I saw a Tweet today that said, “COVID is just like Sex and the City – it keeps coming back, and it’s worse every time.” That kinda sums up December 2021.
Last weekend I was with the Bell gals @ The Chalet (which perches atop a now almost scandalous private ski club), making tacos, drinking wine and playing Exploding Kittens. In the dark during a power outage (fun!). And this weekend I’m afraid to go to the grocery store, ordering K95 masks on-line, and thinking about another Christmas alone with hubby. What a difference a week makes. Thanks Omicron.
So in the midst of this shitstorm, I’m trying to focus on the blur of 2021 and what I am grateful for over the past 12 months:
Mahone Bay. Tops the list, of course. After 20 months away, G & I got to Mahone Bay in late July and stayed until early October. It was lovely there every single day, even when it rained. Living on the ocean is good for the soul. And we got to visit with Anne & Mark, absolute bonus.
Cape Breton trip. We took a fabulous vacation in Cape Breton, did the Cabot Trail (Caper Gas anyone?), stayed in a magical cabin in Ingonish with a hot tub watching the sunset over Cape Smokey. Spent some fun time with Mark & Anne in Port Hood – lovely beach and sunsets. Although it was a LOT of driving, which meant our day in Baddeck was basically spent with me sleeping in our hotel room.
A Gentleman in Moscow. I listened to this audiobook last winter, and it was truly the perfect pandemic lockdown book. Count Rostov faced his imprisonment in the Metropole hotel in Moscow with grace and humour; I can’t say it inspired me to do the same, but I appreciated that book so much. One of my favourites of all time now. Read at the perfect time, in the perfect way, listening to it on my daily walks to the grocery store, all masked up. Reminds me that when you read a book is sometimes as important as the book itself – like reading The Time Traveller’s Wife while visiting Chicago, it made me love the book even more as I walked around its setting.
Silly sweet romances. Especially by Kristen Callihan and Tessa Bailey. I ate them up on my e-reader and on Audible. Also grateful to the Libby library app, which saved me a fortune in audiobooks. I am profoundly embarrassed by my Mahone Bay addiction to Linda Lael Miller cowboy stories, but they were what I needed at the time, apparently. I take that back – I am no longer embarrassed by my reading/listening choices. Fuck you if you’re judgmental about what people read. It’s month 21 of the fucking pandemic you fucking ass caterpillar!
Firefly coffee sessions. My pal Sharon turned me onto this great creative writing team. For between $10 and $50/month (whatever you can afford), you can participate in a 30-minute creative writing session every morning via Zoom, Monday-Friday. The sessions start with a question (“if you were a weather system, what weather would you be this morning?”), and then a writing prompt. You write for 20 minutes, and the facilitator ends the half hour with a poem. It’s a gentle and thoughtful way to start the day. We all have our favourite facilitators – mine is Asifa. Asifa is like starting the day with a hug. And she has great taste in poems, which are the best part of the session IMO. Everyone is encouraged to turn their camera on, on Zoom, so it feels more personal. And almost every single attendee is female – I think I saw one dude, once, clearly second-guessing his decision. And I love Lori, who has the lovely green-painted feature wall. I feel like I know Lori just because of that green wall.
Old El Paso tacos. For real. Very old school, but I’ve rediscovered the taco kit, and G & I are addicted. And they are an entire meal (with veggies!) in 20 minutes, start to finish. I took them up to The Chalet last weekend for Friday night dinner. They were a hit. And Candy has now turned me onto the soft tacos too. My sister introduced tacos to our family after she went away to U of Waterloo in the early 80s. Tacos will always be early 80s to me. And sis still makes them, to this day. Her vegan kid fills them with a black bean mixture instead of ground beef, and I could totally get down with that.
Sushi in Paula’s backyard this spring. As Wave 3 seemed to calm down, and spring fever hit, Paula and I got together in her backyard, for her birthday and then another time after that, ordered in local sushi and gorged on it. A lovely setting, very safe, with great food and much needed best friend company. What a luxury. I am also now a huge fan of seaweed salad. I can’t remember the name of the sushi place on Queen East, but it is damned good. Dragon rolls, umagi. Yum.
Rug hooking. I lost a bit/lot of hooking inspiration during the pandemic, but it came back in full force in Mahone Bay. Sitting in that brightly lit condo, facing the ocean, with natural light streaming in … that’s my inspiration space. I started on a new rug with many happy colours. It’s still down there, waiting for me to finish it this upcoming summer 2022 (fingers crossed). (Does anyone else think 2022 sounds like sci-fi? For some reason 2022 seems so much farther in the future than 2021.)
Sweetie making coffee. It’s the small gestures that mean the most. Hubby gets the coffee ready every night, so I just need to push the on button in the morning. Invaluable for those 8 am Condo Board meetings via Zoom. He has various little signs he sets out against the coffee maker, letting me know it’s set to blow. They are adorbs. I have promised to rug hook that fish for him. It’s his signature. I remember him passing me notes in the library during law school, when we were supposed to be studying, with that exact fish on them.
Beautiful art. We added to our collection, here in TO and in MB.
Colouring. I don’t do this enough, but again, I seem to be inspired by Mahone Bay. This was one lovely afternoon in September.
Eating out. You don’t know what you love until you miss it. Going out to eat with pals is such a simple luxury, and one we didn’t have for months and months. I’ve had only a handful of meals here in TO in 2021, but they were all fabulous. And with fabulous friends and colleagues.
Burnt Church! I got to visit Paula at her family cottage in Burnt Church, NB, for the very first time, over a long weekend in August. And got to meet some of her family. Places and people I’ve heard about for 20+ years. It was a blast (except that P had a HORRIBLE tooth ache the entire time). We made poached salmon & homemade mayo, which totally changes my mind about what mayo is. It is spectacular. We went to The Gully (beer was imbibed in the truck on the way, yikes). We played Left Right Centre with her bro & sis-in-law, both of whom are more fabulous than Paula led me to believe. And P’s poor beleaguered kitty cat Em – simple-minded, needy yet aloof fluffball – bonded with me out of desperation. That cat hates P’s dog so so so so much.
