Ah, the sweet sound of coffee brewing in the morning as your partner aggressively taps something in the background. What a joy! A joy I wanted to share with you, dear friends! I had to enable podcast functionality to include that audio clip, so who knows where this could take us now - an actual podcast? Heck, I started a newsletter, it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from that to becoming a full-blown podcaster. But that’s enough speculation for now: I took many photos for you all over the last several days. Here they are!

Coffee

I finally got tired of waiting to finish my Pete’s before I tried my new covfefe. Also, it was a Monday. So I made it happen.

I even made a GIF! It’s so beautiful! I love coffee.

Look at that steamy swirl of light cream settling in to my heat-sensitive bird mug. Mmm.

Sara made us banana bread out of our sad bananas! It is very yummy.

Shawl

I finished a whole ball of yarn for my shawl! We are now onto ball of yarn #2, and this photo is no longer current. Here’s how many rows I’ve done since then:

So big. So good.

IKEA patio furniture DISASTER

Turns out IKEA’s flat-rate shipping for big items is $49. That felt like a lot of money, more money than I could justify spending on some patio furniture that cost $60. Sara had the very helpful suggestion of checking out Wayfair for everything I was planning to buy at IKEA, so I spent some time hunting down everything there and am paying $0 in shipping. The patio furniture is less cute, but y’know what? It will do its job. And that’s what I need it to do.

I am also getting a beach umbrella to stake into the ground (and someday bring to the beach) and these solar-powered little lights to hang from my umbrella.

Thank you all for your help and emotional support throughout this journey. We out here.

I am sad

I think the thing that is bumming me out the most right now is that I love spring. I love living in East Rock. I love spending time outdoors when it starts to warm up. I love going for walks in my neighborhood. And this time has made me anxious and unhappy about all of the things that I love.

Sara and I went on a four mile walk the other day (thanks for getting me out of the house, babe!). The only parts of it where I could feel myself relax were when we were walking through some ritzier single-family neighborhoods in Hamden. There just weren’t as many people! There aren’t as many people! They have these big lots and yards and empty sidewalks, and no one has to worry about passing dozens of walkers when they go for a stroll. Usually that’s my least favorite part about a neighborhood like that; I love divided houses - I love sharing space and a neighborhood with so many other people who also live in apartments and visit the same local markets and walk everywhere. This spring just sucks, and it’s sucking the joy out of all of my favorite things. UGH.

I made a cloth mask the other day, which also really bummed me out and made me incredibly angry. All of which is to say, I miss you all. I miss spending time outside with you, going on Monday adventures to doughnut shops, finding microwaves on the side of the street, drinking a beer in the sunshine, being able to plan visits. It’s been a hard week. I hope you all are hanging in there. If you ever want to grouse about this shitty time, and all of the shitty things that are happening, hit me up. We can also talk about the things we’ll do when this is over, or we can try to think up things that will be more fun in the here and now.

I don’t want to end on a downer, so here is a video of little friendly skunks doing friendly grumbling, and also a video of Dixie the fox reminding us that we should spend less time on our phones:

Wishing you all a day today. In the words of the poet Richard Brautigan,

April 7, 1969I feel so bad todaythat I want to write a poem.I don't care: any poem, this      poem.

May we find the things that help us get thru it.

Morgan

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