Lieutenant Dave: At least we've got it stopped.

Steve Andrews: Yeah, as long as the Arctic stays cold.

In which our heroine is still up at 5:51am (good morning, Jenn!) reading (and now posting) an artcle from Wired about what it thinks I am doing right this second: Revenge Bedtime Procrastination.

Here's the article if you'd like to read about it. 

(For the record, I agree with maybe 75-80% of the article... or, rather, 75-80% applies to me.  But the 25%, not so much.)

My mom has reached the age which is the average life span for an American woman. She's white, been financially secure since her 30s, still married to my father, has not smoked since 1986. So her life expectancy is probably 7-8 years higher than her current age.

Seven or eight years is nothing. And she's just lost an entire one of them to this bullshit pandemic. She's vaccinated now, as is my Dad, but we've been talking about the lost time. What it means for her, as she's keenly aware of how little she has left. What it means for her only grandchild who spent the first year as a teen like this. What it means for me, a person who's 50, who lost an ordinary year. Not one of the easily-numbered ones I have left. Not one of the exciting new ones.

But mostly she talks at angles about what it's like to have lost one of so few remaining years. What it's like to know all her accumulated things are of limited utility to me and my sister, no matter how much we love her or how fondly we remember them. 

When my first grandmother died, I was sitting through finals my last year of law school. There was little value in postponing them, so I did not go home. My mother and my sister cleaned out her house rather quickly, my sister looking carefully for the one thing we both wanted: a pendant she'd worn in the 70's. A large crystal fishbowl, studded with tiny goldfish. She'd hold it up to the light, pull the chain along behind it, showing us how the fish would swim.

They did not find the pendant. 

It's Rancho Gordo time!

In the background: dehydrated sweet potatoes and collards.

I have a vaccination appointment for Friday. I felt sick when I got it. Like I was cheating or cutting in line. Pushing my luck. Stealing. 

But I have my appointment. I have it not only because I have fast reliable internet, and a fast reliable computer, but because when the appointment flashed, I could click "yes" before bothering to read the details of where or when, without worrying about how I'd travel to the appointment (although, frankly, our car could die at any moment) or whether I could take the time off from work. I am completely able to accept a random Walgreen location within the city limits at whatever time and date they throw at me.

I can tell my boss I won't be at work at that time (even if there's a meeting) without fear of losing my job or being docked pay. I can drive my own car (hopefully still running! and in reality, spouse will drive) or pay for the cab or Lyft without thinking twice.  It's 2.5 miles away--I could ride my bike or even walk. Or even take the bus (though I would not want to get on the CTA or in a cab right now)

I know that if I had hesitated or had to consider those things before clicking yes, I would have lost the appointment. 

Spouse does not have an appointment, so life won't change much. My parents are both vaccinated now, so in a little over six weeks (two weeks past the second dose), I can ride the commuter train out to see them. When Spouse mentioned that to me, I sobbed. 

Still I feel I'm tempting fate. 

Yars and yars ago, I recall the more seasoned women in my family sitting around my gran's table, discussing the joy *ahem* of their cronehood: retirement, menopause, enlarged pores, wrinkles, chin hair...ya know...the good stuff.

Having been in my maidenhood at the time, these joys seemed a verrrrry long way off. 

Fast forward to what feels like exactly 4.3 seconds later, and here I am, looking in the mirror, watching my foundation as it takes up permanent residence in the ever increasing crevices that surround my eyes, thinking about the impending doom called menopause (while not even remotely close to retirement).

I find myself displeased at the notion that my next search on the google will include terms like: 'how to make one's face not look like the surface of the moon' and 'where to buy rubber bed sheets at 1 a.m.'.

But I'm not going to take this lying down (in a pool of my own sweat).

In fact, I'm going to file a formal complaint with the Home Office on behalf of females the world over. Feel free to peruse and add any additional grievances. I will amend prior to sending.

Dear Home Office:

Back fat should be illegal. Period. It is a particular sort of cruelty when one's back boobs are of a size to make their front boobs jealous.

Speaking of fat...pouches are for kangaroos. We are not kangaroos. There appears to have been some confusion regarding this distinction. Sort that out.

Apparently confusion is contagious as our head hair seems to have lost its way and ended up on our chins. Please advise it to return to its proper location. On its way northward, perhaps it can reverse the effects of gravity and pull our skin back up to its original location as well.

Wrinkles serve not a single purpose and are therefore completely superfluous. Kindly release from employment whoever designed them...they are inefficient and suck at life.

Adult acne. Seeeeeriously?! How is it possible to have acne and wrinkles at the same time? If it is an absolute requirement that you plague us with some sort of skin flaw...Freaking Pick One! You can't have both. That's just nonsense.

Which brings me to the girly parts.

We spend our lives hemorrhaging half to death like clockwork, often doubled over in excruciating pain, our favorite underwear running for their very lives.
​​​​​​​
And the offered reprieves?

Carry a bowling ball about for nine months and then push it out of a hole the size of a quarter (go on...do tell us about the stretching...and then kindly explain episiotomies hmmmm?).

Or...we may wait til we have wrinkles and back fat and then we can alternate between randomly hemorrhaging half to death, and stewing in a pool of our own juices whilst cooking from the inside out.

Shit options, those.

The engineer in charge of that entire debacle deserves a flogging. With tampons.

In short, we of all stages and ages of womanhood hereby demand a complete overhaul of your ridiculous system.

We look forward to an expedient resolution.

Thank you and fuck off.

:)

-Women

Ahoy!

As usual, only time for a listo. I stink.

[] Delaware has opened up vaccines for people age 50, which means Matt is eligible, and I will be eligible in 3 weeks.  The second we heard DE was booking appointments for 50 year olds, Matt jumped online and scored an appointment waaaaaay down in Laurel, Delaware, which is a 2-hour drive from here... and worth every second.  Shot #1 is in Matt's (now sore) arm.

[] I turn 50 in 3-4 weeks, so hopefully my first shot won't be too far away.

[] On 3/31/21, Hot Breakfast! will be celebrating one year of Coffee Break Concerts.... we started this ridiculousness on 3/30/20.  These one-year anniversaries are very strange. Like, "Congratulations? I guess?"  Like, obviously I wish we didn't have this event to celebrate. But since this happened, I'm very grateful to have this event to celebrate.

[] We're headed back to NJ today (Sunday) so my dad can get his 2nd shot.  We wanted to be up there just in case he has a few days of side-effects and needs to chill, we can take care of Mom.

[] Driving in LSD (lower slower Delaware) on Thursday, I saw teeeeeeeny red tips on the tree branches, which tells me that SPRING IS HERE!!  Yippeeee!! I can't wait to feel the sunlight on my face.  It's supposed to be 63 degrees all week.

[] We were supposed to have our kitchen re-done last year, but Covid put a big stop to that... but now we've restarted the process.  Our friend is doing the work (don't worry, it's his full-time job, and it's not a favor or anything), and we'll be meeting with the cabinet lady after we get back to DE next week.  She'll take measurements and do the layout, and then it'll be up to our pal to do all the work.

[] Lume deodorant the greatest stuff in the world. It is WITCHCRAFT. You can put it on any body part, and it is impossible to stink... even during these COVID times can that sometimes feature a... more... relaxed(?) shower schedule... (*whistles quietly, looks around*)

[] Jon Batiste was interviewed by Terry Gross, and it was GLORIOUS. If you have 42 minutes and need your soul jumpstarted, I highly recommend it.  It's even better if you can listen to it without doing other things, but I know that's a huge ask.  But here's the link.  

OK, I need to get on the road. 

Love you all... hope you're all safe and seeing some of the spring's new light.

xoxo!

Katie Couric:  "This member of the weasel family, whose name begins and ends with the letter E, is known for its white winter fur."

Me:  "Ermine!"

All the Jeopardy contestants:   <crickets chirping>

Me:  "C'mon, it's ermine!"

Wife:  "I didn't know that."

Me:  "But it's in the weasel family!"

Wife:  "Sorry, I married into the weasel family."

I know, I know. Banh mi literally means "bread" in Vietnamese. But we mostly steer clear of bread as a staple food, and we love banh mi. So I came up with this.

I've read that in Vietnam banh mi sandwiches are stuffed with all kinds of things. Even ice cream. Whereas I'm sure the usual filling, served as a salad, has a name of its own. But I don't know it, so.

Whatever, this is delicious.

Ingredients

• 2 heads lettuce, chopped
• 3-4 stalks of green onion, chopped
• A chopped garlic scape (green stalk) or two, if you have 'em
• 1 sliced carrot
• 1 14 oz box firm tofu, cubed
• Sliced mushrooms
• Fistful of arugula
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• Fresh basil, if you've got it
• 1 red bell pepper
• 6 tablespoons rice vinegar (it matters)
• 2 tablespoons Bragg's liquid aminos (or a smaller amount of soy sauce)
• 1 date, chopped (to balance the acid; or use hoisin sauce and ditch the Bragg's)
• A generous shake of paprika
• Black pepper to taste
• Toss in some sesame seeds

Combine and serve.

Rice vinegar seems to be the real "I am eating Vietnamese food" taste signal here, along with the cilantro.

Feel free to sub in actual onions, actual garlic, jalapenos, etc. according to your digestive capabilities.

The above would also be bangin' on actual baguette I'm sure, particularly with a little mayo. Also I haven't tried cucumber yet, which is definitely canonical.

Two weeks since I've thought about writing. I've been exhausted. I still am. But I was thinking about funerals and I wanted to write it down.

Funerals--of the everyone arriving in a car, walking through the grass to the gravsite, someone listening to the end of something on the radio. My friend Will's a few years ago was like that. My cousin's husband's, around the same time. My gradnmother's. the year I got married. The kind with a meal in a restaurant's private room afterward. With a funeral parlor. "Sherry and small talk".

The last two memorials I attended were at the same bar, in the same private room. It was just over a year ago I was at the last funeral I was at. It ended with a conga line of several of us, dressed in a variety of death drag--me in Gaiman Sandman. I put spouse in a Lyft with a dubious driver, went on to our more familiar local with my closests, and then made my way home later.

I can't imagine more of the first kind in my future. Except my father. That's what he'd want. Not so my mother. She'd want no viewing (sorry, Mom, you'll get at least a family-only. I will want to say goodbye), no speeches, and absolutely no cemetary. But all the friends, when that starts, now we've come through this (assuming we have--one more friend is COVID-positive this week, but at least three more are vaccinated) will surely be the backroom of a bar, conga line, shots variety.

I still hope mine is a garden party, with one of my besties, rolling up in a Rolls or Bentley, trunk packed with champagne and lobster.

This is a stress valley. i hope the next climb is not too steep.