Finally!  Our first real Shabbat together since the plague was like a reunion with my gkids!  I baked challah, made dinner, cleaned up, met S at the bus, hung out with Y for a long time, talked to E and K, and stayed for a very happy erev meal with everyone there.  Jess joined us.

Poor Avdi was still feeling sickly and sapped, but pushing through  Everyone helped with cleanup, and then I spent time with S until Avdi was able to take me home.  I think the forced quarantine brought us all closer together, and the reunion was restorative.

E liked the idea of tilling the veg garden (and being paid well!), so that may be happening this weekend.  The temps are back to springlike, and the high winds are drying the mud.  I started the job of throwing leaves into the garden to be tilled under along with the winter greens.  I feel optimistic about the soil quality this year.

Even the kids are stressed about the current political fiasco, and worried about how it will affect them.  Kids are the ones who will suffer most if the criminals-in-chief have their way.  It’s a topic that keeps coming up, even though we all want to avoid the anxiety, on top of all the other stressors in their lives.  This is a time when kids need their extended family to be there and united to face the coming threats to their survival and wellbeing.

It seems ironic that POC have been enduring this nightmare for hundreds of years, so it’s no surprise, while some white descendants of colonialist racists are just now waking up to the consequences of their toxic systemic ravaging of our society.  The black writers I follow are like, Y’all white degenerates brought this on your ignorant selves, but we all have to pay the price.  Like typical narcissistic psychopaths, whites try to twist reality around to blame Blacks and informed people, when they’re the ones decimating democracy, and turning our world allies against us.  You know when easygoing Canada censures us, it’s getting real.

Maybe when it gets to the point where all our ex-allies declare war on Nazi America (déjà vu all over again!), it will dawn on them, too late.  By then, most of us may have been deported or escaped to elsewhere, where we’ll find ourselves fighting on the anti-US side.  That would be ironic and sad.

Hopefully it won’t come to that.  The mutiny is already rising.  I wish I could stick around for the finale!

This is it, folks!  The first crocuses have bloomed.  It’s official.  Next up: hellebores.

But wait, there’s more!  Avdi officially tested negative today!  Who says there’s no good news?

I did my rounds, including prepping the veg garden to be tilled, hopefully by E.  The seedlings down under are doing well.

I even got around to lining up a new vision care provider and a new dentist, covered by my new insurance plan.  All things new.

I busted out of my cell yesterday, walked to and from, and did my rounds.  I finished seeding the second flat with assorted peppers.  Lots of seedlings starting to come up!  Did some laundry and house straightening, and then it was so warm out I did some more veg garden cleanup in essentially a t-shirt.  It’s almost time to till the garden and plant peas and some cold-weather greens!  It won’t be long until the masses of spring bulb flowers are blooming.  This is more like it.  I felt much better just getting fresh air and exercise.

So of course today and tomorrow’s forecast is reverting back to winter conditions–extreme wind, rain, and snow.  I won’t be able to walk there and back, but that’s to be expected around here.  In a couple of days it’s going to be warm again!  It’s March, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s spring.  Plus, Avdi is still testing positive, though feeling better, so it’s just as well we quarantine.  I’m just glad he’s recovering and back to work.  Soon they won’t be able to get rid of me.

Just to review for the record: so far I’ve started eggplants, globe artichoke, Roman and German chamomile, more asparagus, celery, evening primrose, St. John’s wort, CalWon red bells, ancho/poblano, jalapeño, orange/yellow bells, and cayenne, and soon vera lavender (stratified).  My prop experiments are strawberries, lettuce, carrots, celery, scallions, garlic, assorted basils, lemon/lime, avocado, Asian ginger, and other tropicals.  At my home prop station I’m growing assorted basils, arugula, lettuce mix, English lavender, parsley, mint, and an assorted tropical jungle.  Most of this will rotate over to A’s yard when it’s time.

See, not a word about the catastrophic political crisis.  I can compartmentalize.  I am the Propagatrix.

Has it been weeks in here?  I’m so out of touch.

My son’s covid has hung on for at least a week.  He doesn’t advise exposing myself by coming over, so I can’t even help him much.  I did “sneak” in and out those few days, avoiding contact with anyone.  I haven’t seen my gkids in weeks.  I missed the whole fake spring, what with being sick myself, and having nowhere nice to walk to even if I could.

Some days I never make it outside at all, which for me is like being confined in a cage.  It’s just the nature of things, how it has to be for now, and won’t last forever.  Spring will come, and we’ll live to make up for lost time.

Still, it’s a little surreal, just me and my bizarre dreams (I remember them all), and trying to find constructive things to do besides sleep.  And still, I feel very fortunate, compared to most of the world right now.  I have a place to hole up, and family safe nearby.  I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it probably will, such as losing my small SSA income.  It’s just a matter of which form it will take.  But for now, I never take my good fortune for granted.

Yesterday, just by chance, I found a way to obtain fresh produce and other basics after all.  It seems Instacart was offering a huge discount on first-time memberships for one year, which applies to me because last year’s was a gift.  Plus they had one of their reduced minimum purchase deals going on, so I was actually able to afford fresh fruit, veggies, and a few other necessities I can’t get from the food pantry deliveries.  For me that was a big deal.  It means not merely surviving but feeling better.  I felt very clever as I gobbled down produce!

Segue alert!  Here’s why we need a community-based social system, like more civilized countries, in which there’s a basic social safety net for everyone, and people live more communally, not just struggling solitarily.  Humans are not meant to live as self-sufficient singletons.  We’re more like wolves, who thrive in an organized pack where everyone has a place and role, and look out for each other.

Whereas our system has somehow devolved to the point where we’ve allowed vicious predators to take power and try to destroy anything civilized about us, and alienate our longtime civilized world allies.  No one can thrive or survive in a state like that.  No person or nation can exist in a vacuum unto itself.  Individuals and nations, just like nature itself, can only work in an interconnected network; take one integral component out, and a downward cascade of consequences affect all of us.  It’s happening right before our eyes.

Sorry about the tangent.  I may not be too smart or educated, but even I can see that this story is not just about me and my own minor setbacks.  It’s about living through a time in our history where things have once again, predictably, gone very wrong, and trying to navigate the regression, which can’t be done alone.  It can only succeed with allies in community, all of us in this together, like organized wolves protecting the pack and resisting extinction.