What have I done for 360 days in 2020? Looking back, a lot. With only five days to go, many might be glad to see this year go, but any year that has come to its end has much to say for itself in how we spent it. Going back over the year via what I’ve posted here, a lot happened indeed, and it was as normal or abnormal as any given year, with some added intensity from the hundred-year pestilence thrown in.
The year started out with the usual domestic comments about parking lots and beta fish with Napoleon complexes and discovering new videos on YouTube. None of that has changed, except the beta is a house guest in my home (along with his office mate) since I was compelled to relocate my job to home base on March 27. I have also found that parking is better when going to the grocery store during the early “senior and health compromised hour,” of which I am the former.
So on March 13 (yes, it was a Friday), we began this tempestuous journey of disease, its transmission, spread and (eventual) resolution. By May we could get visits from Mr. Softee, but cleaning supplies and toilet paper were hard to get.
By May my office was hopeful that it would open. Hasn’t happened yet. I had quite a bit of feedback about a post that month, because everybody was hot under the collar (finally and thoroughly) about racial injustice. Funny thing is, yesterday I got some flack about a social media vintage photo taken inside Strawbridge & Clothier–a once popular department store–which depicted a well-dressed and obviously all-white clientele; a poster suggested that I was saying there were no black executives around back then, just because I mentioned that those were different times (in so many words). I replied that there were (I witnessed them), but they obviously were not around when the photo was taken. I’m hoping the new world of equality will also mean that one doesn’t have to play verbal chess with folks looking for a soapbox to stand on: once we get our world to a “good people/bad people” state of mind, things may start working better.
In June I finally got my hair done. I would have taken my mother in with me, but she made her final stop at senior living, so it was a solo mission for me to start looking more normal again.
In June I moved a piece of furniture myself, and people were aghast. My neighbor gave me the “you should have called me to help” speech, and I told her the “I needed to do it myself” speech in return. It was my way of taking charge of my space, and I managed it just fine. Yes, I’m still redoing, re-purposing, trashing, shredding and picking my way through stuff, but that is what working and hunkering down at home has wrought. This past month, that same neighbor (bless her heart) came over and helped me with outdoor landscaping, and we put out half a dozen cans full of yard waste. I’m thinking the spring will bring a new yard to my life, to match the new inside I’m working on.
Oh, and as of June I still have not nuked my first popcorn in the new microwave yet. I have, though, discovered weighted blankets, and a new mattress, delivered after over a month of waiting, has helped.
In July I had some epic fails, made butt music with my front storm door, and began delving into more social media videos and discoveries. Over the remaining months I have managed to beat programs like The Incredible Dr. Pol to the punch and diagnose twisted cow stomachs, intestinal parasites in goats and embedded worm larvae in cat wounds, as well as freak out my own doctors in casual conversations by watching too much of Dr. Sandra Lee (aka Dr. Pimple Popper) and knowing what rhinophyma is (a skin condition common to the nose, resulting in excessive growths which need surgery to remove).
In August I played detective and figured out how to ergonomically rearrange my work-at-home space so my arms wouldn’t stop working and cause excruciating pain, and in September I baked bread. It was fun to do a no-knead dough and turn my oven into a kiln at 450 degrees to get that luscious smell of heated yeasty goodness throughout the house. I have since moved on to other breads, and a breakfast pastry is next on the list.
In November I had a birthday, and I visited the office to retrieve some more gizmos and gadgets to continue working from home in comfort. I noticed, to my dismay, that my big boss’s tree is probably going to die. It doesn’t get office light or the proper watering. All the other plants went home with their owners, and I have a half dozen happy violets at home to testify to my green thumb. I just didn’t have the strength to move that tree. Alive or dead, it was a heavy thing.
So we are finishing the year, and life came and went and got messy as it always does. 2021 will be no different. If we continue to do our part, maybe within a few more months we will see something near normal again.
If not, we can still work from home and bake bread.
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