“I scheme a lot, I know. I plot and plan. That’s how a queen with COVID spends her time.” — Eleanor of Aquitaine (paraphrased, obviously), from The Lion in Winter
1) Last week Monday I did a tarot reading about a task facing me. The card for the incoming influence was the Six of Wands, often associated with victory — encouraging; but the card for the final outcome was the Three of Swords, which represents sorrow. Immediate result: I postponed completing the task until Wednesday.
2) And it’s a good thing I didn’t postpone it any further, because Thursday I woke with an irritated throat. As my energy flagged during the morning (rare), I felt more and more suspicious. Immediate result: a faint pink line on a COVID test. I would be quarantining for the foreseeable future.
3) Suddenly I was back in 2020, learning to count to 20 while washing my hands again. Paper face masks inside the desk in the kitchen had taken on the smell inside the desk drawers. Happily, that’s a nice smell, the smell of my gramma’s house.
4) Gramma once told me that she was courted in every Chinese restaurant in the Twin Cities when she was a girl (let’s say roughly 1919-1923). Early in quarantine that memory led me to realize I had all the ingredients for egg drop soup in the house: vegetable stock, a raw egg, and a peeled clove of garlic.
4a) I also discovered a box of frozen meatballs in the freezer I’d almost forgotten about, and they served nicely both in soup and with mushrooms.
4b) But really, I’ve been eating mostly peanut butter and jelly, and not really eating a lot.
5) You’ve heard me say often enough that Murder is relaxing at times of stress. Coincidentally I’d just brought home The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age by Michael Wolraich, which tells the entwined stories of the murder of Vivian Gordon, FDR’s campaign for President, and the fall of Mayor Jimmy Walker and Tammany Hall. Great reading, and you certainly see how the system was stacked against women.
5a) I have now turned to William J. Mann’s biography of Katharine Hepburn, which is also turning out to be quite interesting.
6) People have been very kind with offers to help and bring in needful things, but since the neighbors brought me cough meds and drops and tissues yesterday, and since the grocery deliveries are reliable, I’ve been completely comfortable.
6a) Because there were a couple nights when it was just impossible to get to sleep and I’d periodically be plagued with a hacking cough. It was so bad on Sunday night that I allowed myself to sleep in until almost 11 AM, which meant I missed . . .
7) . . . the arrival of the fence company to install our new fence. After having been awakened by a phone call, I faced a raft of texts from the neighbors asking me to open a window so the workmen could plug in a drill or something.
Before the gate was added.
7a) They sorted it out without me, and now, Tuesday afternoon, our beautiful new fence is complete! We have wanted to do this for several years now, the old fence having been bashed by falling tree limbs and the gate barely hanging on its hinges. Now we have a lovely new fence with the addition of an arbor over the gate. It’s a lovely improvement to have completed this year!
8) Current musical obsession: “It Goes Like It Goes,” by Jennifer Warnes, from Norma Rae.
9) Hoping I will be testing negative by Thursday. Please send healing thoughts!