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!!!
Isolation Diary: I woke up sad this morning. And a little surprised at that because the day before had been full of fun, in person, with my family. This morning I was feeling the loss of other human contact. So I called a friend and invited myself over for a visit. A friend I knew had been in as strict a sequestration as I have been. We took precautions–distance, masks, sanitizer. Just pushing out my bubble membrane a tiny bit. It was so nice!! I’ll be ok for a couple more weeks now.
Heatherlynn N.G.
Social bubble is an important part of reintegration. Working with people you trust and have good communication with is of the utmost importance. Stay safe.Lisamarie C.W.
Glad you reached out to your friend.
My father served in WWII. A few years after his return to the family, I was still quite young, I was playing on the floor of our living room, I don’t remember the toys I was manipulating. My dad was sitting close to me. I, in my play, said something like “He attacks the Enemy!” My father said, “Don’t call him the Enemy, he is a person.” As young as I was I had some sense of what War is and that my father had been to War and yet he was telling me this. Surprising. Important. This is one of the few clear snapshots I have of my very early years. Oh, my, god, will we every figure this out?! And right now I am wondering, if that one statement was one element that led to the choice to pursue acting, a path completely outside my family’s experience. Many more thoughts tumbling after this, too chaotic to write.
Henrietta C.
Amen amen. What a wonderful lesson from a father…Natasha P.
lovely memory- thanks for sharing it with us.
Isolation Diary: Today felt more like a holiday than yesterday. I will leave introspection for tomorrow.
Isolation Diary: I see, hear, and read of the trouble and pain outside my boundary. I have a nice boundary. Grateful for that. My mind and my spirit and my soul are weary of the stupidity (IMO) and absurdity out there. I don’t understand so much. Why people do the things they do. I feel like shutting down until November. Closing off. Going deep into the Isolation. I probably won’t but .. it’s a thought.