The best thing about covid has been the people I walk with, and thanks to the mild winter the amount of walking has been great.  Today it’s sunny and warm and gives one the feeling spring truly is about to arrive like a tuxedo cat after a low-flying bird.

Justin turned one and is just taking his first few steps.  Actually the very first steps on his own were this past weekend as they went to visit his great grandmother.  Mom has the ability to coax excellent performances out of anyone.  Even a baby.

People I’ve kept up with thanks to walking include Marie, Kathy, Margaret, Patricia and Sharon.  Shopping at thrift has given me the opportunity to spend time with dear Elsa.  So I pretty much haven’t noticed any mental illness from covid isolation.  Some mental illness, yes, but not from that.

Another fab thing I’ve done is reconnect with people I lost track of over the years, such as Helen Jmaeff who used to live beside my grandparents’ house.  We both loved the Beatles and I remember going over there and hanging out while we listened to 45’s.  Look it up, young people.

I continue to clean out mom’s house every two weeks when I go with her food, and last weekend Luke and Jan went and loaded up the back of his truck with garbage from the garage.  The only sad part of that is Luke’s take on it, to him anything old is garbage.  He proudly said he’d thrown out a bunch of tools.

But we’re soldiering on as mom has an awful lot of stuff in her house.  She says she’s lived in the house for 76 years and has never thrown anything out, and she’s right.  I took out an enormous pile of knitting and crocheting magazines from the 1960’s and ‘70’s.  Now I’m a hoarder as they’re pristine and it seems a shame to give them to thrift as they could well throw them out.

Luke wants the hide-a-bed out of the basement so mom said go ahead, fill your boots.  He’ll need a chain saw to cut it in half and then somehow get it up the basement stairs as the door it came through 40 years ago has been permanently shut.  The stairs are hilariously steep and very narrow as they were built before people gave a damn about broken necks.

I’ve got a few seedlings growing in trays on the windowsill, and they’ll go into the greenhouse next month when nighttime temperatures warrant it.  Last fall I planted a whole bed full of garlic so I’m hoping I get a good crop this year.  I’ve enjoyed having the frozen tomatoes because last year’s crop was particularly tasty which is now a rarity among tomatoes.

Iris is minding her own business on a kitchen chair as I type and now George has come onto the table and slapped down at her until she had to disturb her afternoon nap.  My cats have always regarded a table just as though it was a bed, couch or chair, which is disconcerting to some people.  My reply?  Don’t come to my house if you don’t like cats on a table.

Another benefit of covid – people don’t come over to see how eccentrically I live.