Vent Session: Frets, Complaints, To-Dos I Want to Don’t

It feels like there are a bunch of things BUGGING me this morning, and maybe the best way to situate them in my mind is to write them out. Then I can DEAL WITH them, rather than having them clamber around in my brain. Plus, you are very often so sensible and helpful with suggestions. Not that I am asking you to SOLVE anything for me – I know you have your own stuff. Which I would love to hear about, by the way. I am happy to offer a gentle arm squeeze and a sympathetic head nod, if that’s what you need.  

(And perhaps it goes without saying, but I do realize that I am DEEPLY LUCKY to be able to complain about this kind of non-life-threatening type of stuff. I do.)

MORNINGS

I am writing this in the morning, so this is top of mind. But mornings are AWFUL. AWFUL. I wake Carla up at 7:00. She needs to be in the car by 7:50. We are almost never in the car by 7:50. I spend the entire hour wheedling and prompting and checking-in and badgering and growing more and more frustrated and furious until I inevitably yell at her. And then I feel like a shitty mother and a shitty human being, and I cry as I drive home, and the rest of the day is soured. 

It feels like we have tried EVERYTHING! Everything! We try to get her to sleep at a reasonable time (of course, that doesn’t always work, but we TRY). She is in bed by 7:30, and story time ends at 8:00. So presumably she is getting enough sleep. We pick out her clothes the night before, and then I put them on top of her when I wake her up, so she doesn’t even need to get out of bed to put them on. We have gone through periods when she chooses what she wants for breakfast the night before, too (although that didn’t help at all). We make sure she has everything she needs for school right there at the door, ready to go the night before. I have encouraged her to talk her way through each task (“I’m getting dressed, I’m getting dressed.” “I’m brushing my teeth, I’m brushing my teeth.”) to keep her focused. I have tried waking her up EARLIER. I have tried waking her up LATER. I have tried task lists, that she has to cross off (get dressed, make bed, brush teeth). I have tried offering prizes for getting out the door on time. I have tried consequences (loss of screen time) for getting out the door late. I have tried sitting in my car by myself, fuming, until she gets in. I have tried yelling. I have tried time out. NOTHING WORKS. This morning, she had the special treat of going to school with her father. She still took twenty minutes to put on her clothing. It SHOULD NOT TAKE TWENTY MINUTES. I hate it so, so much. Yes, I know that I rarely have anywhere to be, but I do have a schedule I like to follow. And starting my day fifteen minutes later than I want to – and being MAD – is not a good way to start the day! Starting the day by yelling at my child is not a good way to start the day! Feeling like my time has no value to anyone but me is not a good way to start the day! 

There is no consequence for her being late to school, which is a big part of the problem. Her school is doing staggered drop offs because of Covid, and they just aren’t counting people tardy. I WISH THEY WOULD. Although… I don’t really know what the penalty is, for being tardy? 

I hate being late! I am a Be There Five Minutes Early person! Mornings are driving me insane!

P.S. My husband is not helpful, in any way. He is either long gone before she wakes up, or he is sleeping in and then worrying about get his own body out the door. 

Anyway. Mornings are the WORST. I am going to lose my mind. My mind will leave promptly at 7:50 and be on time and never return, and the rest of me will still be here, urging Carla to PUT ON HER SOCKS FOR THE LOVE.

CANCELLATIONS

I don’t know if it’s Covid or the snowy weather (although we live in a part of the world where winter happens ANNUALLY, so you’d think people would get the idea by now), but so many people are cancelling their appointments with my husband. HOW is he supposed to make a living if he doesn’t see patients??? And I don’t see any way to fix this problem – not that I have any control over it as it is. It’s intermittent, so you can’t really predict when it’s going to happen. And he already overbooks his schedule to try to find a happy medium. But if you overbook too much, and everyone shows up, then you have a bunch of annoyed patients and a stressed-out, overworked doctor. There is literally nothing I can do about this, and yet I it is making me anxious and fretful.

FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY

My parents are celebrating their fiftieth anniversary this summer. What a wonderful, momentous milestone! We are traveling to visit them, to celebrate together. I would love to Do Something as a tribute, but I have no idea what. NO IDEA. My only thought is to somehow order a cake, similar to what they had at their wedding? But the celebration takes place in a very remote part of the world. I suppose I could call the place we’ll be staying, and see if they have any ideas… but I hate phone calls. I made a photo book for my mom’s 70th birthday, so I could try to put something like that together – with well-wishes from friends and family. But a) I just did that, so it feels like asking the same friends/family for more well-wishes will be annoying to them and b) I don’t know if “well-wishes” is worthy of a whole book? I am willing to spend a significant amount of time/money on doing something special, but I don’t know what to do. 

WRITING CLASS

One of my aspirations for 2022 was to sign up for a writing class, and lo, I did so. It begins in mid-February and I am FREAKING OUT. I am going to have to (virtually) meet new people and complete assignments and Do Things and the whole thing is making my stomach churn. That is all. 

FRIENDS FRETS

I haven’t talked to my best friend from back home in… a long time. While I certainly haven’t been able to find time to call her (we inevitably talk for a full hour or more, so it requires planning and coordination with my husband), neither has she made any effort to get in touch with me. Which makes me feel (UNFAIRLY, I know) that she doesn’t really care about our friendship. 

Another very dear friend is going through A Hard Time, and I am really worried about her. But I don’t know what to DO about it. This is the problem with friends that live thousands of miles away. I can’t just pop over to see her. I don’t know any of her friends or colleagues. I don’t even know her favorite restaurants/bakeries in order to send her a gift certificate or fun surprise. Honestly, I don’t even know what she likes well enough to choose something for her. Does she like candles? Will she eat chocolate or nuts? Does she have a bathtub, and, if so, would she appreciate some bath products? I want to make her life a little better/more bearable if I can, and I don’t know how. 

Perhaps it seems strange that she is literally one of my closest friends in the universe and yet I don’t know very basic things about her… but we only lived in the same place for two years nearly 20 years ago and have only seen each other in person twice since then. We connect on Big Picture/Inner Life things, not everyday mundanities. You probably know more about me than she does! 

NEW FRET

Great. Now I am fretting that I am “doing” friendship wrong. 

UNFINISHED PROJECTS

My husband and I got such a good start to the year! We set up Carla’s craft area in the basement, which necessitated cleaning the entire basement and purging a huge amount of stuff. And then… we just left it, halfway done. We have paint cans that we need to fill with paint thickener, so we can then get rid of them. We need to get a carpet to go under Carla’s craft table, so that she can do things like paint down there. We need to figure out a storage solution for all her craft supplies, so that they can be tidied away rather than left all over the table. I need to go through bins of old baby items so we can get them out of the middle of the basement. I need to winnow six years of Carla’s Special Art Projects that we’ve saved. (These last two are really only jobs for me, because I CARE, and my husband cares less.) 

We bought the supplies needed to fix our coat closet door, but have done nothing with them.

We still haven’t done anything about the gallery wall. 

There are still piles of Carla’s old picture books (that we culled from her shelves LAST YEAR) on the floor of my bedroom, waiting for us to find a place to store them until we can foist them off on Carla and her potential future children. 

The books we culled from our collection are STILL IN MY OFFICE.

WHY can’t we finish anything? WHAT is wrong with us? HOW am I the only one who cares enough to fret about this and remind us to do anything about it and push and prod and nag about it? This. This is what is going to finally drive me over the edge. 

Except probably not, because I’ll get halfway to the edge and then never complete the act of going over it. 

HURT FEELINGS

This is dumb to refer to, because I cannot be specific. But my feelings are hurt, to the point that I spend a lot of time crying, and it’s a situation where I cannot share that with the person who is hurting them. You just have to trust me. It wouldn’t help at all. In fact, it would make things worse, because this person would then feel guilty/awful and probably still be unable to make me feel better… only now we would both be aware of that failure, instead of just me. What needs to happen is I need to Get Over It, even if that seems impossible. But I am still feeling very bruised and sad about the whole thing.

PHONE CALL

There is always a phone call to make, isn’t there? This time, I have two looming over me. Plus three zoom meetings this week that I am not looking forward to. Ugh ugh ugh.

Well. Happy Monday to you, friend. I hope that YOUR week is off to a better, less fraught beginning!

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Dinners This Week

Hello from your resident grinch. I cannot tell you how soothing it was to have so many lovely people assure me that it’s okay not to be all swept up in the holiday spirit this year. And comforting, if sad, to know that so many others are experiencing the same irritation/despair that I am stuck with. I am going to do my best to let go of my desire to feel Christmassy. Trying to force it – even trying to allow space for it to seep in – is just not working. (Cut to scene from this weekend, where I had our Echo play Christmas music while I baked, but most songs were annoying me so I kept saying “Skip” and ended up sobbing into my cranberry crumble bars.) (The bars taste decent but look a mess, possibly because I filled them with sadness. The crust, while tasty, cannot bear the weight of the cranberries heaped on top of it. Same, crumble bars, same.)

Just using some under-tree presents as a table, totally normal.

My bad mood is probably due to two main things. The smaller of the two is that my husband is on call this week. It’s his first time being on call for Christmas since Carla was born, so we have been very lucky. I am grateful for all those Christmasses that he wasn’t on call, and acknowledge that it is his turn. But also, he will be stressed and grumpy all week, plus his hours will be extremely unpredictable, plus we will have to rush through Christmas morning so he can head into the hospital. 

The larger is, of course, the current state of the pandemic. I am worried about a friend who is traveling overseas. I am worried about my parents, who are traveling to visit us. I am worried about my husband, who will be in a hospital that is so overrun with Covid patients, outpatient procedures have been cancelled/delayed to divert resources to those who need them the most. I am not particularly worried about us getting Covid – it feels inevitable, once again; we have been so lucky so far – because we have all been as vaccinated as possible. If (WHEN) we get it, we should, god willing, live through the experience. But I am worried about my husband (or Carla, or me) bringing it home to my parents. They are vaccinated and boosted, but they are in that vulnerable age range and I cannot bear the thought of infecting them. We got a delivery of at-home testing kits just yesterday, and I ordered a bunch more, so I guess we will just continue to be as careful as possible and also test frequently? 

I did manage to do a big chunk of the wrapping. I made the (sub-par) cranberry bars. Carla delivered her homemade dog treats to all the dogs of the neighborhood. The three of us watched Elf. So I feel like I am going through the Christmas motions, at least. Sometimes that’s all you can do, right? 

These look disgusting, honestly, but the dogs seemed to like them. As Jen pointed out, dogs will eat poop if you allow them to.

I took your advice and made little ingredient labels.

Speaking of Christmas motions: we all have to eat. I made my first of three? four? planned trips to the grocery store this morning. Here’s the plan:

Dinners for the Week of December 20-26

• Monday: Chicken + Roasted Potatoes + Salad – The potatoes are something I found in the freezer section, and all I need to do is figure out what quick-and-easy method I will use to roast/bake the chicken. 

• Tuesday: Tacos

• Wednesday: One-Pot Salmon with Leeks + Salad – My husband, who does not particularly like salmon, perked right up when I suggested I make this dish this week. It is yummy and different. 

• Thursday: Asian Chicken Salad (or possibly takeout) – I could have SWORN that my mother used to make something like this when I was a kid, but when I called her a few weeks ago to ask her to remind me what dressing she used, she claimed that she had never once made this ever in her life. So I am going to make it for her. 

• Friday: Mulligatawny Soup + Miracle No-Knead Bread + Salad – This is my family-of-origin’s traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and my husband is cool with it.

• Christmas Day: 
• Baked French Toast + Breakfast Strata – I can’t settle on a strata. We made this sausage and mushroom version a few years ago, and it was a success. But this one with potatoes and bacon sounds better to me. (I wonder if I could sneak a little spinach into it?) My husband requested something savory in addition to the baked French toast, and all of these can be made ahead. But I admit to feeling a little pre-exhausted by the thought of making BOTH on Christmas Eve, especially when we need to be Santa’s helpers as well. I may see if I can persuade my husband to content himself with some bacon and maybe a fried egg or two instead. 

• Spice Roast (paywall) + Garlic Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes + Caesar Salad – This is my family-of-origin’s traditional Christmas Day dinner, and my father makes the  Caesar salad and the spice roast, and the particular mixture of spices will forever and always make me think of Christmas. 

• Blueberry Pie – I have wheedled my mother into making blueberry pie. It is truly the taste of my childhood. Maybe Carla will allow herself to be diverted from her toys for a few minutes to help?

• Sunday: Cheese Board – I like a good cheese board, and my parents seem happy to indulge. We’ll pack it with salami, cheeses, nuts, dried apricots, olives, artichoke hearts, mini-croissants, and whatever little baked pastries sound good at Trader Joe’s. I will also make this cranberry salsa for us to snack on.

The grocery store seemed decently well-stocked. I was able to get frozen pancakes, Lunchables (although Carla, who fetched them from the deli counter, said there were only four total, so she grabbed two), and cream cheese. In fact, cream cheese was quite a bit more plentiful than it has been in weeks past. I usually get a container of chow mein noodles to add a little crunchy topping to the Asian salad, and there was a big bare space on the shelf where they should be. It was the very bottom shelf, so I couldn’t see that there were four containers at the very back of the shelf until I crouched down. But I got one of them and feel very pleased indeed. 

I always like to hear what everyone’s eating for Christmas dinners. Plus, thinking about food is a GREAT distraction from reading the news, thinking about the news, and feeling sorry for oneself about not feeling the Christmas spirit this year.

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Mini Holiday Panic Plus Some of My Typical Detours into Other Subjects

I have Real Work to do this morning, but I am in a mini panic and sometimes it helps to get that out first. Like blowing the nose, it helps with breathing. 

That rather disturbing image reminded me of something: the last time I went to Costco, there was no Kirkland Brand toilet paper, so I was forced (“forced”) to buy Charmin, which I would never normally buy because it is expensive. We just recently started using the Charmin and a) it is very thick and very soft and b) it disappears in an instant. I have replaced THREE ROLLS this week already, which is ABSURD, especially when I am the only person home for most of the day and there is nothing driving additional toilet paper usage. You know. Like an influx of squishable/flushable bugs. WHY is it disappearing at such a frantic rate? 

Since I have already meandered off the path, I will further note that I grew up in a house where toilet paper was also used as facial tissue. You had to blow your nose, you used not-Charmin. This was one of the Inherited Differences my husband and I had to battle out when we married; he had a Kleenex childhood. We do HAVE Kleenex in our home, now. But it’s mainly for guests. (My husband does not blow his nose unless he has a cold, which is something I cannot fathom; I need to clear the nasal passages every morning but old toilet-tissue habits die hard.)

Goodness, this post has gotten off to a rather unpleasant start.

Onward, to my holiday mini panic. 

Perhaps I need some of the CBD products Another Me has been ordering, using my email address instead of her own. CBD oil is supposed to have a soothing effect, right? I’ve never tried it. I do not understand why she does not know her own email address, but it does look like her actual mailing address is hers and not mine. If she didn’t live in the UK, I might consider sending her a letter about all the times I’ve gotten work emails and product confirmations that she might not like a stranger seeing. 

She’s not the only person who is using my contact info as her own: someone named Joann (which I find amusing because of this post) has missed several recent updates about a FedEx delivery because she used my phone number instead of her own. I wonder if I have ever done this, inadvertently?

Oh right, right. The topic at hand.

I have been trying so hard to be on top of Holiday Stuff. And yet it has all fallen completely apart. Despite my best intentions – and considerable nagging – the holiday cards are still sitting in my office, un-enveloped, un-addressed, un-stamped. I don’t even HAVE stamps, which is really on me. Worse, we still have SO MANY Christmas gifts to buy, and then wrap and mail. It is giving me the vapors. THE VAPORS. 

(Lest you think we wasted a wonderful five-day holiday during which we could have accomplished most of this stuff: yes, yes we did waste it. But my husband wanted a BREAK, and to do things he never gets to do, like sleep in, and work on his music, and play video games. He really does work very hard, and so I didn’t want to deny him a few days off from bothering him about All the Stuff We Need to Accomplish. To be fair: we did plan a Big Upcoming Trip, which required a lot of comparing of airline schedules and researching hotels and rental cars and coordinating with family who will join us. So that was at least something we took care of.)

Listen, I realize I am lucky that my husband wants to be an Active Participant in the holiday stuff. He likes to have a say in what the holiday card looks like, for instance. He is also the Keeper of the Addresses, which is a good thing, because they are uniform and neat and always print out on labels exactly the way they should, and I no longer have to hand-address 80+ envelopes. He helps determine what to get his parents, who are very difficult to shop for. He is very good at keeping us within the confines of a budget. 

But he does not share my sense of urgency. 

Obviously, he works 10-12 hour days helping patients, which is undeniably Important Work. So he has less time than I do to fret about this kind of thing. (He is also not really the fretting type.) Plus, he seems to have an aversion to doing things earlier than absolutely necessary. (Although I would argue we passed “absolutely necessary” when the calendar shifted to December.) I started the Christmas gift talk months ago, and his brain just doesn’t process it that far in advance. Even last month, when I was starting to build up a real froth, he was reluctant to get going – and it took several forwarded articles from reliable news sources about shipping delays and supply chain issues for him to finally relent to ordering a few things. He also likes to do lots of research before making a purchase. And, listen, I appreciate how meticulous he is about price comparisons and finding the exact best version of a product. Really, I do. I don’t have the patience for that myself, and so I’m glad he does it. 

But all of this adds up to VERY SLOW. A turtle riding a sloth could get things done more quickly. Sometimes I just want to be able to take decisive action: This holiday card is good enough: order! This would make a good gift for my mother-in-law: purchase! 

Of course, if that were the case, I would then feel aggrieved and frustrated about being solely responsible for gift giving. Sigh. 

As it is, I feel aggrieved and frustrated about being The One Who Decorates. Christmas décor doesn’t matter to my husband, so it’s up to me. At least Carla (currently) finds it fun to help. We haven’t started decorating yet; I think we will wait until after Hanukkah, although I have hung up the Christmas Reading Countdown Calendar already and have brought up Carla’s holiday dishes at her request. 

I also feel aggrieved and frustrated about being The Gift Nag. Every conversation with my husband lately includes me prodding him about gift ideas or asking him to send me the holiday addresses so I can update them. Every conversation includes an increasingly strident warning about shipping times (and his retort that we haven’t experienced any of those shipping delays in any of our orders) (and my unvoiced response: NOT YET). 

(And also: we have experienced some product delays. We ordered caramels for everyone on our list weeks ago and those have yet to arrive. Hurry, hurry little caramels! One of you needs to be on its way across the continent!) 

I am also feeling aggrieved and frustrated that my office has become Box Central. All the gifts we’ve ordered and have yet to wrap are in my office. All the beautiful boxes that I’ve collected over the past few months and have saved for gift-sending purposes are in my office. Our brand-new artificial Christmas tree (sob) is waiting just outside my office door to be unboxed and set up. I cannot USE my office currently, and that’s deeply irritating and makes me feel extra buzzy-in-the-blood about getting all those boxes OUT. 

What can I do but fret and panic? 

Well. I suppose I can take a deep breath. I can go for a walk outside in the 50(!) degree sunshine. I can remind myself of all the things I have completed: I do have my husband and Carla (mostly) covered. I do have most of the gifts for my own parents. I do have my sister-in-law and niece’s gifts – I just need to wrap them and send them. My brother requested no gifts this year, so he and my sister-in-law are taken care of. I do have stocking stuffers sorted. I can go buy stamps. I can update the holiday addresses. I can make a nice tidy list of things we have yet to complete:

1. Address and mail holiday cards
2. Finalize purchases for Carla’s “rilly big box full of all craft stuf”
3. Wrap and mail gifts for sister-in-law and niece
4. Mail caramels to my brother and sister-in-law whenever they get here
5. Buy the final gift for my mother
6. Buy the final gift for my father
7. Buy all gifts for my mother-in-law
8. Buy all gifts for my father-in-law (including birthday gifts)
9. Buy all gifts for my aunt-in-law

Okay, listing it out made me MORE panicky. Have I done ANYTHING to prepare for Christmas?! THERE IS SO MUCH STILL TO DO. 

We’ll just have to buckle down and finalize everything this weekend. We must we must WE MUST.

(Is this making you feel better about your own holiday state of affairs? What do you have left to accomplish?)

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The New Old Way of Things

Last week, my state’s Mask In Public order expired. When I went to the grocery store the next day, instead of seeing a creeping-upward number of people without masks, I was the only person wearing a mask. The only one. I told the checker and the bag person that it was so nice to see their faces after so long – and it was – but it was also startling (I kept that last part to myself). 

Those who wear masks in public places are now far and away the minority. (Grumble grumble in the direction of stores who have completely useless signs that say wishy-washy things like, “We recommend that you should probably wear a mask if you aren’t vaccinated, but there is of course no way we can check or enforce anything tee hee” rather than saying “WEAR A MASK UNTIL YOU ARE FULLY VACCINATED.”) My husband and I have been wearing them still – he wears them at work, obviously, because health care is one of the remaining holdouts in mask-wearing, and in public we are both just still feeling skittish and leery of going mask-free. But I am trying really hard to gear myself up to not wear one. After all, I am vaccinated; I should be protected from Covid-19, even if I am hanging out in a group of maskless people who all have Covid-19. (Shudder.) I am not begrudging ANYONE at all their personal comfort level; wear a mask for the rest of your days if that’s what floats your boat; I completely understand and will not judge. But I do feel like maybe, for me, it is time to start dipping my toe into the maskless water. 

So I went to Target this morning with the idea that I would NOT wear a mask. Just to try it out. I was going very early and there would be only a handful of people there anyway. And I could wear a mask around my wrist, for comfort. But then I wore my mask inside anyway. I understand that this is akin to – we are apparently still going with the water metaphors – wearing a life vest long after I’ve exited the boat. But it still feels like I could topple into the ocean at any minute, I guess. I need to get my mask-free legs under me.

And also my Social Interaction legs.

My sister-in-law and niece came for a visit this past weekend. It was lovely – LOVELY! – to see them. They stayed in a hotel. We played outside as much as possible, and when the girls were in the house they wore masks. We did eat meals inside the house, together, though, which was a Big Scary Step for me; the girls were on opposite ends of the table, but it still made me nervous. We didn’t really DO anything; aside from one morning when we went to a petting zoo, we just hung around the house and chatted. (I didn’t even cook. Not once. I am still completely avoiding Making Things.) My niece and sister-in-law left Sunday and yesterday I felt so bone tired from multiple days of sustained social interaction that I could barely get out of bed.

Have I always become THIS worn out by social interactions? I mean, I know they have always been wearying. But to THIS level? So that all I could do yesterday was drape myself over various pieces of furniture and yawn?

Looking ahead, I am fretting that I have overscheduled myself: I have Social Interactions tomorrow, Friday, next Tuesday, and then at some as-yet-undetermined point next week as well. And then the following weekend, two birthday parties, then my in-laws come to visit, and Carla’s birthday party. Ack. Already I feel my inner self curling up inside me in a little ball, rocking back and forth and mumbling “too much, too much.” 

But despite the pre-exhaustion, I am also really excited and happy to be engaging with The World again. If it’s not entirely comfortable for me, at least it’s good that Carla will be able to have playdates, and attend camp, and have people other than yours truly to interact with her this summer. I am very grateful. 

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Beating the Metaphorical Rug, Three Good Things

I feel like a rug that has been trampled on by many people wearing muddy boots. I have dirt crunched into my fibers and pieces of grass and crumpled leaves. Some of those little burs that take a ride on people’s socks and a few pebbles have ground their way deep into me and I feel heavy and grimy and gritty and dull.

This is no way to feel. And it is Monday, and I for one would like to begin the week with a little freshening up. 

The thing is, freshening a rug isn’t a PLEASANT undertaking. You’ve got to heave the whole thing over your shoulder and drag it outside and drape it over a railing or a clothesline somewhere. And then you beat it with the handle of a broom. It’s hard, dirty work, and clouds of dust accumulate around you and the rug. But eventually! The clouds dissipate into the air and you can lug your rug back into the house and unroll it on the floor and, even if it doesn’t LOOK much different (we’re not doing a deep clean here, just a freshening), it should FEEL better. 

In the name of beating all the dirt out of the rug of my soul, I am going to release some clouds into the air. (This is just me complaining about things so I can hopefully stop thinking about them.) Grab your own run and join me, won’t you? 

• Ongoing lack of sleep. A possible explanation for my ongoing sleep difficulty, it seems, is perimenopause which has the benefit of having next to zero remediation and can apparently last for up to 14 years. Funsies. Other symptoms – besides “sleep problems” (check) – include night sweats (check), dry skin (check), frizzy hair (frizz-dizzle), brain fog (yep), weight gain or excess tummy chub (indeed), and joint pain (yessir). I am just two months into my forty-first year on this planet, so it seems a wee bit early for perimenopause, but then again it apparently could be right on time. WE SHALL SEE. 

• Health fret. This is really the heaviest thing weighing on me right now. But it’s not my health concern to share and all I can do is worry and pray and divert my energy to fretting about less important/more solvable issues. 

• Walking shoes. My preferred form of exercise is walking. On a good week, I get in about 20 miles or so. But recently, I’ve been getting shin splints when I walk even a mile, which is a painful deterrent. So I finally went to a Proper Shoe Store, with real, live people who measured my feet and observed my walk (awkward) and made some sort of digital map of my feet. I bought some very expensive walking shoes. We had sunshine last week, so I got to try them out. And they immediately a) gave me blisters and b) sent sciatic pain shooting through my, you know, sciatic area. I don’t know if I need to return the shoes or just suck it up, but neither choice sounds preferable to the other.

• Having decisions made for me. I know a person who has many good qualities but who is also very, shall we say, secure in their knowledge that their way is The Right Way. Recently, they asked me if I was interested in a thing (sorry for being so very vague), and I said maybe, and then the very next day I spoke to someone else and learned that I was now enrolled in that thing! I do not think the person who enrolled me would have told me. And when I asked about it, they did not apologize, but just sort of acted like it was a big surprise. And the thing is, I would have agreed to enroll in the thing! But I didn’t get to make the choice, the choice was made FOR me. And I am super annoyed because I can either stay enrolled in the thing that I would have chosen to be part of but, by doing so, give this person the impression that I am okay with their making the choice for me… or I can un-enroll myself out of spite and miss out on the thing that I would enjoy. I am not close enough with this person that I know how to say, hey, that wasn’t cool. Especially because I suspect they are the type of person who would not change their behavior but would instead suggest that I was making a big deal out of nothing. The whole thing makes me want to grab someone by the shoulders and shake.

• Skin rebellion. My skin has undertaken a full-on revolt. I don’t know where it thinks it’s going, or how it could imagine that conditions will improve/change after all our years together. But it’s giving it a go, that’s for sure. I made the rash (foreshadowing pun) decision to try out some new moisturizing products. I applied the products on Wednesday of last week, and then again on Thursday morning. By Thursday afternoon, I had an itchy red rash all over my neck. My husband went into scientist mode and asked me what changes I’d made to my diet, skincare, laundry situation. Since the only change I’d made was the moisturizer, he diagnosed (not really; he is not a dermatologist) contact dermatitis and said I needed to discontinue use of the moisturizer. The next day, the neck rash was itchier and angrier and I saw some suspicious rash-like bumps on my chin. On Saturday, the rash had crept up my face. Now, my forehead, nose, and chin are covered with scaly bumps, my eyelids are puffy and itchy, and I am facially miserable. I do not understand how one and a half days of using a new moisturizer equates to GOING ON FIVE DAYS NOW of itchy, aesthetically unpleasant reaction, but here we are. 

• Eyelid Malfunction. Have you ever used one of those accordion-style window shades? We have them on our upstairs windows. To reveal the window, you grip the bottom bar and push it upward and the pleats of the shade compress into one another until you’ve exposed the entire window. This works most of the time. But once in a while, the pleats don’t compress neatly and they bulge out over the bar, obscuring part of the window. This is my upper eyelids right now. Heavy pleats of skin bulging out of the space between my eyebrows and my eyelashes. Maybe this is a result of the aforementioned skin rebellion, maybe it’s my ongoing lack of sleep, maybe it’s something to do with The Decline of Old Age (see above), maybe it’s allergies, but I am Not A Fan.

• No good clothes, anywhere. I cannot find any clothing that I like. I have purchased and tried on and returned so many things, I’m afraid someone is going to force me to attend a class in How to Use a Credit Card. The thing is, I have gained a lot of weight in the past year. While I don’t enjoy the way it feels at ALL, I am also completely unwilling to undertake yet another diet. The thought of following a strict regimen or buying specific foods or counting calories and — with any method at all — thinking about food all day every day is exhausting. But I need to cover my body with something, and I would prefer that I didn’t hate my appearance 100% of the time, so I am trying to find at least some new clothes that fit the body I have right now. And it’s NOT WORKING and this is not a new complaint or unique to me but I hate it. 

All right, I think we’ve beaten as much dirt out of this old rug as we can this morning. It’s not FRESH, but it’s fresh-ER. I feel ready to face the week.

And now, to counteract the negativity – to spritz the air with a clean scent, if you will – I will list some good things.

1. Because I am now two weeks past my second vaccination, I am going to stop wearing a mask entirely! No, just kidding. But I do have a hair appointment ON THE BOOKS and I am so excited. 
2. This weekend, I made reservations to fly with Carla to visit my parents. I got really teary after we booked the flights – out of joy at the prospect of seeing my parents and out of anxiety at the prospect of being in an airplane and airport with so many strangers – but I am tentatively looking forward to our trip. At least, to the part where we are THERE. Not so much to the part where I am potentially exposing my precious baby to a deadly disease. Our trip isn’t until August, so there is plenty of time to work myself into a nervous wreck. Right now I am choosing to be happy.
3. MY HOUSECLEANER IS COMING BACK. Confetti! Fireworks! Cheers! I have the date of her return in my calendar and I am SO EXCITED and now I have the fun decision of what delicious treat to make for her when she arrives.

Do bring your own rug over to my railing. I’ll lend you my broom and you can share what’s making you feel gritty and grubby these days. 

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Dinners This Week; Valentine’s Day Recap

Well, Valentine’s Day has come and gone. I took a bunch of photos, but my lighting was Very Poor due to the persistent clouds/snow so you will have to take my word for it that things were less gloomy than they seem in the pictures.

In preparation for Valentine’s Day, Carla and I did indeed make the adorable stripey sugar cookies. (I also made some polka dot ones just to see if I could.)

They were very cute but… cuter than they were tasty, I’d say. This could well have been user error; perhaps if I had pulled them out of the oven a minute or two earlier, they would be chewier than they were. But I think that the exuberant use of cornstarch in the recipe contributed to their rather… delicate flavor. 

I bought myself red and white tulips, because flowers of all kinds but especially tulips make me feel cheery, and I painted my nails red. And then painted my ring finger nails pink with a red diagonal. (I did this Thursday and the polish was gone by Valentine’s Day. Also, I recognize that the photo of my nails is particularly hard to see.)

I bought myself some Reese’s peanut butter hearts (the too-small ones, not that I knew that when I bought them; I thought they would be the size of the Reese’s peanut butter eggs you get in individual packages for Eastertime), and I went a bit overboard with buying things for Carla, including a book of stickers, a drawing book, some stick-on earrings, and a giant, solid milk chocolate Hershey’s kiss.

A new bakery opened near us, so I also got us each two beautiful macarons. And, because I have been wanting to get her one since at least Thanksgiving but haven’t had an opportunity, I got a hot cocoa bomb for Carla.

We had a sugar free-for-all yesterday, and so all the treats are gone.  Well, except for the cookies, of which there are still many, even though we packaged some of them up and delivered them to the kind neighbors who always allow Carla to pet their dogs.

On Valentine’s Day, I drank tea in a festive red and white cup. I made Carla a heart-shaped (frozen) waffle. I cut up some berries for both of us and covered them in whipped cream. (I added heart sprinkles to Carla’s breakfast, you know, in case she wasn’t about to get enough sugar.) (My husband slept in, so he missed the festive breakfasting, but Carla made him coffee.)

I did some reading. I took a very long and leisurely walk on the treadmill and watched an episode of The Office. And I snacked on candy and cookies whenever I felt like it. My husband and I ordered pizza for dinner and then watched an episode of The Queen’s Gambit. A perfectly adequate day. 

I struggle with days like Valentine’s Day, where it seems like there are Certain Expectations (mine, society’s, the universe’s) which are never met. And yet complaining feels taboo, because a) someone always has it worse, and one should be (and is!!!) grateful for what one has and b) it IS a pretty silly holiday and c) complaining feels hurtful to the person who is not meeting said expectations, and who has, after all, been very clear all along about thinking Valentine’s Day is ridiculous. If *I* am the one who likes the holiday, and *I* am the one who finds it pleasing to have a day in the drear midwinter dedicated to something frivolous and fun, and *I* am the one who enjoys making A Big Deal out of it, then it makes sense that *I* should also be the one who orchestrates it the way I want. It does help, to have that attitude. To go in knowing, I WILL have flowers and I WILL have candy and I WILL cut out a bunch of paper hearts and stick them on the walls simply because it brings me joy, and I don’t have to worry about any expectations because I am meeting them myself. It helps. But it doesn’t eliminate the sensation of hurt. (Especially when my husband and daughter, who already each got several treats and gifties from me, also got gifts from my in-laws, and I didn’t. His parents assured us it was a mail delay, and of course it’s not like I NEED or even WANT anything, but I did feel a little self-pitying and near-tears about the whole day for a while.)

Well. No use sobbing over spilled conversation hearts, is there? I hope that at least YOUR Valentine’s Day exceeded expectations. 

The best part about the day was FaceTiming with my parents. My mom had made a necklace of paper hearts for her dog to wear, as well as a huge handmade paper card from the dog to Carla, and it was just so sweet and adorable I can’t stop smiling about it. My mom always had a knack for making holidays joyful when I was a kid – maybe that’s why I feel so driven to make them special for Carla. 

I did regret not getting myself a silly heart-shaped box of chocolates, though. I will know better for next year. 

Okay, now that the sugar rush is behind us, and we are facing down a week of winter storms, let’s turn to some hearty, chill-banishing meals, shall we?

Dinners for the Week of February 16-22

• Broiled Ginger Soy Salmon with Steamed Broccoli: This sounds like a close cousin to my tried-and-true favorite, Thai Chili Salmon. 
• Crispy Shredded Chinese Chicken: This recipe seems to lend itself well to leftovers. Maybe a stir fry one day and lettuce wraps another?
• Lentil Soup: My husband has been jonesing for some lentil soup and I agree that it sounds IDEAL for the weather we’re having. I’m guessing miracle no-knead bread would make for a perfect pairing.
• Lime Sheet Pan Shrimp Fajitas: These sound so flavorful and simple to make.

What’s on your menu for this week?

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Low-Import Health Gripes

Because of the pandemic, I have had to reschedule both my annual lady parts exam AND my annual mammogram multiple times. And now remote learning has been extended an extra week (please please please let it be just one extra week) in January so I had to reschedule my mammogram yet again. Thankfully, this time I was able to get a new appointment merely two weeks later. Previously, I had to schedule it two months out. (This is nothing compared to the lady parts doctor, who is booked out for four months in advance. If I have to reschedule yet again, I will be more than A YEAR past when I was supposed to see her.) (I am pretty sure All Is Well, but you never know and going so long between routine check-ups makes me very nervous indeed.)

This is not the only health topic that has my blood pressure skyrocketing today. I mean, I feel deeply grateful that these health topics are very low on the importance/severity scale. But they are still bothersome. Especially the latter, which has to do with prescription refills. 

This past Sunday, I noticed that I had only a week’s worth of medication left in a bottle. This is a taken-daily medication. And it is a controlled substance, which is relevant. My previous experiences in refilling this medication have taught me to call in the refill more in advance of it running out than I might think. Twice, the medication was completely gone for a couple of days before the new prescription was filled (not a life-threatening issue, more on the frustrating/annoying end of things) and the third time I had to call back three times before the prescription was refilled.

But I thought THIS refill would be easier. For one thing, the pharmacist, last time, told me it was a three-month prescription, which I thought meant the doctor had cleared the medication to be refilled three times. Yet on the bottle it says “no refills” and when I called the pharmacy’s refill line on Monday, it wouldn’t allow me to refill it. I double checked that the medication had been filled more than a month ago (adherence to the “daily” aspect is not 100%). 

Fine. I will call the doctor. 

First, the receptionist said something perplexing. She said, “The refill is already at the pharmacy.” Which. What? I don’t understand that. But while I was trying to digest that comment, she went on to say, “It is a three-month prescription, so the next refill will be ready on December 24. And the next on January 23, and the next on February 22.”

At which point I stopped focusing on the “already at the pharmacy” aspect (and forgot about it completely until now) and started focusing on the “not yet ready until December 24.” Which was more than seven days from the day I called, seven being the number of days’ medication left in the bottle. If the refill date were December 21, I would have been FINE with that, because there was a week’s worth of medication left. BUT the prescription SHOULD be available 30 days after the previous prescription was filled, and I was 99% sure that it had already been more than 30 days.

I did have the presence of mind to say, “Can you hold on a minute? I want to look at the bottle.” And I confirmed that the prescription had been filled on November 10. More than 30 days ago, since it was at that point December 14.

“Well, maybe you got it filled early,” said the receptionist.

I laughed. “But I couldn’t have filled it early,” I said. Since it is a controlled substance, I don’t think you CAN get it refilled early. Maybe in very extenuating circumstances but… I don’t know. The receptionist agreed with me that that was unlikely and said maybe there was some mix-up at the pharmacy that had to be straightened out. And I SWEAR she said that she would call and figure it out. 

But of course at that exact moment Carla, who was of course in the room with me doing her remote learning, piped up with some sort of school question; we are WORKING on not interrupting people who are on the phone but so far that work remains in the EARLY STAGES even though the WORK has been taking place for MANY YEARS. And then the call with the receptionist was over and I was flustered and we had to do some social studies work. 

So then I started dithering over whether to call the doctor’s office again – with no guarantee that I would be connected to the same person! – and risk being a nuisance (I pictured the receptionist feeling like I don’t trust her to do her job and also being frazzled and overwhelmed by all the work she already has without having to deal with yet another over-anxious patient OR thinking, “For Pete’s sake why would **I** call the pharmacy FOR YOU?” and I wish I had just listened more closely in the first place or asked more clarifying questions why will I never learn?????), or to call the pharmacy and pretend like it was clearly me who was supposed to call all along or maybe I should just wait until the next day and see what happens. 

I was really leaning toward waiting. Because this is a controlled substance, I automatically feel like everyone thinks I am using it inappropriately, and am trying to scam my way into more medication than needed. Which is not true! And maybe no one thinks that! And OF COURSE there should be checks and balances and hoops to jump through when it comes to controlled substances! That makes sense! But I feel like my perfectly reasonable and doctor-approved request for a refill is automatically flagged as DRUG SEEKING BEHAVIOR, which adds a whole other level of stress to this. Like… why am I being so adamant about needing a refill? It surely CAN’T BE because it is a daily medication that is nearly used up! It MUST BE because I am an addict/dealer. This is all LARGELY in my head, I am assuming, but omg, when I object to people saying things like “you must have picked it up early,” then I start to worry that I am really giving off Drug Seeker vibes, you know?

My ever-helpful brain turned next to how could I PROVE that I did not pick up the prescription early? My HSA must surely have a record of payments, right? But when I tried to log in to my HSA account, a) it wouldn’t allow me to log in because the website didn’t recognize my computer and b) I never got the “code” it sent me and c) when I called the 800 number you are directed to call in case of not receiving the code via email, the recording told me that my account had been disabled in January of 2020. Which I know is not true, but then I had to help Carla with her reading assignment and got derailed from my goal once again.

Then I remembered! I BLOGGED ABOUT THE NOVEMBER PRESCRIPTION ISSUE. It was a big frustrating hullaballoo, where the pharmacy tech mixed up the dates and insisted that I was trying to pick up the prescription too early, when in reality she was thinking it was October when it was November. 

At the time, I felt warmly toward her – whomst among us hasn’t mixed up the dates in these strange time-malleable days of the pandemic???? – and figured she was doing her best. And in the end I was able to get the prescription when I needed it. But NOW I am wondering if she somehow made it look like I DID pick up the prescription early? (I did NOT; the blog post I wrote says the previous prescription was filled on September 28.)

NONE OF THIS is life-altering. It is just maddening. And I HATE feeling like I’m doing something wrong. And I HATE when systems don’t work the way they should. And I HATE calling people. I HAD TO CALL TOO MANY PEOPLE FOR ONE DAY. 

Fortunately, there is a happyish ending: The doctor’s receptionist called me back Monday afternoon. She had INDEED called the pharmacy and she told me I could pick up my prescription later in the week. Not because it wasn’t the appropriate refill date, but because the pharmacy didn’t have any of that particular medication in stock. (She offered to call in the prescription to another pharmacy if I needed the medication right away, which I declined. Hopefully that is a point in the NON-drug seeker column.) 

I thanked her for calling on my behalf and then asked her if she’d figured out what the issue was. YES, she HAD. Apparently, when I picked up the prescription on November 10, I was picking up a prescription that was coded for November 25. Even though the pharmacy had a prescription dated for October 26, they gave me the one for November 25. Does this make any sense at all? No? It makes no sense to me, either. I cannot speak to whatever fancy maneuvering had to happen to give me a refill early when I already had a perfectly legitimate refill waiting… But the result is that, in the computer, it DID look like I’d picked up the prescription early, when in fact the pharmacy tech seems to have made an error. I don’t know! I am not a pharmacy tech and have no idea what kind of shenanigans go on at the pharmacy! Where did the October 26 prescription come from, is what I want to know. And also, something I will have to clarify with the pharmacy, I guess, is whether I will be stuck on this mis-aligned schedule forever. Well, perhaps it won’t be an issue. But it is all VERY AGGRAVATING, THAT’S FOR SURE.

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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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Turns Out I’m Not Quite Done Complaining About Call Week

I have made a grave miscalculation and we are somehow out of cheese. I keep looking for it around the house, as though there are places other than the refrigerator in which one could misplace a block of extra sharp cheddar.

Like everything, Call Weeks are harder during a pandemic. In the Before Times, I would try to inject as much fun into Call Weeks as possible: spinning the time alone together as special Girl Time, loosening restrictions on screen time, planning special dinner/lunch dates with Carla, planning special coffee/lunch dates with my friends. But now, NONE of that works.

First of all, Carla and I have NOTHING BUT Girl Time. It is the two of us, all day every day. Girl Time is no longer special. It is The Way Things Are.

Loosening restrictions on screen time. Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Screen time restrictions have loosened so much over the past five months that they are almost non-existent. I don’t even pretend anymore. I mean, we have a time limit on Carla’s ipad, but the number of times I add an hour to it each day is… embarrassing. (I keep threatening that we are going back to no screen time during the school week once school starts, but… I cannot imagine what that will look like. As it is, I cannot write an email without seven interruptions.)

We can’t plan special lunch/dinner dates because we are not going to restaurants. I know that many people have resumed this activity, but I am not one of those people. I don’t know when/if I will ever feel comfortable dining inside a restaurant.

I am obviously not planning special coffee or lunch dates with friends. I’m not opposed to going through the Starbucks drive-through, but Carla would be with me. So the specialness of the friend-date would be… reduced.

As it stands, Call Week is going to be just like any other week… except that we will all be cranky and stressed out and Carla and I will be missing her father.

Listen, I know that I could go out of my way to Make Things Special. But please believe me when I say I have exhausted all the specialness in my repertoire. I am CONSTANTLY trying to make things special and fun. Because we are in the middle of a pandemic and there are no camps or parties or trips to visit grandparents or even swimming lessons or soccer practice to occupy us or look forward to.

We have picnics. We have been making an increasing number of playdates (we are up to about one per week, I think, and that is really all my little introvert heart can handle), and in fact we have a bike-riding meetup with friends scheduled for later this week. We eat popcorn and watch movies. We play Barbies. We sing songs. We research states and write reports on them. We build Magnatile condominium complexes for said Barbies. We write stories together, alternating sentences. We play math games. We have dance parties. We create the tallest possible marble tower we can, and then watch all the marbles go through it at once. We play air hockey. We run through the sprinklers. We set up stores and buy things from each other. We have spa days. We bake. We read poetry. We put together all sorts of things from Kiwi crates. We do YouTube exercise videos. We build tents. We go on hikes. When it’s raining, we go on Worm Walks (we have yet to find a single worm on one of these walks, but we keep trying) (a Worm Walk is simply when you put on rain boots and a raincoat and go looking for worms) (you probably understood that from context clues but just in case). We schedule Facetime dates with family and friends. We look for bugs. We play restaurant. We ride bikes. We write poems. We scoot. We play board games. We go on scavenger hunts. We play badminton or catch. We draw. We make chalk obstacle courses on the sidewalk. We play with LEGOs. We research animals and write reports on them. We do everything except read because Carla for some reason thinks reading is an activity reserved only for bedtime.

And even though we do MANY of these things every single week, often MANY of these things in a single DAY, there are still multiple hours of the day where we are each glued to our respective screens. Because there are TOO MANY HOURS IN THE DAY.

What I am saying is, when it comes to making Call Week extra! special! for either of us, I am OUT OF IDEAS.

Well. We haven’t done a spa day in a while. Maybe we’ll try that. And we have two appointments this week. That will liven things up a bit. (Although one is remote, which is just More Of The Same.) Plus the bike-ride playdate.

I also checked out Fry Bread from the library a few weeks ago, with the idea of reading it and then watching some YouTube cooking tutorials by Native Americans and then making our own fry bread at home. (We have not read it yet because of the aforementioned aversion to daytime reading.) Maybe we can finally do that. If the weather is hot and sunny, instead of intermittently thunderstormy as it has been, we will wash my car.

What else can I possibly do, Internet? I am. Tapped. Out. (And very apprehensive about winter, when many of our outdoor activities will be rendered if not impossible then highly undesirable.)

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The Return (for Now) of Dinners This Week

Carla is listening to Taylor Swift’s new song “The One” on repeat, singing along with it while she eats, no joke, pickles and a muffin for breakfast.

For the first twelve thousand days of this pandemic, I did not do a whole lot of meal planning. Instead, my grocery list consisted of the items we consume most often (mainly chicken, ground beef, fruit, tomatoes, yogurt, lettuce, bell peppers, zucchini, onions, lemons/limes, cheese). And then once I was in the store, I would panic-buy a bunch of things that are versatile and easy to prepare: pasta, chickpeas, black beans, pork chops, taco materials, rice, tomato puree. These ingredients can be combined into a fairly wide variety of meals, and I was pleased that we ended up with a pretty varied if carb-heavier-than-usual diet. Of course, near the end of the two weeks between grocery trips, the meals tended to get a bit more… creative. But still. I had a satisfied “If I am succeeding at nothing else, I am feeding my family” feeling and no one threw up or died from my cooking.

Even though I still get that panicky “you must stockpile food!!!!!” feeling when I’m at the grocery store (will that ever subside?), I have slowly returned to making an actual plan. A lot of that plan is “grill some meat and serve it with a veggie,” but at least it’s a real, thought-out dinner strategy for the week ahead. Knowing I am buying specific things for specific meals helps curb some of that “but what if I NEED this” urge to throw several boxes of pasta into my overflowing cart. (I still have two bags of frozen spinach in my basement freezer because it was on sale one week early on during quarantine and I thought “wow, what an easy way to get veggies/vitamins into my family!” even though I have only ever used frozen spinach TWICE and that was to make spinach artichoke dip.) (Speaking of: Anything AMAZING and tomato-free you recommend I make with frozen spinach?)

Making dinner remains a regular drudgery around here, I think because there is never a day off. Even if we get takeout, it’s such an ordeal. I am the designated takeout-person, so I have to drive and get it, and then my husband and I have a whole routine where I hold all the boxes/containers and he transfers the food to our dishes and then I throw out the containers and disinfect any surfaces they have touched. So even having someone else “cook” for me is A Project. (Plus, I still have to do dishes.) There are no date nights or vacations from the Sisyphean mundanity of meals-and-associated-chores, is what I’m saying. I have ZERO desire to go to a restaurant or even to someone’s house for dinner but I do miss the prospect of not having to consider or clean up my or anyone else’s food needs for one meal. Well. We are likely ALL feeling this way. The overall slog of it all is tempered only by my insistence upon making a weekly Fun Cocktail, which perhaps I will include here as well. To liven things up.

I wholeheartedly reserve the right to stop posting about dinner and/or to stop making dinner (ha) at any time.

By the way, I made a miscalculation and had to go to the grocery store two weeks in a row (grimace emoji) because my husband is on call, which means I really can’t plan on being able to go to the grocery store at ALL until he’s done. Oh well. That means a new influx of fresh veggies for the menu plan! And this time, the grocery store had green peppers! Also, I was able to score two more jars of pickles to feed to the pickle monster. (For those of us who care about these things, I noted that graham crackers were back in stock, with a one-box-per-family limit. And hand soap is now limited one-item-per-family, which seems ominous but I am not panicking. The only thing I CANNOT find is plain couscous. I have been buying flavored couscous and just… not using the flavor packet. This week, I had the doubly difficult task of finding pearled/Israeli couscous; there was one box with a flavor packet, so I scooped it up.)

Dinners for the Week of July 27-August 2 

• Caprese Salad with Balsamic Chicken and Balsamic Dressing
• Chili Garlic Chicken Breast with Roasted Asparagus
• Lemony Cucumber Couscous Salad + Grilled Pork Chops
• Greek Style Grilled Chicken + Tzatziki + Leftover Couscous Salad
• Balsamic Pork Tenderloin with Caramelized Onions and Rice
• Hamburgers + Elote Dip and Key Lime Pie Icebox Cake
• Takeout

Cocktail of the Week:

• Raspberry and Mint Gin Mojito

Note: I have been growing mint in my Aerogarden. It’s getting a little wan but I think I have enough mint leaves left for this cocktail.

 

What are you having for dinner this week, Internet? Has your meal planning strategy changed during the pandemic?

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