The Queen Mother had an obvious descent into the Land of Confusion for a week, then seemed to plateau this past week, pulling herself back together somewhat. The challenge is, she rarely tells me when she gets significantly Confused, partly because she is of the "I don't want to be a bother" mentality, and partly because she picked up the idea somewhere along the line that I was going to get mad at her and yell at her. I will grant you I am not the most copacetic woman in the world sometimes - especially first thing in the morning and perhaps the first day in the Moontime - but I make a significant effort not to fly off the handle, something much easier to accomplish now that my Depression is not actively flitting around in my head. I help her as I can, and especially when I notice something is a little "off."
She has also taken to talking a lot when she sees me. I suspect she is trying to Use Her Words as much as she can before the time comes when the brain-to-mouth connection no longer works for her. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about that possibility. As much as I might not want to her all the talking, what will it will be like when we basically have to play charades? I have thought of taking pictures of various objects around the house and making flash cards out of them, so she can find the picture of what she is wanting and point to it. I will cross that bridge when we get there.
As for Himself: his aunt (mother's sister) passsed on last Monday. We had an opportunity to tune in to the virtual memorial service yesterday, which was good. We got a chance to see family again, some in Connecticut, some in Texas (especially grateful as the suspicion is Covid paid them a recent visit!), some in Chicago, and some in San Francisco. It was good to schmooze, but as Himself pointed out, we need to do more schmoozing on other occasions than memorial services! We will see what germinates from the seeds that were planted yesterday.
He also went down to the VA last week to attend to a pair of appointments. One of them had been canceled without advising him beforehand, but for a very good reason - two of the wings on the fifth floor (ICU and the surgical ward) were literally taped off due to Covid patients being there, and one of his appointments was supposed to take place in the now off-limits area. It was rescheduled without a huge issue, but it was one of those moments that can really give one pause.
Now, in my neck of the woods...we do not have a curfew time. There are curfews in place in other parts of San Diego County. La Mesa, which is about 30-40 minutes to the south and east of us, experienced its own insanity this past Saturday night, because of a (non-fatal) confrontation between a (white) policeman and a (black) citizen last week. The closest area in curfew to us is Poway, which is about 10-15 minutes south and a little east of us. The North Coounty is, so far, incident and curfew free. On the other front, most everyone is wearing a mask outside, and of the few who don't, most of them have a mask in hand to put on when they come near significant numbers of people. I'm not sure if folks are standing exactly six feet apart in the lines (mainly to get into Trader Joe's, but I have seen other lines), but social distancing is being practiced without complaint.
I continue to stay away from the news and social media as much as I can. I cycle in and out of the zeitgeist, being a Sensitive who picks up on the Collective energies rather easily. I have a pouch with certain crystals and stones in it that I tuck into a pocket when the energies get too intense to keep me from flying off the edge and/or down the nearest rabbit hole. I have Pandora to stream music when I need it, the playlists of videos I am steadily adding to on YouTube, and some sage and Palo Santo to burn as needed. I don't do a lot of aromatherapy witb Essential Oils because a lot of those oils are actually toxic to cats, and it's important to me that the furkids have fresh air to breathe!
Now for the good news: I have a story that is ready for prime time. Once I run it througb the Editor (a new feature on MS Word that I look forwatd to debating with) and give it a final read-through, it. will. be. finished. Holy shit! Then I'm sending it to a friend up north to see if she likes it. I have also been reading exerpts of things I've been working on to another friend over Zoom on Fridays.
I have found something interesting in the process - I would rather you read something I wrote instead of me reading something aloud that I have written. When in the spotlight, so to speak, I tend to read very fast and stumble over words. I find myself wanting to work on that to get more comfortable in reading my own writing. There's a Judge in there somewhere...
As I can't think of anything else at the moment, I think I will leave off here and paddle back out into the Great Expanse, until the next time.
