Day 175: Cloaks, Turtles, Tirades

This morning William crawled into bed with me and Jeremy to discuss which kind of pancakes we should make for breakfast. Apple cinnamon? No. Pumpkin? No. Plain? No. Banana? No. We finally decided we would make blueberry pancakes today, and peanut butter pancakes tomorrow, for Daddy, because that's Daddy's favorite. 

While I made pancakes and coffee, William played with Lego's, Jeremy stayed in bed resting, and Taiya slept on. William has been into the Lego's again lately. We built a house for Rocky the Recycling Pup yesterday, and he spent the pancake-making time adding a garden with a rock to climb on and a stump to sit on and think. 

Jeremy eventually arose, grabbed coffee, and went off to do chores. Taiya eventually thumped down the stairs with her sleepy face on. After she and William finished eating they decided that their stuffed animals needed cloaks. So, drinking my coffee, I hand-stitched some cotton lace onto some red fleece to make a cloak for Taiya's new stuffed animal owl, Featherly. Then Mouse needed a little cloak too, so I stitched that up in a flash. And in case you were worried, Featherly has agreed to eat pancakes instead of Mouse. Otherwise things might be quite tense around the house. 

The kids played with their newly outfitted stuffed animals, inventing games that involved Mouse being a chef. Taiya got out boxes from the back room to turn into a wardrobe (where else would Featherly put her cloak?) and a kitchen (for Chef Mouse). 

These are the kinds of creative things they get into all the time. They start out with one idea (cloak for Featherly) and it grows (another cloak for Mouse) and grows (rooms for them both). Each step involves tracking down materials, figuring out how best to accomplish the vision, overcoming setbacks... it's fun to see their creative wheels turning. Eventually it devolves into frustration or just losing the trail of interest and moving onto something else. Today when they lost focus they wanted to watch their new favorite YouTube channel, Slick Slime Sam. 

While they watched that oddity, I ventured out and weeded some of our long-neglected garden beds. We never got around to planting these areas after harvesting garlic, so it was all overgrown. The perilla mint in those beds was about to go to seed, and I have a passionate dislike for perilla mint, so I had to get those pulled up. 

My beautiful, pungent garden nemesis.

Then I decided to do a deeper clean of my office corner. The walls are a beautiful shade of yellow, but because they were behind shelves of tools for so many years they were covered in dust, cobwebs, and fly poop. I got a bucket of water and a rag and scrubbed the corner clean. Then I swept and washed the floor. It's starting to look quite nice! I have a Kathy Clarke painting of trees and sky in front of the desk that I can stare at when I am searching for just the right word, and a print on the other wall of poppies on a blue background. I know it was a wedding present, but I don't remember who gave it to us. Thanks to that person, though - it looks beautiful in my office. 

While I was doing this, Jeremy was fiddling around with his many tools in the shed. He did some scything of pathways, sharpening of tools, reorganizing his axes (he built a better ax-holding area this past week when his other one fell off the wall from the weight of so many axes). In other words, he happily spent his Sunday morning doing his favorite things. 

I often do a half-assed job of coming up with lunch ideas, since I expend so much energy on breakfast and dinner. Lunch is usually either leftovers from one of those two meals, or sandwiches, or hummus and crackers. Something quick and easy that doesn't require a lot of thought. Today, Taiya wanted macaroni and cheese (thank you, Annie's) and William wanted crackers. I made slightly more of an effort and made Jeremy and myself some falafel. It was from a just-add-water mix, but it was still delicious on a tortilla with hummus, cucumbers, tomatoes, and kale. 

After that big, satisfying lunch I felt like a nap, but instead I sat in my rocking chair with a cup of Zen green tea and my book, and had a very peaceful hour or so of reading. 

Later in the afternoon, Taiya wanted to do some roller skating so we got her strapped in and she wheeled around the porch, Daisy curiously following. We put Daisy's leash on and tried to get her to pull Taiya, but she didn't understand the program and just stood there chewing on the leash. 

Then it was pool time. We had a raucous time in the pool, waging a battle, boys against girls, using squirters to shoot each other and kickboards as shields. It was hilarious. No one got hurt or sad, we were all laughing and shrieking, and it was excellent exercise. So fun. 

Jeremy went to the farm to do chores and came home swearing like a sailor. Apparently, his dad had told his girlfriend's son that he could shoot snapping turtles in one of the ponds. We don't know why anyone would think this was a good idea, and we can't figure out what the issue is with having turtles in that pond in the first place. But while Jeremy was trying to get the goats back in their pen for the night, they kept getting spooked by gun shots and Jeremy had to go tell the guy to get lost, but politely. Another fun fact Jeremy told me is that if you shoot bullets at water, they can ricochet just like if you shoot them at metal, so this whole situation was extremely dangerous in addition to being utterly nonsensical. I'm pretty sure Bill doesn't read this blog, but just in case: Bill, I love you, but stop letting people shoot things on the farm unless it's Mr. Burkhart during hunting season. You're going to get someone killed. And why not just leave the damn turtles alone anyway?! 

Okay, I'm done with that episode of Redneckery Gone Wild. It just boggles the mind sometimes.

Meanwhile, at home, blissfully unaware of the Great Turtle Debacle of 2020, I made a dinner of pupusas (Sunday is pupusa day after all) and salmon cakes, because William asked for salmon cakes too. Served with more curtido and some leftover kale, it was delicious. 

Taiya wanted to watch Return of the Jedi (that's her favorite), so we let her, and let William watch something else on the laptop since Star Wars scares him too much. (We told him: it's the one with the Ewoks! And he said, "Yeah, but some of the Ewoks die!!" True. It is sad.) 

In the news, Rochester, NY is the latest city to be expressing its outrage, the news of the killing of Daniel Prude finally being heard months after it happened. My friend Laura lives there, and this helped me explain to Taiya what was going on in a way that made it real. Taiya then went on a righteous rant, and what a beautiful thing it was to behold. She said if she saw Donald Trump, she would tell him he was a big old scaredy-cat for shooting tear gas at peaceful protesters, and that he should really come to one of her tea parties, because she would teach him some manners. "What do you think he would say if I said that to him?" she asked eagerly. I can't even imagine what he would say to her fierce, beautiful, indignant face. All that comes to mind is a picture of him back-handing her and stalking off to pout. Bastard. 

Also stunning and frightening is the order Trump made that the government thinks diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings are "anti-American propaganda" and they wouldn't be doing them anymore. It is very hard not to fill this paragraph with cuss words trying to describe how I feel about it. Insert tirade here: #*$&#((#)@(*$#&$(#*^!#%@)(#*$&#

Alright. I better wrap up my lengthy description of Sunday, September 6, Day 175 of Social Distancing. It was a typical day, and beautiful in its simple way (minus the Turtle Incident. That was just plain idiotic.). Starting with cloaks for an owl and a mouse, ending with Ewoks, Anne of Windy Poplars, and a tale of How Lizard Got Skinny. The sun shone all day but it wasn't too hot. The goldenrod and wild sunflowers are blooming brilliant yellow everywhere, the hummingbirds have been visiting the black and blue salvia, and the end of months of smothering, oppressive heat is nigh. To slightly alter the Anne quote, I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Septembers. (She says Octobers, which I equally agree with, but she didn't live in Arkansas so didn't know the relief September brings).