Susan's Scribblings the Blog

The past week was a roller coaster. A week ago, I got a last-minute notification that I had a show in town, so I put all my other plans on hold and went, which meant I moved my Saturday plans to Sunday. Monday at work was stressful, because even though we work seven days a week, everybody waited until then to call or email and complain. Still, I kept up my diet regimen and took my vitamins, and since I have been working from home since 2020, my lucky stars have been keeping me fit.

That luck ended on Tuesday. I awoke with a dry throat, which I attributed to the changes in the weather from 50 degrees one day to just above 30 the next. The discomfort continued into Wednesday and Thursday, but no other symptoms presented themselves.

They made their debut on Friday. I called a friend of mine, to whose house I was supposed to go for holiday festivities that evening, and informed her that I felt I was not fit to go out, so we rescheduled. That added to what was already becoming a rough start to a December weekend.

Though my nose was acting as if only allergies were affecting me, nothing prepared me for what I’m calling a stealth cold. Every time I’ve gotten a cold, I have had Niagara Falls for a nose for the first two to three days. This rendition of the virus apparently likes to present symptoms in reverse order. I had two appointments on Friday, so I found myself masking up (which my doctor thanked me for when I explained why I was doing so). My nose began to run, and the sensation of a creature clawing its way up my throat began to dog the entire afternoon.

To add insult to injury, it started raining. Heavily.

I headed home and, after some deliberation, decided to run out to the pharmacy five minutes away to grab some cold medication. There was none at home; I hadn’t needed so much as a cough drop for over three years.

The morning came, and my normal Saturday afternoon plans were canceled (by somebody else), so I was stuck at home sneezing, running and feeling a bit dragged down. Most people would probably snuggle up to some hot beverages and cheesy television fare.

I decided to assemble a book shelf.

This is one of those Sauder DIY projects in a flat box with alphabetized parts, a manual and a bag of hardware. Having just finished National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) on Thursday with over 51,000 words in spite of feeling less than optimal, I figured doing something constructive surely beat sitting around letting calories permanently attach themselves like barnacles to my frame.

The instructions included a QR code and URL for a website to watch the assembly of the product. Like most determinedly dense Americans, I went old school and used just the manual. Also, the last time I assembled a piece of furniture, the people in the visual examples missed steps, and I nearly broke two glass doors which I fought World War III to get fitted.

The tools I needed to bring to this project were a measuring tape, a Phillips screwdriver (the x-shaped type), and a hammer. The instructions specified to leave power tools out of the picture, thank goodness. They don’t know that, even if I did need one, all of them are from the year zero because my father owned them, and darned if I know how to use them.

I have never seen screws and bolts like the ones in this project; they’re extraordinary inventions from the obviously brilliant minds of those whom Mensa grants a special knowledge test for admission. The stuff was incredibly easy to work with, and I managed to construct the frame and fascia with no difficulty. I slid items together and screwed prong A’s into slot B’s easily.

The back of the shelf included a folded fake woodgrain panel which needed to be unfolded and tacked down with nails. I broke out the tape measure (also my father’s) to find that it had become jammed and only extended to about sixteen inches and had torn. The adhesive he had used to reattach the tape after it had broken, dried out and snapped. Being determined to make lemonade from the lemon of a gadget, I took the partial stub of what must have been several feet of lost measuring tape and worked out the placement of the nails to hold the back onto the piece.

This is where my mother’s kitchen hammer came into the picture. It’s metal and has a handle which unscrews to reveal additional tools. She used that hammer for many little disasters in the absence of my father, and now I tapped firmly away at evenly-spaced nails, measured lovingly twice.

I ended up with four extra nails. Either the instructions were missing something, or my math sucks worse than I originally thought. However, the back is securely nailed, and with the placement of the shelf inside, I ended up with a finished project.

The day didn’t go to waste, and I have a place for more books (in the future, maybe one of mine). Meanwhile, the stealth cold seems to be powering down, and I’ll see by the morning whether the whole weekend is shot or not.

I did buy two of those shelves. . . .

It amazes me starting every Thanksgiving week that, suddenly and predictably, the population everyplace seems to explode and multiply by hundreds. Where do all these people come from, and where do they hide between January and the Monday before the turkey goes in the oven?

Starting on Black Friday, it isn’t even safe to try and find a nice parking space anyplace you frequent, because every spot is taken by an SUV, many of them from other states. I never realized so many people from Pennsylvania loved Sprouts enough to cross the bridge and visit the one that just opened in my neighborhood. All I wanted to do was buy a bunch of bananas, some mandarins and a loaf of bread, and I had to navigate around folks desperately looking to shop at Target or the liquor store. Today, I had to make my way through traffic on side streets which are normally empty but served as detours as cars were being diverted for parades, and the number of vehicles was staggering. Every car had at least two people and as many as six, including children and anxious dogs.

Fortunately I looked at my wall calendar yesterday, or I would have forgotten that I had a Saturday matinee stage show in Philadelphia. Normally I wouldn’t be out and about on Thanksgiving weekend, because it’s too hectic. The streets are crowded, and a lot of people are outside their comfort zones and have no idea where they are going, making everyday tasks more complex. Still, I managed to park and get to the theatre in good time. The house was packed, because it was the family holiday musical selection, and parents brought their kids. I was pleased to see the children in nice holiday outfits, proving that some traditions have not changed yet. And yes, the traffic in Center City was also extreme, which is why I took public transit.

The sudden surge in population clogs the airports and train stations, ties up roads and highways, spills into the outer rims of mall parking lots and snugs tightly nose to tail on small town streets in which the parking meters have been replaced by cell phone fee activation or covered in little cozy covers to make parking free and bring small business, well, business.

The first holiday weekend of the winter, blessedly, is nearly over, and the Sunday airport delays and highway traffic will go in the other direction. Soon, the kazillion people who have appeared magically in our midst will disappear again into wherever they came from until it gets closer to the four December holidays (the big ones being Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah and New Year’s, with all due respect to the other ones celebrated around the world).

Funny thing is, the day after Christmas, there is no surge in traffic; every shopping establishment is a ghost town, and their hours are back to pre-holiday early closures. It’s a complex mystery that occurs every year, and I get the chance to watch the parade of humanity rise and fall like waves in a storm.

My vehicle will stay parked in the driveway.

This Thursday, I will be preparing my first boneless roast turkey, with mashed potatoes and vegetables, and possibly a dessert. On Black Friday I will be working from home, and the schedule should be light because of the anticipated four-day weekend most people will have.

I’m lucky to be able to sit down to a nice Thanksgiving dinner. Some people won’t be able to put as much on their tables (if they own tables). So even though I have issues that go unresolved year after year, I still count myself as being fortunate.

Even though I have not had a date in ages, I’m glad I don’t have to sit at a table and pretend to be happy when children are crying and Daddy is swinging his fists at us.

Even if nobody ever glances my way because of how I look, at least I am healthy for my age, I’m clean and have all my own teeth. Some of the most outwardly beautiful people I’ve known have died young or suffer quite a few maladies on the inside where they don’t show.

Even if people don’t think I’m any fun because I don’t drink or smoke and never touched illicit drugs, at least I can find ways to be happy without any of those things.

Even if people make fun of how I live my life, at least I can close my doors and live my own way inside my own four walls. Since I’m doing nothing wrong, it has no effect on anybody but myself.

Even if people think it’s old-fashioned to be polite and say “please” and “thank you,” at least people to whom I say them seem to appreciate the gesture.

Even when I look in the mirror and think about how I was never able to coordinate everything so that I would be perfect for just one moment in time when everybody could appreciate it, at least I know I always made the effort with what I had at the time.

Many people will be lonely over the coming holidays. Even with those they have around them. A date on the calendar doesn’t make everything right for everybody. When the feast is laid out, take a moment, and remember that the least you have may be the most others can ever wish for. And be thankful for that.

Earlier today I participated in a “friendsgiving” meal with some people I don’t often get to see anymore. We’re clocking decades, and those years are no longer kind to our bodies, particularly our engines and joints, so it’s a challenge to get all of us together in one place. There is also the issue of relocation; some of our friends are not even on the same coast anymore.

We did manage seven for dinner, and we had a wonderful time.

Everybody brought something, so it was a good old-fashioned “potluck” with turkey, ham, and every side dish imaginable. I volunteered the mashed potatoes, which traveled well for an hour’s journey through the wilds of the back country and mysterious wooded neighborhoods off the usual highways and tree-barren developments. I could not imagine trying to drive a three-tier wedding cake to anyplace this easily. I kept it simple. And yes, I brought a bottle.

I was warned beforehand that finding the host’s house may be difficult for GPS. You know the experience of having your directions place you in downtown Podunk when you were headed to Upper Dopunk. My first big adventure came when I pulled over on the interstate to program the driving directions into my car’s network; as I was finishing the request, a police vehicle pulled up behind me, lights flashing. Immediately I reached into my handy purse for my driver’s license and proof of insurance, certain that I was about to be singled out for speeding. The officer informed me that he was on a call to somebody near the same mile marker who experienced a flat tire. Fortunately, that was not me, and he sent me on my way.

My route turned out to be more triangular than it needed to be, and I was driving long stretches on unfamiliar smaller routes dotted by roadside farmstands and the occasional diner or quickie mart. When driving for such lengthy periods to an unfamiliar place, the cloud of doubt descends and tries to compel you to turn back. Not me: I had two batches of fresh mashed potatoes to deliver, and by golly I was going to get there if I had to pull over and ask directions of anybody on whom I could pull up and harass.

As I began the final leg of the journey, a favorite song came over the radio, and I took it as a sign that either Jesus was taking the wheel, or my GPS system knew where we were going. In minutes I pulled up to the host’s homestead, where a few extra parked cars offered a glimmer of hope that I was actually at the right address and not Jason Voorhees’ creepy cousin.

I was welcomed with open arms and something to drink. I discovered a few new dishes, and we enjoyed a turkey sent to us by our illustrious coordinator, who unfortunately was unable to make the trip because of a sudden emergency. We did an in-person phone conference instead. Our plan is to try and pull off one more of these in the summer when conditions may be better.

Meanwhile, we reminisced about those who departed this earth–one whom we thought dead, wasn’t–and others who decided their goodbye from our company was truly the last one because of a conscious decision to disown the past. We embraced having known each other for forty years or longer, and with our good remaining years up to chance, we sat around the dining room table and simply spoke our minds, enjoyed good company and tasty food. We talked about the changes in pop culture, how our bodies are holding up to the later years, and how to take care of ourselves, our loved ones, and our homes. It was a stimulating time with wonderful people who were welcoming and forthcoming about life as it is right now. We enjoyed the chance to relax and just be ourselves for a while.

When I left to make my way home by reversing my GPS directions, I felt relaxed and fulfilled in spirit, having spent time with familiar faces. It’s something that is often missing from life today unless we use the holidays around November and December to attempt something big like this event.

I hope we get to do it again. And I know the way now.

Today I’m going to tell you a story about an amazing 11-year-old girl named Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez. During the 2022-2023 school year at F.W. Holbein Elementary School in Mount Holly, NJ, she was in the sixth grade, and had shown enough proficiency to have skipped a grade. She pursued activities such as chorus, drama, and clubs dedicated to supporting sexual diversity as well as the Random Acts of Kindness Club. She had put forth suggestions about starting a support group for victims of bullying; her idea was to form what she called a “trauma club.”

When it came to trauma, she had first-hand experience; she was being systematically bullied over a period of two school years because of her LatinX background, perceived flaws in her physical person and others’ opinions about her own sexual identity.

The incidents were documented in reports. A student placed a puddle of water on her seat to wet her lower clothing when she sat down. A teacher was present when the student drew attention to Felicia, and the class laughed. The teacher did nothing. Felicia was pushed down the stairs. Felicia was subjected to racial slurs, along with the usual bully tactical words such as “ugly.” A student put gum in Felicia’s hair, and cut a clump out. And this being the age of social media, Felicia was cyberbullied at all hours. Students also told her to “unlive herself.”

Her father ultimately lost a battle with cancer in January. Two weeks later, on February 6th–a Monday–Felicia was found at school unresponsive. She was ultimately pronounced dead two days later, cradled in the arms of her mother. Her death was ruled a suicide, with no suspicion of foul play.

The (remaining) family is filing a lawsuit against the school district, its superintendent Robert Mungo, as well as the principal and faculty who knew about the systematic destruction of Felicia’s life and failed to offer any assistance. In fact, in the two weeks between her father’s death and her own, a supposed plan to adjust Felicia’s schedule to steer her away from potential assaults by her bullies when she was likely at her most vulnerable, failed to materialize.

So life at the school is continuing as normal. In fact, the school’s homepage still bears an icon designating it as a “No Place for Hate” school by an arm of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

They certainly don’t hate bullies at F. W. Holbein Elementary School. And the bullies are now in the seventh grade.

(Sources: Burney, Melanie, “Family of 11-year-old who died by suicide say she was bullied”: Philadelphia Inquirer, November 3, 2023, page B1. Also F.W. Holbein website: https://holbein.mtholly.k12.nj.us/)

November marks the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a challenge in which participants attempt to write a 50,000 word story in 30 days. This is my attempt at completing it for the third consecutive year. I’ve kept with the tradition of the past two years by purchasing my official tee shirt saying I won, which will serve as an incentive while I work toward a daily word count of 1,667 (rounding up to avoid an evil number).

Fortunately, in the past I have gone over my count on some days, while others prove more challenging, with appointments and events scattered through the month to interfere with typing time (not the least of which is Thanksgiving). As part of my self-care daily routine, I normally solve a variety of daily online puzzles. My landscaping requires sporadic watering until the first year is over (or in cases of rain or snow), and the leaves have waited until the end of October to demand my attention. I have also committed to a gettogether with some old friends on one weekend, and a second annual trip across state on another. This means I will be writing at some odd hours, at least for me. Some folks are staying up on Halloween until midnight to get an official jumpstart to the challenge, but that won’t be me.

Meanwhile, my mind has been swimming with ideas waiting to be typed out, but I want those words to be part of my daily count, so instead of writing on my “when I think it, I write it” schedule, I’m suffering from an overstuffed brain until November 1.

I could liken the feeling of unrequited word counts to a full clothes dryer lint trap stuffed with fire-hazard fluff which also prevents a thorough dryer heating experience. However, I clean mine after every load without fail. When a repair person had to come out to replace a drum belt on the dryer, he even commented on how clean my lint trap was.

I can go to the great beyond knowing I had the cleanest and safest lint trap in the county.

Instead I should compare the excess brain stuff to the clutter that I dealt with for a week before trash collection. If you recall, I missed trash day the previous week, so everything I planned to put out had to wait to be discarded a week later. My weekly trash is usually one bucket, one box and one bag, but this week it was no bucket, three boxes and two bags. What will the neighbors think?

So I have been going through my days while living with the ideas for the start of my NaNoWriMo word count plucking at my brain; trying to mollify a complaining customer on my workplace computer while my protagonist has found a perfect reply to a secondary character’s question, and measuring cookie ingredients while the antagonist puts the heroine on the defensive. It’s a precarious load to balance.

You may say that the solution is to handwrite it down somewhere. My problem as a writer is that my brain breaks the sound barrier on the Autobahn, while my hands write at the pace of a crippled snail. I would like to journal, but the end result would be like the Rosetta Stone; it would take ages to decipher. Even I can’t read some of what I’ve attempted to write down without intense concentration. My dreams will forever be lost to unreadable scribble.

Once November rolls around, though, there will be no stopping me. My intention is to write enough to have the groundwork for three of my four stories drafted (book one is in the editing phase now).

I can then spend December recovering. And doing more laundry.

Crews were laying pipes on our side street all week (the gas company is replacing old cast iron with more durable materials), and the disruption it has caused was more than just a minor inconvenience on occasion. The usual Monday through Friday routine would be affected by the necessary closures.

My street had the privilege of getting a traffic signal a few years ago, so when the side street was closed off while the crews jackhammered their way through the fairly newer asphalt to dig up the pipes, one would simply head for the light and wait to make a turn.

In an ideal world, that is.

Several of the homes on the block house tenants on the second floor, adding to the usual parking woes on streets which were designed to hold one vehicle per house. The tenants usually obtain parking permits to be allowed to stay on the street overnight, but then the block becomes a one-way only thin strip of available navigation space.

The other day, one of the bus company’s senior and handicapped vans was pulled over to allow a resident to board with their walker. The driver parked on an angle to allow space between the curb or driveway and the first step on the van, but in doing so, she made passing impossible. Queue a driver heading toward the traffic light, who became impatient at having to wait and did not want to do a k-turn (also known locally as a “U-ie”) and head the other way, so she began yelling at the driver and poor disabled person, who were working together to get in and get going.

What alerted me to this chaos (since I was in my home office on the clock doing my job) was the sudden cacophony of raised voices coming from the street. I went to the door to check out what was happening, along with my neighbors next door, and I realized I was encountering my first Karen. She didn’t want a manager, however; she just wanted everybody to hop to it and get out of her way.

I then saw my neighbor using the walker, with whom I’ve had little actual social contact, wave his hand at the instigator, flip the middle finger and start chanting “get lost” in so many words (I don’t think I need to spell it out). The scene was so deliciously bizarre; nobody of Boomer age would have considered thinking of that particular term, let alone using it aloud, in one’s prime. But here he was, letting her have it in classic dismissive style, arms waving while the walker remained on standby at the curb. The van driver then walked over to the lady’s window and started giving her a lecture about consideration for the elderly and infirm who depend on the transportation for therapy and some quality time in the company of others. I did not see the outcome, because my next door neighbor pulled us aside and discouraged us from being gawkers. He had a point, but had a fist flew at that car window, despite my total lack of experience in such things, I would’ve been over there in a flash. That did not appear to be necessary; in minutes the block was clear again.

All this chaos because a side street was blocked.

Normally, I set my trash out the morning of pickup, but this was the first week ever that it didn’t work for me: the waste management crew, who had apparently been alerted to the situation, came early, before I had even gotten dressed, and my trash didn’t make it to the curb in time.

To add insult to injury, Mister Softee decided to take advantage of the nice weather to show up for an ice cream run. Fifteen minutes before dinner. I lay the blame upon the construction slowing down their route. So I missed trash collection, and I missed my ice cream. And I saw my first live Karen showdown.

Those new pipes better work well until I leave this earth; I don’t want to go through all this again.

I saw something new in my social media pages; a shirt which has a message like this on the back:

To the person behind me.
Your life matters.
Sincerely, the person in front of you.

There are others as well, including one which says it’s okay to just do nothing in a day, suggesting that as long as you got through it, you’re okay and can pick up again tomorrow.

All of this is designed to help with mental health or depression awareness, and lessen the staggering numbers of people who leave this world by their own hands.

I don’t know if this works as it is supposed to.

The person in front of you is allegedly a stranger, so they don’t know who you are. A depressed individual is more in need of validation from somebody familiar to them, from whom the sentiment matters. “You matter” from somebody you don’t know may have the same effect as, “That will be $10.98.”

Our awareness and actions pertaining to depression and death by one’s own design don’t seem to be helping to lessen the numbers. In 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention noted a 2.6 percent increase in self-inflicted deaths, and in 2021 there was a five percent increase. Nearly 49,050 people left this earth in that manner last year.

On the good news side of those statistics, young people ages 10 to 24 did not show up in the counts as much as before, and indigenous Indian deaths dropped by over six percent.

There is a number, 988, staffed 24 hours a day for those in crisis, but do people who are that deeply depressed going to respond to a stranger’s reassurances? Once that phone call ends, the person is back where they started from; alone with demons determined to hold them hostage and ruin their lives.

And no validation from somebody who matters to them.

The cruelest thing we do to each other is ignore. We have trained ourselves via social media and the entertainment industry to embrace the perfection behind a ton of makeup and surgery, laugh at the foibles of the “plain” folks and avert our eyes at everything else. This goes for ugly things as well, such as our growing trash problem; if we don’t look at it, maybe it will go away, we think.

Unfortunately, the things in life which are not our idealistic vision of perfection still exist, and they need tending to. The trash displacing our oceans will bring the tides up into our coastal residences, and the person we ignore just because they aren’t our ideal may end up departing this earth by themselves, or they may cause mayhem and hope the police will do it for them. People in pain need people to help alleviate that pain. This means taking the time to turn around and look at the person behind you and managing to say hello to them. That one word can make their lives matter much more than the throw-away saying on a shirt.

It came from a human voice.

It came from the heart.

And both can walk away beating a little lighter because of it.

My sun porch is one step closer to modernization. The window installers swapped out the last of the original drafty wooden versions, which opened and closed via an inset chain, for the updated energy efficient versions which work with ease.

The new windows naturally bring with them some other responsibilities, such as swapping out the old window treatments for newer ones. No woman on the planet allows a new set of windows to go without a makeover for the interior dressings. It simply isn’t in our code of womanly ethics.

Fortunately I had the perfect ones for the job. A major purchase my mother made at a now-defunct department store became lost during some housekeeping, and were forgotten. I managed to find them as I was cleaning late last summer; they had fallen behind a cabinet and disappeared into a corner behind the draperies (which could also use an upgrade, since they operate on a pulley system). I waited for the entire window installation to be completed before the new treatments were put in.

I can confidently say that the last time I had to use an iron and ironing board was during our last Republican administration. Nobody seems to need irons anymore. I needed one because these curtains were from the early 90s and had creases at least that old which had set in. Fortunately I had those and a can of sizing (which is apparently different from spray starch, the use of which has nearly completely passed into history). I spent over an hour pressing out those creases, then another half hour putting them onto the rods and installing them.

It was worth the effort; the new treatments are sunnier and brighter.

The next step is getting new window shades, which need new hardware installed, because somebody in their marketing wisdom decided to make the original design obsolete.

After that, repainting (possibly), followed by shifting furniture around and turning the area into office space for me to assume my secret identity of blogger and hopeful novelist (when I don’t have my work computer set up during the weekday hours).

When I’m finished, I should have something which will resemble a Zoom meeting background. Except my features won’t pixelate and there is no marvelous vista behind me; just a huge tree. I look forward to seeing the finished product and actually living inside it. It’s a small goal, but one which will be a joy to accomplish. At least I have curtains.

Now, about those drapes. . . .