Living in the Time of Corona

Good evening my Corona Friends and hope everyone is doing well, TGIF. I just had a fabulous dinner prepared by my own personal chef, who is getting really good with those dinners in a box props. Kudos for techie, broadening his horizons, and I am going to give a little praise to myself tonight as well, as I  managed to get to the right page tonight all on my own to start this blog.  It only took 97 days to make progress, but hey Rome wasn’t built in a day. I want to give a shout out to all my fellow citizens from the great state of Massachusetts for doing the hard work and flattening our curve.  Now let’s not do anything stupid like they are in some places south and west of us and going out before they have control. We have been in lockdown for a good few months and I don’t want to go backward, so let’s all behave. My roommate and I just took a nice long walk and I have to say all the Millennials are out and waiting in line to get into the Beer Gardens. I can’t say I blame them, the weather is beautiful, been cooped up and just want to go out and play, but please wear a mask, and remove only for drinking, as in my case no mask. Anyway, it occurred to me when I look back at what I have been doing these past few weeks, some might get the impression that I am enjoying this lockdown.  I have managed to see friends, take long bike rides, but the best thing is the restaurants are open and I have been enjoying a lot of al fresco dining.  It makes me wonder if I may prefer to live in a different climate, but I can’t see it my grandkids are here and I like living among the lefties or liberals.

Last night I had the great pleasure of spending time with one of my besties, Celia, who I hadn’t seen in many months. I know I speak for most women but there is nothing better than girlfriends and men just can’t get it. I recall once on a trip where there were a few of us, and the ladies were just sitting around blabbing for hours and I heard my friend’s husband ask her later what could you possibly be talking about for so long?  Obviously he doesn’t understand girlfriend culture and we never run out of conversation. It doesn’t hurt that my friend has a great summer home right on the water and we could just sit outside on her beautiful deck and polish off a few bottles of wine. Considering we were sitting out there for about five hours it may have been a bit more than a few.   Celia and I have done a lot of traveling together and I can say we have been around the world a few times together so we have a lot to talk about. Last night sitting out in the dark we could see the flight path from Logan airport, and being the airplane enthusiast she was watching Flight Radar and reporting to me where the plane was coming or going from.  We could start dreaming about past and future trips, and she was giving me the low down on what kind of plane was flying in from Atlanta and what airline.  The one that did give us a laugh was when she read it was going from Boston to Indiana, now nothing against Indiana but a direct flight out of Boston seemed unlikely until she found it was FedEx flight. We both love to travel, and I have been lucky that she has planned so many of our trips and that my roommate always wished me well and told me to go, no problem. I think he was looking forward to quiet time and no TV in the middle of the night.  Although we did once live in a house with more than one room and actually had a lot of bathrooms, it seems like a lifetime ago, and no matter what I still love it here. I am grateful every day that I can expand my shelter in place parameters by mooching off my friends and family. I still have a few people that I haven’t hit up yet so I will have to plan it well.  I just hope my roommate keeps me on as his first mate and I may have to sharpen my skills to see that he does. Meanwhile lucky to have friends with a house on the sea and let me spend the night so I may wake up to coffee on the deck.

Just sayin

Hello my Corona friends an hope you all lived to see another day, happy and healthy. I got a little fired up last night so today I practiced some deep breathing and meditation. Let’s face it there will always be assholes in the world and I have to try hard not to become one of them. I have had a lot of practice, as I may have mentioned I come from a big family and I do have five sisters. Yes that is correct I am lucky enough to have these five terrific women in my life and fortunately we align politically but personalities differ widely.  Ann is the oldest and she can tend to be very bossy, but she is also the only one that moved out of state so we don’t have to take the orders, too seriously. When I was younger she used to say make me a cup of tea, I changed your diapers when you were a baby, trying to guilt me into waiting on her.  She didn’t understand that I can’t be guilted into anything. Of course now when I bring this up she will say I never said or did that, but we know differently. Then there is Judy, oh it would take a lot to explain her, but even though she drives all absolutely crazy, she has a heart of gold. She likes to talk a lot and she always needs the “details“. She can go off track pretty quickly and before you know it she went from a story about her friend and now we have moved on to that friends, sisters, brothers cousin, who once lived next to Susie’s uncle, who was married to Dorothy, and we have no idea what the hell she is talking about. I do love her but maybe because she lives alone, she just has diarrhea of the mouth or as a friend once said working with your sister is like having the radio on all day, but no off switch. Patty would be number three, and she has always been the one we could say was most like Mom. She always hosted the holidays and cooked great meals, even going so far to deliver meals to my two brothers that were bachelors, just filling Moms shoes.  Judy will often say to me have you spoken to Patty lately she hasn’t been able to reach her, I want to say she probably doesn’t pick up because she doesn’t have a half hour to listen, and she won’t know any details. Patty actually retired the minute she found she was having a grandson so she could be a full time Grandma, something she wasn’t sure about as having two daughters who got married late. She is the best Babci to Donovan.  Probably a good thing he doesn’t have any competition. Next in line is Debbie and oh how to I describe her, well I always thought of her as Maude as in the movie Harold and Maude. She is a bit eccentric but so warm and loving. She always took all the nieces and nephews on joyrides and extolled the virtues of her crystals. When my kids were young she even gave each of them their own crystal ball along with a little cloth to keep it covered. She lived with us for a short time years ago and even called late one night, to say she forgot to cover her crystal and please be sure we do because it could start a fire.  She retired a few years ago but she recently went to work at Amazon part time, because she was bored and doesn’t understand why we want to keep her apart when she goes to that distribution center every day. She has become a super great aunt to my grandchildren Charlie and Maisie, and their parents had to put the Kibosh on all those packages, as they try to live a minimalist lifestyle. That is just too difficult when kid is addicted to Legos. I would be next in line, and then there is Kathy who is the baby girl of the family. It is definitely hard to be number eleven out of twelve and you sure don’t get the recognition because we have run out of steam and Judy is still talking. I think she should run for office she is one of the most politically astute people I know and she seems to thrive on it, and I say Kathy it is not too late. Look at the age of these people running they practically have one foot in the grave, give them a boot. We are lucky because we still do talk to each other, and generally like hanging out together. I wished I had kept a better journal of stories from growing up because I notice now that we all have different versions of our family history.  It’s a wonder when you hear these different versions, were these people in the same family?  I can tell you it is a generational thing as they were so much older, that they must be senile and can’t really remember. I on the other hand still think I am twenty nine, but if only my body would cooperate, now it takes a while to stretch and move around in the morning to get all the kinks out.  Now that the time has passed I often wished I had more kids, because they are missing out, but everyone always sys they couldn’t afford it. Believe me my mom never thought if she couldn’t afford it, God know she sure couldn’t but somehow we made it. So I guess my kids better get cracking if they want to catch up to Grandma.

 Just sayin

Good evening my Corona friends and as always I hope you are happy and healthy.  I am grateful for just another day of being symptom free and enjoying life. I was going to be brief tonight as I have been out to dinner with my nephew and it is late.  I haven’t seen Sean since we celebrated his Birthday back in early March and he does live quite close. He has been actually very good about the sheltering in place and has let very few people into his pod, so kudos for that and being safe. We were at an outdoor dining spot on the waterfront and it was a beautiful night, but for a few rainstorms. I got there a bit earlier than Sean and I had the pleasure of listening to a major asshole at a table nearby.  You can’t make this shit up but he was on the phone yelling so everyone could hear him about taking a rental in Beverly Hills for $40,000 a month and don’t worry he is a friend of Josh Altman of Millon dollar Listing in LA so he knows it is a good deal.  Then he proceeds to call Daddy on the phone. Who knows it could have been the weather channel that is what we would have done.  I kid you not he is yelling on the phone to Daddy that we own half this restaurant and I got a shitty table.  He is taking a picture of the host telling him he is going to lose his job. I have no patience for this and I go take a picture of him and when he asked what I was doing I said just going to post what an asshole looks like.  Now normally I wouldn’t bother with this but since he treated everyone badly. host, waitress and busboy I felt compelled to call out any assholes. Just stay home and tell yourself how important you are, and someone may believe it.  Remember we are all in this together and renting an expensive house is not in the cards for many people and who knows probably not in your cards either.  NAMASTE!!!

Anyway a nice night out on the patio and sat through a few rain drops but just felt good to be outside and we were rewarded by this beautiful rainbow…………….

Just sayin

Good evening my Corona friends, another rocking Tuesday and hope everyone is safe and well. Apparently we have done all the hard work and our state is continuing g to trend in the right direction.  Probably the only time that we like to see a downward trend because we are so competitive we can only see results if we trend upward.  Well the good news is that I read today that for the last three months most people have avoided going to Doctor appointments and avoided any kind of medical visits. Well the news was I think pretty darn good, there was no alarming stats about not having the care or visits. I have always avoided as much as possible to have a Doctor visit and as a result, most anything serious had to be handled in an ER visit when I couldn’t avoid it any longer.  I learned this from my dear departed Mother who I knew went to the Doctor at least twelve times as she had twelve children and didn’t visit again for almost forty years. Ok so that last visit wasn’t a good thing but I doubt it would have made much of a difference. Think of all the time you saved by avoiding these visits. I got to thinking about when our kids were little and if they spiked a fever you wanted to take them to the Doctor, but thankfully I had my techie who always went along and questioned the reasoning behind the pink medicine for whatever ails you, ear or fever.  He was always more of the ilk to let it goes the course, unless deemed extremely necessary. Personally I know the Docs found it refreshing, because according to them parents were demanding the pink stuff so they felt more obligated to give it out. So now it must be a real dilemma because there is no pink, green, red or orange that they can prescribe for Corona so best just stay away. They are doing a lot more tele-visits, now this is something I could get behind.  I used to use WEB MD to solve all my maladies but I guess I could have a quick call with a nurse practitioner and she could write the script for my Cipro should any flare ups occur. Ok I am sure there is too much information here and we should move on to a more important subject, like deodorant or antiperspirant?  Like everything during this shutdown I have begun to question my grooming habits or lack thereof?  I am not sure if I was forgetting to use deodorant as a lot of the time during lock up I wasn’t even getting dressed, and thought nothing of going to Traders in my jammies.  Well now I am out and about and back to work but unfortunately I think I may have been giving off some body odor. I am going to have to make sure it is a part of the daily ritual of grooming. I was playing hooky today and went to the beach, where I detected I may have been a bit stinky. This started a discussion of what is best a deodorant or antiperspirant, one stops the sweating and the other the smell. One has aluminum, which I guess is bad for you but I forget which is which. Anyway just like your mask is something I can’t leave the house without I will add deodorant to the list.  So yes I had a bad day and went and parked my ass on the beach for a long time today and then topped it off with a trip to Kelly’s ice cream at the end of the day with a nice twisty cone.  Julia [Ferris’s sister] previous blog, was visiting out of NYC, where she had been in a much tighter lock down than we have been experiencing. So a proper beach day was in order and I was happy to oblige. I don’t know about anyone else but getting a bit of a tan, I do feel at least 10 or twenty pounds lighter. I know getting to much sun is bad for you and my kids get upset with me, but they don’t need to tan to appear thin, they already are thin.  People will tell you that you look terrific and healthy because you got some sun, when we know that skin cancer is on the rise, but dam it feels thin, at least for a few days. Well now that I am looking a bit closer in the mirror I see I am once again beginning to resemble a Billy goat with my chin hairs.  It’s been five years since Sarah left me high and dry, to start her own business and taking care of the Billy goat was job security, I guess it just became too much for her. I am going to have to ask my roommate for assistance but between the two us we don’t see as well anymore.

 Just sayin

P.S. getting close to 100 days and I am putting the word out if anyone wants to write a guest blog one day, I am game.

Good evening once again my Corona friends and I trust everyone had a good Monday.  It’s nice to be approaching the other side of this pandemic, where now it is starting to spike in other states. I don’t wish them any harm but I can say right from the beginning the first few months, if you weren’t in the thick of it, you just couldn’t relate. I have friends and relatives in different parts of the country, and they always said it is not the same here as where you are, but now they may be feeling the pinch. I think it may be hard for them to go into the lock down we had to do after they have done it half ass, for the past few months. What do they always say it is far easier going from poor to rich, than rich to poor?  Anyway we are all in this together and I want nothing less, than for all this to just disappear, so we may all go back to living before the time of Corona. Speaking of which, nail salons opened today……………I am know now that I am a much shallower person than I ever thought possible, but I literally had tears in my eyes this morning when I called a salon I like to frequent, and got an appointment at noon today. Yippee nail salons reopened.  I can do without the hair and I don’t have roots yet, so that has not been my problem, in fact now I can just tie it back in a ponytail, so problem solved for the summer. I think I may have mentioned the toes have been the problem, right from the get go, maybe it was the reach and the fact that some of my toes are really F’d up but they were really grossing me out. I even had to beg Techie do cut them for me, and because he is so awesome he reluctantly did it.  In fact a few days ago I asked him to do it and he said I am pretty sure they are opening on Monday, his really nice way of saying please don’t ask me. It was like I died and went to heaven just to soak my feet and get all hot stoned massage and all that today, I know truly first world problem, but I will completely own it. I am judging by the amount of people that kept stopping by today to ask for an appointment that I am not alone in my desires. After all it is summer. I even had both my kids’ remark recently that my feet looked pretty gross. For them to notice it was bad. I even took a picture so I could look more closely at them recently and yes it was hard to look at them. I considered putting a before and after picture up tonight but my roommate advised against it, the before were really tough to look at. OK enough about the feet, problem solved and I can’t wait to go again.  My new thing is watching Yellowstone, just came upon it and just about done with season 2 and holy shit they are evil. They have blown up my whole idea of what I had imagined the pristine beauty of Montana would be and replaced it with the Godfather meets Scarface.  I just can’t imagine who dreams this up and it is a few years old so can’t blame it on the Pandemic twisting your mind. I am sure we all think at some point our families are a bit fucked up but these people are really deranged and I can’t even tell if they like each other. I am hooked and I am still hoping for redemption for any of them so I need to sign off and watch a few more episodes.

Namaste!!

Just sayin,

Good evening my Corona friends and Happy Father’s day to all those dads out there. I trust everyone had the opportunity to do something nice for the Dad’s in your life. I have to say that I feel like Father’s day gets a bit shortchanged from Hallmark and doesn’t have the same gravitas as Mother’s Day. I know that Mother’s day is one of the busiest days for dining out, where as I am pretty sure Father’s day we give some new grille tools, and Dad does the BBQ.  I am sure it doesn’t apply today with the new wave of Dads being the culinary stars of today, but in the past it may have been to give Mom a break from the kitchen and cooking every meal. Now if you have been reading this blog you know I have not always been the one doing the cooking, when we could avail ourselves of so many wonderful eating establishments, and the fact that I have no place to grill at our living space. When people ask what I miss most about our old house, other than the multiple bathrooms, it is definitely the grill which I did use year round. Just shovel snow around it on the deck and go to go, no messy clean up.  Grill pan is not the same and honestly it can smell up the place fairly quickly. My daughter lucked out with her husband, as Hugh does most of the cooking, if you call roasting kale cooking.  Seriously he is a bit of a show off baking bread and making his own pizza dough. I mean there are a lot of terrific pizza shops, well yes only one Regina’s, but others that will do in a pinch.  My son Max loves to cook and does a pretty decent job of it, and I would say his wife Alana got pretty lucky as well with a chef. Funny how cooking skipped with Erica, and not with my son, but I would say she is pretty smart about that, and let him take on that job. Let me tell you one thing about my roommate, Techie, MacGyver, and my lover he was and is one heck of a Dad, and those kids really hit the jackpot with this one.  He always encouraged them to try new things and follow their passions, which he always supported. I am pretty sure he is the one responsible for keeping them on the straight and narrow and taught them how to be the wonderful parents they are today.  I didn’t have the luxury of having a decent Dad, and yes I do think it is a luxury that should be more appreciated, because it doesn’t happen for everyone. I am telling you when I see my son with his daughter and how wonderful he is with her it blows my mind. As parents there are many times of the year you are tested and right from the beginning you might fantasize about leaving that kid among the lettuce in the supermarket. The teenage years could be very trying and living in the suburbs. The local constables would not take a liking to shooting your paint ball guns at public property, but we made it through. My mother always said to me when I was growing up, I only hope someday you have a daughter just like you, but I was lucky and my daughter turned out more like her Dad. We grew up watching Leave it to Beaver, but we didn’t know any Ward Cleavers. The Dads in our generation never changed a diaper, didn’t cook or do a show and tell at school.  Techie here was often the one going to do something in the classrooms, and even attempt to coach a team. I can say that if he could, he would try and avoid diapers, but I let him have that one.  Today’s Dads are trying as much as possible to be fully participatory in their kids’ lives and it is wonderful.  What has changed these past three months I am sure both Mom and Dad are trying to hide from these kids some, as both working from home and kids schooling from home? I know Techie wouldn’t have, but I probably would have let them watch a lot more TV and whatever else they do on their screens today. I just wouldn’t let them watch the twilight zone because they may get freaked out, and think it is a reality TV show.

I am lucky that today I do have some great Dad’s in my life and Techie, Max and Hugh just keep on doing what you’re doing, and maybe show Dad a bit about the cooking. I can’t help giving a shout out that I do believe I have the three most amazing grandchildren and I guess their Dad’s had something to do with it.

Just sayin

Good evening my Corona friends and hope everyone enjoyed this beautiful day. Summer has definitely arrived. Techie and I just came back from a nice long walk and ended up dining out in the streets of the North end tonight. There were just so many choices we had to stop. Besides we knew there was no dinner box at home, and haven’t had a trip to Trader Joes this week, only for the mini cones, for grandkids. We just wanted to get our steps in and walking the Greenway we were very thrilled to see that the water fountains that spray, and cause you to do a little dance to avoid the spray. I always love the run through this with Charlie, and I remember to bring a towel in the stroller. Can’t wait to bring Maisie. I was afraid that under Covid they wouldn’t be operating and tonight there were more than a few adults running through it. Everyone just wants to cool off.  Signs of life, and almost normalcy is coming back to our beautiful city. The plan was just to do a stroll and then maybe grab a slice of pizza, but the allure of sitting down at a table with a proper cocktail served to you by someone other than yourself was just too hard to ignore. We ran into some friends at a table next to us, well actually the Maître D asked these young women if they wouldn’t mind moving as he saw that we knew Rick and Colleen. Talk about service. It is really nice to be among the living and seated at your table no need for a mask. I have to give a shout out to the servers as they really hustle running in and out of the restaurant to serve their patrons, who are literally in the street. I don’t know if they are going to give up this patio space, when the time comes because it sure seems like people are enjoying al fresco dining for sure. Walking back home the city still is buttoning up early as it was 930 and the Barking Crab was already closed, not sure about the Cisco Brewery beer garden that opened up yesterday but pretty quiet on the streets. Trillium closes at 9 so I guess we are collectively still trying to maintain some semblance of keeping everyone off the streets. I am happy to turn in earlier if that is what it takes to keep flattening our curve. My roommate and I both agree that we are happy that we had such strict guidelines for the shutdown and more importantly people followed the rules. It wasn’t always something people could agree upon, tough to close businesses but now we are seeing the results and feeling safer, every day. The Dude Abides. I am not going to lie, I am feeling just a bit giddy tonight, when I turned on CNN to hear about Tulsa and the brief bit I watched showed a much smaller than expected crowd. I am doing a happy dance but not going to gloat too much, but definitely want to give a shout out to the youth of America who apparently flooded the campaign for tickets tonight with no intention of showing up. Please kids keep it up and please show up to vote in November.

Just sayin……..

Good evening my Corona friends and foes and hope everyone enjoyed this beautiful day, and guess what you get to celebrate another beautiful day tomorrow. Now that summer is upon us I am sure we all wish we could figure out how to keep the shutdown in place, but only for work related activity, and a nice big beach for all to enjoy with 12 foot circles. Today was an absolute great day for those who have been living under DACA. The second time in a week that the Supreme Court gave us great news. Gives me hope for the future. If we can make it through this Pandemic and a November election, things just might be looking up. I can’t imagine the fear these young people have been living under these past few years, wondering if they would be forced to leave the only country they have ever known, to return to a place they have never been or even speak the language.  I heard some of them interviewed on the radio today and one of the guys said he didn’t even know he wasn’t an American citizen until he was eighteen, and needed some papers. His Mom then told him they came here illegally when he was one year old. He holds a very good job here and still some would prefer to see him get deported and then try the legal way, REALLY.  I just wish we would just grant them all Amnesty and let them go on and live their lives not under stress and fear. I honestly don’t know how we became viscous and vile in this country, but with all this unemployment coming up I am sure it will only get worse. Namaste!!!

We had our grandchildren overnight last night and my roommate is giving our 6 year old advice about thinking of five things to be grateful for every day. First time it was easy, mom, Dad, Maisie, Rex [dog], Lais the babysitter, we didn’t even make the cut. Today of course it was different because he was at grandma’s house and I have a YES button, purchased at a novelty store. It is there for Charlie to push whenever he wants anything and it is amazing he doesn’t abuse it. Basically he asks can I watch a fire truck video, and he pushed the button the answer is always yes. Can I have a sour patch kid, what do you think?  Can I have one of those mini ice cream cones, push the button. Can we order Trolls 2, push the button.  He really doesn’t want to push it very often and I don’t know where he came from. His mother wasn’t much of a rule breaker and goody pants, unlike her brother who would have blown up that button in the first few hours. Just goes to show that often if it is offered, instead of denied you will take only what you need.   That is exactly how I have been dealing with how much Ketel One to drink during this time. The dam has been opened but there is only so much you can drink and like I have said going out will be hard with those weak pours. Walking around our neighborhood it is really coming to life and so many people are out and about. Restaurants have expanded their outdoor seating into every available parking spot and you just want to join in the fun, but you wonder is it safe?  I wake up at night with nightmares of forgetting my mask and not washing my hands often enough and wonder is this what retirement will look like. I just better keep working, so I can still count among the living with a place to go every day. Oh yes I can tell you being a retailer there is no working from home, and the dream team that techie I lived for a few months was gladly put to rest, once stores reopened. He sure does know his techie stuff but merchandise not so much, for once he needed me for those answers, and I guess he will keep me a bit longer.  He did prepare dinner tonight from our box delivery and it was quite good, he is getting better and better.  Even the mess in the kitchen was minimal tonight. I am cutting back to only two days a week on the delivery of meals, not because it is not good, but starts to feel like you have a paper due and have to get to it, and have always been a procrastinator. Talking to my nephew and his family tonight on my way home and Mike, Delaney, Jackson and Jill were on their way to pick up take out, while I told them I had a personal Techie cooking my dinner. Anyway I was intrigued by their dinner choice in Raleigh, North Carolina, Poke Burri. They were getting Sushi corn dogs. Now I love corn dogs and couldn’t figure how you could get sushi in a fried corn dog. Nonetheless they claim to be delicious, along with sushi Nachos, which I have had just the other night at Lola 42. Well imagine my delight when I googled them and as it turns out they are expanding to Boston. Didn’t say where or when but imagine it is probably not the best time for restaurant expansion but I know they will be very welcome here in our fair city.  Corn dogs and doughnuts will do very well here…………

Just sayin

Good evening my Corona friends and hope everyone is happy and healthy this evening. Techie and I have an added bonus tonight as we are quite fortunate to have some very special company, Charlie and Maisie are spending the night. It probably has been five months since they last were here overnight. We can’t be more excited and after an evening of Shake Shack and Cars 2 the movie we are calling it a night.  I am pretty sure I fell asleep before they did, and now access to my computer is not possible.  So I will say hello and good night and glad we all got to live another day. Today I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world, having these two beautiful creatures here with us.

 Love to all and Good Night!!  A great new future awaits us in a few short months.

Just sayin