A Very Silly Thing I Am Angsting Over

Through a combination of targeted approaches over the past six months, I feel like I have effectively reduced my overall anxiety level. I notice some anxieties no longer really bother me at all – they only linger in expectation form, like a phantom anxiety that I expect to bubble up but never does. (Perhaps this is a brand NEW anxiety, although it doesn’t ACT like anxiety.) 

Other anxieties remain. I think it is impossible to live a life 100% free from anxiety; even the most laid-back people in my life, after all, have their Things. But sometimes the things I stress about are so SILLY, worrying about them seems completely inexplicable… and yet I cannot stop bumping up against them, like a ring I twist unconsciously on my finger or a mosquito bite I can’t help but scratch. 

I am going to share the current mosquito bite with you, in hopes that a) putting it into words acts as a sort of soothing salve and b) I am not the only person who angsts over things that are ridiculous yet nonetheless persistently irritating. Please. Please. Tell me all the ridiculous things that keep you awake at night.

A bunch of my loved ones are gathering to celebrate A Momentous Occasion and I cannot join them. Out of some sort of mishmash of FOMO and Wanting To Show I Care, I suggested to the host that maybe I could supply breakfast for one morning when everyone is together. 

The host responded with positivity and gratitude. Yes, my overture would be welcome and appreciated.

Almost immediately, I regretted giving in to this generous impulse. Because I am NOT GOOD AT THIS KIND OF THING. This is a task that requires phone calls and guessing what other people might want in terms of quantity and flavor. This is a task that requires, possibly, using DoorDash or UberEats or one of the many food delivery services I have never once used in my life. This is a task that requires evaluating, based on online information, whether a caterer/restaurant/café is going to provide good food and good value. 

The Occasion is taking place in a state I have never visited. Everyone is staying in an Air BnB together. It seemed, in my head, like it would be fairly easy to order donuts or bagels or breakfast sandwiches for everyone to be delivered to the house. But I was wrong! 

My first thought was to use Goldbelly to order something. I’ve used Goldbelly for various food gifts in the past, and it always seems to work out. (Unless my parents and sibling are shielding me from the awful truth…) But a) I couldn’t find what I wanted for under $250, which was more than I intended to spend, and b) my husband thought I was a huge weirdo for choosing that option when I could just order from someplace local. 

Oh. Okay. Right. 

So I researched some local places. Is it reasonable to put all my faith in online reviews and personal reaction to company websites???? Reasonable or not, that is where I put my faith. 

The first place I called took a message and never returned my call. When I called back, they said they were in the middle of a busy period and could I call back later. The second place I called rang and rang and rang. The third place I called was an on-site caterer, and they apparently only cater to their specific site. The first place, which I called a third time, once again took my information and never called me back. 

I decided I would order from Panera, which has a simple online order form and would deliver the food for me. And also, Panera isn’t, like, special or anything, but it’s decent. However, I mentioned this plan to someone whose opinion I trust. The response was an instantaneous and very firm, “Don’t do that,” and a quick google search to locate a fourth place (well, fifth, if you count Panera, which I am not counting so I’m not sure why I’m typing this parenthetical) for me to call. 

If I could have had this friend call the fourth place for me and place the order, I would have. I was Done, Dee Oh En Ee, with this task, except I wasn’t because the only thing worse than calling yet another breakfast place was telling the host I was reneging on my offer. Don’t think I didn’t strongly consider it. 

The fourth place answered the phone! They could put together a breakfast that sounded good! And they could deliver! They quoted me a price, although they “didn’t have the price sheet in front of them, so they were just estimating” and I said let’s do this. 

I emailed the host of The Occasion and let her know what I was planning, and confirmed the correct date and time and location. She responded with a thumbs up. (Not a literal or emojical thumbs-up, but with an affirmation that I was doing something that worked with her plans.)  

It seems to me that Other People have no problem with tasks like this. Either they would call Panera from the get-go, or they would quickly and easily find the exact perfect place to order breakfast from and order breakfast from that place, or they would tell the host “sorry, it’s not working out, can I contribute another way,” or they wouldn’t offer to provide breakfast in the first place, like a chump. So part of the anxiety stems from feeling like I am making a big messy ordeal out of something that should be SIMPLE and STRAIGHTFORWARD. And the other part of the anxiety stems from fear that I am going to fuck it up somehow. 

Today, the fourth place called me and took my credit card information. The price they charged me was quite a bit higher than the quote, but at that point, what could I do? I was already locked in. The date of The Occasion is too near to go back to the drawing board, and I am too worn out from calling all these places and thinking about this for WEEKS to contemplate doing anything else. 

And now I am waiting, very anxiously, hoping that the delivery goes as planned, and the food I ordered is good, and that I ordered ENOUGH FOOD, I am not even going to TELL YOU how much I ordered or for how many people because I am so stressed about it and so worried you will say OMG SUZANNE THAT IS WAY TOO MUCH/TOO LITTLE FOOD.

I even texted a family member who will be in attendance at this Occasion, and let her know that I’d placed the order and it was all set to be delivered at a specific time and directed to the host… even though this family member did not ask for this information, or volunteer to help in any way, and I do not want to make her feel like it’s now, somehow, HER responsibility. 

Also: let me be clear. I fully realize this is not about me. The Occasion is… A Momentous Occasion for my loved one, and there is a whole big to-do going on that has nothing to do with my measly breakfast contribution, and a crappy breakfast is not going to make or break an entire long weekend of celebrating. I GET THIS. My brain understands. But my body is not on board! It is all riled up. The My Breakfast Contribution aspect of The Occasion is all I can think about! What if the food is terrible? What if it feeds only half of the guests? What if everyone gets food poisoning?! (Food poisoning could break a weekend, I suppose.) Why am I worrying about such a small slice of the overall pie of The Occasion? WHY?????? Whatever it is, it will be a blip at most. (Unless food poisoning.) (Please, God, let there be no food poisoning.)

My husband says, “It’s the thought that counts.” And. Well. Sort of? But also… I don’t want to be The Person Who Sent Shitty Breakfast (or diarrhea, which is an entirely different kind of shitty breakfast).

I should have just kept my dumb mouth shut! I should never have offered to do anything! I should have simply offered to send cash to help fund An Event! 

This is the kind of thing that is itching and ITCHING and I cannot scratch it. I want to moan about it to my husband. I want to text about it to my friends. I want to call the host of The Occasion and triple check that I got all the details right and get her to tell me that it won’t even matter if it’s crap because everyone will be drunk on mimosas, or have her tell me that a third of the guests suddenly can’t make it, or have her assure me that there’s tons of other food in the house just in case I didn’t order the right amount (HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT AMOUNT TO ORDER OMG). I want to call my family member who will be on site and ask her to text me photos. I want to FLY TO THE STATE AND BE AT THE OCCASION AND HANDLE THE WHOLE THING IN PERSON OMG.

At least The Occasion will be over soon and I will no longer be troubled by the possibilities; I will know the outcome (because you know I am going to pester my family member until I get a report), and hopefully the reaction will fall somewhere in the range of “meh, that was okay” to “well, that was a pleasant little breakfast spread!” 

At the very least, I hope no one thinks, “Wow, we should have just gone to Panera.”

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Five for Friday

It’s Friday and I am posting this on Friday, March 15; you may not see this until June for all Feedly cares, but I don’t think I have any control over that. This is kind of a cranky way to begin a blog post, so, as I say to Carla: Let’s try that again.

It’s Friday! I am coming off a night of broken sleep (child coming in at three, returning to bed around four, husband waking up for the day at five thirty), so let’s have some Friday bullets. 

1. Are you as steeped in the Kate Middleton drama as I am? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, a) bless you and b) here is a really thorough explainer. If you are In It, I highly recommend finding a friend who is similarly obsessed so you can text her memes and links to conspiracy theories at all hours of the day. My personal opinion is that Kate is recovering from surgery, probably doesn’t look or feel her best, and just wants to recover in private until Easter as previously planned and communicated by the Palace. BUT, simmering in that dark gross part of me that enjoys drama, especially when it feels very removed from my own boring non-royal life, I am kind of hoping that someone is pregnant with someone’s love child.

2. What kind of snacks do you keep stocked in your house? I ask because we have become friendly with our new neighbors and they invite us over all the time for all manner of things. While I am a little intimidated by reciprocating with A Real Meal (they are incredible cooks and bakers, and every time we’ve been invited to their house the food has been astonishing in both quantity and quality), I am ostensibly fine with having them over for drinks and snacks. The other day, the kids went sledding and we had them over for impromptu cocoa. Luckily, we had cocoa mix in the pantry, and even more luckily the mix had tiny marshmallows, and even more luckily, we had an unopened bottle of spray whipped cream because one of the neighbor kids informed me that he really likes whipped cream on his cocoa in a tone so grave I understood him to mean that something dire would happen if no whipped cream appeared. But then there are all these kids and their parent in my house and I realized I DON’T HAVE ANY SNACKS. It’s not that I don’t enjoy snacks; it’s that I enjoy them too much. We managed to scrape together some muffins I had in the freezer and some individual bags of chips and veggie straws that we had leftover from some party or other, so no one starved. But it made me feel like I need to have at least some snacks on hand. But what?!? I’m not crazy about having a bunch of cookies around, because they either go uneaten or get devoured in two seconds. If we have chips, I will eat the chips. Cheese and crackers aren’t big among the elementary school set, and it’s not like I can have an emergency brie on hand for last minute guests (or can I?). Fresh fruits and veggies, yes, great, and I try to have those around as much as possible, but we don’t eat enough of them to have a ready supply in the fridge at all times. Occasionally I panic buy a bag of clementines, but at least a third of them inevitably go bad before we can eat them. So: shelf stable snacks that appeal to kids and adults but are not so appealing that my family will eat them before we have guests. Is this a thing? 

3. In vanity news, I have been Influenced to buy several things lately. I really like this very inexpensive multi-use highlighter stick. Of course I cannot find the video that originally persuaded me that this was an essential tool in my (non-existent) makeup game, but I like dabbing it on the inner and outer aspects of my eyes and swiping it below my eyebrows for a little bit of lively glow. Totally worth $2.94. The other thing I’ve already tried enough times to recommend it is this bronzing mousse. The weather is edging ever closer to summer, and I don’t want to scare the new neighbors with my fish-belly legs, so I’ve been practicing in the hope that I can add a little lifelike color to my skin before I appear in public in running shorts. I am always on a quest for the perfect fake tan, and this is the closest I’ve gotten. The things I like best about it are: a) It’s dark when it goes on, so you can SEE where you are applying it, and you can also see if you are introducing streaks to your thighs or stomach before the streaks have become one with your skin. b) While it has a scent, as all tanning products inevitably do, it strikes me as much fainter and less objectionable than any other tanning product I’ve ever used. c) The resulting tan is darker than my normal skin tone, but not so dark that it screams FAKE TAN. (I use this tanning mitt to apply it to my body which works really well and helps prevent streaking.) Once again, I have no idea which account suggested this tanning mousse, but I am a fan.

4. One of my current parenting goals is to provide more opportunities for Carla to spend time with her friends. I think I’ve mentioned before that I hate playdates. They fill me with anxiety, because they are both forced social time – sometimes with parents I don’t know well – and because I have no idea how to deal with more than just my one child. For better or for worse, that’s just how I am, and so we haven’t had a ton of playdates. But now that Carla is older, playdates presumably no longer require that social element AND the kids are old enough that I can give them a lot more independence. I used to agonize over how I was going to entertain two whole children, and so I’d gravitate toward things in my comfort zone, like baking projects or crafts. Unfortunately, those things require a lot of prep and supervision and clean up, so they aren’t relaxing or easy. But now I can pretty much let the kids go off and play together. Sometimes we all take a walk outside, and I’m always happy to take a walk, even if the kids ask me to pretend I’m not with them.

Even though playdates are, in many ways, easier now, I still of course have anxiety about them. I find myself fretting about planning An Activity, just in case. I find myself worrying about what happens if the kids get into a fight or misbehave or want food (it always comes back to snacks!) or want to be on screens the whole time.

This is so silly! When I was a kid, I don’t think my friends and I EVER had An Activity. We just went and played Barbies or roller skated in my basement or played school or ran around outside or played house. I can’t even imagine asking my mom or a friend’s mom for ideas. And snacks were not provided by the parent! We scrounged up our own snacks, and I don’t even remember a parent being present for any snacking. In fact, part of the fun of going to someone’s house was checking out their snacks. (Not as fun: eating any sort of meal at a friend’s house, because they had different foods than I was used to and different rules. THAT filled me with anxiety.) I loved my friend J’s house because they had an entire drawer full of candy, and you could just… eat candy when you wanted to! J, notably, was pretty uninterested in the candy. I loved my friend R’s house because her garage freezer was STOCKED with popsicles. At my house, we always had little bags of chips or Zingers in the pantry and Dilly Bars in the freezer and pickles in the fridge. (R and I used to each eat a pickle when we were at my house.) So I am guessing that kids DON’T CARE either what they do or what they eat at playdates. They will figure it out. And yet. We have two playdates on the schedule in the next few weeks and I am already stressing about it. I am planning to be Mean Mom and put a ban on screens, but beyond that… I don’t know what to do or what not to do. Wow, I wish I could chill out about this. 

5. You know something that always feels like magic to me, even though it’s science? Topology. Various algorithms keep serving me videos of topological experiments – because I keep watching them when they appear in my feed – and my mind cannot grasp the mathematics/physics. My dad taught Carla how to make a mobius strip and even seeing him create it with my own eyes doesn’t help me understand how or why it works. It’s witchcraft.

What are you up to this weekend, internet? And, more importantly, what kind of snacks will you be eating?

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Three Things Thursday

Let’s face it, Three Things Thursday is just Randomosity in a different jacket. 

Tonight is the last night of NaBloPoMo, and I am here not through gumption or grit but through gin. 

1. Kids and Homework: My daughter attends a cushy private school and this is the first year that she has had homework. (I know.) (I was a public school kid; it is very different.) Being a parent while your child works on school projects is its own kind of challenge. You want to be supportive but also encouraging. You want to make sure your kid does their assignments but you want them to have their own autonomy and also you don’t want to exert undue pressure. You want to be available to offer help or support but you don’t want to hover. IT IS VERY CHALLENGING. My husband came to the dinner table tonight and hissed that one of the sentences my daughter wrote didn’t make sense, and he tried to talk it through with her, and she decided to leave it as it was. As a Straight A Student, Ivy League Educated Physician, this is VERY DIFFICULT. But. As his mother kindly pointed out: It is our job as parents to support and encourage. It is the TEACHERS’ job to correct and instruct. 
2. Cooking for Not My Immediate Family: I made salmon and green beans and potatoes. I followed a recipe. Everything was cooked but it was not great. My husband, who is to-a-fault honest about these things, gave a shoulder-shrugging “meh” when I mouthed “how is it?” across the table to him. And, sadly, I agree. I HATE THAT. I want to be The Best Cook. I want my in laws to go home and talk about my cooking. I want them to request my recipes. I want my mother-in-law to brag about how great a cook her daughter-in-law is when she plays majohng. But the truth is, I am a mediocre home cook. My husband and I have a few recipes we jointly love, and the rest are just meh or winging it. And that’s got to be okay, even if it hurts my ego. The other problem I have is in not having ANY CLUE how much food to make for more people than my husband and myself. I think he and I tend to eat pretty giant portions, so maybe that skews things? But I made WAY too much food. Like, we are going to have to eat multiples of this exact same (mediocre) meal before all the leftovers are gone too much food. I have literally no idea how to figure out the right amount of food to cook. Recipes are no help. One person’s six portions is another person’s three.
3. Introverting Hard: Tonight, my husband was falling asleep, my father-in-law was falling asleep, and my mother-in-law was on the phone, so I nudged my husband and told him I was going to bed. Yes, it was 9:10 pm. He narrowed his sleepy eyes at me and said, “But you aren’t really going to bed, are you.” This is after having come into our bedroom last night 45 minutes or so after I’d excused myself to go to bed, and I was sitting in our bedroom typing on the computer. I NEED TIME TO MYSELF, MAN. How does he not know this, after 15 years of marriage and 22 years of being together???? I am worn out! The thing is, I had a FABULOUS day. My in laws were out of the house all day, doing whatever it is they do when they visit. My husband was able to pick up my daughter from school. I had nearly unadulterated alone time from 9:00 to 5:00 and it was BEAUTIFUL. So why, after a mere two hours with my in laws, am I ready to throw in the towel and secrete myself away in my bedroom? Because I am the introvertest of introverts, I guess. 

Well. That’s all I’ve got tonight, Internet. Thanks for sticking with me, these past 30 days of NaBloPoMo. I cannot promise to post tomorrow, but I am sure I will be back soon with inane topics to discuss. In the meantime, I appreciate you for reading. And thank you, so much, to San for leading the charge.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was a day of prep work: The (perfectly sized) turkey was brined and is now resting in the basement fridge. The cornbread was procured after making three trips to two grocery stores (but I had to go back to the first store, when they’d replenished their cornbread stock; yes I realize this is something I can make myself). I made the first step of the gravy with the turkey neck and giblets yesterday. The cranberry sauce (round 2, after the first one burned; I really should not be in charge of big complex meals like this) is chilling in the kitchen fridge, along with the beautiful, disaster-free fresh-pumpkin pie my mother and daughter made. Carla is itching to peel potatoes today, a job I will happily relegate to her.

But for now, I am having a quiet moment to sip tea and look over my recipes in hopes that I don’t forget anything. Thankfully, with four helpers on hand, I think we’ll be okay. (We are kind of smushing two turkey recipes together, because my mother thinks that we cannot cook a turkey at 400 degrees despite America’s Test Kitchen’s assurances; we will follow another of ATK’s recipes and start it at 425 for an hour, then turn it down to 325. WE’LL SEE HOW IT GOES.)

I am loving your guesses about yesterday’s kitchen mystery. I wondered, before I posted it, whether it would be a True Mystery or whether it would be easy to decode. The post explaining the full story is half-written but will have to wait until after Thanksgiving. (If you haven’t guessed yet, the Mystery Giveaway runs until tomorrow at midnight Eastern time.)

And thank you to Bibliomama for reminding me that a photo counts as a post.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating, and best wishes for a beautiful day to all those who aren’t. I am so grateful for our little blogging community.

It seems as though I am doing NaBloPoMo this month, which is 30 blog posts in 30 days. (Will I make it??? Only time will tell.) Details at San’s blog here.

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Friday Randomosity: Life Lately Edition

A bunch of random little things have been collecting in my brain, so let’s get them out of my head and into some bullets. 

• I have lost my list. 

• Inspired by NGS, I am wearing a scarf today. It’s one of my favorites – and something I “inherited” from my husband’s grandmother, who was stylish until her final day. I don’t know that I am quite pulling it off the way NGS does, but sometimes you have to fake it til you make it.

• I just spent… well, far too long trying to photograph myself in the scarf without getting my face in there. That leads to some very unappealing angles, so you’ll just have to picture whatever it is you think I look like with a royal blue scarf tied untidily around my neck.

Here it is, on my bed and not on my person.

• Carla has begun keeping a list of license plate numbers when we drive around. I do not know why, except that I think she finds them interesting? I didn’t know she was doing this until the other day when she asked to read them to me. “Sure,” I said, figuring that she’d copied down interesting personalized plates, like U R L8 or GZUS LRD. No. She read me off a series of letters and numbers. RDP 7791. SST 9494. JTI 0138. You get the idea. Then last night she asked me if she could read them to me again, and – not wanting to express any less enthusiasm than her newfound interest deserves – I said, “Why don’t you read me the ones you’ve written down since last time?” She was amenable to this plan, and read each series of letters and numbers off with gravitas. I am not quite sure how to respond, or how she expects me to respond, so I tried to say things like, “Oh wow, that’s a good one.” or “Nice! You don’t see X very often!” 

• If it is not clear, I find Carla’s license plate obsession as adorable as I do perplexing. 

• We are (maybe?) getting the dinner situation under control. It works like this: I make a “real” dinner Tuesdays and Thursdays. Maybe Saturdays and Sundays, too, who knows. But Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we all kind of fend for ourselves. For me, this means making a big batch of soup on Sunday or Monday and eating it all week. Or a pot of black beans, and then making tacos for myself. My husband asked me to buy him ham and bread, for sandwiches. We’ll see if this works better than me trying to cram a crockpot meal in every other day. 

I may make this enchilada soup next week. It’s such a perfect fall soup.

• (Things have been different since we have visitors. I have been making more Real Dinners for us to eat together, although our guests seem a little flummoxed by how varied our eating schedule is.)

• Speaking of food (which I always am), the Guinness beef stew I made this week was SO GOOD. First of all the recipe includes instructions for how to make it in the slow cooker, so I did that. But… those instructions basically say throw all the ingredients together in the slow cook and I did not do that. I seared the meat and cooked the onions/garlic as well, before adding those things to my crockpot. I don’t know if the flavors would be the same without, but maybe I’ll try it next time because I really hate searing meat. It takes forever and my arms, stove, and floor get speckled with hot oil. The recipe calls for carrots and potatoes. I used baby potatoes and I didn’t chop ANY of them (which may have been a mistake, but oh well). My husband also requested parsnips, so I added a couple of those. And since he was getting parsnips, I also added a container of quartered mushrooms, for me. Then I think I panic-poured a cup or two of chicken stock into the crockpot, in addition to the quart of beef stock, because I was afraid I had over-veggied. My only complaint was that it lacked salt: I poured in a big glug of soy sauce toward the end, and then I had to salt and pepper my bowl of stew. But no one else felt it was under-salted, so maybe it was a Me Thing. The leftovers were better than the initial night. This is a keeper.

• Also, I made a green bean dish to go with tacos one night, for our family member who is pre-diabetic. It was a HUGE hit. Not with me; there is an entire tomato in it. Not Carla; the veggies were cooked, and she is a raw veggie purist. But everyone else loved it. Bonus: it was extremely easy to make. So it will definitely be something I make again.

• Our guests are staying until next Friday, when their local airport reopens, which is conveniently the day that our next set of guests arrives. (So far, it seems like the hurricane spared their home, which is extremely fortunate. They were so smart to leave when they did.)

• Carla just walked into the kitchen and said, “WHAT are you doing?” Um, making breakfast? “No, I mean, WHY are you wearing a SCARF?” I can wear a scarf. It’s a perfectly normal accessory. “But it’s so BLUE. And it doesn’t go with the navy.” (I am wearing dark jeans.) Oh, who knew the critical eye would develop so early! 

• Do you want to see the cute little challah Carla made? She did all the work – rolling out the separate strands, braiding the strands together, figuring out how to stuff it into a six-inch cheesecake pan I have. It was light and delicious and super adorable, even though we clearly used a much-too-small pan for it.

• Despite the fact that I have lost my list, I have been chipping away at it. I’ve even made some of the phone calls on the list, which I hope you know by now is A Feat. But the problem with phone calls is that sometimes that’s not the end of the task. One call I made was to our bank, which is just… the most frustrating bank in the WHOLE WORLD. And I left a measured (I hope) but irritated message on the guy’s voicemail, and then he called me back at the exact moment I was in another call, so I couldn’t answer. He left no message at all, so I guess I have to call him back. ARGH. 

• Speaking of phone calls: I had a very perplexing set – yes, set – of phone calls with Dairy Queen. My husband wants an ice cream cake this year – or, at least, that was one of two cake options he offered me and it was the one I didn’t have to make, and you know that cake baking is one of my love languages, so I think this is a good indication of the current stress/busyness level around here. So I asked Siri to call Dairy Queen while I was driving from the grocery story to pick up Carla from an activity. The person who answered was unintelligible, so I asked, “Is this is Dairy Queen on street and street?” and she said, “Nah.” So I hung up and looked up the number for the DQ I wanted (when I was parked), and oh look, it is the same number I just called. So I called back. Same person answered, still unintelligibly. Did Google simply have the number wrong? Had the DQ closed without my knowledge? “I am trying to call Dairy Queen?” I said hopefully. “This is Dairy Queen.” Phew. “Oh good, I would like to order an ice cream cake.” The person asked if I could hold on for a moment. Sure. I sat on hold for 56 seconds, and then the call disconnected. I called back. “I am just trying to order an ice cream cake!” Another brief hold, and then finally I was able to place the order. Then the person said, “What time do you want to pick it up?” I said sometime in the morning? Eight o’clock? “Oh, you can’t do that.” Oh, okay. Nine? Ten? What time do you open? “We don’t open until eleven o’clock.” Okay great, eleven o’clock it is. “You can’t do that.” WHAT TIME SHOULD I COME GET THE CAKE. “Well, we open at eleven but the cake won’t be ready until one.” Great. See you at one. 

• I rarely go to Target these days because it so unpleasant inside (the latest time was no different; they clearly do not have enough staff to fold/tidy the clothing areas or to work more than one register at a time), but there was additional unpleasantness awaiting me in the parking lot! (Confidential to Nicole: LOOK AWAY.)

Someone left their cart not just in a parking space, not just in a parking space RIGHT NEXT TO a cart return, but also touching my car. No damage except to my sense of humanity’s capacity for good.

• Did I tell you about the bees? We have a nest of bees in/on our chimney. Currently, so far, the nest seems to be on the outside of the chimney, but I can hear them buzzing while I am inside, which is Very Worrisome. Also, they are technically yellowjackets. And also also I want them to GO AWAY.

• I have been in sort of a fiction lull lately. I am in the middle of a book, but I’m not loving it. I’m not disliking it, either, but it doesn’t pull me. I have been reading some non-fiction lately though. Most recently, I’ve been enjoying The Family Firm by Emily Oster. (Thanks to Lisa for mentioning it in my post about extracurriculars!) Oster just seems so soothing and balanced and her advice seems to great. The book is about making decisions for your family (when to give your kid a cell phone? is this extracurricular worth pursuing? etc.) the way a company would make business decisions, and I really like it. It makes me want to go back ten years and have some of these conversations with my husband BEFORE we had Carla. But I guess sometimes you plan ahead and sometimes you just muddle through, and we’ve really been doing a lot of muddling in the realm of parenting choices. Anyway, I am finding it really eye-opening and I hope I can remember to apply some of her advice to future major decisions. 

Every surface of my bedroom features similar piles of books.

• Fall is upon us, and the trees around here are very very slowly beginning to don their autumn finery. We’ve had a ton of rain (though no hurricanes, for which I am thankful) but today we have sunshine, and I think we’re supposed to have sun all weekend. I hope we can spend some of it outside! Carla would be happy just sticking around our neighborhood; one of the neighbors has a new puppy! 

• Related: OCTOBER BEGINS TOMORROW!

• Have you gotten your flu shot yet? I haven’t, but I want to. Carla has a doctor’s appointment today and I’m going to see if they can sneak a flu shot in as well. She will not be pleased, but it sounds like we’re in for a nasty flu season and I want our family to be as protected as possible.

That’s all I’ve got today, Internet. I need to go make yet another phone call. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and dry, and that you have a happy weekend ahead of you.

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Calcium Again

The other day, Carla had a very specific request for dinner: “May I please have a bowl of white [iceberg] lettuce and a separate bowl of [shredded] cheese and another bowl of tomatoes so that I can put them together and make a salad?” 

Sure, child. Why not. 

I mentioned a while back that we are trying to increase Carla’s calcium intake. And by “we” I mean “me” because my husband seems wholly unconcerned by the issue. Not in an “I’m a Physician and Am Unworried” way, but in a “this is not my problem” way ARGH. And a teeny bit in a Thwarting Efforts way. My father (ALSO a physician) suggested we simply give Carla some Tums (calcium carbonate) and so I suggested to my husband that he grab a roll of Tums next time he was at the grocery store. He said a) we already have Tums at home and when I brightened and said “Oh! We can give Carla those!” he said no, that those Tums were for acid reflux. Blink. Blink blink. 

All of this is to say that I am continually working on getting more calcium into Carla. 

Smoothies, as I think I mentioned before, seemed like the perfect vehicle. Especially considering that Carla likes smoothies, and dislikes most other things. 

But there have been two problems.

1. She hasn’t been in the mood for smoothies. Almost every day I say, “You’re going to have a smoothie for breakfast!” and she says, “No.” And then I argue with her a little bit, and make pleading noises about calcium intake, and she remains firm, and I give up. Because I am not going to waste a smoothie on her when she is clearly going to Stand Firm. And I get it! I like… chili, but I don’t want to eat it every day. If you told me chili had specific life-extending properties, I would still have a hard time drumming up enough enthusiasm to eat it every day. So I get it. I do. But also: JUST DRINK A SMOOTHIE.
2. Smoothies do not contain as much calcium as I think. I made one for her with 1/4 cup of yogurt, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1/2 cup calcium-fortified orange juice, and 1 cup frozen mango chunks. That makes a LARGE cup of smoothie. And it contains about 40% of a person’s daily calcium. Sigh. It’s a big swoop forward on the calcium-intake-o-meter, but it’s not even halfway, and HOW do I get the rest of the way EVERY DAY?

I wonder if I could mix Carnation Instant Breakfast (200 mg calcium per packet) into her smoothies? 

I found a recipe for frozen yogurt treats that I might try. I broached the idea to Carla and she was a little suspicious, but it would be worth trying at least. Maybe I could mix some Carnation Instant Breakfast into some yogurt and pipe it onto cookie sheets and freeze it? I may give it a try.

I have been Googling like crazy, but the food sources of calcium seem to have so little (50 mg here, 125 mg there – and that’s for a FULL serving of foods she DOESN’T EAT), that it seems impossible to get them to add up to 1300 mg per day. And there is a lot of pooh-poohing of calcium supplements. I get it. I understand that most vitamins don’t have a whole lot of calcium anyway, and that you need to be taking Vitamin D as well so that you can properly absorb your calcium. But it would be really useful to just give Carla a chewable something and be done with it. There are Reasons that I don’t want to get the Viactiv chews (650 mg calcium per chew), but maybe I need to get past them. 

I know I tend to catastrophize. I know I do that. But I keep picturing Carla as an adult, with bones that shatter at the least provocation, and her wan little face asking the heavens, “Why, God, why did my mother not force me to get enough calcium when I was small? Why?” 

Now I understand why my parents were so adamant about me drinking a FULL GLASS of milk every day. (A cup of milk is only 300 mg!)

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Dinners This Week, Gratitude/Anxiety

We are having an especially long weekend, what with Rosh Hashanah following Labor Day. That’s just one thing I am feeling thankful for, this morning. I am also thankful for the beautiful weather – sunny and warm-but-not-hot, with that characteristic rim of cold on the edge of the breeze that signifies the beginning of fall. We have had a lovely weekend so far – I saw a dear friend on Saturday for my second-since-the-pandemic-began attempt at dining at a restaurant (we ate outside and sat at a table that was blissfully distant from any other diners), Carla stayed home with a babysitter (a vaccinated student at Carla’s school who was one of her counselors at camp this year) and had a blast, and then the three of us went to a friend’s house for (outdoor) dinner, which was so so lovely. (This particular friend is an amazing cook.) (Also I still feel compelled to note that everyone is vaccinated except the kids, all of whom attend the same school anyway.) I am thankful that I got to go to a salon and have a professional dye my hair for me, and that she also kindly offered to trim my single, enormous white eyebrow hair. My husband is no longer on call as of this morning, for which I am DEEPLY grateful. And tomorrow, Carla and I will have the house to ourselves as my mother-in-law undergoes surgery. I am grateful for the alone time, but I am also grateful that my mother-in-law is getting such quick treatment. If you can spare some good thoughts for her, please do; we are all expecting the best, including her doctors, but obviously we are all also QUITE ANXIOUS. 

I am grateful, but anxious. While it felt so wonderful to see friends and do “normal” things this weekend, I still get this breathless giddy feeling of getting away with something. And then comes the worry that we are pushing too far, doing too much. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

I am grateful that we can provide a home base for my in-laws while they are in town, that we can offer comfort and love and support while my mother-in-law is preparing for surgery and recovering from surgery and determining next steps. But I am not accustomed to extra people in my home. I feel like all I do is vacuum and wash dishes and scrub counters and tidy and unload the dishwasher and prepare meals and clean up after meals. I cannot tell you how many times I have buffed the stainless steel into a mirror sheen this past week.  Why a gleaming refrigerator should do anything to soothe my anxiety is beyond my powers of comprehension. My mother-in-law, bless her, always offers to help with food prep and clean up. But even as I want help, I DON’T; I want to do it my way, and we have very different ways of doing things and I feel like I get (gentle, well-meaning) push back when I try to explain my preferences. And beggars can’t be choosers, right? Why should I even have preferences when the help is being offered? 

I am trying – really, really trying – to be laid back, to go with the flow, even though those things are contrary to my nature. Even though my means of restoring equilibrium is to be alone with my thoughts for long hours. Right now – with Carla crafting ten feet away, her audiobook playing another endless round of Socks by Beverly Clearly – is as close to “alone” as I can get these days.   

And, of all people, this period in our life affects me least. Everyone is worried, everyone is stressed. My in-laws are living out of their suitcases, worrying about my mother-in-law. My husband has been working nonstop for the past seven days; he too is an introvert who needs time alone; and this is his mother who is undergoing surgery and perhaps other adjuvant therapies. My daughter, accustomed to our quiet, three-person home, has had her routine – freshly readjusted, now that school has begun – upended yet again, and she too is worried about her beloved grandmother. My father-in-law was set for knee surgery when my mother-in-law’s health needs popped up; he’s climbing up and down our stairs every day on a bum knee, having to stuff his own pain and health concerns down while he worries about his wife of fifty years. 

Well. I am trying to be a good host, a good daughter-in-law. Trying to be welcoming, and warm, and doing what I can to make the house comfortable and to address my family’s needs. 

The main thing I have control over is food. Which brings us to dinners this week. 

THANK YOU, by the way, for all your suggestions about what to feed my houseguests. I have been asking literally everyone this past week what they serve to houseguests, and I have discovered two things: 1. Talking about food is, for me, endlessly fascinating. 2. It is very hard to turn wonderful, delicious-sounding suggestions into usable options for my particular family. (My in-laws don’t really eat pasta; I hate tomatoes; my husband and his whole family don’t really think of soup as a meal.) 

I still LOVE to hear suggestions, though. And want to visit ALL OF YOU so that you will make me your delicious houseguest meals. Please and thank you.

Here’s what I’ve come up with for this week. 

Dinners for the Week of September 6-12

Hamburgers: For Labor Day. Burgers are easy and everyone will eat them. My husband wanted potato salad from the grocery store, so I got some. I have the ingredients for my favorite chickpea salad, which I prefer to potato salad, and may or may not make it for myself (and whomever else wants it). We have no dessert, but I could whip one up if necessary; I even have a box of brownie mix if it comes to that. (I happen to love brownies from a mix.)

Lebanese Chicken with Charred Cauliflower: I may attempt to make this for the family, although I tend to avoid experimenting with new recipes on my poor unsuspecting in-laws. It sounds yummy and fairly easy, and I am fueled by Nicole’s love of cauliflower to eat more of it.

Steak and Potato Skewers with Rosemary Chimichurri: I made this once before and it was yummy (and surprisingly easy). 

Charcuterie Board: These are SO fun to put together and I tested the idea with the family and everyone was receptive. I have happy anticipation at the prospect of searching through the grocery store for fun little treatsies to include on the board.

TAKEOUT. God bless all the restaurants that offer wide ranging options and delicious food.

What are you eating for dinner this week? 

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Dinners This Week, Fretting About Visitors

Everything continues to grow more terrible and worrisome in the world and I hope you and your loved ones are safe, healthy, and coping okay. 

Here, I am dealing with my own very-small-in-the-grand-scheme frets and stresses, including, as always, what to feed my family.

I had dinners for the week all planned out as of LAST MONDAY and was feeling very smug about the whole thing… but now my in-laws are coming for an unspecified amount of time, and they are staying with us, and so that whole list is OUT THE WINDOW. For one thing, I do not want to experiment with new dishes when it not just my very forgiving, very agreeable husband who is trying them with me. For another, having guests is so stressful that I want EASY and prep-ahead-able. 

I have not come up with much, let me tell you. I think my plan is going to be “mainly takeout.” But there are a couple of nights where that is just not possible, because we have Evening Commitments. 

Oh, I guess now I am going to do some fretting.

My husband asked his parents if there were any things we could get at the grocery store, to have for them to eat while they’re here. They requested milk and cereal, which are obviously things I am happy to provide… But… what else??? What do they eat for lunch??? I feel like I have purchased deli meat in the past, so that they could have sandwiches, and it ended up going bad and I had to throw it away. But I think they were staying at a hotel, which makes it much easier to go grab lunch elsewhere. I don’t know if they will be meeting friends for lunch while they are here (which ACK is a Whole Other Topic that makes me very nervous, because I think we all have very different ideas of what it means to “be careful” during a pandemic ACK ACK ACK), or if they just assume that we will have lunch meat in the fridge? But we don’t EAT lunch meat. Why am I spending an entire paragraph fretting about lunch meat? Should I just go get some ham and turkey and plan to throw it out? Probably the cost would be worth ridding myself of this particular anxiety. 

Currently, the plan is that my in-laws will be leaving the day before Labor Day, which is two days before Rosh Hashanah, so ostensibly I do not have to plan Labor Day/Rosh Hashanah meals for them. BUT they are here for health reasons, and so it’s possible that they will change their departure date. Which means I may have to plan Special Meals at the last minute. Obviously, I do not want to do that. I fretted about the Labor Day point to my husband, and he said, “hotdogs and hamburgers, done” and that made me feel MUCH better. So I guess Labor Day is taken care of. I do not even KNOW what to make for Rosh Hashanah, because I am not Jewish. I suppose I could make a brisket, but I don’t like brisket, nor do I know how to cook one. Okay. I am going to think about this later. 

While I am glad that we can host my in-laws while they are dealing with the health stuff, and obviously volunteered to have them come stay with us, I am still stressed about it. Having extra people in my space is never easy. And it has gotten LESS easy since the pandemic. 

Also did I mention that this is a Call Week? Which means my husband will be working longer and more unpredictable hours? 

Well. We do what we can. 

Dinners for the Week of August 30-September 5

• Mahi Mahi in Lemon Garlic Cream Sauce with Sautéed Zucchini: This is a new-to-me recipe, but it’s one my husband sounded interested in, so I put it immediately on the list.
• Tacos: This was Carla’s request for Tuesday, and I need an easy meal for Tuesday, and my in-laws seem fine with tacos, so done and done.
• Crockpot BBQ Pork Tenderloin with Coleslaw and Roasted Potatoes: This is for soccer night, when Carla has practice during the dinner hour. I got some slider buns for the people in my family who like sandwiches (not me), and some pre-shredded cabbage, and some baby red potatoes. Easy to put together, and the potatoes can roast while we put Carla to bed. 
• Grilled Pork Chops with Some Sort of Vegetable: Pork chops were on sale. I will deal with the vegetable later. Probably corn on the cob or zucchini. I do need to go refill our propane tank for the grill, though.
• Takeout: Bless all those hardworking people in the restaurant industry. I plan to lean on their services a LOT this week. 

I am also going to make my favorite plum cake at some point this week. Because we haven’t had it this summer, and I feel like it is a quintessential summer food, and because cake is such a soothing, comforting food.

What are you eating this week, Internet? And what are the go-to meals you feel houseguests? 

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Dinners This Week, Grocery Shopping Pathology, Prescription Problems

Today started with a bunch of pharmacy nonsense and a trip to the grocery store, so you will forgive me for being a little cranky. I called the doctor last Thursday to refill a prescription – one needed daily – and it hadn’t been filled as of yesterday, so I called back yesterday. (“Hmm. I don’t know what happened,” said the nurse, which is not really a confidence builder.) And when I called the pharmacy this morning to check on the prescription, it was not there. Today was the day of the final dose of the medication, so I was beginning to get a little panicky. So I called the doctor AGAIN, and spoke to the nurse AGAIN, and she informed me that the prescription had been called in, and gave me specifics as to time/date, and so instead of CALLING the pharmacy again, I drove there and waited in line at the drive-through.

The pharmacy tech was very nice but – even though the prescription was called in yesterday morning, which seems like plenty of time to have it ready and waiting – she had to go through some rigamarole known only to her to figure out what I was talking about. And then she said, “Oh, it’s too early for you to get the refill.” Um. What? We had a very confusing exchange, with her telling me it was only a 30-day supply and that it was too soon for me to get the refill. When a) I am 100% sure that the bottle was empty as of this morning and b) there were only 30 pills in the bottle to begin with, and yet I know there have been some occasions that the daily dose wasn’t taken for Reasons, so we have surely had the bottle for more than 30 days. She asked if I had the bottle in front of me, to look at the date I picked it up. Well, NO. I did not bring an empty bottle with me to the pharmacy. Oh, okay, she would look at her computer. (Sigh.) She kept insisting that it was a 30-day supply, and it had last been filled on September 28, and I kept insisting that September 28 was MORE than 30 days ago, and then we finally figured out that she thought it was October 10, not November 10. DEEP BREATHS. 

But then, of course, she couldn’t give me the prescription right away. So I left without it and will have to make another trip to the pharmacy to pick it up FUN TIMES EVERYONE. 

It all turned out okay – I mean, presumably; I don’t actually HAVE the prescription in my hands yet – but it reminded me of a million years ago when I was pregnant and was trying desperately to get a refill of Zofran – which was absolutely the only way I could get through the work day. And the prescribed amount – I don’t remember exactly, but let’s say it’s three pills a day – worked out to be 90 pills to cover 30 days of violent nausea, and yet the 30-day supply that insurance would cover was something like 45 pills. So, half of what you needed in order to follow the doctor’s orders. And you could go around insurance and get more, but it would cost nine billion dollars. I am willing to bet that I am exaggerating slightly. Then, like today, the medicine was really, really important to day-to-day functioning, but was not like, critically important to the point of keeping someone ALIVE, so it felt almost greedy to be asking for an appropriate doctor-prescribed supply. Today’s experience, until we discovered that the pharmacy tech was a little off in terms of her place in time (and who can blame her?), reminded me of that awful feeling of, “But these pills are NECESSARY” and not knowing how to get around it. Anyway, I hate dealing with medications and refills and pharmacies and it is all terrible. 

You can imagine that I wasn’t in the most festive of shopping moods after the pharmacy hoopla. The grocery store experience has become much more routine for me, for which I am grateful. But continued random shortages – cleaning supplies are still extremely difficult to come by, and today the frozen breakfast food supply was very picked over – plus ongoing pandemic uncertainty makes shopping super uncomfortable. 

This is not a new realization, nor is it unique to me, but today it was more clear than ever that this pandemic has completely changed how I think/feel about grocery shopping. The fear that I am going to be stuck at home for an unspecified amount of time without access to a grocery store, coupled with the fear that, at any moment, some household staple will be suddenly unavailable for an unspecified amount of time, has become pathological. For instance, I passed an end-cap of flour, which was ON SALE for the first time since the pandemic began. And I had to have a very long, calming, frightened-pet-hiding-under-the-porch talk with myself about how I have plenty of flour at home and I can, fortunately, afford to pay a higher price for flour should this be the only time it ever goes on sale again, and there are other places that sell flour should it become unavailable at this particular grocery store, and I can, in fact, live entirely WITHOUT flour if I need to. I managed to talk myself down from piling on-sale flour (ON SALE) into my cart, but it took a bit. 

I was NOT able to talk myself out of grabbing two more cartons of chicken stock, which I don’t think has ever been in short supply, and which can be MADE at home, and which can be substituted with lots of alternatives. But it was on sale and I use chicken stock a lot and knowing that I have FIVE (5) quarts of chicken stock at home just didn’t make me feel as good as buying two additional cartons. 

I had a very panicked few minutes looking at chicken nuggets in the freezer aisle. Carla’s main source of protein is chicken nuggets, and listen, we can all discuss why that’s probably something I should work on changing at a later date. But for NOW, I feel like they are Very Important and I should always have some and a backup at home. Well, I have a near-empty container at home right now, plus two brand-new, unopened containers, PLUS Carla is capable of eating other sources of chicken, PLUS there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of chicken nuggets right now, PLUS we could always go to one of the many fast-food restaurants within a ten-mile radius of our home to procure chicken nuggets if we became absolutely desperate, PLUS Carla would totally survive even if there were a chicken-nugget apocalypse and all the world’s nugget supply disappeared from our planet forever. So I was able to once again talk myself out of buying a brand new container. But it was hard. 

You know that I just bought a five-pack of Clorox wipes at Costco last week. But I STILL hesitated in front of a large container of Seventh Generation wipes, debating whether I should get them, too. (I did not.)

This is not an actual problem. And I so far have enough money and freezer space (though the latter is dwindling) to cater to my over-buying. So many people are actually going hungry that I am embarrassed that this is something that I find bothersome; I should feel extremely fortunate. And I do. I do. 

But I am wondering if I will ever find a way back to pre-pandemic normal? Will I ever be able to bypass a shelf of on-sale pasta without grabbing a couple of containers “just in case”? (I was not successful today.) Will I ever be able to stick to my meal plan grocery list, instead of also buying food for backup meals that are more freezer/shelf stable just in case we are stuck at home without grocery store access for awhile? Will I ever feel like I truly have enough flour/Lysol/frozen pancakes? Or is this just… the way it is now? I don’t know. 

Dinners for the Week of November 10-16

• Pork Chops with Sautéed Zucchini and Couscous
• Slow Cooker Chicken, Wild Rice, and Mushroom Soup with Miracle No-Knead Bread
• Salad with Grilled Chicken
• Leftover Soup and Salad
• Crockpot BBQ Pork with Coleslaw
• Szechuan Stir Fry with Chicken
• Takeout

P.S. WordPress has a new block-style editing/post-writing thing and today it is NOT ALLOWING ME TO EDIT MY POST so just FYI. That is partly why this paragraph is HERE instead of at the END of the post because I CANNOT MOVE IT. And you may also be surprised to learn that I actually edit the non-stop hydrant-cleansing torrent of words I post here on the regular, but I DO and I am unable to make the changes that I want to make and it is MAKING ME CRABBY.

Also, I have two overripe bananas that I need to deal with. So I may make a snack cake, if I can find one that only requires two bananas. (Although perhaps I have a couple of bananas in the freezer, as well. I’ll have to dig around in there.)

What’s on your meal plan this week, Internet? Are you feeling Back to Normal about grocery shopping?

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A Lot of Nonsense About the Grocery Store

Yesterday, I parted my hair on the opposite side. It felt and looked very weird and I do not think I will repeat that particular experiment.

 

One of the remarkable things about These Unprecedented Times is that going to the grocery store has now become such a major source of stress. I realize this is not a new topic nor a concern specific to me. But I am Right In It now and it’s so odd. I literally had stress dreams about the grocery store last night – where I discovered at the last minute that the store was open a whole hour before I thought it would be and I was able to dash in and grab some half-and-half. I mean, this is causing Major Anxiety these days which is absolutely ridiculous.

It’s been about twenty days since I last set foot in the grocery store, and a little less than two weeks since I picked up a curbside order (which did NOT contain half-and-half). I was supposed to go to the grocery store yesterday, a plan I’d been working toward for many days. Our store opens at eight and has seniors/immunocompromised shoppers hours until nine. My plan was to arrive right at nine and get in and get out quickly. But my husband actually had patients that morning (which is A Good Thing) and had to go into the office, so I couldn’t go. He has patients this morning, too (also A Good Thing). So yesterday we decided I would go later in the afternoon, once my husband got home.

I ordered a mask, which is supposed to arrive sometime later this week. So I fashioned a mask out of an old baby blanket and hair ties. And I got all dressed — in actual Real Clothes — put my hair in a bun, even put my contacts in, and drove to the grocery store. And then I chickened out. The parking lot was SO FULL. And there was a line of people outside stretching along the entire side of the building. Which I know is a good, smart innovation. And yet it made me feel all panicky and trembly so I turned around and came home.

But we obviously still need groceries. So I filled a virtual cart at the grocery store that offers curbside pickup. Curbside pickup is not ideal – for one thing, I worry that I am taking a spot from someone who has limited mobility or is immunocompromised or for whom going into an actual store is otherwise difficult/impossible. Plus, on a selfish level, it’s so much easier to be able to decide on the fly that the store doesn’t have fresh strawberries so I am going to get frozen berries or blueberries instead, rather than counting on the grocery store shopper to find an appropriate substitution. Curbside pickup is not something I am relying on, is what I’m saying. But it worked fairly well the first time I did it. And I figured it would be good to have a backup if I can’t get to the store myself, or if I do  get to the store but they are out of half-and-half.

The app for curbside pickup allows you to choose a date and time from a selection of five upcoming days. At least, that’s the idea. These days, all the spots are full. This means that the earliest possible date I could hope to pick up my order would be this coming Sunday. And that’s only if I happen to open the app at the exact right time and catch the new pickup times before they fill.

This happened last time, too. I stalked the app for three days at all hours of the day. The timeslots opened up one morning and I was able to grab one. So I tried it at midnight last night… and then woke up at five to try it… and then seven… and then kept checking all through the eight o’clock hour… At nine o’clock, the app added Sunday as an option… But all the timeslots were full.

This is not anything to be Truly Panicked about. We still have plenty of food. But we are down to our last package of ground beef. We have only one remaining can of chickpeas. We have no eggs. And we are going to run out of half-and-half ANY MINUTE NOW which makes me feel very anxious.

This is all SO RIDICULOUS. I know that I am in a very, very privileged situation. I think of the news footage of miles and miles of cars lined up at food banks across the country and I feel ashamed. We can OF COURSE survive just fine without ground beef and without half-and-half. We have PLENTY of food. Obviously, we are FINE. But it turns out that running out of half-and-half is my personal grocery store breaking point.

Can I also say that my husband and I are having… disagreements about grocery shopping? We have always been on opposite ends of the preparedness spectrum. Even in The Time Before, I have always been the type of person who prefers to have a backup ready to go before I even start to run out of something. For instance, Carla eats a lot of frozen pancakes, so I always have two boxes in the freezer. When we get down to the last two or three of the first box, I put pancakes on the list. That kind of thing. (I also grew up in a remote, cold place where it was prudent to never allow your gas tank to be under half full; even today when I have a gas station within walking distance of my house, I still get very nervous if the gas dips below the half-full point. Maybe the food thing is related.)

Yesterday when I went to mix the ingredients for chili powder, I discovered that we are nearly out of paprika (which I use A Lot), and that we are – for me – uncomfortably low on garlic powder, oregano, and cumin. My husband sees that the (admittedly giant) canisters are still about a third full and says we don’t need the spices urgently. But to ME, I don’t WANT to need them urgently. I want to have backups ready to go.

The same goes for tortillas and chickpeas and sour cream and cheddar cheese and pancakes and iceberg lettuce and carrots and ranch dressing and chicken breasts and black beans and taco shells and hot sauce and onions and all the other things that make me feel like I can put together a normal and/or comforting meal. Do we need  cheddar cheese to survive? Of course not. But does it make me feel better to have a backup in the fridge? Yes.

This is how I would feel in Normal Times, too. But I feel it even more acutely now, when a) who knows when I will be a store where I can purchase these things and b) who knows if the store will even HAVE these items when I do manage to get there.

So my husband and I are experiencing a little friction on the groceries/necessities front, I have to say.

Part of it is that he is frugal and doesn’t see the point of spending money on something that you don’t actually NEED. (To which I say, but we WILL need this thing. Or, if not need, WANT.) Part of it is that he is not the designated shopper, neither now nor in Normal Times, and so doesn’t really fully understand the current shopping situation. I would guess he hasn’t set foot in a grocery store since late February, so he just doesn’t get how different it is. And/or he is in denial about how quickly the situation is going to improve. (Possibly never, says my doomsday brain.) He was surprised when I said that our online options for ordering spices (Costco and Penzeys are the ones I checked) were experiencing delays. (Not to mention that Costco’s website reacted as though oregano is a concept I made up out of thin air.) And yet, even when I point these things out – shortages and delays – he still seems to believe that we can just get whatever we want whenever want it. When I told him I was going to order curbside pickup, he said, “Oh great. Are you going to have it ready to pick up tomorrow?” and I had to temper my incredulous tone when I responded, “Of COURSE NOT, it will be Sunday AT THE EARLIEST before I can hope to pick up the things we ordered, and even then it is HIGHLY LIKELY that we will not get all of what we wanted.”

I would think that he would defer to me in this case, WOULDN’T YOU AGREE?

Pant,  pant,  panic, panic!

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