Monday, January 23, 2023

Not At My Best But Not Too Bad


It looks like we may not have lost all the azaleas after all. I found these two buds reaching up today like torches raised in tribute to the coming spring. 

It was a perfectly lovely day with a few white cotton ball clouds in the blue sky. It started out though with some news that I figured would be coming which is that August tested positive for Covid although he just has a little cough and no fever. Vergil's test still isn't in as far as I know but he went for a run this morning so he's feeling a lot better. Levon's school has been sending out notices that they've had some kids testing positive and so there you go. Jessie herself doesn't feel well but she's going to go into the hospital where she works for a test which is how they do it. 

I haven't been feeling very good. My body aches and I'm slow and can't seem to get warm. I did take a test and it came up negative and I'll take another tomorrow if I still don't feel well. It's funny. I just finished listening to a book yesterday about the influenza pandemic that circled the globe with such morbidity in 1918. It was horrifying. And today I started listening to one of Elizabeth Strout's Lucy books (Lucy By The Sea) which takes place during the covid pandemic. You know, even though that happened like day before yesterday, it is still hard to call up that whole section of time when we isolated ourselves and could not hug our grandchildren or beloved friends, when each trip to the grocery store was a panicked experience, how we made masks of cloth and used coffee bag closures as nose pieces. But it did happen and it could happen again. The refrigerated trucks lined up to receive bodies from hospitals and mortuaries, the medical staffs who risked their lives daily without the proper protective gear. The schools shut down, the travel restrictions, the reports of mortality from each state, each county, each community. We humans do not learn from the past. We just don't. We act like such an event was a complete one-off and could never happen again. 
Tra-la-la-la-la, we sing with our fingers in our ears. 
Hey! Me too! 

I got outside for a little while to plant my chard and do the tiniest bit of weeding. Look at the happy garlic. 


And then I picked some carrots and turnips and greens for the soup I wanted to make. I had the mostly-picked over skeleton of the chicken we'd had a few days ago and some frozen Thanksgiving turkey. I started a stock with the carrot tops, a piece of onion that was in the refrigerator, some of the turnip greens, and some garlic, a bay leaf. My carrots are not very large yet but I have begun pulling them. 


I am wishing I'd planted at least one more row. 

Later on in the afternoon I strained the stock and simmered the chicken bones, thawed the turkey, chopped the greens, the turnips, and another onion, sliced celery and the carrots. I've put that all together with some leftover broccoli and it's simmering nicely. Before we eat I'm going to add the rest of the pasta I made the other night with greens, broccoli, almonds and lemon juice in it. I'll probably squeeze more lemon in it and maybe some lime too. I'd add some tomatoes if there was room in the pot but there is not and I refuse to transfer it to the giant pot. 
So obviously I am not so bad off. All day I kept planning to sit down and do some mending and/or crocheting but every time I finished one task I thought of another to do. I set Ralph off to vacuum, bless his heart, and before I did that I gave his parts a good cleaning and tweezered hair from around his wheels and rollers. I really do have a great affection for Ralph. He manages to make me feel productive even when I'm not doing a damn thing. Just hearing his industrious little robot sound as he pulls the dirt and dust up off my floors makes me feel as if the situation is being dealt with. 
And it is. 

I finally took a few minutes to finish up the patch on Mr. Moon's jeans. 




Henceforth we shall call it the Freaky Old Lady Name of Cocaine Katy patch. I hope it's what he wanted. He's in town right now. He went to the gym and he needs some sort of, uh, metal boat part. Also come covid tests. 
I asked him today what we should do if I do test positive. I mean- he was with the kids too and there's little doubt that he has been exposed to whatever it is that I have. 
"I don't know," he said. "We sure did a lot of kissing last night."

And yes. Yes we did. 

Well. We are both vaxxed and boosted, boosted, I don't know how many times boosted. I'm sure we'll be fine. 
But maybe I won't kiss him for a day or two. 
At least not on the lips. 
We shall see.

Love...Ms. Moon

30 comments:

  1. Let's hope for the best for everyone. It's a scary illness. I love how you go out and pick fresh vegetables. You can even grow carrots! Here nobody can grow them, soil wonderful for many other crops, carrots no. Best we ever get are carrots with big shoulders, look fine, you pick and they taper to nothing in an inch!

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    1. I never was able to grow carrots successfully until I got hold of this heirloom variety and it does very well. They are not only beautiful, they are delicious too.

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  2. I love what a fat heart it is. I'm used to skinny hearts drawn by kids, who barely know the whole of love; skinny hearts that have no idea of the wonderful things you can catch because of love and stuff into that skinny heart until it is fat and round everywhere!

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  3. Joanne! I love that! Do you suppose that I made a fat heart out of my feelings for my husband? I hope so.

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  4. "I don't know," he said. "We sure did a lot of kissing last night."
    Sounds like a lovely way to spend some time. Hope you both stay well.

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  5. Well, by gosh, if you're gonig to get sick, there might as well be kissing involved, lots and lots of kissing.

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  6. I love the jeans patch! and you have so much garlic growing! Mine died as it always does and the spindly beans and carrots got eaten by whatever is out there, so I pulled up what was left and tossed them on the ground to be mulch. I still have tomato seedlings that look promising, the possums and birds haven't discovered them yet.
    It's so sad that Covid is still around and there are so many old and new variations of it springing up all over. Whoever let that particular cat out of the bag to begin with deserves a good spanking.

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    1. We've had good luck with garlic if we're just patient enough to let it grow until it's truly ready to be picked.
      Have you ever heard of rattlesnake beans? I have found them to be an incredibly hardy green bean. It's an heirloom. Don't know if you could find it.
      One would think we'd had enough of this covid thing and yet...

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  7. I have missed your posts. I have been caught up with grandchildren and friends and life and I haven't been able to follow my usual morning routine which involves 3 cups of tea and over an hour of blog reading and commenting.
    I hope you stay Covid free. Lots of kissing sounds like the perfect way to spend an evening.

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    1. That's okay, Ms. Merlot. Not a whole lot is happening here. Please never feel pressured.

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  8. Fingers crossed for you both that you are covid negative!

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  9. If either of you has Covid, you might just as well carry on kissing as you have already passed it on! ( Lucky you....the kissing I mean, not the covid)

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  10. I'm so glad that you'll have azaleas. They are the harbingers of good things to come. Crossing fingers that Covid test remain negative for you and Mr. Moon. Hoping the Weatherfords' cases remain mild and manageable.

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  11. I like the patch. This makes me think I should try to patch my own jeans. I have two pairs with holes in the side from my camera bag. Whatever happened to iron-on patches? Do they still sell those?

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    1. I can still find iron-on patches at places like Joann's Fabrics. They're sort of sucky though.

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  12. I am catching up here, too, after a week of travel, visiting with a good friend and settling in here in France. I am so glad you are here where I can visit with you while sheltering from the cold. Looks like a little sun is filtering through the clouds so I will wrap up even more and walk down to the Utile (local grocery store) for a few things. Sending hugs from here. x0x0 N2

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    1. So nice to hear that you're out traveling again! Looking forward to your posts about your trip.

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  13. I hope any of you that get Covid, get a mild case. At least you have a nice hearty soup that will help you feel better soon!

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  14. We have so far avoided covid. Plan to go get the bivalent booster tomorrow. I hope it doesn't make me feel bad because I have SHARE the next day. Tonight I'm going to brown some italian sausage and add it to the lentil stew I made a while back, the rest of which is in the freezer. Freezer space is at a premium so I'm trying to use some of the leftovers in there. I had intended to work on cutting back stuff over at the shop yesterday but while it was mostly sunny it was cold and the wind was blowing steadily from the East. Brrr.

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    1. I hope the booster didn't kick your ass.
      Your sausage and lentil idea sounds great.

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  15. My father (who was almost 60 when I was born) had the Spanish Flu when it went around the second time. His wife died of it two days after he was hospitalized. The only way he lived is that they sliced through his back and drained his left lung. I can remember as a girl putting my little hand into the caved in scar on his back. They would not tell him that his wife had died until two weeks after his surgery. The Spanish Flu did not come from Spain, you know. It came from Kansas so why it got that moniker, who knows?

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    1. Wow. That is QUITE a story. I had no idea about the Kansas origin.

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  16. wow, that patch takes me back in time! Nice work and it's great! Mr Moon will be the envy of his friends when they see that! It's the love. Hoping you are feeling better. And....Steve was wondering if iron-on patches are still a *thing*. Well.....I have looked in stores that used to carry them.....but now.....no longer. They are available online tho......which is great because sometimes they do come in handy!
    Susan M.

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    1. I think they still have them at Joann's fabric store. They never really work that well though, in my experience. However, not everyone wants a funky heart sewed to their jeans.

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