Things right now in the world are so overwhelming, it is getting more difficult for me to be bright and entertaining. I am taking a little “vacation” from my columns for a while. Peace and love!
TOUGH TIMES
Times are bad right now. Fires, cold, tragedies everywhere.
I look for things to make me feel better.
Lots of folks on social media are telling about how comforting it is to make chicken soup. They list their recipes, which involve a chicken or chicken bones, water, and vegetables. I have tried making chicken soup so many times, even substituting chicken broth for the water, and my soup is always virtually tasteless.
What about making chili? My husband hates my chili; he says it’s too loose. Other comfort foods are roast chicken (mine is either undercooked or too dry), macaroni and cheese (WAY too much trouble with the roux and grating all that cheese), spaghetti and meatballs, which I do well with Rao’s and Trader Joe’s chicken meatballs–but my husband is sick and tired of it. Sick and tired.
Bypassing the comfort food, people recommend staying busy. I have tried that, and this week I touched up the dings in my baseboards, got on a ladder and used Dawn Power Spray to clean the big grease spot above the stove. I Swiffed every damn surface in the house. I binge watched 20 episodes of 48 Hours. This was Monday. Tuesday dawned and I couldn’t come up with anything, and I realized that I should have spaced out the busy things.
Books. Read the books. I made a bad choice and checked out a book about men in the trenches during WWI, and that made me feel worse. Cheerful books seem hard to come by, and for heaven’s sake, I checked out A Little Life, which nearly killed me. The man on the cover should have been a hint, but the title sounded so innocuous…
I like to imagine that during tough times, people sit by the fire with cups of tea, chatting or playing cards. They wear shawls over their shoulders, eat lavender lozenges, and remain calm. I don’t love tea, we live in this apartment with no fireplace, and my husband strongly dislikes games. I do have a shawl. Lavender tastes like cough medicine in my opinion. My husband has never been one to sit down to a nice chat. So there you are. Just me and my shawl.
Here is what I have found to be effective. I go to bed early, ask my cat Hattie to join me, and we scroll Instagram for pictures of Taylor and Travis. This works for me and thousands of women all over the globe.
HOW TO HELP
Here is a website giving multiple organizations you can support to help fire victims in Los Angeles:
http://supportlafd.kindful.com
Airbnb has homes for victims and is accepting donations http://www.airbnb.com
You can call The Red Cross at 800-733-2767 or text the word CAWILDFIRES to 90999 to make a donation.
Another source:
For pets: http://www.bestfriends.org
SNOWMAGEDDON
We have been hearing for days about a huge snowstorm that is rumbling our way. Here in Dayton it was supposed to start 2 hours ago, and they are predicting 5-9 inches. So far, nothing has happened.
It must be coming, because they are getting a blizzard in Kansas City, and it is just a matter of time. However, I can’t even count the times this exact thing has happened, and we got nothing. We stock up on food, put on sweaters, and sit by the window, waiting.
If snow does come, it is tremendously exciting. Why, I don’t know, because all anyone can do is stay home. I guess people under 65 go out in it and revel in the beauty, but if one is over 65, we worry about slipping and falling and stay in. I know about the actual result of falling.
When we were visiting the family in Los Angeles for Christmas, I foolishly turned out the lights in the bedroom we were staying in and didn’t wait for my eyes to adjust. I did walk gingerly toward the bed, and it seemed as if it was right there. So I sat down. It was not right there. So I went from standing to falling on my rear in a nanosecond. Luckily, I did not fall on my glasses.
A day later, it seemed like I had a sore muscle in my left glute. No big deal. But that was two weeks ago. Now it feels like I have a hot poker in there whenever I take a step. It turns out that in this situation, according to Dr. Google, a fall like this results in small tears in the gluteal muscle. It can take up to 6 weeks for them to heal. Six weeks of the hot poking with each step. So that happened.
Back to the snow. I check the weather app every half hour. The onset has changed from 2 hours ago to this evening. When this happens, my husband says that all the prognosticators are simply liars, and that nothing will happen. He is usually right.
So my buttock and I are losing hope for a magical snow day, and now I am not only in gluteal pain, but disappointment. My husband just asked me what I think I would do if it didn’t start snowing immediately and drop all those inches on the balcony.
I told him that all of the macaroni and cheese and chicken noodle soup would lose their cachet. It would just be dinner. And in addition, I wouldn’t be able to commiserate with all of my social media “friends” about how awful the snow is. I would have enormous FOMO.
He rolled his eyes.