timothee Chalamet in Netflix’s ‘The King’. He looks much younger than his real age of 32, last year he was mistaken for a teenager! I keep telling him he wouldn’t look out of place at the Battle of Agincourt😀.
Stay safe
Don’s hair was just getting too uncomfortable for him when working outside in the heat. I think he looks better with it shorter, too, so I succumbed to his pressure and did it. It isn’t half bad! Stay safe, Dee Dee!
I cut my husbands hair last week. Start with the longer clippers….build your confidence up :) I would pick up some hair and the feather cut it. He was very pleased with the results. I don’t think I’ll let him cut mine….he does beautiful woodwork…I’ll let him stick to that! Have a beautiful weekend!
We started with the ones his stylist uses and then I went to shorter clippers for the nape of his neck, etc.
Thanks, Debbie. Stay safe!
I am so glad most of the people around you are wearing masks and socially distancing. It isn’t that way around here! I do know what you mean by the fear of cutting a loved one’s hair. My 21 year- old son, home from college, asked me to cut his hair. After spending some time on YouTube, watching instructional videos, I cut his hair, using the clippers I usually use on the dogs (They were well-cleaned first.) It actually came out okay. -Even he said so. Whoo! Anyway, Good luck!
I know – I breathed a sigh of relief when it came out relatively okay! I hope I don’t have to do it again but I suspect I will. He doesn’t like it too long in the summer. Stay safe, Jane!
Love those books you received. What a nice addition to your collection. Good luck with Don’s haircut.
Marilyn
Thank you, Marilyn. It came out okay! Mine is a bit uneven but we’ll do some touch up tomorrow. Stay safe!
I’m very interested to see your new hair cut.
Claudia, I love it when I get a lead on a ‘new’ author…..new to me. On your recommendation of this author, I ordered Leave It To Psmith and Very Good, Jeeves!. I read one or two books a week and enjoy a variety of authors. Just recently I re read The Egg & I by Betty MacDonald. It was just as funny the third time reading. Thoroughly enjoy reading Michael Connelly , Ann Cleaves, and all Deborah Crombie (Jemma James and Dunkin Kincaid detectives). Thank you for the lead on P. G. Wodehouse.
I’ve read all of Connelly and Crombie, too. I’m a longtime fan. So glad you’re going to read some Wodehouse. I think you’ll love him. Stay safe, Patty.
Claudia! I’m surprised Don isn’t growing his hair out again as he did for Margaritaville! That looked great on him. If you really love us, you’ll post before and after pictures of each one of you! LOL. In fact, there must be an instagram like that, you know, on the lines of horrible holiday family photos…Congrats on your books! You curate your collections so well and it’s great to have people on the lookout for you. Rain yesterday here too but humid and I’m hoping for rain for today and tomorrow too to keep the nuts off of the beaches. Have a cookout in your backyard for heaven’s sake. Each state that I’ve heard of from California to Florida has had a spike in infections when they’ve opened beaches. Americans are so self-centered that they can’t stay home and honor those who have died for their freedoms in a brave and save way themselves. Revolting way to thank those who died for us. On that note, thank you to your parents and Don’s who sacrificed.
Actually, it only looked good when it had been freshly blow dried. After that, it looked limp and it became a pain in the tush. And Don doesn’t want long hair when he’s working outside. We both think the long hair makes him look older and shorter hair makes him look younger.
Yes, thank you to those who sacrificed, a concept far too many people don’t understand these days. Stay safe, Nora.
It sounds like a good and a productive day but boy, do I get your angst and frustration about the distancing and masks. I’m getting a little hostile about that — the ignorant ignorers, I call them. It’s not going to stop, either, I don’t think. Not until it happens to them.
I love your mail delivery! I haven’t had the nerve to go to the post office to mail things yet but your deliveries were extra special! Love the Mockingbird cover.
Perfect cover – reminds me of the writing done in the opening credits of the movie. Stay safe, Jeanie.
Claudia, who do you think wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird?” Harper Lee or her friend Truman Capote? I’ve read all about the indecision on this matter – I’ve settled my mind that it was Truman. What do you think?
Oh no. It was Harper Lee. It’s not at all his style. It’s the story of her family, Atticus is based on her father. I’ve never once thought it was Truman Capote. Reminds me of all the ‘who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays’ nonsense. He did.
Harper also contributed a great deal to Capote’s In Cold Blood. If anyone took advantage of the other’s skills, it was Capote.