Dear J,

I default to sleeping on my stomach with two pillows, one underneath my head and the other on top of (and sometimes held in) my right arm. If I’m exhausted, I might fall asleep on my back, but on my stomach is the default. There’s only one problem: Penny has decided my dual pillow approach is perfect… for her.

She always wakes me up cautiously, though her daily approach varies. Sometimes, she combs the hair on the back of my head with just-barely extended claws. Other times, she smooshes herself against my chest. This morning, I got a series of gentle pats on my chin. If I get up to pee or get a drink of water, our little lady doesn’t waste any time settling down into a blissed-out state that I can’t bring myself to disturb, no matter how much of a grump I am waking up.

P is just as much of a sap with Penny as I am, if not more. He always said he wanted a cat who bonded with him the way Echo and I did; one wish fulfilled.

I’m talking about Penny to distract myself; I was disappointed to hear Fauci say ‘open season’ for vaccines won’t begin until June or later. I’ve been following events in TX, feeling awful for the people stuck in cold homes. One of our apartments lost heat and water for a stretch of days one winter, and it was *miserable,* though not the mortal peril people in TX face this afternoon.

I see pundits and politicians – mostly on the right, but some lefties, too – trying to score culture war points off the disaster in TX. I’m so tired of people indulging in ideological pillow fights while ignoring the real issues facing the country. Maybe chill out on spreading lies about windmills or indulging in schadenfreude until *after* there are warm shelters and food available to everybody in TX?

I got my chores done yesterday: Chicago’s main streets are clear and salted, but the side streets were treacherous. Lots of slipping and sliding. People are still digging out; all day, our neighbor Pat has been coaching drivers in our alley how to recover from losing traction.

Lots of people seem to be spinning out and getting stuck these days.

I know exactly how they feel.

Much love and ::hugs::

C/ 

12:07 pm CST
Today’s Sunday dinner is steak and twice-baked potatoes. We started the potatoes at noon; while P washed and oiled up the ‘taters, I sat down and read the instructions for seasoning our new cast iron griddle. Excuse me? Three coats of oil, baked at 450 for 30 minutes each, before the griddle is ready for cooking?

Glad we started early!

The temperature outside is sitting in single digits. If there was ever a day to keep the oven fired up, this is the one. P said this morning that he’s feeling better, emotionally, then he has in a long while. Music to my ears! Is it the slow but real progress on the vaccine front? The incredible shrinking media presence of a former POTUS? Reduced stress from work? Doesn’t hurt that we’re both doing a better job listening to one another and being sensitive to each other’s vulnerabilities.

2:41 pm CST
How much oil is enough? I felt like I went light on round 1; round 2 I got enough on the griddle I had to buff excess oil off, as per the instructions. (I had no excess in round 1.) Back into the oven the griddle goes. P is playing games online with his cronies. I’m playing the newest version of Civilization on my computer as I wait for my alarm to ring.
“It’s the time and the season/ For… seasoning”

3:54 pm CST
I think I see a difference in the griddle surface. I didn’t stint with layer three of the olive oil. I was originally planning on doing the minimum number of seasoning rounds, but maybe a fourth is in order? Not sure how much I got out of round one.

Diligent -or- perfectionist? Ask me again tomorrow, I’ll have a better answer.

4:24 pm CST
I pulled the griddle from the oven. A shiny layer was visible, so I’m cautiously declaring the seasoning process a success. P and I are planning on dinner around six; the potatoes have been baked once, but not bisected, smooshed, doctored, mixed, poured, re-covered and baked again. I will be required to grate cheese, but otherwise it’s P’s show. He’s gaming until 5, so we’re on hold until then.

6:30 pm CST
Stuffed. Struggling to stay ambulatory. Griddle did a nice job providing searing and close-to-grill flavor. The steaks themselves were a little tough… but we didn’t buy the best strip steaks on offer, just to depressurize our first run. P found a recipe for twice-baked potatoes that included tons of butter and milk… when I went to mix up the potato mixture, he asked that I leave the consistency more like potatoes au gratin than mashed potatoes. The result was greasy but delicious: next time, we’ll try to hit that silky mashed texture.

Is it all a lot of bother? Yes. But P and I both enjoyed the fuss and bother today.

And I’m going to sleep well tonight.

::hugs::

C/ 

Dear J,

The lasagna was our best meal yet. P and I did a better job splitting up the work. He doesn’t enjoy grating cheese, so I assembled the ricotta/parmesan/egg sauce while he focused on the meat, red sauce and pasta noodles. The recipe we used stipulates a mix of Italian sausage and ground beef; I feel like the Italian sausage adds a bunch of flavor. Ditto for the onions P chopped and the parmesan I grated. Fresh stuff tastes better, in obvious but hard to define ways. P and I agreed: we would not be embarrassed to serve this lasagna to you or any other guests.

The snow is over; in two days, we got more of the white stuff than we’ve gotten in years. I love how the quality of light is transformed as the snow falls, and the muffled quiet that settles over the city. The bushes in front of our building got blobby and amorphous, but – since this is Chicago – the roads stayed open.

Our next door neighbor is your age, but looks twenty years older than you. I blame her cigarette smoking. She’s a day drinker, which makes me smile, but she can be a mean drunk, which… is not amusing. Right now, she’s hollering at a car stuck in the alley next to our building.

Alleys are not the same priority as the streets for Chicago’s road cleaning crew. Which makes sense from a traditional perspective, but wreaks havoc on Uber, Lyft, and a bunch of similar “gig” companies, who regularly direct drivers down the alleys.

I feel badly for the poor schmoes whose GPS directs them into an unplowed alley. My instinct is to ignore the sounds of tires squealing helplessly as treads try and fail to gain traction. I figure if a driver gets stranded, they can call a tow truck and meanwhile everyone else will have a visual cue that the alley is impassable.

But as I wrote this? My neighbor’s profanity-punctuated lessons in the basics of overcoming a snow-induced lack of traction actually worked! The Uber driver listened, and he got his car back onto the street!

Good for her. I think we all need victories these days, even if they’re small ones.

::hugs::

C/ 

Judy,

There’s no way I can ever repay you for the help and assistance you’ve given Mom. I know you and she enjoy each other’s company most of the time; that helps me feel less indebted and/or guilty. But the truth remains: you’ve been essential when it’s come to keeping Mom safe and comfortable as the pandemic rages.

Thank you for that. ::big bear hugs::

My fizzy post-inauguration energy has diminished. My thoughts are turning increasingly to what I can do to generate some revenue… I had a series of nightmares last night, dwelling on that exact theme. In one, I was being badgered to admit I was a failure as a writer; in another, I was stuck in a airport with no wallet, phone or tickets. I didn’t even have shoes. I walked quickly, hoping no one would notice I was barefoot, but that meant I couldn’t look to see where I was going.

The irony is that Paul and I are doing better than 90% of our fellow Americans. We can afford to get banana cream pies delivered to our doorstep!

I’m gradually growing accustomed to a much slower and saner news feed. Part of me misses the endorphin rush from doom scrolling; a much larger part feels weak with relief at how close we came to actual utter disaster.

But I’m trying to keep looking forward.

“All together now/ All together, alone in the chrysalis…”

Barrels of love! 

C/

Dear J,

I didn’t expect to feel energized after listening to Uncle Joe’s inauguration speech, but suddenly stuff languishing on my to do list seemed plausible. Vacuum and dust whole house? Tend to leaves shed by Cyril the Ficus Tree? Empty trash cans and litter box and take bags and recycling down the snowy alley to the bins? Done, done, done.

I’m getting ideas again (above my station?) about my new fiction thing. Feeling like I have a grip on two main characters -and- the villain. (One of my rules for a good villain is that they have to reflect or provide a counterpoint to the hero.) I’ve begun drafting some paragraphs, just to keep myself grounded while I’m thinking conceptually.

There’s a song by the band OK Go, called “All Together Now.” There’s a lyric from the song: “We’re all together now/ Alone in a chrysalis.” I love the idea that the world we occupy here in January 2021 is like a chrysalis, a necessary stasis that precedes what could be an amazing transformation. (I also appreciate how the phrase ‘all together now’ shifts in meaning between the first two lines, with the ghost of the Beatles track hovering in the background of both. “1,2,3,4… can I have a little more?”)

Appreciate you navigating the phonescape for vaccines for you and Mom. P’s stepmom and dad got their appointments for the vaccine, but they couldn’t land a date before the end of March.

I understand double masking is proving to be more effective than single? Paul and I are planning on switching from our beloved cloth masks to more high-tech models. A gaming company has promised a mask with a speaker and mic to boost the sound of your voice without you having to shout.

Flying cars are a no show, space travel has been off the menu since the 80s, but we’ve got communicators and tricorders a la Star Trek in our back pockets, and now commercially manufactured masks that make people sound like Darth Vader. The future is not at all as my younger self imagined it would be.

Anyway. I ramble. Thinking of you.

C/

. 

Dear J,

Snow is coming down fast and hard, blanketing the city, but quietly. The roads are fine; there hasn’t been enough accumulation yet to bring the plows put in force, and it’s late enough that no one nearby is messing around with a snow blower. It’s peaceful. Peaceful is nice.

I tried to get P to come look at the snow, but he’s deep in a video game; I approve. He put in a long day at work, this should be play time.

Relieved that this embarrassing episode in American politics will be over at noon tomorrow. I think the next few months are going to be bleak on the pandemic front, but I’m cautiously optimistic about progress with vaccines and a more competent federal government.

(P just emerged from his office and agreed that the snow is really pretty.)

Thinking of you, sis. Hope getting around isn’t too precarious right now. Also hope you’re feeling the same glimmers of relief that I am about the change in political climate.

::hugs:: and love! 

C/

Dear J,

P got angry today. He keeps thinking at some point the GOP will repudiate the mob; he keeps getting disappointed. I told him I heard him, that I agreed that disappointment and moral outrage are valid responses to the attempted violent overthrow of a landslide election. The Greeks (I said to him, knowing nothing cools tempers and lifts spirits like a philosophy lesson) held that outrage about injustice was both useful and admirable, because without outrage things never get better.

But when anger makes it impossible to enjoy the day, when being mad won’t let you sleep or eat, when rage ruins every waking minute… I can testify it’s not a fun way to live. (He wasn’t mollified. Fair enough.)

My current theory is we should be squeezing as much happiness out of the day as we can, but… it’s not always an easy mind set to embrace.

Hey, I got laundry done today! Other incidentals… My new PC is much, much faster than the old model; download speed is literally 10x better. The roast was good… Paul finished off the last of the leftovers for lunch today. Penny is trying to conceal a little creakiness in her joints, but that doesn’t stop her from scaling her tower and insisting on morning snuggles from me.

Hope you’re babying that bum knee of yours. My right arm is pain free, but I’ve lost the ability to raise it much higher than level with my shoulder. Which… is fine, for now.

Just gotta hold on for a while.

Love. Also ::hugs:: 

C/

Dear J,

P’s mom loved the Mamas and Papas. I found an old recording of Mama Cass doing ‘Dream a little dream of me’ and added the song to the house playlist. Geez Louise, Mama Cass could sing!

P went back to work today. I showered, emptied the litter box, took the trash down the alley to the dumpster, went to the bank and visited the dispensary. My new PC arrived! I’ll set the machine up tonight.

I’ve been marooned in the gray zone you describe so well. Didn’t shower for four or five days because… I couldn’t be bothered. My throat and cheeks itched from my wispy beard, but the effort required to pull out the clippers, shave, and clean up after myself seemed Herculean. So I didn’t bother. I slept a bunch. I brushed my teeth, but otherwise… I smelled bad. But showering remained too much of an effort.  (I had a similar thought as you about those early hominids who hibernated: hey, my kind of people!)

As Christmas recedes in the rear view window, my spirits are slowly improving. P and I have been watching a lot of comfort TV; British cooking shows, crazy comic book style romps… we’re watching episodes of the original Bob Newhart show, too, the one set in Chicago?

P and I are also trying to live more mindfully. We’re trying new routines. Sundays, we work together on a meal; the lasagna we put together yesterday wasn’t bad! Probably would have been better if Amazon didn’t substitute a pound of mozzarella for the ricotta we requested, but… no complaints. Next week we’ll try grilling steaks on the stove and some sort of potato side (twice baked?)

Love,

C/

Dear J,

This is the month I sit at my low water mark. Christmas was an anxious holiday for me even as a kid: I felt like I had to radiate delight and gratitude. In my teens and twenties, December reminded me how little money I had that wasn’t being handed to me by Mom and Dad.

Hey, I ran across a depression-coping technique in one of the filthy cartoons that make P and I laugh: the idea is to list all the things for which you feel gratitude. I never would have thought of gratitude as an antidote to depression! But it works, kinda, a bit. Like all the other stuff helps.

Amazon Fresh delivers a frozen banana cream pie that needs to defrost for at least eight hours; if you have the patience, you get a slice with a silky texture, plenty of banana flavor and whipped cream that is airy, with high peaks.

I’m grateful for reliable delivery service in a time of pandemic.

P, his sister and nephew are all playing a PS4 game together online; we’ve got a headset with a microphone plugged into the controller, so they can all hear each other as they play. It’s a game centered around collaboration. You play as cooks in a kitchen, prepping, cooking, plating and delivering meals. Frantic fun, and hearing P laugh buoys my spirits like nothing else.

I spent a lot of my younger years feeling lonely. This is no self-pity party; I never went hungry, always had nice clothes and shoes, access to books and toys and so on. But the loneliness was real, and I wonder if that’s part of the reason I cling to P so tightly. (Other than, you know, his many wonderful qualities.)

I’m grateful to him. Also to Miss Penny, who apparently gets upset when I leave these days? P says she walks around calling for me, which… is adorable. We bought her a bunch of new toys, and she’s been having fun losing them. She’s decided that she loves the faux fur throw on our couch; she falls asleep staring in the direction of P’s office.

I’ve had some story and character ideas recently. I’ll make myself sit down with the bass next week. The PC will show up soon, and then I’ll be back to reading and writing on a real screen; this month, everything is routing through my phone.

I’m grateful that I can type this note, send an email, get groceries and burritos delivered, all thanks to this mini monolith in my hand.

Hey, I love you, J. I look forward to a future holiday where we make a gingerbread house together.

::hugs:: 

C/

Dear J,

Last time I wrote to you, I said something about feeling the urge to get an oar in, to steer myself out of the slough of despair. Occurred to me in retrospect that only using one oar, you’re doomed to go in circles. Whoops?

This week, I kept the pantry stocked, the house reasonably clean and even got laundry (my ancient nemesis) sorted.

Today we’re doing another pot roast. Same recipe as last time, but tweaked to address the issues last time, when the roast, potatoes and carrots cooked down too far, giving us something more hash-like than a pot roast, salty and spicy but not appropriately savory. So we used liberal amounts of beef stock to replace a thick beef consumme. I was less extravagant with pre-sear salting of the roast. We cut back on onions, and now…. we wait.

P and I have talked about establishing a tradition of big Sunday dinners that we prep together. This kitchen is big enough that we can work together easily; while I seared the beef and threw stuff into the Dutch oven, he cheerfully peeled and chopped potatoes and onions.

We didn’t talk about politics.

We’ve been watching the Mandalorian (Star Wars) TV series on Disney+, and Netflix released a holiday episode of the Great British Baking Show. We theorize about what differentiates winners from all the other super talented bakers who appear on the show. We also speculate inappropriately about the private lives of contestants and (after this last season) attempt to identify why the most recent seasons aren’t quite as magical as earlier ones. (I blame the people casting the hosts!)

I ran across an article today talking about the woman who wrote Harriet the Spy. I didn’t know that she died so young (45?) or that she was a lesbian. Irony: she took very little satisfaction from having written something I adored as a kid. She wrote another book, I guess, a YA novel about a girl falling for another girl… but the manuscript has vanished, and her estate apparently was happy to disappear any evidence of the author’s ‘scandalous’ love life.

We have made progress, darn it. A hundred years ago women couldn’t vote. Twenty years ago the idea of gay marriage was shocking to people.

Some things just take time. Like a pot roast?

::hugs:: 

C/