Postcards From the Pandemic

"I need 2 noodles to float now!" one of our neighbors laughed this afternoon at the pool. "It's that quarantine weight gain!"

"I know what you mean," another neighbor replied. "At first I was pretty good, but the longer it goes on I'm like, Salad? Um, no! Where's the ice cream?"

"I like to call it the Covid 15," her friend agreed. bit ruefully, "but I'm afraid it's getting pretty close to 19."

Where They Are Planted

I always have an assortment of herbs and flowers growing in the eight hanging baskets that sway gently on their hooks in the breeze out on our balcony. I have a few pots on the decking as well, mostly herbs, but sometimes lettuce or beans or sunflowers grow out there, too. This summer I added marigolds, portulaca, and snapdragons, the same flowers my mother grew every year in our garden when we were kids.

In dry weather, the baskets and pots require daily watering, and even with the rain we've had the last few days, I've been out there pruning and weeding and dead-heading. It's more of a joy than a chore, though.

It was my mom that showed us the magic trick of finding the seeds in the flowers, and ever since I was a little girl, I have relished snapping the dry blossoms from the marigold plants and plucking them apart from their base to reveal the half-inch seeds. Likewise, I love the tiny pods on both portulaca and snapdragons that burst with a satisfying crunch to release a thimbleful of teeny seeds into the palm of my hand.

It always seems a shame to waste such potential, and so more often than not, I open my hand and cast the seeds into the wind, wishing them luck where ever they may land, and wondering a little bit why the world is not more full of flowers.

Out of a Hat

We were walking the dog through our neighborhood this morning and chatting aimlessly about this and that. "You know what I haven't seen any of this year?" I said to Heidi. "Rabbits!"

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Even with all the walking we've been doing, I haven't seen a single one." I shrugged. "Some years there are so many, and others? No!" I shook my head. "I wonder why?" But before we even had a hypothesis, we were on to all the fruit trees in this particular stretch of the neighborhood. Peaches, apples, or pears seem to grow in almost every yard.

And so we continued pleasantly on our way, with one random observation after another, until we had looped around and were headed home. Turning a corner, we were confronted by a huge rabbit hopping our way, right down the sidewalk. We stopped, and the rabbit did, too, almost as if to say Abracadabra! before disappearing beneath the low branches of a fig tree.

Post Pandemic Plans

Right around the time everything around here was closing, They started putting up signs in a newly-constructed building down the street that a Silver Diner was coming. To be honest? I'm not a huge fan of the place. I'm not a huge critic, either, though, and I understand that they have made an effort to locally source some of the ingredients for their mostly cooked from scratch menu, so that's a good thing.

And there's something about the place, maybe how close it is or how normal it seems, that makes me fantasize about walking down there for breakfast on Saturday, or stopping in after a run for some well-deserved meal. Bacon and eggs, burger and fries, milkshake-- I'll have it!

So every time I pass that way in the car, or on a walk with the dog, I note the progress. The Opening Summer 2020 sign has never faded or changed, in fact it was joined by a Now Hiring poster a few weeks ago. And just yesterday, I noticed that they had taken down the window wrapping, and there were actual people moving around in the classic chrome interior.

"They're going to open soon," I told Heidi.

"Would you actually go?" she asked.

"No way!" I answered. "Not until a vaccine." I sighed. "But then?" I continued. "I'm going every weekend!"

Another Break in the Weather

The western sky looked ominous as we headed out to run a couple of errands. Brigades of steel gray cumulus clouds seemed to be marching toward us. By the time we headed into the grocery store,  clouds like dark mountains towered up and up thousands of feet and gray wisps swirled just above our heads.

"That looks like it's trying to form some rotation," I said to Heidi as the glass doors whooshed behind us. There were not many other shoppers, but we all stopped when we heard the first rumble of thunder, because it sounded awfully close. Heidi and I were in the water aisle when the store went completely dark on the next crack. We could hear rain pounding on the roof as the emergency lighting flickered and then came on.

All the refrigerators and freezers remained dark, though. "I don't know if the registers will be up to check us out," I worried.

"At least the music is back on," Heidi laughed, and she was right; You Had a Bad Day bopped out of the ceiling speakers as we made our way to the front of the store.

There was no one in the self-check area, and every single monitor read Lane Open, so we went ahead and started scanning our groceries.

"Is that open?" an employee called from the service desk incredulously. "Is it really working?

We gave her the thumbs up, and soon everyone in the store was coming our way. We finished bagging our goods, and pushed the cart towards the only unlocked doors. It looked like a typhoon on Gilligan's Island outside, and stranded shoppers were huddled much closer than six feet from each other as they looked out in dismay.

"Let's wait this out in by the doors in Produce," I suggested to Heidi, and so we did, standing by the locked entrance, checking the weather on our phones, Rain!, looking for a bit of a break in the storm.

15 minutes later it was still raining really hard, but I'd had enough of waiting, so we made our way out to the breezeway, and I made a dash through no longer torrential, but merely drenching rain to the car where... the door wouldn't open!

My fob did not unlock the door either by touch or by pressing the button, and so I made another wet run back to where Heidi stood, and we returned to the store to problem solve. Eventually, I remembered that the fob has an emergency key within it, and I went back out into the rain, opened the door, silenced the alarm, and started the car.

Twenty minutes later, we were home and dry again. None the worse for wear, and not even a little bit annoyed, we watched the storm through the windows, eyes relaxed in the muted gray light. The walls and walkways were washed clean; the trees and plants seemed a little battered, but also plumper and greener. It's been a hot, dry summer, and any break is kind of a relief.

A Break in the Weather

"I heard there might be thunderstorms this afternoon," the lifeguard said casually as he passed us on his way around the pool to check the skimmers. He was almost successful at hiding a little grin, but the corners of his mouth and his eyes gave him away.

"I heard that, too," I said encouragingly.

"I'll get off a little early if it happens," he confessed.

"I know," I told him. "Fingers crossed!" And I meant, too, because so far? He's my favorite lifeguard this summer.

He nodded and smiled broadly as he continued on his way.

"I guess thunderstorms are like little snow days for lifeguards," I said to Heidi, who was a lifeguard for years.

"Hell, yeah!" she answered.

Watch the Birdie

There were only a few folks at the pool last evening when a young robin fluttered in. Still in that awkward adolescent phase between fledging and adult, its plumage was a bit of both, kind of mottled and tufty. "Is it sick?" asked our neighbor as we watched it hop curiously around the deck.

"Nah, it's just young," I shrugged.

A man swimming laps on the side nearest the little bird caught its attention, and soon it was scurrying up and down the edge of the pool, keeping pace with the swimmer. When he stopped at the ladder, the robin stopped, too, leaning in to get a better look. "Shoo, now," the man said as he climbed out of the pool, waving the curious critter aside.

But the robin was undeterred, and it followed the guy over to his chair and watched him towel off from a few feet away. When he stretched his legs forward and turned his attention to his phone, his new friend was not to be ignored. It flew right over and landed on his knee, much to the delight of everyone else at the pool, who had been watching the amusing drama unfold.

"Social distancing, bird!" the man scolded. "Give me six feet!"