Me, Also Me, Bed, Duck Duck Pork

 Me: Takes on a bunch of extra shifts thinking the structure will be good for me.

Also Me: Complains bitterly every single time I have to go to work.

Me: Thinks it's time to branch out my reading a little

Also Me: Reads three horror books that take place in snowy places. Two are about mountain climbing.

Me: Thinks I'm finally getting on top of the pandemic/sinus/perimenopause-induced brain fog.

Also Me: Literally forgets how to make a taco

Me: Carefully makes a meal plan and grocery list so my failing memory won't lead to disaster.

Also Me: Buys every single ingredient for pork carnitas. Except pork.

I thought I might be able to make a whole post of these. Turns out I was wrong. I'm feeling better on the whole, but I couldn't fall asleep last night and then woke up stupid early. Did I mention that my library work is very solitary, and once all the books are put away and I'm sitting at the desk cataloguing it is very difficult to stay awake if I'm really tired? 

Eve has a pretty severe case of Senioritis - I'm actually surprised it took this long to kick in. She has Chemistry and Music this term and a half-credit in whining, apparently (which I respect). Honestly, the Chemistry teacher seems to be phoning it in a little as well (again, no judgment, it has been a YEAR). Last week she assigned molecular models, which seems a little more grade five than grade twelve, but whatever. Eve came and showed me these one evening:

She used q-tips and tin foil and straws and gold paint and squished-up cotton. I said it looked like a fine job and she said "It's not - I refused to use anything that I couldn't find in a five-foot radius and it took me seven-and-a-half hours. If I'd just walked around the house it would have taken me one." Well okay then. I regularly almost fall off the couch trying to lift Lucy into my lap without standing up, so I get it.

I spent most of the beautiful week-end walking around Barrhaven having drinks or burgers on various decks. Did I fall into the trap of forgetting that a warm day in March does not forecast a warm night in March and end up freezing once the sun went down? Why yes, yes I did. 

A negroni because we fancy

Vaccine bookings opened for people eighty and over last Monday. The portal opened at eight and we got an appointment right away, but then it crashed before it went through and then every other time we got on we got an error message. We tried to call the help line and it was four hours on hold with the most annoying goddamned jazz elevator music you've ever heard. We gave up and just kept trying the online site and eventually after six hours got my dad an appointment for this Thursday. Today was booking for people seventy-five and up so we got on again to book for my mom. It crashed again but let us right back in and we got her an appointment also for this Thursday, a few hours before my dad. Not complaining (anymore, for the moment, stand by) but what a giant clusterfuck the whole thing has been.

Someone posted bunk beds in our neighbourhood buy and sell group. Have you ever seen bunk beds like this?

Personally, I have not. Personally, I rather think this looks like someone balanced (perhaps Krazy Glued) a single bed on top of a double bed and is punking the buy and sell group. How do you get into the top bed? Does the top bunk person always have to get in bed first, or they have to stand on the bottom person to get in? So many questions. 

The weather has become drastically warmer and the streets and parks are thronged with people. Everybody is very happy. I will admit, to no one's great surprise, that it all makes me a little cranky. It takes my body a couple of weeks to acclimate and I'm always too warm getting dressed and yet I know I can't really wear a tank top yet. I miss my snowy walks where I could actually wear a coat with pockets to hold kleenex and sunglasses and masks and shit. I miss the ducks making little duck foot trails in the snow.

I mean, come on.

I guess the ducks might still be there, but that trail has to be a hellscape of mud at the moment. 

Oh well. It will either get colder again and I'll be comfortable or it will get warmer and I can wear fewer clothes and still be uncomfortable, but that's why I have air conditioning and an ever-growing collection of battery-operated fans. I don't have one of those necklace ones yet, but obviously I've considered it. 

We did our usual early-morning ritual, nine people up at 6:59 a.m. trying to snag a campsite for five months from now when booking opens at 7:00 a.m. (this is just kind of my life now). It's always a blood sport, and some years we have to try two or three days in a row, but this year over half of us couldn't get a site. I guess because of Covid and travel bans there are like fifty thousand more people trying to book Provincial Park campsites. Not sure if we're just not going to go or if we're going to squish a lot of people on very few sites and pretend to be a couple of large non-traditional families. Most years I would be fretting about this. This year it's not even a blip. Matt just wants to be able to go to the U.S. and watch baseball. 

Right then. I guess I'm going back out to buy some pork.