Another week in lock-down has come and gone and I don’t have much to show for it. The DH and I reached the moving furniture phase (or at least I did. He is always accommodating). We moved the little-used stereo from our living room into our family room and took boxes of stuff to our UHaul storage unit. The newly improved house isn’t quite ready for photos, so that will have to wait. In the meantime, I can relate to this:

As usual, I attended several Zoom meetings, including a weekly department “Happy Hour” that I tolerated for about ten minutes. I loath Zoom. Recently, I came across a Zoom-meeting-reaction pie chart on the internet. It was amusing but did not apply to my situation, so I made one of my own:

What would your Zoom chart look like?

Meanwhile, my reading and watching seem to have reached a plateau, which is a nice way of saying that I’m in a rut. I can’t decide what to read and I’ve been binge-watching The Mentalist, a pleasantly average crime show that ran from 2008-2015.

In order to make peace with his tragic past, brilliantly quirky Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) acts as a consultant for the serious crimes unit of CBI (the California Bureau of Investigations). The Mentalist is rather old fashioned in that the main characters are decent people, the plots do not require a million twists, turns and betrayals, and the crimes are not meant to shock or titillate the audience but to show how clever Jane is. There is an overarching uber-plot that involves Jane’s search for Red John, the serial killer who murdered his (Jane’s) wife and child, but most episodes represent individual crime stories. So far — I’m only in season 2 — I have not found that Red John intrudes too much. The show asks very little of its viewers but it is not boring and I can usually manage two episodes before falling asleep.

Before I sign off, I’d like to point you to this week’s Melville Minute, in which son #2 and Vincent Price remind us of the importance of gratitude.  Though I certainly have much to be grateful for, I have to admit that life has taken a turn to the absurd, like something out of Alice and Wonderland:

 Mad Hatter: “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.

Indeed, I haven’t the slightest idea what anything means, but I’m determined to enjoy it anyway.

Well, one tip is to have a birthday. It was lovely on Tuesday to receive messages from friends and family, open presents, and enjoy flower deliveries for my somewhat surreal 30th birthday. But of course we aren’t all so lucky to celebrate such milestones in quarantine…

So another thing to do is pull out your coffee table books!

DN compiled a huge stack of ours to make a tower for Zoom calls. (We all know that camera angle is very important if you are going to have to stare at your own face for several hours a week.) The stack inspired me to look through a bit of my collection.

Some of the birthday boxes have not yet been tidied…

Reading about the Missouri Botanical Garden

This book is about art and Walt Whitman — I’ve always loved portraits of him

But I never knew there was a bronze cast of his right hand at the Library of Congress!

Nor did I know much about Mondrian’s painting before the color blocking grid paintings

You see, there’s plenty to keep us entertained at home. Personally, I have found it a bit hard to focus on literature, even as I’ve suggested re-reading Moby-Dick and I started The Scarlet Letter in pre-quarantine days. Sheltering in place causes a bit of ADHD, I think. But even I can handle a coffee table book — and learn a thing or two in perusing it!

Well, here we are at Wednesday again. Week five of our social isolation. As my mother wrote yesterday, we had a lovely time over Easter. But, I will admit that my return to my apartment did send me into a downward spiral ending in doldrums.

The limit does not exist when it comes to Simpson screengrabs included in blog posts.

As always, I am trying to focus on finding joy. The advent of a new Lottie mood image (seen in yesterday’s post) got me thinking about earlier Lottie moods. They really cover the gamut of quarantine moods, am I right?

It’s so hard to pick a favorite. And they do make me laugh.

Other things that are making me laugh are funny internet memes like the ones below.

Honestly, if TJ Maxx offered that service I would 100% do it. I miss my trips to TJ Maxx and it makes me laugh that I am not alone in this.

I have found that my contribution to things is usually humor. I can’t really cook (although I can make a margarita). And I’m not great at planning a trip. But I can crack a joke. So unlike the other deep-thinkers who are contributors to this blog, I don’t have a thoughtful quote to add to this today. Hopefully I have brought some lightness into your day. And don’t forget to look around at the flowering trees. They really are incredible this year!

*Edna Krabapple

We have made it through FOUR full weeks of social distancing and teleworking. It feels like a nice round number and that this should be over. We did it! Right? Well, no. We’ve still got a long way to go, it seems. So we will keep on keeping on. As we dual multiple personalities have continued to emphasize, I will look for the little joys I can and focus on being grateful for my home, health, and security. But know that my most frequent emoji continues to be the upside-down-face.

So, a few bits of joy from the weekend…

We signed up for a fruit box, vegetable box, and dairy box (not pictured) from a distributer that normally provides food to restaurants but now allows for consumer orders. We arranged for the pick-up at a random street corner and very nice men placed the boxes in our truck for us! We made pasta with asparagus, lemon, and parmesan cheese for dinner on Saturday and it was delicious.

We moved this sisal rug from the “dining room,” where it never quite fit, to the patio. I think it’s perfect out here, and can’t wait until we can regularly sit outside! Still working on “styling” the empty bookshelf.

I also started a new Longmire mystery, collapsed and recycled a stack of cardboard boxes, vacuumed, and took long good naps. All good things. Throughout the weekend, I enjoyed listening to Kacey Musgraves:

Maybe not the usual fare for this blog, but something a little different. Here’s to a new week — “I ain’t wonder woman” but I’m doing my best!

Easter will be odd this year, what with online services and self-isolation. There won’t be any family get-togethers or shared ham dinners, and there probably won’t be many Easter baskets, but we’ll all make do. My goals involve getting outdoors to look for signs of spring,

and baking a yummy cake, albeit not one this elaborate.

It’s cute, but not very appetizing.

We will attend a short church service via Zoom (and maybe get hacked as a result), but aside from doing no work, I’m not sure how else I can make Easter different from the rest of the week. I guess that’s the point; we should remember Easter every day.

Above all, this self-isolation has made me realize what a cloistered life I lead and how little I miss contact with people outside my very small circle of family and friends. We live in a country where it is assumed that happiness requires a busy social life. The truth is that many of us prefer solitude and only feel comfortable among a select few. Limiting my social circle suits me fine. It may not make for many entertaining blog posts but it does make me happy. Here’s to puttering, thinking and cultivating repose!

Once this pandemic is over and we get back to ‘normal’ I’ll be channeling the comic book guy from the Simpsons (I think I’m beginning to look like him, too):

Have a Happy Easter and remember, solitude does not mean that you are alone in the world.

Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:20).

Have you noticed all of the springtime activity taking place outside your homes?

Not the most appealing background, but the emphasis here is on the visitor

I sit in front of a large window at my makeshift telework-space, and we also have a large window in our bedroom and sliding glass doors in our living room. These all provide views of our apartment building’s “backyard,” which is full of trees and active animal life. Now that we rarely leave home, the entertainment these views provide has grown shockingly captivating. I say shockingly because I am not typically a bird person. But there’s something interesting about how intensely the birds are going about their own normal routine while we’re all cooped up inside!

In particular, “our” birds (woodpeckers, robins, and cardinals) are nesting. This is somewhat alarming because they seem very interested in the gutters, but I guess that isn’t my problem. At any rate, they frequently fly very close to the windows when they inspect the gutters, and sometimes it makes me worry that this might happen…

…DN can attest that I have acted like Tippi Hedren in this gif on numerous occasions when a bird flies too close for comfort in my periphery. But I will try to focus on what I find calming about the birds and all the fun they seem to be having.

As I thought about this post, it occurred to me that Henry David Thoreau would have something to say about birds in springtime, so I pulled out Walden. I was right:

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever! The faint silvery warblings heard over the partially bare and moist fields from the blue-bird, the song-sparrow, and the red-wing, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell! What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and all written revelations? The brooks sing carols and glees to the spring. The marsh-hawk sailing low over the meadow is already seeking the first slimy life that awakes. The sinking sound of melting snow is heard in all dells, and the ice dissolves apace in the ponds. The grass flames up on the hillsides like a spring fire,—“et primitus oritur herba imbribus primoribus evocata,”—as if the earth sent forth an inward heat to greet the returning sun; not yellow but green is the color of its flame;—the symbol of perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long green ribbon, streams from the sod into the summer, checked indeed by the frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year’s hay with the fresh life below.

And then I kept reading.

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring.

Of course Thoreau, who truly self-isolated at Walden Pond, would have sage words for us in our present moment. I encourage you to read the full “Spring” chapter of Walden if you have time. Either way, here’s to shades of green and better thoughts!

*Henry David Thoerau, from an 1858 entry in his Journal

We’ve made it to another Wednesday! Today, I am going to focus on things that are currently bringing me joy.

It warms my cold, cold heart to see celebration of women who know how to sew and use their sewing machines to come to the rescue by making masks. I was pleased to find that not only did I have all of the required supplies on hand in my apartment (including much sought after elastic), but I was able to put together five masks!

Just don’t look too closely at the stitching!

As has been mentioned in other posts, I’ve been spending time each afternoon stitching. And I recently started listening to podcasts and youtube videos about stitching while stitching. I know. I know. Anyway, I recently learned about needlepainting–which is basically embroidery that looks like watercolor.

Obviously, this is not what I like to do (my Type A personality prefers to stitch with a pattern and on a grid) but it is just amazing what some people can do with a needle and thread! I’m also a big fan of these.

I know my mother has followed the @nationalcowboymuseum for some time but it recently came up in my explore feed and boy howdy does it bring me joy. It seems they’ve turned over control of their social media platforms to their security guard while the museum is closed because of COVID-19. He does a terrific job. I’m not going to lie, I want one of these shirts.

This weekend, while working on facemasks, I listened to a 90s country playlist on Amazon Music. I really think we should try to bring back line dancing. We can all watch videos on youtube and fill the hours of the day practicing the “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” or the “Achy Breaky Heart.” I know everyone is with me on this. Remember when songs had extended line dancing remixes (also remember when Shania Twain’s midriff was scandalous)? I am fairly confident my mother has written about how she led my Girl Scout Troop in getting the Line Dancing merit badge in 1995. I hope this inspires her to dig up the photos! Also, I’d love to see what the badge looks like!

Well, I fear that it is beginning to sound like I’m losing it. Let’s all try to keep it together. And be sure to tell us in the comments what is bringing you joy!