Monday, November 9 – Sunday, November 15
…Including a Friday the 13th where I experienced no bad luck!!!
The Week in Locating Happiness in Life’s Minutiae: This week Covid took quite a leap in case numbers, which led to a steady uptick in the number of deaths. The President will not concede that he lost the election (he has, legitimately). It’s heavy.
This week I didn’t do a thing. I didn’t go anywhere. The week was very reminiscent of the heart of the spring Covid shutdown. Still, some beautiful, warm and sunny fall weather forced its way into my consciousness as did a bunch of little stuff that put together made for a fairly peaceable week, all things considered.
The Week in Food Wins – Part 1: The “house cookie” here in my apartment is Peanut Butter, and back pre-Covid, where there was a possibility people would drop over to my place, I always had some in the freezer. I considered it practice for my old, crazy aunt years, which I hope to live long enough to see. Anyway, it’s been a while since I made a batch, and this week I was in the mood. Maybe me being prepared for guests will help speed this Covid thing along. That’s how it works, right?!?! Plus, there’s a reason these are the house cookies…delicious!
The Week in Food Wins – Part 2: I really worked the comfort angle of food this week and headed over to Court Street Lobster bar to get a cup of their Lobster Mac and Cheese. My childhood was steeped in Kraft Macaroni n’ Cheese in the blue box. I still love that, but upscale Mac n’ Cheese speaks to my food snob heart. Court Street’s take sinks small pieces of lobster into the gooey, beautiful pasta which is an appropriate thing to do with seafood in the Midwest where the nearest ocean is hundreds of miles away. Still good though. The mac n cheese made for a small, upscale, yet simple dinner. That hint of seafood even allowed me to dream of maybe going to the beach for real seafood sometime soon. Plus, carbs are good when I’m nesting.
The Week in Dog Therapy: Three times this week, three different dogs on walks with three different owners slowed down as we passed each other on the sidewalk. Each dog seemed to make it a point to walk toward me and “ask” to be petted. They got right up to me and were all like, “I’m a dog. Wanna pat my head? You should pat my head. I’m a dog.” I got it. Those dogs were right. I did want to I pat their goofy dog heads. Who’s a good dog?
The Week in Jail Messages: I walk by the jail to get to work, and am always taken by the messages people leave on the sidewalk for the men in the cells above to read. There are messages of love, and hate, and domestic business that needs to be handled. This week, one of the messages was about how put out the writer was that they had to spend $5 on chalk to communicate. That’s a fight when the dude gets out.
The Week in Facing Commitment: I’m a relationship commitment-phobe, but that phobia often drifts into other aspects of my life. For example, I don’t like to do the same things, or go to the same places over and over. I don’t watch a lot of TV, in part because I although I may want to watch every episode of something I tend to lose interest. Same with books. While the trend recently has been to read book series, I am a one-off reader. I even shy away from reading multiple stand-along books from the same author. That’s a personal quirk that someday a therapist can unravel, but it never caused me any social harm until years ago when I read the first Harry Potter novel, and never picked up another other.
Like eating one potato chip, my friends who read and loved the series found this fact about me unfathomable. It’s not like I didn’t like the book, I did. I liked it a lot. So, in this next phase of Covid, I’m gonna read the whole batch. I re-read book one this week and book 2 is downloaded on my Kindle. I can do it! Wish me luck on my commitment endeavor. I’ll probably be so good at commitment that when I’m finished with the last book that I’ll up and get married. (Probably not. My commitment quota should be used up by book 7.)
The Week in Simple Amusement:
The Week in Simple: Many times on my walks I run into an older, homeless man who makes his base at the Salem United Church of Christ. He is a quiet, peaceable man, who huddles in his dirty overcoat, mostly sticking to breaks in walls, or spaces by stairs where tenant would place their trash cans. He looks as if he’s trying to disappear. Often I see him sitting with his arms raised appearing to be talking to God. And maybe he is. If I catch his eyes as a pass him while he is at rest, he always boughs and head, makes the sign of the cross and then looks up, offering, I’d like to think, a prayer on my behalf. If I pass him walking on the sidewalk, he smiles big and says “Bless you Star.” I’m sure that’s what he says to anyone he speaks to. Simple truth. It’s tough out there. We’re gonna make it.
Nothing Ever Happens on My Street 