this is michigan

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“the furnace is broken AND we have no wood left for the woodstove. someone here isn’t prepared, karen”

I think most folks in the northern hemisphere would see the date on my post and think, hey, April is springtime! Warmer weather and sunshine and buttercups coming up! But (sad trombone) we live in Michigan and this is not the case. It’s been barely pushing mid-40’s F during the day and well below freezing at night and I came back from my walk yesterday covered in snow and soaking wet after being caught in a freezing squall. This is not helping the overall filthy mood of Michigan during the pandemic.

SO, fate being what it is, this is the time that my furnace decided to give up the ghost. It’s not unexpected. It’s from 1994 and honestly, I haven’t done a lick of maintenance on it since I moved in. I’ve barely remembered to replace the filter on any kind of normal basis and when I do so, there’s usually enough cat hair in there to spontaneously regenerate a fourth feline. Yes I feel guilty. But I’m paying the price now as my heat went out. For 24 hours it was 51 in my house. We used a space heater during the day, went to bed last night with hot-water bottles and pissed off (but warm) cats. The repair person came (decked out in full PPE and carrying disinfectant to wipe down everything he touched) and as he pointed out the leak (“HERE”), the condensation damage (“HERE”) and the almost-entirely-rusted-out-bolt-holding-something-together (“HERE”), the look in his eyes over his face mask was reproachful. He got it going, and I’m now luxuriating in blissful warmth, but when the blower motor started up he actually flinched.

“It’s not going to last the summer,” he said.

“It doesn’t NEED TO – it will be SUMMER,” I said, quite reasonably I thought.

“Yes but this is MICHIGAN,” he pointed out, as, on cue, a gentle sleet began to tap against the windowpane.

(The upside of wearing a mask, I’ve found, is that I can stick my tongue out at people and they don’t know I’m doing it. And yes – I am extremely fortunate that I can afford repairs and replacements, I am still working, and that this didn’t happen in say, January when getting by without heat would not have been possible without severe discomfort and possibly frozen pipes. He also consoled me with the fact that there are some really good specials running now. But let me have my moment of childish spite.)

So next week I will have another cadre of PPE-swathed repair people in to replace my furnace and take several thousand of my dollars in exchange for living in Michigan where you need a furnace in frigging July.

How’s your week going?

dark and bright

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I had to get off Facebook last week because I am so angry at some of my fellow Michiganders who felt that they needed to exercise their pique. While we are in the middle of a pandemic, surrounded by families who have loved ones in the hospital, who have passed away, or are working on the front lines, many decided to storm Lansing to protest “government overreach” and what they consider to be overly restrictive stay at home orders. They blocked a driveway at a level-1 trauma center and despite doctors begging them to move their cars to allow ambulances access, they laughed and maintained they were “exercising their rights”. What a selfish, ignorant, uneducated and disrespectful slap in the face to so many working so hard to keep us safe. I’m disgusted and sad. I fully understand people who have lost their jobs or businesses, who are worried and upset about loss of income and loss of security. But clogging streets, waving Confederate flags and wearing MAGA hats instead of masks, and keeping essential workers and healthcare vehicles from accomplishing their tasks is not the way to safely or constructively express this.

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Anyway. Deep breath and move on. I can only control myself, my own priorities and my own actions, not those of others.

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And I can note and take comfort in the fact that spring is here and there is brightness everywhere – in flowers, sky, a red-haired girl, and in the reflection of sun on water.

Be well and take care of yourself and, if you can, others.

show us your books! march reads (quarantine edition)

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As always, joining up with our hosts Life According to Steph and Jana Says for this link up!

Before the Stay Home Stay Safe order came down, I rushed to the library to stock up on books. There was a reserve waiting for me, but nothing I wanted in New Arrivals (it was my first experience with a shelf picked bare due to quarantine) so I stormed the Mystery section and pulled several titles off the shelves. Fortunately, I enjoyed all of them, and I present:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow – a young girl in the early 1900’s embarks on a fantastic journey via a strange book and a series of magical doors to find her family and her own identity. Despite the promising premise, I would say this just passed the time for me. It had some shiny moments but ultimately fell flat.

The Return (Inspector Van Veeteren #3) by Hakan Nesser. (modeled by Sarge in the pic above.) Love a good gloomy Nordic mystery. When kids find a headless, legless, footless corpse (always a great set up), Inspector Van Veeteren, scheduled for surgery, becomes embroiled. Told in many flashbacks as the Inspector comes to suspect that a notorious double murderer may actually have been innocent. Not the best Van Veeteren I’ve read but it was solid.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware. A girl seeking a new opportunity answers an ad for a live-in nanny position. Suspense ensues. Gah. I can usually tolerate Ruth Ware but this one felt like a slog. The twist felt completely unbelievable and the ending was irritating.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce #1) by Alan Bradley. In the summer of 1950, precocious chemist and amateur investigator Flavia de Luce – age 11 – stumbles across a series of alarming events, including a man breathing his last in the cucumber patch. Flavia sets out to solve the crime and vindicate her father AND torment her older sisters. Although this series could get overly saccharine, I liked this book a lot and found it a great antidote to quarantine. I’d love to see Flavia as a young adult.

A Bitter Truth and A Casualty of War (Bess Crawfords #3 and #9), by Charles Todd – I’m reviewing these together because no need to go into a lot of detail on the plot points. A WWI nurse from a good family solves crimes against the backdrop of the war. Enjoyed – I like Bess as a heroine and that time period is very interesting to me, the plots were a little more forgettable.

The Ship of Brides by JoJo Moyes. Now that I’ve plowed through the library hoard, I’m falling back on Kindle deals. Never read anything by JoJo Moyes but got sucked into this one, set in 1946, about a bunch of Australian brides sailing to England on a decommissioned war ship to meet the men they wed in wartime. I liked the characters and the descriptions of them taking over the war ship like a raging bunch of old-timey sorority girls.

And that’s my offering for this April Tuesday, still in quarantine. Take what you’d like and leave the rest. I look forward to seeing what you’ve all been reading during this crazy month. Be well and see you next month. xo

Life According to Steph

 

good friday

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You know, Good Friday.

I’m not religious but am super willing to take advantage of this holiday. Everything is going fine, really, here in suburban Elysia’s quarantine fields, but I am feeling the results of having to keep plates spinning. It’s funny but in quarantine I am less alone than I am on a regular basis, I think – when Miss L is with me, we are set up at the same table, doing our online tasks together, and although Brandon is still working, his days start early and end early so he’s home mid-afternoon. I’m responding to emails, working on documents, doing teleconferences and web meetings, planning our annual Board meetings, helping Miss L stay on track with her weekly schedule of classwork, stopping to make lunch and snacks and then dinner (everyone is always hungry) and trying to meal plan for upcoming days and weeks and plan either food deliveries or trips to the store for essentials. I am checking in regularly with my neighbor behind, who is a lovely older woman with cats and a preexisting respiratory condition, and so far she’s only let me get milk for her, but she calls me sometimes when she needs to talk and I am always keeping an eye on the lights in her house and making sure she’s okay.

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So it does get to be a lot for an introvert like me and there are times when I just need some alone time, and today I was able to do that. I restarted the Pink Memories sweater, watched a few episodes of Poldark (Brandon and Miss L tease me for my crush on Poldark “Ooohhhh Poooolddarkkk”) and took a long nap with Emmett aka Unpaid Intern. Of all three of our cats, Emmett is the most unabashedly cuddly and affectionate and needy, and the most willing to disappear for a good long nap with me.

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In other quarantine news, Michigan extended its Stay Home Stay Safe order until April 30, which is no surprise and for which I am glad.  Our office will be closed at least through then and probably into May, and after that I’ll have to figure out what to do with schools closed and summer camp cancellations.

I did make a trip into our office this week – we are considered an “essential business” so we can access our building, although if we can work from home, we are required to do so – I needed to drop off some documents for signature and pick up some files. I had to be screened, have my temperature taken, and the place was like a ghost town. It made me realize how quickly everything has changed for everyone. I can be a bit dissociated – just head down, focusing on the task – but I never, ever, ever imagined that we would live in a world where masks and gloves are a common sight, everywhere, the roads empty, parking lots deserted.

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I’ve scouted out fabric masks and Miss L’s dad and crafty stepmom made some and gifted them to me & Brandon for our trips to the store. I have a few more coming, as well, from a coworker who only asked for more fabric in return, so she could continue to make more. I slip coffee filters into them and wash after every wear. So we have a bit of a stockpile. My freezer is well stocked and our grocery stores, while not as full of the plethora of choices as they have been in the past, are stocked with everything I could need (except toilet paper, but I got on that train weeks ago and am in good shape).  All of these are blessings. I feel like I’m tempting fate if I don’t add, always, gratitude – being busy and stressed means that my job continues and my paycheck keeps coming. Miss L working on her computer means that she’s continuing to get an education and having to meal plan and cook means that we have ample access to food. No one we know is sick, and every prayer to everything I hold true in the universe, I’m sending up that it stays that way.

There are some things that I’m indulging in to make these days easier – little gifts every day. I love this inexpensive bath salt, which I found during a quarantine trip to Wal-Mart (a place I rarely venture into). I am a huge fan of these candles from Target. I burned through the library stockpile I laid in before quarantine, so have a lot of Kindle finds that I’ve started on, with some shipments from Cottage Book Shop (my favorite independent bookstore that I will support as much as I can) to look forward to, as well. I’ll run these down in our next Show Us Your Books and warning, it will be a whomper.

I hope you are all well and safe and healthy. xo

 

currently

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Sorry folks but all I have to share is cat pics and memes this week – bear with me as the content is a bit light due to quarantine.

Along with the rest of the world, I’m not entirely sure what day it is (or month). I’ve been working from home and observing the guidelines of social isolation / distancing for about 3 weeks now (I think?). Work is crazy but more interesting than usual, I have to say – being in a Legal Department during a pandemic has meant different things every day and also trying to organize our annual board meeting with this going on has been extra trying. But I’m glad to still be working, getting paid, and be home while I’m doing it – it also gives a sense of structure and stability to my days that I personally need for my mental health.

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Michigan is burning. Detroit is a hotspot with 3,550 cases of the 12, 744 statewide and my county has about 2,500. I feel so grateful that my parent’s county is so far being spared, but that will change once the summer people from downstate begin flocking north. Governor Whitmer (also known as “that woman from Michigan” per “that man in the White House” and of course now they’re selling t-shirts with that slogan – I think she wore one under her blazer for a recent spot on the Daily Show) issued an order this week that closed schools for the remainder of the school year. So Miss L is switching over to an entirely online curriculum. She’s done a great job with this. We set up our home office / classroom at our dining room table, draw up her weekly schedule in bullet-journal form, decorated with stickers, washi tape and boxes to color in as she finishes tasks, and she usually does about 3-4 hours of work a day. Don’t ask me what we’re going to do once my office reopens (IF it reopens anytime soon) – I’ll figure that out when I get there.

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I finally frogged my Pink Memories sweater and will be restarting it from scratch. This is now the third attempt on my first sweater – I’m nothing if not tenacious. But I still can’t bring myself to knit anything in the evenings except repetitive garter stitch. It’s all I seem to have bandwidth for.

Anyway, I hope you are all well and safe, staying home and keeping your loved ones emotionally close if not physically so.

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week two of the new normal

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Alrite.

How’s it going.

(To quote Karl Pilkington, for any of my readers who are fans!)

Our second week of isolation is going well. I’m back into a good groove with my home office and Miss L has set up with me to do her online classwork. (Huge props to our school district for a quick move to online learning- they’re doing super cool things with Google Classroom assignments and keeping kids connected via Hangouts and video conferencing a couple times a week!) She has also been keeping us well supplied with baked goods from a cookbook for kids that my folks got her for Christmas- she’s made brownies from scratch and chocolate chip cookies this week.

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Emmett has been our faithful home office companion and we call him out unpaid intern for as much time as he spends hanging out with us at our work table.

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Although our governor has issued an official stay-home order, Brandon was deemed an essential employee by the company he is doing work for, so has to go into his workplace every day. He’s been a trooper about it but I know it causes him a lot of personal and ethical conflict and concern. We’re trying to take extra good care of him.

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The weather has been nice (for Michigan) the last couple of days, with mild temperatures and sun. Brandon got Miss L’s bike out yesterday and we went for a walk while she rode. It was amazing how many people were out – hanging out in their driveways, on porches, doing some early yardwork, walking their dogs. Everyone maintained wide berth from each other but it was very reassuring to have some contact, waving and calling hello, sharing gratitude about the sunshine.

I only want to knit in simple, mindless, meditational garter stitch so I’ve pulled out the log cabin blanket I started a couple of years ago.

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I hope you are all well and experiencing similar moments of goodwill and gratitude wherever you are, amidst all the worry and strain. xo

working from home

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I’ve been putting off this post all week, making the excuse that I’m getting used to “the new normal”, being at home, trying to set up a new routine, be productive, be upbeat, be calm, be responsive. The truth is I just don’t know what I have to offer at this point that’s any different than what all of us are experiencing. We’re all scared, mad, anxious, confused, worried, and I’m no different. I’m scared of the empty shelves at the grocery store and worried about my family and my friends and myself. I’m worried who will take care of my daughter and my pets if I get sick. I’m worried about my company’s ability to weather this. I worry about my girl, her physical and mental health during this scary time, and my parents and Brandon who is still out there every day doing his normal job.

I’m mad that some days it feels like I’m carrying that burden all by myself.

I don’t have a “but then I realize…” triumphant recovery paragraph to come after that.

The only thing I really know is that I am not alone. I hear the same cracking tone in my colleagues voices over our teleconferences, admitting that they can’t watch the news, admitting that their kids are freaking out with cabin fever, and they’re not the best at homeschooling and trying to get the reports out on time.

All I can do is keep checking in on the people I love and who love me, try to be prepared but not panicked, be willing to share and offer support and whatever supplies I might have to spare. Keep showing up to my little home office with my unpaid feline interns. And be full of gratitude for my extreme privilege, which so far has kept these things as worrisome spectors and not tragic realities.

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I do believe that people have the ability to be their best in a crisis and there’s no one in history I admire more than the Londoners during the Blitz huddling underground at night during bombing raids and then getting up to carry on with their days and their families and their jobs. If this is my London Blitz then I want to be like I imagine they were.

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. Next time I will come back with a stiff upper lip and some knitting, some running, and another report. Be well and take care of yourselves and others and keep in touch. xo

the curse of interesting times

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I totally blew Show Us Your Books this week but I wanted to share the below. If you’re into graphic novels, I devoured these last month and can highly recommend them. The art is gorgeous and even though I’m not sure I completely followed the plot, I loved them (and actually ordered the collection on Amazon so I can own them myself).

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We hit almost sixty degrees here in Southeast Michigan last week so I got some muddy spring running in (and then bought new running shoes as my old Brooks were then well and truly trashed).

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I was voter #38 at my precinct on Tuesday and while my first choice candidate wasn’t a winner, I am still very optimistic about the overall turnout and the fact that two important local initiatives passed – one related to a school bond proposal and the other, a millage renewal for the Detroit Institute of Arts.

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So…how is everyone doing?

Personally, I’m swinging between feeling concerned & wanting to be educated about the corona virus and being utterly annoyed at the mass hysteria. Every talking head on our evening news is on the virus train (live at Costco to show every Tom Dick and Karen with their massive carts full of paper towels and gallons of water). Opening Facebook is an exercise in seeing every armchair expert sharing their views or freaking out that we’re on the verge of societal collapse or wondering how they’re going to handle it if their kids don’t have school. I’ve promised myself that I am not posting anything on Facebook related to the virus unless I have something personal or factual to share.

This is my blog, though, so I’m not adhering to those rules – ha.

I feel generally prepared. I am not hoarding, but I stocked my freezer & pantry with some extra food in case of a home quarantine and I’ve already discussed my toilet paper stocks. I’m working from home today, as my company is stress-testing our remote networks to make sure they can support a working-from-home population. Being in the legal department, I’m privy to some behind-the-scenes discussions about how to handle our corporate response to the pandemic and while of course those are not for dissemination unless and until they are needed, suffice it to say that I’m pleased and impressed by our company views on keeping employees safe, healthy, calm, and productive.

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sarge is ready to quarantine

That said, what comes next? These are interesting times and all we can do is look at countries who are ahead of us in the curve and try to extrapolate. I think it’s realistic to expect that schools may close for awhile (all public universities in Michigan have suspended in-person instruction and have moved to online for various lengths of time) and we may be asked to home quarantine for some period of time. We will see what happens but by all means, let’s stay calm, be prepared, and support our brothers and sisters.

mostly about toilet paper

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Ugh. I hate that I’m about to write about this. But for the last week I’ve been listening to the doomsday prepping engineers who sit outside my office and now I want to talk about corona virus but then again I don’t want to talk about corona virus because I think it’s been blown way out of proportion.

I’ve been too busy with regular life to worry much, but one of my colleagues came into work the other day and said that there were long lines at a local big box store waiting for the guy on the crane to pull down the pallets of Charmin from the very top shelf.

I told myself I wasn’t going to contribute to this nonsense but after I heard that I had a minor panic attack and ordered an obscene amount of toilet paper for immediate delivery. (forehead smack) Now I’m ashamed of myself but somewhat relieved that if we have to shelter in home for awhile we can do it with toilet paper.

(Even writing that down sounds ridiculous.)

I think it’s important to be knowledgeable and prepared, but equally important to remain calm and not panic and hoard. I’m trying to adhere to the more common sense suggestions: Wash your hands. Stay home if you don’t feel well. Don’t buy face masks; let health care workers have them. Have a bit of extra food in your freezer just in case.

In other news, I had my hair cut and taxes done this week, and watched Miss L at her middle school band concert. I still haven’t ramped up much with my running but I heard a red-winged blackbird in the reeds the other morning which always makes me excited for spring runs!

I hope you are all doing well and not stressing about the news reports. xo

emmett certainly isn’t stressful

which is mostly about knitting

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I cast off on my New Year’s socks and am proud to reveal them as the “Lost Cathedral” socks, following on my fondness for the literary. These are named after “Chimes of a Lost Cathedral” by Janet Fitch.

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They are Raveled but I can tell you that I used Wendy’s Toe-Up Sock Pattern and the yarn is Six and Seven Fiber Alfalfa in the “Avonlea” colorway. As soon as they were off the needles, they were on my feet, and friends, this yarn is wonderful. It’s very warm, soft, and not a bit itchy. I plan on taking my mother to Wool and Honey the next time I’m up north so she can pick a color and I can knit her a pair – it is my new favorite sock yarn. My only grievance is that I did not cast off as loosely as I should on one cuff so it takes a bit of finagling to get it on but once it’s on, it’s fine, and I knit them a bit shorter than I usually do, as well.

My next knitting item for discussion is the Pink Memories sweater which I’ve been chunking away at for almost a year now. Friends, I need a stiff drink to tell you this, but after finishing the ribbing, I now think I have to frog it back to mid-chest.

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You probably can’t see it as well in this picture, but I realized a fair way through that I had messed up the garter stitch just under the breast (I did two rows of purl which makes a strange compressed line instead of a normal garter stitch). Before that, there was a knot tie join in one of the skeins and it of course ended up on the front of the sweater with scraggly ends. I also dropped a stitch or did something wonky to one of the yoke-shaping stitches which makes it look gappy and strange. I thought I could live with these errors but I have realized that I simply can’t. I don’t want to wear my first sweater and constantly be self-conscious that everyone can see a strange bust line and a gaping stitch and a weird yarn join right in the front and think “yeah, I can tell she knitted that thing herself…”

…I think I have to tear it back and try to salvage what I can or entirely start over.

I know it will be worth it when it’s done – it’s a great pattern and beautiful yarn – but it’s a hard pill to swallow and I’ve been absorbing myself in all sorts of other little tasks to avoid tackling this painful process. I’m hoping it will now be finished and ready to wear for winter 2021.