I mean, look at all the love! Rocket Boy and I couldn't be together on Valentine's Day, of course, but he sent us lots of candy... Actually the big heart box is already empty. We gobbled that chocolate down fast. The other box still has plenty in it, though. And we have several varieties of Girl Scout cookies in the freezer, and as I type I'm munching on Trader Joe's chocolate-covered sea salt butterscotch caramels (my favorite).
If it were possible to create happiness out of sugar, we would be pretty darn happy.
Which is not to say that the twins aren't happy. They seem to be their usual middling selves, neither happy nor sad. I can't fathom their psyches, really. At their age, I was in love with so many people. I tried to conjure up a crush on a boy in every single one of my classes (sometimes it was a stretch). I've told them that they should be falling in love with people, that it makes life better. They just give me these LOOKS.
Should I be falling in love with people (other than my husband)? Would that make life better? I somehow don't think so, I think it would make things significantly worse. Fortunately I never meet any eligible men. Occasionally a man will speak to me, a neighbor walking a dog, but they're old men, not appealing. Of course, I am old too. That is probably why they speak to me.
Well, anyway. Another week.
Yesterday and today I planned to sleep in, but did I? Nope, woke up a little before 7 am, both days. This morning I was dreaming that Rocket Boy and I were in London, for some reason, walking around Piccadilly Circus, which was extremely crowded, and some scammer offered Rocket Boy some tickets for a tour of stately homes, something like that, and Rocket Boy gave him $72 (dollars, not pounds) for them. I threw a FIT -- how could you fall for that, these are worthless, if we want to go on a tour we should RESEARCH it, not buy some probably fake tickets from a random person we meet in a crowd. And woke right up and sat bolt upright.
I suppose money is part of the reason I'm depressed. It wouldn't take rocket science to figure that out.
We still haven't gotten a bill from ServPro. It's probably time to call them AGAIN, though of course I don't want the bill. And I should call our insurance agent and discuss with her what's going on, and I should look into mold remediation companies. She might have a recommendation.
It's so much easier to do nothing. Except then the problems seep into your dreams.
I managed to earn a little more money last week through Mechanical Turk, and was paid $16.85 on Thursday. My goal was to double my earnings from the week before ($5.56), so that was something. I guess. My goal this week is to average $3/day, for a total of at least $21. I am not optimistic about my ability to reach that goal, but I just have to try. I still think that eventually this might be worth it -- there are all sorts of little jobs on there that pay better than what I'm earning, and I think you get access to them after you've proved yourself with the dumb little jobs. However, there might be more to it. I should research this.
One reason I am dragging my feet about trying to find a real job is that I am afraid I won't be able to learn how to do it (whatever it is). As I'm doing all these Mechanical Turk surveys, I'm really struck by my memory problems (which I think are a long-Covid side effect). They ask all these questions about your shopping habits, and when did you buy this and when did you buy that. I finally realized that I have to just make it up, because most of the time I don't remember. And once in a while there's a survey that requires some skill -- and I'm hopeless. I wouldn't hire me.
I said, OK. Many people might think that was an odd way to handle one's finances, but travel is important to us. We're both so sad that we haven't been able to take the twins a whole lot of different cool places. We'd really like to take them on a few more interesting trips before they get too old to be interested in a trip with their dumb parents.
Though, just as an aside: this past week I finally saw an obituary for the third kid in their high school to die by suicide this school year. I'd been looking for it online, not because I'm a ghoul -- well, maybe I am -- but I think mostly because it's so unimaginable. I want to try to understand. There was a short obituary in the paper and then I found a longer one online. I was struck by several things in the obit, but one is relevant here: they mentioned that she loved to travel, and listed off a whole lot of places she'd been in her 16 years. I read that list and I thought: my kids haven't been to any of those places (except Missouri). But they're alive.
In other words, chill out, mom. They've got their whole lives to go to cool places. Being able to spend money on your kids doesn't save them.
But we would still like to go to Arizona for Spring Break, because Rocket Boy did his masters at the University of Arizona and he would really like to show the boys Tucson. So I think we're going to try to make that happen, and I think it's stressing me out. Even though he thinks he can pay for it, I've got dollar signs flashing before my eyes: I should take the car in and get it checked out before we make a long trip like that, there'll probably be something wrong with it that needs fixing, then there's all the gas, food, hotels, entrance fees to places, more gas, more food, more hotels, and whatever happens to go wrong. Oh, and the pet-sitters. They're not cheap.
***
OK, change of topic. Anything but money.
We had a fairly big snowstorm this week, eight inches of light, fluffy snow. Easy to shovel, but still -- eight inches is a lot. I thought it was going to interfere with Teen B's concert, but it didn't start falling until much later, probably after midnight. The concert was wonderful, and then the next day we woke up to snow. And no snow day, on account of the unjustified snow day a month or so ago (or whenever that was), when they called a snow day and then we got about four inches. I knew that after that they'd probably never call another snow day, which is how we ended up with eight inches and no snow day.
Right now it's much warmer, with high winds, so we're getting some good melting (though the front lawn still looks like this). I took a walk today and there were very few icy sidewalks. And then on Wednesday we're going to get another snowstorm. They haven't given an estimate of how much yet, just "Chance of precipitation is 100%." That suggests that it might be a lot. Well, it's February.
On the plus side, my sister came through her surgery well and is now home and healing. That is something I spent a lot of time pointlessly worrying about this week. I should cheer up now.
It was a fairly productive week, despite my gloom. As mentioned above, I managed to earn $16.85, which is a LOT of surveys. I worked along on my novel, not making a huge amount of progress, but some. I did lots of cleaning and also cooked dinner most of the nights. But that didn't always go well. On Thursday I made My Old-School Baked Ziti from Smitten Kitchen, and although it's tasty (we've had it before), no one really wanted to eat it. Not only that, but no one (including me) wanted to eat the leftovers. Probably two-thirds of the recipe is still sitting in the refrigerator. It takes up a lot of space. For lunch today I did not have leftover baked ziti, I had a bowl of cereal. I am very much afraid that the rest of the baked ziti is going to end up in the compost bin, and that would really be a shame.
I think I have to face the fact that our family (possibly excluding Rocket Boy) does not seem to like Italian food anymore. I mean, we still like pizza, sort of. But pasta -- no, not really. Every time I make a pasta dish, it doesn't get eaten.
It seems terrible to erase an entire cuisine from my repertoire, but maybe I'm going to have to. What's the point of making a 9x13 baking dish full of pasta if 2/3 of it ends up in the compost bin?
I hate cooking.
***
Moving on, surely I can find a more cheerful topic. I finished Michelle Obama's memoir, Becoming, this week. I didn't love every bit of it, but I think it's worth keeping (so now I have to find a place for it). And I might read her new book, too, eventually. I still have three books to finish out of the five I chose to read from my beside-the-bed pile this month, so I'll have to get busy this week. I also have to read the book for the book group (The Forgery by Ave Barrera), but I finally got a hold of it and started reading it today. It's short, and so far quite amusing, so it shouldn't take me long to finish.
Then I'll have to start thinking about what to serve the book group next week. The book is set in Mexico, so Mexican food is the obvious choice, but one member of the group will be just back from Mexico (the book was her choice), and I don't think I want to try to compete with whatever delicacies she will have eaten there. Hmm. Will have to give this some thought.
I hate cooking.
***
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian scholar, born in 1907, who spent time in India as a young man. In 1930, at the age of 23, he lived for a while in Calcutta (Kolkata) with the family of his teacher and fell in love with the eldest daughter, Maitreyi Devi (and she with him). She was 16 years old at the time. Her family disapproved strongly and kicked Eliade out of the house. A few years later he published a novel called Maitreyi, in Romanian (Bengal Nights is its English title), about the relationship, but fictionalized to make it much racier than it really was. Apparently the real Maitreyi didn't find out about the novel until many years later. Not until 1972 did she learn the whole story. At that point she wrote her own novel, to set the record straight. Her novel was published in Bengali, but she later translated it herself into English.
The two novels, in English, were reprinted by the University of Chicago Press in 1994, and they should be read together. Eliade's novel, published in 1933, is fairly obnoxious. He loves Maitreyi, but he's so unsure about loving a Bengali girl. It takes him a while to see her as attractive. He also can't believe in her talents: she is a poet, but Eliade thinks she's really just a silly girl. Devi's response, published in 1974, shows that she is much more intelligent and thoughtful than Eliade gave her credit for. Her description of their love affair also makes much more sense than Eliade's x-rated fantasy.
It took me a while to work my way through the two translated novels, but it was worth it. Without going into detail, I'll say it helped me think about my own teenage romance in a better way.
I also finished the second of my two Barbara Pyms this week (I read two every February), but that was more of a slog than it usually is. I started thinking maybe in years to come I'll just read one novel by Barbara Pym each year. I guess I can play it by ear -- maybe some years I'll want to read one and some years two. But I've read all her books so many times -- I think one re-read per year might be the right amount, not two. We'll see.
But if women can't control their uteruses, how will they have the time and energy to work on climate change?
And then there's the Turkish earthquake, which I just noticed has fallen off the front page. I think a whole lot of people are still suffering, though.
Reading this post over, it seems ridiculous: cooking struggles, climate change; the Turkish earthquake, and a tiny little spot that probably isn't skin cancer.
When you're feeling low, it's hard to identify what really matters.
Not much going on this coming week, other than an orthodontist appointment for me and that snowstorm. And Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. I used to observe Lent, a little, back when I was in grad school and went to church regularly. I think we'll skip it this year.
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