Isolation Diary: Not much to report. A friend with family came over to spend time in my backyard. Happy to be able to offer that. Two sewing projects finished. Now what? Hanging out at a bar was not a frequent choice for me, but now?………Would love an hour at The Plunge.
Mars T.
Late night Ruth and her Late night Facebook brother in arms! ME!Janet R.
Love the frankness of your blog posts Ruth, feeling similar thingsSusan J.
Isolation Diary: So why do I feel so much better today than I did yesterday? Can’t say it was more sleep because I was up really late recording a voice message to a podcast, a story I won’t go into at the moment. Why did I record the message at 3 am? It was a should I should I not situation. At 3 am the ‘should’ prevailed. A perilous hour, 3 am. Not sure how many of you share my ‘I’ve got to say this. Egad, why did I say that?” syndrome. Experienced right here, right now, by me. Back to today. I did a practical thing. I fixed the working of the deadbolt on my side gate. Tools used were a screwdriver and various chisels. I have 3 sizes of chisels. I also have two wood planes and a sort of wood grater/scraper and a radial arm saw. What? Yes. I have a set of star screwdrivers. Wait…..I’m listing tools now? OMG. Shift gears: Fun D and D game tonight! I love this game!
Aaron F.
This update feels like it could have been written by me.
Isolation Diary: For me this is still Saturday (even though it’s actually Sunday). Yesterday and the day before, that would be Thursday and Friday, (so difficult to keep track of the days) I realized today (that’s Saturday) that I hadn’t worn any earrings or adorned myself with eyeliner and mascara. The first steps down the slippery slope to pajamas all day. Corrected today (Saturday) even though I encountered absolutely no one. Besides myself in the mirror. My new best friend.
Ronnie R.
I haven’t worn makeup in 2 months but I do put in earrings when I go shopping or teach but mostly so the holes don’t close up.Susan J.
Makeup is highly overrated. Shine from the inside! (Hm. Did that sound convincing or just as corny as it felt?)Jessie M.
At this point I feel like I’m dressing up if I take a shower.Kathi C.
Jessie M. sameNancy W.
Jessie—Ditto!
Isolation Diary: A day without input from the internet. Oh, yes, I opened my email, found nothing personal, just more messages I must delete. I now have over 1800 unread messages. Perhaps I will manage to coordinate the watching of an interesting film with mindless deletion of solicitations for money. I spent a delightful afternoon with the family, containing some D & D play and some time with Fig and playing other games. The small group of players are urging me for our next adventure to take on the role of DM. A challenge. I have been presented with a challenge. What is my history of response to a challenge in my rather narrow realm of experience? “Ok. Sure.” Hasn’t every role I’ve ever played begun that way? Of course I can do this. What? You want me to do this? Ack! How the heck am I going to do this? Take a step.
Joyce H.
Hi Ruth, I miss you!! I can wait until we get back into the theater and mess around with all those props and costumes again. And for the day (night) we can see a show together!! Be well my friend, I love you and miss you much!!!!Aaron F.
You would be a wonderful DM!I would suggest that for you, have a basic idea of story, locations and all of the NPCs sheets in case anybody tests or fights anybody, but you’re such a good improviser that you can spitball through most of the adventure just by staying in character and making stuff up.Ruth Silveira
Maggie as DM is wonderful at playing all the characters we encounter.Aaron F.
I’ll bet she is.Jeff W.
Okay, I admit it — I don’t know what “D&D” is. It can’t be Dungeons and Dragons, can it?
I thought I could hang on until I got it through inference, but it looks like it’s not gonna happen — I give up.Ruth Silveira
Yes! Dungeons and Dragons. My first foray. Learning. Having so much fun. DM is the Dungeon Master whose job is to unroll the story as the players advance in the adventure. And to play all the characters they encounter. And to explain the rules and possibilities. And to nudge when a nudge is needed. Some people do this professionally.Jeff W.
Interesting!Paul B.
I used to play, and was dungeon master for a small group of friends. I loved the game. I still have my books, dice, etcPaul later joined our game for awhile playing a character I wrote in for him. He had to play on Zoom as he lives up north.
Isolation Diary: Awakened by the rain! 7:20 am. Had to get up to secure the outdoor cushions and pillows. Back to bed, and slept until 10:50 am. Late! Doesn’t matter. The rest of the day was very nice but I can’t be bothered to talk about it.
Claudette W.
I love sleeping when it’s raining.
Isolation Diary: For those of you who don’t know, I live in a house with a large yard, I have nearly a double lot. House bought back in 1978, financed by the owners because there were a bunch of things wrong that any realtor would have had issue with. Richard and I were naive, and ignorant besides, and bought this property. We discovered later the bizarre patches in the walls, the ugly patch in the floor of the living room, the shredded carpets, the disintegrating curtains, the large cache of empty wine bottles in the cellar, and the porous roof. The yard has gone through many changes. You may not believe this, but when we moved in there was no fence separating our yard from the one behind us. When we realized that people were occasionally passing through our adjacent yards, from Wilton Place to Gramercy Place (!!!) we erected a fence. Are we thinking that the days of 1978 were ‘those innocent times’? When fences weren’t needed? Two days after we moved in in 1978, there was a knock at our back door. Back door! 3 children. Our next door neighbors. No barriers between our houses. They were used to visiting. The children became friends but the fences went up, partly because of pet dogs. Anyway, I have this yard, this garden. And I now have an app on my phone…World Bee Count. So today I was out in my yard trying to take photos of bees and other pollinators. It is crazy hard to take photos of bees!!! They move so fast. And butterflies are so utterly random in their flights!. You cannot chase after a bee. You have to station yourself and hope a bee comes to the flower on which you are focused. And god help you if you are chasing after a butterfly. I did manage to upload 5 photos eventually. Have I contributed to the good of the whole today? Maybe. I did spend some good time outdoors.
Betsy B.
Hi Ruth!Ruth Silveira
Hi! You are well? I am. My family is.Paul B.
I have two bee hives in my garden. With a double lot you could have bees and grow a ton of foodRuth Silveira
I know nothing about keeping bees. Are these natural hives you have or built ones?Paul B.
I don‘t either, but I have roommates who do. They are built hives. There was one, and then the hive split, and the swarm settled in a tree in my garden. So roommate got the new hive from the tree into another built hive. Bee keepers are avid, and therefore very helpful. I’m not sure who to call in LA, but for a nominal sum they will sell you the hive and the bees and set it up.I did not buy a hive.Ed B.
We bought our first house in 1979 a few blocks away at Beachwood & 1st. Been a few years Ruth!Ruth Silveira
Yes, I remember. The yard is much different than it was then, been through a lot of changes. The area we used to call ‘the back 40’ was covered in gravel; maybe the previous owners had been parking their cars there? I think you and Richard brought in some manure and/or mulch from Griffith Park? We planted corn. We were so amazed we had ‘land’.Claudette W.
No better time spent outdoors than bee and butterfly chasing.Susan J.
Martin M.
Love that house! And your yard!Ruth Silveira
Hi, Martin! Good to hear from you!Martin is another person I don’t see anymore but I am happy to hear from.
Isolation Diary: posting earlier than usual because my power blinked out. Not just my house, several in a little bunch. I was watching Rocketman. Hadn’t seen it before. I can watch TV in my kitchen and this film was going to keep me in there long enough for me to change the water filter. So I escaped that task once again.
Crews came out fairly quickly to fix the problem. A transformer had blown. A temporary one was set up by my driveway. Neighbors came out to check on each other. We had some nice conversations.Isolation Diary: Today I once again successfully avoided changing the filter of my under the counter drinking water system. This is a task I dislike, it’s awkward and messy. Today avoidance of this task was easier than other days as I had a Zoom Improv meet-up and then Maggie, Adam, and Fig came for a visit. After they left……uhm……okay, there’s the filter but I’m so tired. I took a nap. Then there was the daily exercise, the tai chi. Dinner. And…..an unstructured evening. Glancing here and there for something that ‘needs’ doing. Ah ha! How many months has this fabric and this pillow form sat here? This must be remedied. So I made a pillow. Odious task left to another day. I am months beyond the recommended date for filter change. But, hey, it’s just me here. Surely those recommendations are based on many people quaffing water hourly. Right? Avoidance is getting more difficult, however. But I’m not giving up. I have a fairly long list of ‘back burner’ projects………
Holly B.
Dear Ruth, your blogs have changed my life. Thank you so much for turning my life around. Love, BoomerXX00
Isolation Diary: Okay, here it is straight: I love my family. I am referring to my two daughters, Jessie and Maggie, their husbands, Dean and Adam, and their sons, Duncan and Fig. (I also love my brother and his partner hereafter known as Ted and Lorraine.) I am deeply grateful that they seem to like me. Spent time with them today, our small covid19 avoidance pod. Because they are family, I forced Maggie to read aloud part of the children’s story I have written. Then, because we are family, Maggie told us a children’s story she has written. (I don’t mention the husband and father because he had to leave us 21 years ago. Love still remains) Even with this solid support……we are all just starting to go a bit crazy. This is a strong suggestion that we humans are not meant to be alone. Perhaps we are better when we …. cooperate to some degree? Adapt? Move over a little out of courtesy?
Claudette W.
Isolation Diary: I read the LA Times in the morning, I often check in with MSNBC and maybe other news around dinner time, and then FB late at night. In between those times life is often good. The current administration and political situation? Which does come up about that in the newspaper, the news, and FB–I accept the administration’s and the Senate’s actions as unacceptable and stupid and misguided and mendacious and destructive and ludicrous and craven and fraudulent. I am no longer surprised by any outrageous action. I do get scared at times, imagining the continuation of the political dominance of these aberrant minds. But the good parts of today: A Zoom tai chi class this morning; a D & D session at Maggie’s house, with homemade nachos, and then playtime with Fig. And in the PM a rather tricky sewing project while I listened
to a podcast. I am afraid that this isolation might be having a disengaging effect on my mind. As the limited things that I experience are Real, and what I read about is Fiction. Not there yet……sense a drift.
Jessie M.
I feel the drift tooTenny P.
I’m calling this phase of our quarantine experience The Erosion. The highs aren’t as high and the lows less low but the flattening of existence is real. Big hugs, Ruth!!!