Centering: It’s been 337 days since everything shut down, panic-buying cleared grocery shelves, schools went virtual, and our lives got flipped, turned upside down.

I bought a giraffe for $5. But wait, you should know there’s some background on this. I discovered a Facebook page about secondhand finds and it’s spectacular and inspiring. There’s a phenomenon of “house hippos” and everyone who doesn’t have one yet is on the hunt for one. I don’t like to be left out of good fun, so I planned to start hitting Goodwill and secondhand shops for fun and maybe score of these coveted gems. I still haven’t gone yet, but Marketplace continues to be an evening draw once we’re couched and tuned out in to the latest political shitshow. And there it was.

“Mom’s downsizing!” and pictures of items for sale. The giraffe. I messaged her and scored him for $5.* This is what quarantine has done to me. Buying random shit online and a half-dozen projects started and unfinished. So – no house hippo but I’ve got something BETTER. A house – giraffe.

Mercury is in retrograde and so everything is blowing up – our Samsung refrigerator konked out AGAIN and by God this time I’m replacing it. But – snow. So Todd fixed it again but I am not waiting till next time. My car’s engine check light came on again several days ago – which no longer surprises me after the journey this Edge has taken me on since day 1. The fireplace won’t stay lit – and that turned out to be, we’re out of propane, because they didn’t deliver this week. V’s insulin pump broke and we had to go back on MDIs ** until the new pump arrived two days later.

There’s suddenly a perplexing emptiness to the frozen foods and canned catfood sections of the grocery store. I’m pleased to announce that I have plenty of TP and paper towels. I have been unable to procure canned green chiles or frozen diced winter squash for the last two weeks, but I don’t post about it on the community page so the trolls can make jokes about how stupid we all are. For the record, they’re still arguing about the ice cream machine at McDonald’s and running some woman out of town for complaining about the firehouse sirens. (It’s winter so there’s been fewer complaints about the mushroom farms.)

Veruca piles her clothes on the back of the toilet because the new hamper I bought her is apparently not good enough or some other diabolical reason I won’t dissect at this time. Thursday she asked me for rubber gloves and a trash bag …. Because some of her clothes fell into the toilet and she was going to throw them out. Oh HELL no. But, to her credit, she fished them out herself. I told her they can be washed and as good as new. Two days before that, and I won’t get into TMI, there was an enormous issue in the toilet that stumped even me momentarily.

I did a random Valentine’s Challenge on FB with questions about my love – aka Todd – and one question was, Who spends more? My answer – “we’re in quarantine and there’s a 1968 Mustang in the garage that wasn’t there a year ago. You do the math.” My purchases have equated to clothing, a pair of boots, new bed sheets, and a hair dryer from L’ange which is the bomb at drying my hair smooth with volume. Even if I stick to the plan of buying a new fridge, a mattress that doesn’t sink, and an in-ground pool – Todd will still have me beat.

Meanwhile, we’re having some lovely winter weather around here – though not as lovely as Romania. Really, you should see the pics people post of Romania. Two Sundays in a row now we’ve had snow, one week closing our office the next day. And then the snow melted and the driveway got icy and have you ever felt your feet slipping out from under you on an icy sidewalk? Happened on my way to my car and my whole life flashed before my eyes. Or at least all my hopes and dreams.

I woke up with “We Are the World” spinning in the turntable of my mind and I waited until Todd got up, and then I looked at him dead-on serious and … “there comes a time, when we heed a sudden call…” I wanted to give him the ear worm for a change and by now I’m sure you know me well enough that you know this is not how it was going to end. When I walked out the front door, he told me to have a good day and I said, “I KNOW I’m going to have a good day, I just FEEL it!” because I’m all positive and shit and then he said, “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes….” and I was cursing all the way to work.

Speaking of work, I have officially retired one pair of pants because the zipper won’t stay up. I’ve also gained that little bit of weight back and so there are pants that continue to wait in the wings like an understudy praying to be tagged in. One day it will happen, but today is not that day.

And what IS it with people calling their doctor’s office at 3 minutes to close? Twice this week, I was on the receiving end of the last call and it’s never anything easy, like a return call to the nurse. It’s a new call to the nurse, usually about 2 or more children (each requires a separate entry), and oh!-while we’re on the phone I need to schedule well visits for all five of my children.

Oh, you want to hear about the dogs, do you? Bee is so freakin hyper first thing in the morning, it’s like dealing with a two year old toddler who slept all night trapped in a crib. She leaps around like a kangaroo and when I go to the door she jumps up with front paws on the wall next to me. She runs down the stairs and because we don’t move as fast as she does, she turns around and runs back up. Shuggie has learned at this point to wait for senior citizen Sabra to amble down the hallway before she goes down the stairs. One day Bee is going to take me out. But they both make me laugh out loud at least once a day.

Shuggie takes ownership of you by leaning against you or sitting on your feet, the latter most welcome on these cold winter nights. I have pulled Bee onto my lap the last couple of nights and last night her head fell heavy and I knew she was out. She is content and happy. The nervousness is all but gone, though she rarely sees anyone but us. I love watching their personalities continue to emerge and grow. Bee is the co-dependent one. She hates being alone, or outside without the others, and cries like a puppy when they’re separated. Shuggie is Miss Independent. She doesn’t need anybody. She is a lover, but she will take your love until she’s had enough and thank you very much I’m gonna go lie down now over there.

Miscellaneous tidbits

The Superbowl commercials ran the spectrum from amusing to epic to WTF-did-I-just-see, with the half-time show visually dazzling in the opener before the Weeknd led us old folks into a dizzying maze, soon followed by red-coated, masked dancers that were a little uncomfortably close to V for Vendetta meets China/Nazi Germany. I guess I’m old and missed the “art.”

Move over Fletcher Cox, welcome Butker and Succop (suk-up).

In another ridiculous, classic example of Americans failing to read or do their homework – Confusing Representative Josh Harder (D-CA) with Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) – People are sending death threats to the former for refusing to certify the election results and siding with Trump.

The “cowboy-booted, pinstripe-suited” lawyer from suburban Philly, who is attempting to acquit Trump, is none other than our old friend Bruce Castor who fell from grace multiple times in PA.

Bastard and Casanova. No, it’s not the name of a movie or book title – they are researchers Paul Bastard, PhD and Jean Laurent Casanova, MD who were working together on study of 1000 severe cases of COVID-19 and the effects of interferons.

I wonder if all this mask wearing is going to have an evolutionary effect on our ears? I mean not just from the hearing perspective, but from the physical aesthetic. Will this constant masking cause protruding ears? Seriously, this is a thing. I got my hair cut last week and saw my ears prominently sticking out once my hair was wet (still had mask on). Remember what grandma always said about crossing your eyes?

On further googling, I found that there are less kind terms like bat ears, dumbo ears, and – this one is perplexing – taxi-door ears. There are surgical and non-surgical (like adhesive “correctors”) ways to correct protruding ears. Further down the rabbit hole, I also learned that our ears (and nose), being made up of cartilage, don’t continue to grow as we age but rather droop due to gravity and therefore appear larger than when we were younger. Yay. Guess it’s time to move to the moon.

*PSA:: Be safe when buying on Marketplace. Do not go alone to someone’s house, particularly if it sits far back off the road. Or try to meet in a public place. Oh – and – Wear the Damned Mask.

** MDIs = Multiple Dose Injections, aka shots

*** I finally decided, and have paid extra to remove ads. You’re welcome.