Margo STILL Not on the Go

Photos by H. Darr Beiser

C&O Canal near Swains Lock

Let me tell you about my recent travels. I have been on all floors and in all rooms of the house. I have been around and around my neighborhood. I have been on the Crescent Trail, and I have been on the C&O Canal.

A veritable Champs-Elysees in the neighborhood

Recently the county decided to close the Little Falls Parkway to cars on weekends, a 1.5 mile stretch by our house. It has created a veritable Champs-Elysees. Darr and I plan to bring our parasols and wear white gloves. Latex ones.

I have gone to grocery stores, drug stores, and take-out restaurants.

Did I see anything new? No. If I were writing a travel review of our environs I would says its charms are quickly exhaustible.

You can't do this...

 

...and think about COVID at the same time

But inside the house I find inexhaustible resources. I have stuff to organize, stuff to purge, stuff to read and write and and learn, puzzles, streaming, movies, cooking, home yoga classes, podcasts and New Yorkers.

At work, I am in a ZooMarathon each day. To spice up our staff meetings we are thinking of paying $100 to rent a llama.

Merganser swallows large crayfish. Did this really happen?

Flying eagle hooks up with flying squirrel

Speaking of animals, how about those mountain goats that are roaming around in a village in Wales? Or the elk taking a walk on the beach in Oregon? I like these animals-gone-wild stories. Darr as usual is catching them in action. He claims to have seen a merganser duck eating a large crayfish. Shell on.  And he claims to have seen an eagle flying around with a squirrel. Maybe it was a flying squirrel and they met in mid air.

Some good things:

I have learned that when you don’t spend money you can save money.

I am communicating regularly with friends whom I would probably see and talk to very infrequently in non-COVID times.

Beiser girls' meeting

I have had great family and friend Zoom gatherings—one for Passover happy hour, one with the Arizona/California contingent, one with my tennis group.

We Zoomed with our boys in Brooklyn and Berkeley—what a wonderment. Peter was preparing a Spanish dinner, we watched him cutting up chorizo, basil, and butternut squash. Franky showed us a power point of his life, developed for his friends’ group weekly Zoom calls. They decided to take turns presenting to end the chaos of everyone talking at once. We got to see his house, his girlfriend, his artwork, what he’s reading and watching and doing.

I am using only half of my wardrobe. The top half.

I have gotten rid of bags of clothes and shoes,  boxes of kitchenware and purged numerous drawers and cabinets.

I have never been more fit or more well read. Ever in my life. The office policy is to get up out of your chair and walk outside everyday. I call it the forced march. I wouldn’t do it if I were in the office. I was a weekend warrior. Steps and heart rate are way up. I am reading Pride and Prejudice, courtesy of Apple Books which has just released another bunch of free books.  You might want to get some.

I am editing a thesis for a woman who lives in Hong Kong, the topic is cocaine use by the expatriate community in Hong Kong. Interesting. But more interesting is the author, who won the female title in mixed martial arts in Hong Kong eight years ago, and as she puts it hangs her belt next to her barrister’s wig.

I was Darr's Heron Helper and an eye witness to this--the 6th fish course

Here’s the truth: I am enjoying the quarantine. Despite the eponymous title of my blog, I am all right with not being on the go. I realize conditions are ideal for me to enjoy this period. I have a husband who is a good cook, and he’s funny. I have a job. My children are far but safe. 

I truly feel for people who are sick, who have lost loved ones, for every healthcare worker, for people who have lost their jobs, for people who have children at home who pop into the screen during zoom meetings.

But personally I am in no hurry to rush back into the fray. The great pause has a lot of advantages as far as I’m concerned. And when will we ever, all over the world, be going through the same thing at the same time together? It hasn't happened since the Pepsi commerical.

But if you could line me up with a sterilized private plane to Mayorca, where Rafa would provide me with fresh fish just off his boat, I would gladly accept and be happy to report from there.

We are smiling underneath, can you tell?

 Extra credit reading.