A COVID CHRISTMAS

 

This holiday season has a depressing watered down feeling. The Christmas events I enjoyed in the past were not around this year. And the theatres remain closed! There was no getting together with friends for our holiday lunches. We are all women of a certain age and high risk.

Our governor is a Trump turd who has never had a plan to deal with the pandemic other than to ignore it same as his master who thankfully will soon be vacating the White House.

My circle of friends already small is shrinking -- unless you count Facebook friends which don't count! They should be labeled as acquaintances and most aren't even that!

I value my true friends because they're people I choose to have in my life opposed to those who've been forced upon me: relatives, in-laws, step-relatives. Most of whom I'd never gravitate to in the first place. Thankfully most in that category are out of my life for good now!

It's wonderful and welcome news that a vaccine will soon be available. But as for myself, I'm leery of taking it. I learned the hard way I'm allergic to codeine and I suffered every miserable side effect possible with Paxil. Plus I experienced withdrawal symptoms just like a junkie when I quit. I was taking both drugs under a doctor's care! So no thank you to the vaccine!

I figure if everyone else takes it, I won't need to. I'll just continue to wear a mask and social distance until the virus is gone. Even before the pandemic I was a happy hermit.

However with the new stronger strain coming out of Great Britain I may change my mind. We'll see when the vaccine becomes available.

Besides the supermarket, the only place I go these days is to the dentist. At the rate my teeth are cracking soon I'll have more crowns than natural teeth. And no, I don't munch on rocks!

The dentist asked if I chewed ice. I said I'd be alarmed if I did! Both my mother and a favorite aunt developed a craving for ice when they came down with terminal cancer. Why my teeth keep cracking remains a mystery to me!

 A friend pointed out that I've had these teeth since I was a small child and to be grateful they lasted almost 70 years. However I was told by a dentist when I was young that if I took good care of my teeth (which I do) they would last a lifetime. -- I am not ready to die at age 70.

Amongst my emails was a Christmas card from the hotel in Bangkok where I stayed in 2016, my favorite, and the one where I began and ended my tour of Thailand. It was a delight to open!

Last night on PBS I watched the Vero Beach Ballet perform Nutcracker on the Treasure Coast. It was exciting to see knowing all those talented performers were local people. And the costumes were amazing!

Like everyone else, I will heave a big sigh of relief when the pandemic ends.

 I miss wearing lipstick! It brightens up my entire face. I miss getting dressed up all fancy and meeting friends for lunch in a nice restaurant. Heck, I even miss paper towels with Christmas designs! Finding any at all has been a challenge in recent months.

Sadly, many restaurants I enjoyed will not be reopening and they will be missed. But now I'm used to savoring a lot of special meals at home that I prepare myself.

Once the Christmas tree goes up the healthy diet goes right out the window! But hey, the food is part of the holiday! However I am determined to exert some discipline and use portion control.

I don't want to end up like the 400 lb woman who went for a swim and was sexually assaulted by a herd of manatees. They mistook her for one of their own and tried to mate with her. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! It happened recently in Fort Pierce only minutes south of here.  

2020 will be a year to remember for all the wrong reasons. Let's hope better things are heading our way now that it's ending.

One day the virus will be gone, but I doubt life can return to the way it was, it will be a different normal.

A PLACE CALLED HOME

 

Last night I dreamt I was swimming serenely in a scenic lake among garlands of flowers floating all around me. I was on a lush exotic island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The mise en scene felt sublime, I wish I had died in my sleep and remained there forever.

The sleeping prophet Edgar Cayce noted that careful attention should be paid to dreams. They have a significant message for us. I read this from a book titled THE PLACE WE CALL HOME by Robert J. Grant; it explores realms that await us after physical death. I bought a copy right after my father's passing.

After reading Cayce's statement I experienced a bizarre dream that night, one I still remember vividly.

In late night darkness I was standing amidst busy traffic, car lights whizzed by me on both sides. In front of me was a badly mangled wreck of a car; I wondered if it was mine but was unable to tell. Police and paramedics were there, but they ignored me.

A woman in a pick-up truck stopped. She got out and walked over to me. She claimed we had gone to school together although I didn't remember her. She said that she was taking me home to the 100 acre place on the lake. -- The place I hadn't lived since I was 9, but all of my happiest memories were there. Life took so many ugly turns and unraveled when my family moved and bought the house on the river.

The lake place no longer existed, but those 100 acres had been paradise to me and I couldn't wait to return. I began to wonder if I was dead. But if I could spend eternity there I didn't care. I was getting excited.

The woman asked did I mind if we stopped at her house. It was along the way and something needed her attention there.

I was annoyed, but said OK because after all, she was doing me a favor.

Suddenly we were driving on a cracked road into a rundown neighborhood. Every other or third street lamp was either out or flickering beneath a low-hanging fog, a most dismal depressing place. She pulled up in front of an old two-story white house with rotting wood & peeling paint that I could see clearly from my seat.

I told her I'd wait inside the truck hoping that would hurry her up. She said she'd be awhile and to come inside, again I was irritated.

Indoors everything was in much the same condition as the outside. Her furniture was worn and faded. She told me to seat myself and then she disappeared. Time dragged by, in disgust I went looking for her. I found her inside the kitchen mopping her floor. A spill, she said. I was angry now and wanted to leave immediately!

"Soon," she said trying to calm me. She led me back into the living room and switched on the television for me to watch. The TV set was an old black & white one. All the shows on the dial were from the 1950's & 60's, even the commercials were of similar vintage. And most of the stations were snowy.

Eventually she emerged from the kitchen and I rose. She motioned for me to sit back down. She needed to go across the street to a neighbor's house and she hurriedly left. I realized I was never going to leave there. Then, thankfully I awoke!

I am a believer in the afterlife as well as reincarnation, but acknowledge I could be wrong. Perhaps my flashes of a previous life under autohypnosis as a Roman soldier and my experiences involving the departed were nothing more than brain glitches.

If my current life is all there is, I'm fine with that! The thought of not knowing what I'm returning to is disturbing. Likely it will be a world decimated by over population and climate change filled with crowds of people starving. My preference is to cease to exist and be forgotten.

AH, TEMPTATION

 

Recently I almost became a mother. A new young beauty has moved into the neighborhood, an Egyptian Mau. It looks to be less than a year old. This one is light grey with the characteristic black spots but also has a black stripe down its back with a serpentine design.

This small elegant creature came to greet me one mid-morning as I went to fetch my mail. The little thing seemed starved for affection as I petted it. But after retrieving my mail it was nowhere in sight.

As I was writing away in my home office I heard a meowing. The cat was in my garage! I opened the door to release it; but instead it ran back into my house and made itself at home. I gave him/her a name, I call it Sneaky!

Sneaky started climbing up my stairs. I grabbed the cat and told it, "You need to go home!" But I wondered if it had one.

As I carried it out thru the garage it clung tightly to me as if it didn't want to leave. I placed it gently down on my driveway and told it, "Stay there".  The kitty stared up at me with sad eyes as I quickly departed and closed the door.

I refer to the cat as "IT" because I don't know the gender. My previous one was a big Tom. Once I was petting him along with my dog (a Chihuahua-Terrier mix) I had both side-by-sides on their backs. Their sex organs looked identical although the cat was male and the dog female.

I've been asking around the neighborhood as to the origin of this cat. One told me it was a stray, another claimed it had an owner somewhere around here but they knew not where.

None of my previous cats (all indoor/outdoor) were rovers; always they stayed close to the property. Of course mine were so well fed, had so many toys, comfortable places to sleep, and were showered with such loving attention that they had no desire go searching for another owner.

Often when I'm outside I see this cat from a distance. Whenever it spots me it starts heading in my direction. And I quicken my steps to get back indoors.

Years ago I would have taken it in and adopted this cat. However at this stage of my life, I can't handle the added expense. Back in 2002 it cost $100 just to set foot inside a veterinarian's office. And now I'm struggling and juggling to pay my own medical bills!

My age too is a factor. An animal could easily outlive me. Or I could suddenly end up in the hospital for lord knows how long and then be forced into a nursing facility or a retirement home. Sadly, there are too many negative variables here for me to even consider it.