My new protocol for receiving packages. Collect them, put them down on a shelf or the floor, wash my hands, leave them for 3-4 days for all the covids to die off. Then open.
Gone are the days of excitedly ripping into a package. Today said package might actually kill you.
I have already mentioned the nightmares are back, the ones I haven’t had since divorcing 13 years ago.
I now have nightmares I haven’t had since I was a young child and teenager being erratically (that matters) violently abused by an alcoholic father. That was over 40 years ago. It’s the loss of control nightmares. (Psychologists are nodding knowingly here).
In my youth the nightmare was one where I was being chased by a man with no face, and then either I would be running and would go blind, or he would have me cornered in my bed against the walls and I would go blind. There was no variation where I had a chance of getting away.
In the pandemic 2020 nightmares I lose things of value and spend the entire night frantically trying to find them. Last night I had taken a bus to Montreal and arrived to find my pack with everything in it missing. And I refused to give up searching for it even though I knew it had been stolen. It makes for a rough night.
Well, I refused to believe the worst of my fellow human beings; that someone could have stolen my things. That’s something.
We are rationing eggs. I bought 4 dozen to get us through 2 weeks. I eat 2 a day, SonXYZ eats 4 a day.
My egg farmer (who delivers eggs and chicken) got into trouble accepting new clients; he didn’t prioritize existing repeat clients, and he ran out hence we ran out. Two weeks ago it was chicken.
It’s one feeling having no eggs for weeks (yes weeks) at a time because I have been too lazy/busy/travelling/lazy/anxious /lazy to shop. It’s quite another when there are no eggs because the world is running out. Because people are dying from a virus that’s trying to kill us.
Today we will stretch our eggs with rice and peas. Unbelievable.
Most of my COVID-19 blog postings have been moanful, because blogging is such good therapy, it has been in the pissed-off or unhappy moments that I turn to writing. But there have been some good effects of this pandemic.
Son XYZ was going through the very natural and normal process of becoming a grown-up by no longer being a Mama’s Boy. This is done by being dismissive and irritated by me, by grooving into that space that is never nice, is approaching nasty, but is not quite insubordination. My boys are 6 years apart, so I have been to this rodeo before; this time was not as upsetting to me, as I really didn’t take it personally.
Nonetheless, home became a hostile environment, and our reprieve was that we were both mostly out and about.
As soon as self-isolation became real, smart Son XYZ took no time at all to chill out. He did the calculation in his head and realized that I was basically the last and only person in the world he could hang out with, and he doesn’t do confrontation at all well, so the path was clear.
This global pandemic lockdown induced niceness has been a gift to us. Son XYZ has just graduated from University, and will soon be launched into the world, so this may be the very end of our co-nesting.
It is a gift that this parenting phase will end on a relaxed note. The bond of self-isolation buddies is pretty intense and is now part of our history. :-)
I was going to keep the carcass of the chicken I made last night for soup stock. A very clever plan given chickens are in short supply. It’s really hard to fathom when you think about TV shots of bazillions of chickens being raised for food.
I remembered this clever plan after leaving the carcass on the kitchen counter overnight and throwing it out today.
I am not very good at survival living.