Month: December 2020

Isolation Diary: Today I finally committed to a trio of supplemental insurance plans. Necessary because I lost my SAG/AFTRA supplement. Because……well, I won’t get into that. My friend Ed assured me I would feel better, relieved, when I finally made the choice and called it done. That did not happen. Instead, I felt like going into a corner and having a good cry. I have not had to choose insurance in my entire adult life. I simply accepted what the union provided. When I became eligible for Medicare, SAG became my supplement and I didn’t have to think about that either. Until now. Previously if benefits weren’t all I wished for, I could complain against the system. But now, now, if I am unhappy with the benefits or lack of, I can only rail against myself. I should have dug deeper, looked at more plans, asked more questions, talked to more people, projected the future better, did the math. All my fault. So I cried in the corner for a short while. Had a snack. Exercised. Did my tai chi. Then listened to a chamber concert (cello and harp) on Zoom, sponsored by my Friends of the Library group, and….what was I talking about?

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Carolyn K.
I love you Ruth.

Hope W.
Ruth, You’re a strong woman and you’ll do fine… and you have a great daughter who I’m sure will have your back during those moments you feel low and need a hug and a shoulder to lean on.

Ruth Silveira
Hope, this is so true. I have 2 wonderful daughters who live close by. How lucky is that?!

Sabrina A.
Our system is broken, not you. No one should be in such a stressful position. No other country works like this. I’m sure you chose well within this mess though.

Claudette W.
I hear you. The SAG insurance is a tremendous loss.

Henrietta C.
But lurking behind that real woe (emblematic of the breakdown of our system) is the good news that Friends of the Library is thriving. That they sponsor inspiring and consoling zoom concerts! Bravo, Friends.

Isolation Diary: I realize I didn’t go out of the house today except to pick up the newspaper on the front lawn. The back door was locked and chained the entire day. But I wasn’t alone all day. Jessie and Duncan were over for a D and D session with Maggie on Zoom. She is playing remotely because of a possible covid connection. Testing Monday, it will all be fine we are sure but we are being super cautious. In other news: 10 days ago I spent two entire evenings creating a Christmas cookie list plus a shopping list for the ingredients needed plus a schedule for baking. Now I cannot find this list. Nor have I found my missing car key fob. I do not live in utter chaos, just so you know. Mislaid items are usually found. Not so presently. However, cookies will be made. I have butter, I have flour, I have chocolate. What could go wrong?

Isolation Diary: In addition to the deterioration of my social interaction skills, I may be experiencing a dampening of my baking skills. This is not good. I officially began my holiday baking tonight and am not pleased with either attempt. Both may be do-overs. I admit while I was prepping and baking I had the news on. This may have been the problem, could have had an undermining influence. Next attempts I will choose either music or a recorded book.

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Kathi C.
Your dampening baking skills are better than most people’s best attempt.

Isolation Diary: What?! I am still in isolation? Who would have thought? When this all started…..’hey, a few months, I can handle that.’ Now, there is the fatigue and also the adjustment. I am tired of this life but life is like this. What is concerning me at the moment are my poor results in the holiday cookie making effort. I am not sure if my mental isolation is causing hypercriticism or that my social isolation is causing impaired performance. Or maybe it’s the weather. That is not a frivolous comment. How does dry air vs humid air affect a cookie? Nabisco must know. How do they produce a consistent product? Cookies are still on the shelves at the markets. Haven’t been in the news. Can we presume safer conditions than meat processing plants? Or…it’s all robots making our store bought cookies? Let me climb out of the rabbit hole. Phew. I am not a robot.

Isolation Diary: Yes, it is Vaccine Day, a great day for all of us. For me personally this is the day I threw in the trash an entire batch of cookies, a new recipe, because they were so subpar, even though they were basically chocolate, that I could not admit I had baked them. But also this is the day I found the extra car key fob that has been missing for a month or longer. AND I found this fob on the very day I could have gone to the Ford dealership to have picked up an extra key which they had to order and would program for me to the tune of nearly $400. So on the scale…lots of chocolate and butter on one side and $400 on the other. I am ok. The key fob was found in the pocket (I knew I had put it in a pocket!) of a cold weather jacket that I wear maybe once in 10 years. Apparently there was a cold day 5 or 6 weeks ago and I put on this jacket and had a reason to go out to the car and open the trunk. And then I returned the jacket to the coat stand which a couple of weeks later fell over and needed repair and in sorting out the many garments that the stand had been holding I moved several items to a seldom visited closet, including this jacket. Today, needing to make a grocery pick up, needing flour to make more cookies because of the previous disaster, and because of the cold and blustery day, I went to this closet for a warmer outer garment, and, poked by the angel of discovery, thought to check the pockets of another cold weather jacket hanging there, that seldom worn one, and there was the key fob.

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Richard L.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t finish this…something in my eye after reading “threw away” a batch of cookies…chocolate!..I can’t….what kind of monster….oh ….sub par??..so what?….i’m sure some cookieless Vallley urchin would be thrilled to have them…sad.

Ruth Silveira
Richard L. You are absolutely right. I should have left them on the parkway with a ‘Free Food’ sign. Only perhaps I would have left them and the sign in front of my neighbor’s yard, or across the street.

Anna M.
FYI – I discovered my corner locksmith makes an $85 version of the $400 (Toyota) dealership keyfob that works great! Just in case this happens again.

Jeff W.
The satisfaction of the key fob story far outweighs the disappointment of the cookie failure story. Although the image of chocolate cookies in the trash will probably haunt me into the afternoon at least.
Did you even consider dunking ’em in coffee? A pretty sure-fire method when all else fails.

Ruth Silveira
Jeff W. I did not consider the coffee dunking tactic. I wanted the experience behind me, I needed to move on. Which I did after I wrote a blistering comment in the margin of the recipe.

Isolation Diary: I am not as isolated as many. Except for my brother, my family is here in SoCal and we are each other’s Safe Pod. All those people at the airport, taking the risk to see their family, some probably think the risk is way overblown, some are anxious but so lonely. For goodness sake, if you can bear it, do not travel! And include in your Holiday good wishes and prayers the doctors and health care workers, the vaccine scientists, the delivery people, and all those who are trying to keep us alive.

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Jeff W.
Sadly, a whole lot of people have somehow mitigated the risk in their own minds, and will continue to behave in this horribly unproductive way. Had there been a unified, solid response to this in March things might have been very different, but here we are — in hopelessly muddied waters. As Tubby McTubberson famously observed, “It is what it is.”

Cydney D.
I agree. It’s not worth the risk. I’ve spent the last 20 plus years celebrating Christmas with Me, God and my Cat and always finding JOY.

Isolation Diary: One of the things I like about Christmas is the giving of gifts. Yes, it can cause some stress, sometimes a lot, but in choosing a gift I am actively thinking about the recipient, who they are, what they might like, what is going on in their life at the moment. I may fail in my choice, the recipient may think, ‘Humph, Ruth doesn’t know me at all’, but still a gift was given, a gift was received. A gift has no obligations attached. At minimum, it is an acknowledgement of connection. And that can be enough.

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Kathi C.
Perfectly said!

Jeff W.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts.

Cydney D.
What a beautiful insights

Carolyn K.
Thank you Ruth. You, your thoughts and your great big heart are appreciated.

Sandy R.
Lovely!

Isolation Diary: Today, working in the garden, the middle finger on my left hand got smashed, SMASHED, when a concrete paving stone fell on it. I was wearing my garden gloves, thank goodness. Still, my gosh it hurt! I cried and moaned and shouted and paced and cried and moaned and shouted for days, well, hours, well, minutes. But a LOT of minutes. And even when I stopped crying and vocalizing, and managed to rinse and bandage the wound, it still hurt. A lot. I had some strong prescriptive ibuprofen that I had never used, but I used it now. I had to drive to Pasadena to relieve Maggie and Adam for awhile (from Fig care), and I had to tell myself to focus on my driving and not my finger. Here it is late at night and it is still bleeding. DON’T tell me to go to an ER. I am NOT going to do that. Not under the current circumstances. I will be fine. I am fine. It’s one finger. I have 9 more. When I got to Maggie and Adam’s house I made sure to relate my trauma (!!!) and was subsequently hugged and commiserated with. So that was good.

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Danielle O.
Oh gosh! I have no clue how to help but I Hope it feels better soon!

Heatherlynn N.G.
Ruth Silveira sending you love

Linda M.
Owwwww!!

Ruth Silveira
Linda M. Exactly! Owwwww!

Jeff L.
How is it today?

Ruth Silveira
Jeff L. Finally better.

Then some good advice from Carolyn, which I didn’t follow.

Ruth Silveira
Carolyn K. I am beginning to heal. I will be ok. Sorry to be so alarming but gosh darn this hurt. No pain now except when I bump my hand against something, and now that I have a finger injury I realize how often my hands encounter other objects, often by mistake.

DeAnne M.
Awwwww so sorry!! I hope it mends quickly

Ruth Silveira
DeAnne M. getting better

Janet R.
Ice – sorry to hear this Ruth

Ruth Silveira
Janet R. Finger is feeling better although covered in gauze. Still I attempted a pie crust today. And I recently read a tip: let your crust dough relax for a day, supposedly to break down any elasticity that was developed during the preparation and thus resulting in more flakiness. I am trying that now. Will report. (The pie tip works.)

Mandi M.H.
Oh noooo! Those crush wounds hurt the worst

Joyce H.
Ouch!

Holly B.
Dear Ruth, So sorry for your accident. Take care and I’ll say a prayer for you and your speedy recovery. XX00 Holly

Ruth Silveira
Holly B. It’s working! Thank you.

Sandy R.

Alisa T.
soak in Epsom salts, hot as you can take it, antibiotic ointment and bandage and keep elevated!!! And no – you do NOT want to go to an ER right now unless you absolutely have to.

Paul B.
I hear Irish whiskey kills pain

Rick C.
sending love to you!!

Laura E.F.
Aw Ruth I DREAD one of my ridiculous tumbles for this very reason! Be well!

Nancy W.
Oh, your poor finger! It will get better. Sending healing thoughts.

Terry W.
Did you say, “Darn it!” Out loud?

Ruth Silveira
Terry W. Mostly I was saying Owwwwwwwwwwwww. Probably there was a ‘darn it’ in there. Also a few, ‘this hurts so much!!!!’ and more ‘Owwwwwwww’. And just random noise.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. (I took this photo of my Christmas tree before I placed a ‘skirt’ around it, please overlook the black trash bags.)

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Joyce H.
Merry Christmas Ruth!

Janet R.
Merry Christmas!

Ruth Silveira
Janet R. I made 2 quiches for Christmas brunch sort of improvising the pie crust and I was happy with the result. My dough this time was 2 parts butter and 1 part shortening.

Jeff L.
Merry Christmas!!

Bryan B.
Beautiful, Merry Christmas Ruth. (Also, Trash Bag Xmas 2020 would be about right.)

Bruce Y.
Best to you. Been a long, long time. Hope all is well. (Bruce is a school friend —middle school and high school—from Sacramento. Hadn’t connected with him in ages.)

Ruth Silveira
Bruce Y. All is well, and I hope the same is with you.

Julie C.
Merry Christmas, Ruth! I cannot wait to eat your Christmas cookies again. To a better 2021! xo

Ruth Silveira
Julie C. To a much better 2021!!! Julie, can we look forward to a New Year’s gathering on Dec. 31? Doesn’t that sound just great?!

Bill L.
Merry Christmas Ruth

Holly B.
Still praying for your finger to heal quickly. Merry Christmas, dear Ruth.Ruth SilveiraHolly B. Merry Christmas, Holly. My finger is doing better but still letting me know that I made a big mistake. I have to make friends with the repair cells in my body again; they are perturbed at my recklessness.

Madeleine I.
It’s lovely!

Carolyn K.
Happy Boxing Day! Hope your Christmas was filled with warmth and joy.

Nancy W.
Beautiful!

Melissa B.
Gorgeous!

Ruth Silveira
This is a live tree, it’s in a pot. It has lived on my front porch for a year as its first Christmas inside was 2019. I will try to keep it in the pot for one more year. With my live trees, each year they get a little more wild, they lose the perfect Christmas card shape they had when first I encountered them. I let them do as they please. We had live trees for many years and planted 3 of them around the yard. I have lost all 3 of those trees, 2 to bark beetles and 1 to root fungus. Then I started renting a tree each Christmas. So handy, delivery and pick up, no sad brown tree at the curb in January. Given the option from the rental company, I kept this one. I have a spot in the yard for it 14 months from now.

Cydney D.
Beautiful. Merry Christmas

Isolation Diary: Family Dungeons and Dragons has continued through these many months. And blossomed. Duncan (my 11 year old grandson) is creating his own campaign for us to play, and Jessie is the DM for a group of 5 first time players who are committed to the point of gifting her with a dragon holding salt and pepper shakers. The world of D and D is vast and varied, I am learning. I joined a FB group concerning the campaign I am running. We exchange ideas, all very supportive, and I have no idea who these people are. One group posted a photo of their team and the resemblance between them and my team is negligible except that we are all human. What is the same is that they are having great fun playing and being together and so are we.