On the heels of yesterday’s Pollyanna post, I’m hitting the wall today. It’s like August outside – windy, dirty, and hot. In here it’s a Sunday with no live sports, my computer games have temporarily lost their charm, and my brain still wanders away a few pages into whatever I’m reading. I’ve thought about all the things… I’ve written about all the things… I’m too tired for all the new things. Every. Day.
My spirit is a caged animal but there’s no place I want to go, so I’m pretty sure what I crave is answers… and resolution. A blessed denouement to the chaos of the realm. I do only what’s required to sustain household life, how can I be so exhausted all the time? That was rhetorical.
A friendly rain shower was in progress when I got up at 6am, but between 4 and 5 o’clock there was a windstorm here with some sort of downburst and 2″ of rain. Our pretty little tree outside the east entrance is broken in half, our deck furniture was shuffled around and tumped over, and all the flowers on our balcony and the rooftop deck took a beating. We were blissfully unaware until after we’d enjoyed our Saturday Breakfast… but everything will recover, with the likely exception of the tree… and the rain is nice. The photo above is one of Kim’s hibiscus blooms – before the storm.
These are also BEFORE – the rooftop is looking more and more inviting this summer as improvements are done.
The view from the top…
Our broken tree
Gorgeous yesterday and will be again, as will the rest.
In other news, someone from one of the commercial offices in our building tested positive for COVID-19 and left without informing the other tenants and owners, after presumably sharing elevators and a mailroom with all of us. It’s easy for people to forget that they’re working in our house and basic courtesies apply.
Oh well, here’s another happy lil’ hibiscus …
EDIT: The tree looks hopeful. 😎
EDIT: Weather Service says Lawrence got between 4 and 5 inches of rain from the storm.
The process of returning to the social realities of life will be one of jerks and starts… and there are all kinds of jerks out there. We had to take our car to the KC dealership for service this week so we made a lunch date with our friends Seth and Adam who live nearby. It couldn’t have been more wonderful to reconnect and catch up with them, but the lunch experience left much to be desired, primarily because in a metro area where COVID-19 numbers are still rising, none of the restaurant staff were wearing masks.
We chose the upper outdoor deck, but the tables weren’t thinned out so other parties were in close proximity… and it’s freaky to have a waitperson walk up to your high-top and repeatedly poke her face next to yours. The proper course of action would have been to pick another restaurant after we stepped inside and saw what the situation was, but Midwesterners are trained to be so damned polite it didn’t even occur to us – and quite possibly it’s the same over much of the city. At our car dealership, by contrast, everyone wears masks, and the person who handles the car adds gloves. Just good business these days.
It was comforting to see Lawrence again where there’s no prevailing cavalier attitude toward the various crises assailing us all – most people here, ESPECIALLY those with eating establishments, wear masks; embrace the presence and contribution of a diverse ethnic population; are liberal-minded when it comes to the care and feeding of other humans; and are aware and in favor of constitutional laws governing American society. I fear KCKS is a tad too close to the hee-haw over there.
My patience for fools is on hiatus – no fact, emotion, or consequence moves them off their chosen mark. Zero tolerance on social media if they step onto my timeline and unload their predictable weaponry on me – if I know you I might go 3 strikes, otherwise out the airlock you go. Today as we pass the hours before Tulsa kicks into gear, wondering how it’s all going to go down, fools loom large – they aren’t known for clear-headed decision making under pressure. Hoping for a non-conflagrational outcome.
Kim was out on his bike at 5:45 this morning, shooting at the fog, which strikes me as therapeutic and apropos.
In the past 3 months I’ve been inside public places a handful of times – the barbershop, the ER, my doctor’s office, and a car-service waiting room – and as a downright upright citizen I like our county’s good record on COVID-19 so far – we made page 1 of the New York Times yesterday:
This morning Rita and I met at South Park and enjoyed a walk, by order of the primary care physician we share in common. She’s wise enough to use our sister connection as medicine for whatever might ail us, and it works. The park’s about midway between our houses and it’s beautiful – populated by old-growth trees and eye-soothing flower gardens, smooth sidewalks criss-crossing the length and breadth of the space, and benches for the occasional sit-down. Rita’s a hiker, I’m not, so we strolled this morning, loosening up muscles grown accustomed to a semi-catatonic state, and talking, which is the good juju.
City workers spray disinfectant on all of the picnic tables, benches, and playground equipment in Lawrence’s 50+ parks and green spaces on a rotating basis – those spaces get well-used. Things we once gave little thought to are now part of living together as humans, much of it long overdue.
In the middle of all the insanity around us that’s beyond our control, this little city in a forest has been an oasis of calm. We hope that holds.
Peace to you, wherever you are today. 💙
A blustery spring morning on a deserted Mass Street
Life returns, like green shoots across a fire-scorched terrain. Saturday evening we picked up fresh garden produce from friends and spent a couple of hours with them in the shade of their hugemongous back yard, quietly celebrating a birthday and reconnecting. It was affirming and highly comforting.
Yesterday morning we went to Rita’s, McD’s breakfast in hand, to help her with yard work. My help was slated to consist of sitting on the porch watching the big kids, but the mosquitos got wind of it, passed the word, and I had three rather alarming welts before I knew what hit me. My reaction to things lately is whack, so I retreated into the cool dark of the living room to ponder my uselessness.
Those two opportunities for connection have satisfied my sociable jones for the foreseeable and I’m content to wait for the next great idea someone has. Ready to sit on Cielito’s patio before too long, and see other friends when it feels right. Douglas County is striving to be New Zealand and doing well at it so far – 67 total cases, 0 deaths. But someone in last Sunday’s peaceful march of thousands has tested positive and wasn’t wearing a mask, so the risk has been set loose among us anew.
And the beat goes on. We think, plan, and adapt, working toward a day when we, our loved ones, our community, and the world are safer and life is kinder to the human race.
Other than a haircut and an overnight in the ER, I’m still sticking close to home for all the reasons, the biggest being that everything I need or want is right here. The hot weather we pined for has arrived… and what were we thinking? Kim has left outdoor PickleBall early the past two mornings because of it, and the A/C’s making up for lost time.
He went for a walk this morning and brought me some alley photos. The one above depicts Gwendolyn Brooks and the introduction to one of her poems: “This is the urgency: Live! and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind,” along with Oscar Micheaux, Gordon Parks, and Langston Hughes, each of whom had a seminal influence on the character of Lawrence, Kansas.
We’re in awe of this marble bust on Mass Street, not least because of the way it responds to sunlight. It’s an incredible piece of work.
This one painted on tiny tiles next to a doorway took me back to Sunday when we had my sister Rita here for her birthday. Kim’s Mexican Kitchen was in full-on production and the results were Ah-mazing. Alas, so amazing that a picture of the plates didn’t happen.
And the birthday woman, the only pic here I can take credit for. Her blue eyes and beautiful smile light up a room and our lives. 💗
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Creative humour, satire and other bad ideas by Ross Murray, an author living in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Is it truth or fiction? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
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