Quarantine Diary #134 Written while sweating …

My best coping skill for appalling weather is to show it who is boss. 30 below?  Cool. Let me put on all my clothes plus a hat down to my eyebrows and another one up to my glasses, and I’ll go out there.

100 degrees with humidity higher than Borneo in the summer? Hey, what a great day to put on jeans, socks pulled over the bottom of the jeans to keep bug-biters off my ankles, a beat up T-shirt, baseball hat, and gardening gloves and I’m the one out there weeding with the Mad dogs and Englishmen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMlyT_Sb7sg

I gave myself heat sickness doing this a couple weeks ago at 4pm in full sun. I realized this when I realized I was about to toss my cookies into the zinnias. So I came inside. But this morning, on the shady side of the house, here I am. Weeding and mothering my garden for a while.

I don’t know why some of us have this propensity to go out in the worst weather, and so many others don’t. I’ve stayed inside all day long on many a moderate and pleasant day. But when the dastardly stuff comes along, I don’t like to miss it.

We earthlings are not all the same. What the polar bear wants is different from what the butterfly wants is different from what the albatross desires. Why is it so hard to accept that other people will do things different than we do them?

What’s weather draws you outside? 

...

 I’m paying attention to protests in Portland and Seattle and other places where people are saying their opinions - with their presence - on their streets.

We are seeing Incognito feds and many police ramping up conflict. 

We are seeing BLM protestors. Then the Wall of Moms. The Raging Grannies. The Wall of Vets.

This is unprecedented, beautiful, and scary.

Others are stating emphatically that Black Lives Matter protests are about demanding justice for people of color via defunding the militarization of police. They remind us that this isn’t a fight between white people and white people - this is about justice for people of color.

Have we ever had a national conversation like this before?

...

My grandchildren’s other grandmother asked a really powerful question. What happens to the social development of babies and small children who are ONLY held and dandled by their parents due to the rest of us social distancing?

I have taken on this social responsibility. When I’m out walking or biking, I catch the eye of any little kid I pass. I smile and tell them something about them (how fast they ride their bike, their hair is beautiful) that is awesome. This is really fun. Little kids are suckers for happy compliments. Second of all, I hope they feel for that half minute that we, the world, see and adore them. I don’t touch, I don’t ask names, I don’t stop and act weird. But man, I see little ones and it’s a good moment. Their parents and grandparents tend to smile, too. 

...

My knee is much better except when I sit at my desk for hours. This post has been brought to you as I write on my phone, outside, under my Le Bistro umbrella, with my legs stretched out from this chair to the next. Only thing I’m missing is a drink with an umbrella of its own.