I missed sending this email yesterday but I think it will be more sporadic from now on. Pandemic Times are just Times now!
Today it’s 73 days since we started staying at home. It’s nearly June, and everything here in Ohio and most other places is starting to reopen. Like a lot of people I’m struggling with what to do with that information. Apparently the most likely way to catch this virus is being humidified on by another person, and so the prospect of putting myself in a position to be moistened by a sick-but-asymptomatic person is less appealing than ever.
Last week a relative invited us to an outdoor family dinner and this is disappointing to me. Just because the governor or whoever has allowed restaurants and gyms and salons to reopen does not mean these things are “safe” although frankly I think working out, alone, with proper distancing and sanitizing, is probably a lot safer than going and breathing in a bunch of people’s faces for a few hours. My parents are going to go because my mom doesn’t believe in things like putting herself first or turning down an invitation for “no reason.” This gives me roughly the amount of heartburn you might imagine.
It’s mostly mild enough outside now to sleep with the windows open, and normally I really like that but this year I have not enjoyed it. For one thing, it’s been damp AF and I detest humidity no matter the temperature. Everything in the house feels clammy. For another thing…what’s with all the smells? This morning the outdoors smells like someone has been burning tires and now the inside of my house smells like that, too. Some mornings it’s skunk. One day this week our hippie-organic-feel-good lawn care company came and applied something foul to the grass and it smelled like being face first in a slightly-off supermarket mushroom assortment. I hate hot weather but once it well and truly arrives we can at least turn on the air conditioning to dry us out and de-smell the air.
I have a lot of gripes this morning, don’t I! Here are some nice things: I made pizza last night and it was good and now there are leftovers. My new eye-brightening stick arrived and I like it, although I will say that the Thrive Causemetics 10%-off-your-first-order offer is so beset by limitations that it is less than worthless. (Also, Causemetics, gag me.) Uhhh what else. I ordered The Glass Hotel and it is here and I am going to start reading it today.
Right now it’s cool and foggy outside and I have no idea what we’ll do with ourselves all weekend. I suppose if it doesn’t rain we will go on several walks, or maybe do some weeding. If it rains there is plenty of cleaning to do in our clammy house. I think my husband is going to cook steaks at some point so at least the house will smell like that for a while instead of burnt industrial runoff or whatever is hovering out there right now.