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Day #25 of Self-Isolation in Epidemic Central
Some good news, there's less new cases in NY, so we have begun to flatten the curve.
And yes, I'm still here and still well in epidemic central. Having issues with sleep though - I tense up at night and everything aches, also allergies go nuts with the radiator on - which results in dry coughing, and of course I start to panic and think do I have it? Do I have it? And makes me tense up even more. It's a vicious cycle.
No, I don't have it. I took an aleve and allergy meds, along with firing up the humdifier and opening my bedroom door, and the aches and cough went away.
So, having a lot of restless nights. I really envy people who don't have issues with sleep. I've always struggled with sleep. What does help is low sodium, low sugar, low caffeine diet - which alas is hard to do, but I'm working on it. It is kind of aided by the lack of availability of certain items.
Anyhow, I did accomplish a few things today. So there's that.
1. Grocery Shopping - and how it keeps changing over time...
It was a beautiful day today. Sunny, cool enough for a jacket, and with a fresh crisp breeze. If it weren't for the Corona Virus - I'd have walked around the park, or gone down to the Flatbush Coop and bought groceries. But alas, no. Instead I took a brief walk up and down my street, and picked up a package inside the foyer of my building and went home.
But the beautiful day sat and mocked me from my window. Also I kept thinking about the grocery store - and how I really wanted "granny smith" apples, also that I needed to pick up lamb chops for Easter, maybe some tenderloin, salmon and tuna for next week? Also green beans, summer squash (which are apparently really hard to get from the grocery delivery services - assuming of course you can get a time slot and sold out on Imperfect Foods). Plus strawberries and blackberries. Imperfect foods wants to give me oranges and grapefruit - I don't want oranges and grapefruit - I don't eat them. And pears, they want to give me pears. I don't like them that much - too bloody sweet and they get mushy fast - so don't last long. (I know I'm picky and spoiled. Hence the reason I think I'm giving more money to various food banks in the area.)
Shipperx posted on Twitter the following question: "Anyone else feel like they are playing Grocery Roulette with the grocery delivery services? You want chicken, vanilla wafers and toilet paper, and you get cabbage, vanilla wafers and lime."
This is true. My poor mother wanted a package of hershey almond chocolate bars and york peppermint patties. She got one hershey almond chocolate bar and a small tin of Russel Stovers suger free peppermint patties with four patties.
This is all building up to how I managed to convince myself to brave the dreaded grocery store. I thought, it's a beautiful day. It's Easter. People are eating at 5:30. They usually don't deliver after a certain point. It should have less people at that time. I can go in quickly, grab stuff and go. So around 5:30PM, I put everything on, including the surgical mask and the bandana, mainly because I think I need as much protection as possible. And so far so good, I don't run into any people, although I am amused that the super opened the locked door to the apartment so that the UPS and USPS folks would deliver their boxes inside the lobby and not stack them up in the foyer.
I made it up the street, few people, outside of a woman getting on a really cool white motor bike - it looked like a moped. I want one. And a couple of folks here and there with masks. Hit the Wallgreen's pharmacy line - which was about ten people, all with masks on, all playing on cell phones. Some had gloves on. They had lined up on either side of the taco truck leaving a wide space in front of it.
Two homeless guys without masks were chatting on the benches, I gave them a very wide berth and made it across the street without incident. It was when I got closer to the supermarket that I began to realize this was not going to go the way I'd hoped. There were headed there - ahead of me. A couple with carts. I raced ahead of them in case there was a line and circled around two women struggling with baby carriage - the baby was protected, the women weren't. I got into the story and with shaking fingers pulled out my minature canister of lysol and lysoled the basket.
Then proceeded to dart about the store grabbing stuff.
The best way to describe this - is kind of like treasure hunting while avoiding pirates and jellyfish - mainly jelly fish. They don't move very fast and have a tendency to congregate in front of whatever I want at the moment. I wanted to smack a couple of people - "folks, you do not, I repeat, you do not need to go grocery shopping with a significant other, a sister, a housemate, or anyone. Do it alone.
Be mindful of others, seriously, it is NOT hard. " NYC alert system even asked people to do this. Did they do this? No, I ran into at least ten selfish idiots who have not figured out yet that grocery shopping is meant to be a solo activity right now. Honestly, I think grocery stores should put in restrictions like China did, and make folks stand in line six feet apart prior to entering the store, and no couples, families, etc are permitted inside - they can have one person only. That's it. At least most of them wore masks. Most people were solo, and most wore masks, there were a couple who didn't.
For some reason everyone log jambed at the beer and wine cooler section, making it impossible for me to get what I wanted. I said excuse me, and grabbed a four pack of wine spritzer and got out of there. Then I had to navigate the damn meat department, grab and go. Off to the paper aisle, where I snagged a food town four pack of 1000 sheet toilet tissue. (SCORE!) I also scored a bag of granny smith apples in good condition. I didn't get everything I wanted - it was a small basket and the damn toilet tissue took up space, as did the four pack of wine spritzer, not to mention the salad greens (I eat a lot of salad), and fruit.
The chocolate aisle looked like it had been scavenged by sharks. I did find one Hershey's Dark Chocolate Almond Bar - but the Ritter Sport Bars were gone. I did not try to get gluten-free pasta or sauce, having already ordered stuff via Amazon, including parmesene cheese. Also I forgot about it. I forgot about a lot of stuff - my plan was really just to buy veggies, meat, fish, and fruit and toilet paper (if available) and go. I wanted out as fast as possible. People kept congregating in various areas. And the aisles aren't that wide.
The store has changed a bit since I was last in it. Now they have set up a check up line which they monitor. You stand in line for it six feet apart. This is for the self-check out and the cashier. If you have less then five items, you self-check out. If more than that - they send you to the cashier. You are six feet from the person in front. They've blocked off the aisle in front of the cashiers with a wooden fence - so there is a kind of runway that you walk down to get to them now. And they have tape with the statement stand here - six feet back. Store employees with blue smocks and blue surgical masks, and blue gloves man the aisled, cashiers were hair nets and masks and gloves. There's a plastic shield in front of them. You can bring your own bags or purchase their canvas ones. No plastic bags are used.
Also you can fill your bags yourself, most people do.
There is no cash back and no cash is exchanged any longer. I asked and the cashier gave me a look. Her eyes were "Really? Really? You are asking me this?". One of the people playing traffic cop, complained about not being thanked. So I thanked her profusely and she said, smiling and embarrassed that it was okay. And I said, uh no, it's not. We should all thank you for doing this. I really appreciate what you are doing and wish I could do more. My heart goes out to them. They can't social distance. All day long they are interfacing with 100s of strangers. My heart goes out to them.
Also the grocery store clerks seemed more tense and more annoyed than previously. They were all wearing masks now. And there were more of them. Getting around them was tough. And as I was grabbing hand sanitizer around one who was busy doing something, they announced that deliveries had stopped for the day. There would be no more deliveries.
Once free of the store, I thought, I know I'll cross the street where there are less people. Hah. I did, and was fine until I hit the area right behind the subway entrance. There was a man, I'm guessing homeless, having a massive coughing fit. He was facing the wall at least. I gave him a very wide berth and ran around him, then crossed the street again went around the line and home free - less people. There was a couple walking with nifty custom made black masks, one holding a bag - sigh. I darted around them and made it home.
Home? I went through my ritual. Cleaning every single item and everything it touched. Including my hands multiple times. The door. The bandana. Disposed of the disposable face mask. Threw out the trash containing the receipt. And took a deep breath.
Grocery shopping is a stressful experience. Getting groceries is stressful too.
Also very strange.
All of that said? I'm very grateful that I was able to do so.
Me: So I went grocery shopping.
Mother (to father lurking in the background): Your daughter went grocery shopping. Why? Because she's compulsive. I'd have preferred you didn't but I understand why you felt the need to, possibly for the same reason everyone else in the store did.
Me: Yeah, well, I'd convinced myself it would be no big deal. Now, I'm not sure I'll do it again any time soon. Now I just need to get up the courage to do laundry - which honestly shouldn't be as bad as going grocery shopping.
Mother: You could wait until next week, maybe the new elevator will be ready by then.
Me: That would make it easier and less stressful. But part of my worry is that I only have one twenty dollar bill in my wallet, and I think I have maybe 10 -20 left on the card.
Mother: Isn't it done by credit card?
ME: Not really. We put money on a card. If it runs out, I'm going to have to figure out how to get more cash. I really should have done this when I had the chance, but I wasn't thinking rationally and kind of spaced it. Now? It's going to be problematic.
Mother: Maybe I can send you some? Although I should have gotten more out as well.
Hence the reason I asked the store cashier if I could get cash back, even though I knew it was highly unlikely. I need to find an ATM machine at some point. My bank is not in the area. Although it does have an ATM in the Wallgreens and in a 7 Eleven a ways down - although that shifted to a different bank, so maybe not. So doing laundry has become problematic.
I will state that each time I do do grocery shopping - the store has increased it's protective safety measures. Maybe next time they will be limiting how many people can enter the store at the same time. I'm thinking they should do what Wallgreens does and limit it to ten.
2. I did manage to do some other things today:
* Vacuumed the apartment, or rather I turned loose the robot vacuum and watched it do it. Also talked to it, and occasionally picked it up to place it in the bathroom or kitchen which were slightly raised up and it couldn't get into easily, out of yes, into, no.
* Cleaned the shower.
* Made my bed up clean - the last time I did laundry was three weeks ago. Possibly three and a half. It was 25 days, however long that is. It may end up being thirty days soon. I'm tempted to do very small loads. Just linens, towels, jeans, a few t-shirts and underwear. Okay maybe that's no so small. My next apartment is going to have a washer and dryer - which may mean leaving NYC. I could buy a dorm size one - but I'm afraid of either blowing a fuse or flooding my apartment. I'm not really good at setting up gadgets and appliances and NYC apartments, particularly old 1920s Pre-War Buildings, aren't set up for that kind of thing.
I wonder if I can get my bank to send me cash? Probably not. The whole getting cash thing is an unexpected side-effect of this crisis. It wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that my laundry requires it. It could be worse and the laundry could require coins. Of course, ironically I do have coins as well. I could see if they are still doing pick up and delivery laundry service - but that could be problematic. I mean - how do I know my clothes are free of the virus if I send them out for someone else to do it?
See, doing laundry in a city during a pandemic is ...well an unexpected problem that has been known to keep me up at night. I'm right now grateful that I do not have a job that requires that my clothes be cleaned the moment I get home from work each day.
3. Speaking of gratitude.
Here are the things I'm grateful for right now:
* I'm grateful to my dear online friend, who was gracious enough to share her subscription of Disney Plus and Hulu with me. You have no idea what a blessing this was - I was able to watch comforting television as a result.
Often the friends I've found online have helped me the most through various crises.
* I'm also grateful to the people who risk their lives each day to help the rest of us. The healthcare workers on the front lines, the delivery services, the grocery store clerks, the pharmacists, the police, the firemen and first responders, the EMT, the ambulance drivers, the homeless outreach workers, the food bank staff and servers, the transit/bus/train operators, the truck drivers, the people who clean out ATMs - all of these people, I'm exceedingly grateful to.
Mr. Rogers said once that whenever he got scared as a small boy, his mother would tell him to look to the helpers, they would get us through. There's always people out there who want to help and will do so. All is not lost as long as we have helpers. My heroes are the helpers. They are the ones who have saved my life more times than I can count. I'm trying to be more of one myself - I love helping people. It makes me happy. I'm grateful for a job that helps me to do it on some level without placing me in a painful situation, but I'm exceedingly grateful to those who do place themselves in those situations on a daily basis. I have a stressful job but it could be worse.
*I'm grateful to the people at my church who are setting up Zoom lines to connect with each other, meditate, check in, and gather to share love and blessings. I'm grateful that we have technology and the internet.
*I'm grateful for the weather - which is not too cold and not too hot, and beautiful without massive storms.
*I'm grateful that my family and friends are still well and still safe, and not hurting.
4. Entertainment
Today I watched comforting favorites from my early childhood, courtesy of a dear friend who gave me access to Disney + and Hulu.
* Darby O'Gill and the Little People - which is a cute little movie that is directed at young children. It's sweet and features a singing Scean Connery in his first role, prior to James Bond. It was first released in 1959 - so it is VERY dated, and I'm sure offensive to some. I found it charming. The story is about an old man who tells folk stories in a local pub, except to him they are real. The people in the pub believe him, but no one else does. He becomes friends with the King of the leprechauns, who aids him in helping his daughter find love and happiness with a new caretaker portrayed by a young Scean Connery.
* Robin Hood - the 1973 Disney Cartoon with the Fox voiced by Brian Bedford (who years later, I saw in Central Park performing in As You Like It), Peter Ustinov voiced the Lions, Roger Miller the singing Rooster, and Phil Harris - the Bear.
Harris was a Disney regular - he did Jungle Book, The Aristocrats, and Robin Hood.
I loved this movie as a child. Robin Hood was my first movie star crush. I fell in love with the Fox. And slept with the picture book that I got for Christmas that year featuring it. Even drew pictures from it.
Also watched a few episodes of Runaways - S3, the last season of the series.
5. Well, this is interesting, the fandom conventions have gone online or purely virtual now. Via Twitch, Youtube and Facebook. Wizard Con is completely virtual, with free Q&A and chats with various stars.
Virtual Experiences with the Stars
Buffy and Angel Cast - Virtual Q&A
And yes, I'm still here and still well in epidemic central. Having issues with sleep though - I tense up at night and everything aches, also allergies go nuts with the radiator on - which results in dry coughing, and of course I start to panic and think do I have it? Do I have it? And makes me tense up even more. It's a vicious cycle.
No, I don't have it. I took an aleve and allergy meds, along with firing up the humdifier and opening my bedroom door, and the aches and cough went away.
So, having a lot of restless nights. I really envy people who don't have issues with sleep. I've always struggled with sleep. What does help is low sodium, low sugar, low caffeine diet - which alas is hard to do, but I'm working on it. It is kind of aided by the lack of availability of certain items.
Anyhow, I did accomplish a few things today. So there's that.
1. Grocery Shopping - and how it keeps changing over time...
It was a beautiful day today. Sunny, cool enough for a jacket, and with a fresh crisp breeze. If it weren't for the Corona Virus - I'd have walked around the park, or gone down to the Flatbush Coop and bought groceries. But alas, no. Instead I took a brief walk up and down my street, and picked up a package inside the foyer of my building and went home.
But the beautiful day sat and mocked me from my window. Also I kept thinking about the grocery store - and how I really wanted "granny smith" apples, also that I needed to pick up lamb chops for Easter, maybe some tenderloin, salmon and tuna for next week? Also green beans, summer squash (which are apparently really hard to get from the grocery delivery services - assuming of course you can get a time slot and sold out on Imperfect Foods). Plus strawberries and blackberries. Imperfect foods wants to give me oranges and grapefruit - I don't want oranges and grapefruit - I don't eat them. And pears, they want to give me pears. I don't like them that much - too bloody sweet and they get mushy fast - so don't last long. (I know I'm picky and spoiled. Hence the reason I think I'm giving more money to various food banks in the area.)
Shipperx posted on Twitter the following question: "Anyone else feel like they are playing Grocery Roulette with the grocery delivery services? You want chicken, vanilla wafers and toilet paper, and you get cabbage, vanilla wafers and lime."
This is true. My poor mother wanted a package of hershey almond chocolate bars and york peppermint patties. She got one hershey almond chocolate bar and a small tin of Russel Stovers suger free peppermint patties with four patties.
This is all building up to how I managed to convince myself to brave the dreaded grocery store. I thought, it's a beautiful day. It's Easter. People are eating at 5:30. They usually don't deliver after a certain point. It should have less people at that time. I can go in quickly, grab stuff and go. So around 5:30PM, I put everything on, including the surgical mask and the bandana, mainly because I think I need as much protection as possible. And so far so good, I don't run into any people, although I am amused that the super opened the locked door to the apartment so that the UPS and USPS folks would deliver their boxes inside the lobby and not stack them up in the foyer.
I made it up the street, few people, outside of a woman getting on a really cool white motor bike - it looked like a moped. I want one. And a couple of folks here and there with masks. Hit the Wallgreen's pharmacy line - which was about ten people, all with masks on, all playing on cell phones. Some had gloves on. They had lined up on either side of the taco truck leaving a wide space in front of it.
Two homeless guys without masks were chatting on the benches, I gave them a very wide berth and made it across the street without incident. It was when I got closer to the supermarket that I began to realize this was not going to go the way I'd hoped. There were headed there - ahead of me. A couple with carts. I raced ahead of them in case there was a line and circled around two women struggling with baby carriage - the baby was protected, the women weren't. I got into the story and with shaking fingers pulled out my minature canister of lysol and lysoled the basket.
Then proceeded to dart about the store grabbing stuff.
The best way to describe this - is kind of like treasure hunting while avoiding pirates and jellyfish - mainly jelly fish. They don't move very fast and have a tendency to congregate in front of whatever I want at the moment. I wanted to smack a couple of people - "folks, you do not, I repeat, you do not need to go grocery shopping with a significant other, a sister, a housemate, or anyone. Do it alone.
Be mindful of others, seriously, it is NOT hard. " NYC alert system even asked people to do this. Did they do this? No, I ran into at least ten selfish idiots who have not figured out yet that grocery shopping is meant to be a solo activity right now. Honestly, I think grocery stores should put in restrictions like China did, and make folks stand in line six feet apart prior to entering the store, and no couples, families, etc are permitted inside - they can have one person only. That's it. At least most of them wore masks. Most people were solo, and most wore masks, there were a couple who didn't.
For some reason everyone log jambed at the beer and wine cooler section, making it impossible for me to get what I wanted. I said excuse me, and grabbed a four pack of wine spritzer and got out of there. Then I had to navigate the damn meat department, grab and go. Off to the paper aisle, where I snagged a food town four pack of 1000 sheet toilet tissue. (SCORE!) I also scored a bag of granny smith apples in good condition. I didn't get everything I wanted - it was a small basket and the damn toilet tissue took up space, as did the four pack of wine spritzer, not to mention the salad greens (I eat a lot of salad), and fruit.
The chocolate aisle looked like it had been scavenged by sharks. I did find one Hershey's Dark Chocolate Almond Bar - but the Ritter Sport Bars were gone. I did not try to get gluten-free pasta or sauce, having already ordered stuff via Amazon, including parmesene cheese. Also I forgot about it. I forgot about a lot of stuff - my plan was really just to buy veggies, meat, fish, and fruit and toilet paper (if available) and go. I wanted out as fast as possible. People kept congregating in various areas. And the aisles aren't that wide.
The store has changed a bit since I was last in it. Now they have set up a check up line which they monitor. You stand in line for it six feet apart. This is for the self-check out and the cashier. If you have less then five items, you self-check out. If more than that - they send you to the cashier. You are six feet from the person in front. They've blocked off the aisle in front of the cashiers with a wooden fence - so there is a kind of runway that you walk down to get to them now. And they have tape with the statement stand here - six feet back. Store employees with blue smocks and blue surgical masks, and blue gloves man the aisled, cashiers were hair nets and masks and gloves. There's a plastic shield in front of them. You can bring your own bags or purchase their canvas ones. No plastic bags are used.
Also you can fill your bags yourself, most people do.
There is no cash back and no cash is exchanged any longer. I asked and the cashier gave me a look. Her eyes were "Really? Really? You are asking me this?". One of the people playing traffic cop, complained about not being thanked. So I thanked her profusely and she said, smiling and embarrassed that it was okay. And I said, uh no, it's not. We should all thank you for doing this. I really appreciate what you are doing and wish I could do more. My heart goes out to them. They can't social distance. All day long they are interfacing with 100s of strangers. My heart goes out to them.
Also the grocery store clerks seemed more tense and more annoyed than previously. They were all wearing masks now. And there were more of them. Getting around them was tough. And as I was grabbing hand sanitizer around one who was busy doing something, they announced that deliveries had stopped for the day. There would be no more deliveries.
Once free of the store, I thought, I know I'll cross the street where there are less people. Hah. I did, and was fine until I hit the area right behind the subway entrance. There was a man, I'm guessing homeless, having a massive coughing fit. He was facing the wall at least. I gave him a very wide berth and ran around him, then crossed the street again went around the line and home free - less people. There was a couple walking with nifty custom made black masks, one holding a bag - sigh. I darted around them and made it home.
Home? I went through my ritual. Cleaning every single item and everything it touched. Including my hands multiple times. The door. The bandana. Disposed of the disposable face mask. Threw out the trash containing the receipt. And took a deep breath.
Grocery shopping is a stressful experience. Getting groceries is stressful too.
Also very strange.
All of that said? I'm very grateful that I was able to do so.
Me: So I went grocery shopping.
Mother (to father lurking in the background): Your daughter went grocery shopping. Why? Because she's compulsive. I'd have preferred you didn't but I understand why you felt the need to, possibly for the same reason everyone else in the store did.
Me: Yeah, well, I'd convinced myself it would be no big deal. Now, I'm not sure I'll do it again any time soon. Now I just need to get up the courage to do laundry - which honestly shouldn't be as bad as going grocery shopping.
Mother: You could wait until next week, maybe the new elevator will be ready by then.
Me: That would make it easier and less stressful. But part of my worry is that I only have one twenty dollar bill in my wallet, and I think I have maybe 10 -20 left on the card.
Mother: Isn't it done by credit card?
ME: Not really. We put money on a card. If it runs out, I'm going to have to figure out how to get more cash. I really should have done this when I had the chance, but I wasn't thinking rationally and kind of spaced it. Now? It's going to be problematic.
Mother: Maybe I can send you some? Although I should have gotten more out as well.
Hence the reason I asked the store cashier if I could get cash back, even though I knew it was highly unlikely. I need to find an ATM machine at some point. My bank is not in the area. Although it does have an ATM in the Wallgreens and in a 7 Eleven a ways down - although that shifted to a different bank, so maybe not. So doing laundry has become problematic.
I will state that each time I do do grocery shopping - the store has increased it's protective safety measures. Maybe next time they will be limiting how many people can enter the store at the same time. I'm thinking they should do what Wallgreens does and limit it to ten.
2. I did manage to do some other things today:
* Vacuumed the apartment, or rather I turned loose the robot vacuum and watched it do it. Also talked to it, and occasionally picked it up to place it in the bathroom or kitchen which were slightly raised up and it couldn't get into easily, out of yes, into, no.
* Cleaned the shower.
* Made my bed up clean - the last time I did laundry was three weeks ago. Possibly three and a half. It was 25 days, however long that is. It may end up being thirty days soon. I'm tempted to do very small loads. Just linens, towels, jeans, a few t-shirts and underwear. Okay maybe that's no so small. My next apartment is going to have a washer and dryer - which may mean leaving NYC. I could buy a dorm size one - but I'm afraid of either blowing a fuse or flooding my apartment. I'm not really good at setting up gadgets and appliances and NYC apartments, particularly old 1920s Pre-War Buildings, aren't set up for that kind of thing.
I wonder if I can get my bank to send me cash? Probably not. The whole getting cash thing is an unexpected side-effect of this crisis. It wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that my laundry requires it. It could be worse and the laundry could require coins. Of course, ironically I do have coins as well. I could see if they are still doing pick up and delivery laundry service - but that could be problematic. I mean - how do I know my clothes are free of the virus if I send them out for someone else to do it?
See, doing laundry in a city during a pandemic is ...well an unexpected problem that has been known to keep me up at night. I'm right now grateful that I do not have a job that requires that my clothes be cleaned the moment I get home from work each day.
3. Speaking of gratitude.
Here are the things I'm grateful for right now:
* I'm grateful to my dear online friend, who was gracious enough to share her subscription of Disney Plus and Hulu with me. You have no idea what a blessing this was - I was able to watch comforting television as a result.
Often the friends I've found online have helped me the most through various crises.
* I'm also grateful to the people who risk their lives each day to help the rest of us. The healthcare workers on the front lines, the delivery services, the grocery store clerks, the pharmacists, the police, the firemen and first responders, the EMT, the ambulance drivers, the homeless outreach workers, the food bank staff and servers, the transit/bus/train operators, the truck drivers, the people who clean out ATMs - all of these people, I'm exceedingly grateful to.
Mr. Rogers said once that whenever he got scared as a small boy, his mother would tell him to look to the helpers, they would get us through. There's always people out there who want to help and will do so. All is not lost as long as we have helpers. My heroes are the helpers. They are the ones who have saved my life more times than I can count. I'm trying to be more of one myself - I love helping people. It makes me happy. I'm grateful for a job that helps me to do it on some level without placing me in a painful situation, but I'm exceedingly grateful to those who do place themselves in those situations on a daily basis. I have a stressful job but it could be worse.
*I'm grateful to the people at my church who are setting up Zoom lines to connect with each other, meditate, check in, and gather to share love and blessings. I'm grateful that we have technology and the internet.
*I'm grateful for the weather - which is not too cold and not too hot, and beautiful without massive storms.
*I'm grateful that my family and friends are still well and still safe, and not hurting.
4. Entertainment
Today I watched comforting favorites from my early childhood, courtesy of a dear friend who gave me access to Disney + and Hulu.
* Darby O'Gill and the Little People - which is a cute little movie that is directed at young children. It's sweet and features a singing Scean Connery in his first role, prior to James Bond. It was first released in 1959 - so it is VERY dated, and I'm sure offensive to some. I found it charming. The story is about an old man who tells folk stories in a local pub, except to him they are real. The people in the pub believe him, but no one else does. He becomes friends with the King of the leprechauns, who aids him in helping his daughter find love and happiness with a new caretaker portrayed by a young Scean Connery.
* Robin Hood - the 1973 Disney Cartoon with the Fox voiced by Brian Bedford (who years later, I saw in Central Park performing in As You Like It), Peter Ustinov voiced the Lions, Roger Miller the singing Rooster, and Phil Harris - the Bear.
Harris was a Disney regular - he did Jungle Book, The Aristocrats, and Robin Hood.
I loved this movie as a child. Robin Hood was my first movie star crush. I fell in love with the Fox. And slept with the picture book that I got for Christmas that year featuring it. Even drew pictures from it.
Also watched a few episodes of Runaways - S3, the last season of the series.
5. Well, this is interesting, the fandom conventions have gone online or purely virtual now. Via Twitch, Youtube and Facebook. Wizard Con is completely virtual, with free Q&A and chats with various stars.
Virtual Experiences with the Stars
Buffy and Angel Cast - Virtual Q&A
no subject
Yep, it's hard to depend on grocery delivery or even "they pick it off the shelf you pick it up outside the store", when they substitute, and expect you to be happy. If you do the picking yourself, you can say to yourself, "well, I'll accept this or, no, if it's not what I want I'll just skip it and get something else entirely." Though the stocks are better now, I can imagine things like them substituting canola oil for extra virgin olive oil or (going the other way) genuine, high-price maple syrup in a teeny jug for a big, old bottle of Log Cabin when you want it to last for awhile.
I fell in love with the Fox.
Not a bad choice. One of my nieces fell in love with Wilber the Pig from the Charlotte's Web film, and begged for everything with a pig on it for months.
no subject
Quite true. As a result it's become somewhat stressful. My mother stressed out over getting a chocolate bar for two days straight. Also about getting milk and eggs.
It's why I braved the store yesterday - I was getting tired of trying to get "granny smith green apples" online and coming up empty. They have them - but getting them delivered to me was clearly NOT happening.
Wilber was cute, I guess, but...I don't see the appeal. The only interesting thing in Charlotte's Web was well Charlotte. (It's the only time I wasn't terrified of the spider. It did help that they went out of their way to make the animated spider not scary. I remember hearing they were going to do a live action version once and I thought, eh, no...the arachnaphobe in me won't be able to handle it.)
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I adored it. And so agree, it's far better than any of the non-animated versions. For one thing it had a sense of humor which was sorely lacking from most of them.
And a cleverness. Robin's much smarter and far more clever in this version. And it had songs!
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I don't know how it works in larger spaces. Works really well for a small one-bedroom apartment.
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