I used to get really bothered when people would talk about this so-called “white privilege.” I would huff to myself that being white had never brought any privilege to me, thankyouverymuch. That I was not the beneficiary of the internships and the connections and the jobs and all the things that I have heard about but have never experienced.

I even used to think these benefits were fiction until I started seeing them happening for my friends’ kids: The nice summer job at the cool company. The phone call to the admissions officer at the college. But I still took this as a rich people thing, not a white people thing.

Nobody had ever done that kind of thing for me, but then my parents did not have wealthy friends. I have never gotten a job through connections. I have never been admitted to a college because my parents are friends with the admissions officer. My whiteness has never benefited me in any way.

I thought.

And then I started thinking about things I have noticed that don’t seem quite right.

When I lived in Austin in the late ’80s and early ’90s, I saw white fraternity men get charged with crimes that would have put black and Mexican men from the east side of town in prison. There was at least one hazing incident that resulted in a death. The fraternity men who hazed the dead guy were charged but they did not go to prison. They went free.

Just last week, I read a story in Texas Monthly about a school shooting in 1978. A white kid shot and killed his teacher. The kid did not go to prison. He is free today. I am pretty sure that if he had been black or Mexican, he would still be in prison. (The question of what to do with juvenile offenders is not what I want to talk about here – just the disparity in how people of different colors are treated.)

And then I thought about when I traveled back from Chile to the US. After I finished my Peace Corps stint, I came home over land, traveling through Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico.

In every single one of those countries, I didn’t think twice about walking into a fancy hotel to use the bathroom.

Nobody questioned me.

Even when I was a raggedy Peace Corps volunteer, I was a white, blue-eyed, blonde raggedy person.

Nobody questions a white, blue-eyed, blonde woman, even when she is hauling a backpack and hasn’t had a haircut in a while.

Nobody.

We can walk into any fancy hotel and nobody will bat an eye.

And that’s when I realized that’s what white privilege is. It means that I don’t worry about someone being suspicious of me because of the color of my skin. It means that I have never once thought, “I wonder if I can walk into this hotel to use the bathroom without someone hassling me.”

Wait. I have thought about it and my answer to myself has always been, “Of course I can! Nobody is going to question me, especially in Latin America, where the color hierarchy is so clear!”

But this rule holds in the US and in Europe as well. Nobody challenges a blue-eyed blonde white woman. Nobody.

And that is privilege.

I know that’s a simple example, but you get the idea. Because of my skin color, I do not face challenges that other people face. It means I don’t worry that someone will follow me in a store because they think I am about to shoplift. It means I don’t worry that my resume will be overlooked because my name doesn’t sound “white.” It means I don’t worry every time my black child goes to the store for Skittles. It means I don’t keep a teddy bear in the back seat of my car so that if I do get pulled over, the cop will somehow associate me with “family man” instead of “criminal.”  It means I don’t ever get The Look – that people are not surprised when they see me doing something that requires intelligence, competence, and education. It means that I don’t, like my former boss, Herman, who is black, get shocked looks when people meet me in person after talking to me on the phone. It means I don’t have to teach my children special rules for how to interact with the police.

In the past 75 years, having white skin has meant I could join a union, buy a house in whatever neighborhood I wanted, get an FHA loan, get the GI Bill, attend whichever school I wanted, stay in any hotel, eat at any restaurant, get a lighter sentence for a crime, have a better chance of surviving childbirth (this one is still true), get more pain medication from physicians, be expelled from school less, and have fewer chances of being killed by the police.

Having white skin doesn’t mean my life is easy or that things are given to me or that I have never had a hard time finding a job. But it does mean that my skin color is not making things harder.

George Floyd had a knee on his neck for probably three times as long as it will take you to read this

I am in a sad, angry mood because I am writing this a few days after George Floyd was murdered and I can’t think about anything else except how this man did not deserve – no man – no human – deserves this – did not deserve to have an agent of the country of which he was a citizen kneel on his neck for nine minutes – NINE MINUTES – while he pleaded for his life.

How do you even do that? How do you kneel on someone’s neck while he tells you he cannot breathe?

How do you do that? How do you not move your knee? How do you continue with an action that you know is causing someone pain? And then refuse to render aid?

I am angry. I am furious. I am sad. I am lost. I am convinced that if we did not have the current president that George Floyd would be alive. The current president has given license to certain people to rip off the masks they had been hiding behind and show their horrible, hateful racist selves.

I cry for my country. I fear for our democracy – that this man is in the White House. And that despite the evidence of the past few years, there are people who continue to support him. Despite his ugliness and pettiness and meanness and lack of honor and integrity, people will vote for him.

I know not everyone who voted for the president is racist. I know not everyone who voted for him wants this. And they have a chance to adjust in November. I hope they do. I hope they look at what has been going on and say, “This cannot stand.” I hope enough people are horrified at this new information that they say, “ENOUGH.”

But this is where we have been going. This is where things have been.

This is what I came here to write, before Mr Floyd was murdered. Last week, we were discussing online something the president said – a quotation in a story in the Washington Post.

I don’t even remember which stupid thing it was – there are so, so many stupid things and they all run together and I can’t even keep track. If I tried to keep track of every single stupid thing that the president of the United States said, I would not have time to do anything else, including eating, sleeping, or even breathing. It’s a full time job for probably 4,000 people.

Yes, he is that stupid.

Anyhow, John B told me, “your a idiot if you believe everything you hear.”

I answered that I usually find the Washington Post to be a reliable source (especially when they are giving me a direct quotation).

That’s when John B posted this sizzling riposte to me (with a very cute little girl): “Texan – are you stupid or something?”

To which I answered (truthfully), “Nope. I’m not.”

And I thought that was going to be the end of it because – well, I’m not stupid.

I say that with the same assurance that I say I am not tall and I am not thin and I don’t have brown eyes and I am not a good tennis player. I know what I am and I know what I am not.

I am not stupid. I’m not.

Before I get to John B’s brilliant response, let me talk a little more about what’s been going on with facebook and me lately.

I usually don’t talk about politics online.

But in the past few months, I have come out.

This is where I have taken my stand. I have seen such idiocy that I have had to say something. I used to worry about making other people mad.

I. Don’t. Care. Anymore.

They should worry about making me mad.

I wrote about something in March and a former friend started to get obnoxious. When I challenged him, he said ugly things to me – insinuating that I have spent the past decades mocking him.

I was so confused. Honestly, I never even thought about him. He is the husband of a friend of mine.

Then he said something ugly to one of my friends.

Wait. I found the initial post.

Ex friend: Such a hateful comment. What’s wrong with liberals?

Me:  Oh I am perfectly happy to call out a president who wants to prioritize the stock market over lives.

Kelly: THAT’s Hateful?! OMG! Have you listened to every damn thing that’s come out of the president’s mouth? “Nazis are nice people.”

Liz: Since when has Texan been a liberal? 😂

Ex friend: I was directing that to Samatha Bee. But you are an uber liberal. You have all the trappings – condescending, negative, … You own it:)

Me: Seriously? You’ve known me for decades and that’s your opinion of me?

Kelly: Unfriend and block. That is ridiculous to say about a friend!

Ex friend: you are changing the subject. Because I say Bee is hateful that’s an endorsement of the president? You’re reaction shows your colors. I’m not a fan of trump and do my share of cringing but I don’t wish his death.

Ex friend: Kelly, someone disagrees with you and you unfriend and block? Are you easily triggered? 

Me: You are calling me names. What’s going on? I do not mind calm discussion about issues on my page, but I do not expect name calling and ad-hominem attacks from my friends.

Kelly: Ex friend, I did not get personal with you, but you ask am I easily triggered, after you personally insult Texan? I’m not easily triggered, thank you for being so kind as to ask. Neither would I be willing to have friends who don’t apologize for being obnoxious. Also, it’s your not you’re reaction.

Ex friend: Texan, I don’t know what you are mad about? Liberal? I did not say socialist. Condescending? negative? i thought that’s what you were going for with the Bernice and Leopardo comments. And you witty posts about conversations with Mr T. You act like your from Wisconsin. You’re better than that. I’m surprised. But your friend Kelly needs to worry about herself. You’re a big, powerful, capable woman. You don’t need a defender.

That’s when I unfriended him.

I am done. I am done with shit from men. I am done with people who cannot be decent and civil and who cannot accept a different point of view.

And also – I am so confused. If I were going for condescending and negative, I would have copy edited his posts. And if he hated me so much, then why has he even been reading my posts? I have been a guest in his home. His wife was one of my best friends in high school. This is just weird.

But – I am done. Done. I am not insulted that he called me liberal. I am insulted that he doesn’t get my humor and that he attacked my friends.

(And for the record, I used to vote for conservative candidates until the current president. Now I am done. I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him. So I don’t know where that leaves me politically but for now, it’s anyone but him. ANYONE.)

Back to the current conversation with John B. He asked if I was stupid.

I told him I was not.

He answered: yes. Your

And then, you will see in the image above, he gave himself a laughy face for the comment. Because he thought he was so funny.

Then he realized that oops – he had it wrong. So he corrected it.

To “youre.”

So. QED.

When your husband Gets You and brings you flours

I guess this is related to Sourdough in the Time of COVID-19. Yeast has been hard to find and so has flour. I had thought there was not a yeast problem in Milwaukee but I was wrong! It is not on the shelves! And flour is on the shelves, but purchases are limited.

This really wasn’t an issue for me, as I keep huge inventories of everything. I learned at the knee of my mother, who is prepared for the Apocalypse.

Actually, as she explains it, you never knew, living on military bases abroad, what might be available when at the commissary, so it was a good idea to stay stocked up with essentials.

I suppose also, living in western Europe during the Cold War and in the Panama Canal Zone during the treaty negotiations, there were also other supply chain disruption concerns, but I was a kid and we didn’t have the internet back then, so who knew about these things? My dad did, but I sure didn’t.

So I have a jar of yeast in the freezer, which meant that I was able to send my mom a few tablespoons of it for Mothers Day, because it is absolutely unavailable in Colorado right now.

And I have a bunch of flour in the basement, but

• I had run out of my fun specialty flours
• I am unemployed
• I am stuck at home
• I am bored
• I have the sourdough starter that Bonus Daughter #1 sent to me
• I finally got Tartine Book No. 3: Modern Ancient Classic Whole from the library

All of this means I have time and inclination to experiment with bread.

And here the stores either don’t have the flour I want or they have it and I can’t buy it.

Mr T and I came up with a solution.

He had to go up north to pick up injection molded frames from my cousin’s shop (for the face shields project where we are volunteering), which meant he was going into Amish country, which meant he would be going by the Amish shop where my grandmother always shopped.

And this is where it gets weird because I have just discovered that not everyone knows what the Amish store is.

I thought the Amish store was just part of the background.

And then I realized it’s just part of my background.

My mom and dad are from northern Wisconsin. My mom grew up on a dairy farm. My grandfather would drive his Amish friends places. When we lived in Spain, we came back to the States for a whole summer and stayed on the farm. My grandfather rented a pony from the Amish for my brother and sister and me to ride.

There are highway signs warning of horse and buggies and in the parking lot at KMart, you see horses and buggies.

So – part of the background.

And the Amish store is – you know – the Amish store. They sell a lot of bulk items there, a lot of unbranded goods.

The prices are FABULOUS.

And you can get stuff, because being Amish, they don’t sell online.

Oh sure those Ohio Amish people sell online, or some of them do, but not the Wisconsin Amish people.

My #1 Bonus Daughter – let’s call her Kelly – sent me the sourdough starter. But she can’t find all the flours she wants, so I ordered some for her from a sort-of Amish store in Ohio. I wanted to send her some from Wisconsin but I couldn’t find any in Wisconsin that are online.

I saw a week ago Thursday that the box had been delivered but – I didn’t hear anything from her.

Kelly is lovely. She has wonderful manners. She is thoughtful and considerate and we had just spoken a few days before about baking bread. She had lamented (again) that she had no rye flour and I had smiled mysteriously.

So it was weird that UPS tracking showed the box had been delivered and yet there had been no word from Kelly.

On Sunday, I finally messaged her.

Me: Kelly, did you get the flour yet?

Kelly: Flour?

Me: I sent a bunch of different kinds of flours to you, including rye. I mean, I ordered it online and had it shipped to you

Kelly: Aww how sweet! I don’t see anything yet.

Me: Hmm. UPS said it was delivered on Thursday night. They say they left it at the front door

Kelly: Oh no! Damn! That said there have been thefts but ups is the most reliable shipper because they always drop at my door

Me: They said they left it by the front door! SHIT!

Kelly: Argh not cool!

I go to the UPS site and pound out a very annoyed email.

Mr T says You don’t need to talk to UPS you need to email the vendor they’re the ones who matter.

I tell him to shut up I know what I’m doing Lord have mercy that man annoys me sometimes

But then I email the vendor anyhow. I am very very polite because I know everything is crazy and they are busy.

And actually, I was polite to UPS. But I was annoyed. Politely annoyed.

Ten minutes later, Kelly writes again.

Kelly: I DID get beef jerky from a mysterious person. The note said “Happy Birthday Kaley.” From Walnut Creek Cheese in Walnut Creek Ohio.

Me: WHAT? That’s the vendor, but that’s not what I ordered. When did it arrive?

Kelly: Ok we were scratching our heads wondering… whose this mysterious sender? I don’t like beef jerky thaaat much (2lbs). It DID arrive on Thursday.

Me: And somewhere, Kaley is wondering who Texan In Exile is and why I am sending her flour.

Kelly: Meanwhile we’re thinking, “who the Hell misspells my name Kaley when the shipping label has it right and thinks I’m a jerky connoisseur?!”

And we figure it out.

Someone had accidentally put the wrong mailing label on the box.

I email the vendor again, this time saying that yes, a box did arrive, but it was Kaley’s jerky, not Kelly’s flour.

They wrote back the next morning and said, Oh no!!!! We’ll get a new box out right away.

And they said to keep the jerky.

So now Kelly has flour.

And Mr T drove up north and he went to an Amish store in person (which, had we known this two weeks ago, we would have just bought flour there for Kelly but oh well) and bought from the list I made after I carefully read through Tartine.

Now I am stocked with buckwheat and dark rye and light rye and pumpernickel and whole wheat and bread flour. I have rye berries and oat berries and wheat berries.

However, in the interim, in my attempt to re-create the Latvian rye bread we got at the Latvian Lutheran Church bake sale in December, I have found a recipe for Lithuanian rye bread, which calls for red rye malt, which I do not have.

So now I have a new quest.

Actually, this is Birthdays in the Time of Always but I am in a groove here

Even though I live in Wisconsin now only because I was tricked, my people are from here.

You know the story, right? Have I told you? My family is from here, but my dad was in the air force, so I grew up outside of Wisconsin, in Spain, Texas, and Panama. The only time I lived in Wisconsin as a kid was the year my dad was in Vietnam.

I was living in Memphis when I met Mr T. He was living in Milwaukee. Why was he in Milwaukee? Because he didn’t want to live in California anymore but also did not want to move back to Pittsburgh, where he grew up, because – well, if you’ve read the Old Blog, you know.

He had been to Milwaukee to see a baseball game in the old stadium before they tore it down. He liked it here and moved here.

We met at our 20 year college reunion in Houston.

And – in the battle over where to live, he won.

A lot of it was that he was living in an apartment at the time, an apartment where the heat was included with the rent, there was an attached, heated garage, and someone else did the shoveling.

As in – I got an absolutely unrealistic picture of winter.

When you live in your own house, you pay your own heating bills, which means you keep your house really really cold unless you are rich which we are not.

When you live in your own house, unless you are in deep suburbia, you have a detached garage, which means that to get to the car, you have to go Outside. Which means The Icy Driveway of Death and the Icicles of Damocles and all that that entails.

When you live in your own house, you have to shovel the driveway (well, you don’t have to, but if you want to use the car, it’s an important first step) and the sidewalk (this you have to do – it’s the law).

Anyhow.

I digress.

I now live here. My people are from here.

(But still – the second Mr T is dead, I am throwing away all of his crap in the basement, taking the cats, and going south. This place is gorgeous in the summer, but I hate winter. Also, I am getting really really tired of being in the national news all the time for stupid things.)

And My People Do Not Waste.

We have never wasted.

My grandmother almost never had anything to put in the trash.

She didn’t throw food away, ever. EVER. If there was food that humans couldn’t or wouldn’t eat, she gave it to the neighbor’s dog.

She saved her recycling and would carry it to the recycling center on her walk every morning. The walk she took when she woke up at 6 a.m. and walked to early Mass, then to the post office to get her mail, then to the senior center, where she would sometimes play a hand of Sheepshead or two.

Some plastic isn’t recyclable – the bags frozen vegetables come in, for instance. So she would carefully cut those bags open, then would save the bags for re-use. A person would think the bag of frozen corn in the downstairs freezer actually contained frozen corn but a person would be tricked if a person did not look carefully and see the label of “rhubarb, 1992.”

Cool Whip containers in the freezer also did not always contain Cool Whip.

My grandmother was sneaky that way.

This is my history.

These are my people.

So a few years ago, when I was visiting my mom and saw the birthday card in the photo above, I got it immediately.

My mom and her sisters have been sending each other the same card back and forth for a few years.

Which honestly?

IS A BRILLIANT IDEA.

I hate buying birthday (and other event) cards.

First, I hate wading through the stupid syrupy sentimental crap that’s out there.

Second, I hate paying $5 for a card. That’s a lot of money. I see that and I think, Sheesh for that much money, I should just call someone. A phone call is cheaper.

And then I think, But really what I am paying for is not to have to talk on the phone, which is one of my least favorite things in the world.

So – reusing a birthday card?

SOLVES ALL THE PROBLEMS.

So I was very impressed with my mom and my aunts.

And I went on facebook to say so.

And discovered that My People really are My People all the way back, because my Aunt Mary said, “That tradition started with our aunts on our Dad’s side. We come from good stock. 😄”

Oh man we sure do.

I suggested to my sister that we carry on the tradition.

Sister: Sounds good to me. Problem is, I’m terrible about getting the card into the mail. Can I steal the envelope from the store?

Me: You could just take a photo and email it.

Sister: Now THAT would be right up my alley.

I think we will carry on the spirit of the tradition just fine.

Why go low when you can get high?

Did you guys notice how I kind of buried the real story last week when I was talking about E$ and men vacuuming and how it’s hot even though it shouldn’t be? Men doing housework shouldn’t be noteworthy. It should just be.

Just as men do not babysit their own children, they don’t “help” with the housework any more than women “help” with the housework. It’s just something we all do as part of a civilized society and civilized households.

/rant over

So buried in last week’s post – did you even notice or did it sneak past you? – was a reference to E$’s new business.

The grow operation.

Which – yeah.

Totally typical of Women of a Certain Age, right? Kids leave home, sudden void, hard to maybe restart that legal career that was set aside when babies were born.

It’s the next logical move.

Start dealing.

Only – it’s legal.

OH E$ I HEART YOU YOU ARE THE COOLEST.

Little did I know when we met in college.

We didn’t hang out as undergrads. My strongest memory of E$ is from when I took her photo for the 1980s version of facebook, which was a black and white photo of every freshman or transfer taped to the window of the commons.

Very old school.

Literally, I guess.

And as in, to quote a former co-worker who spoke English (and Spanish and Italian and French as second, third, fourth, and fifth languages), “the school that is old.”

E$ posed, leaning against the wall, casually holding an apple in both hands and between her breasts. She was wearing a loose turtleneck sweater and 1980s jeans, which – were they loose then? Or tight? I think we were still in the tight years.

Anyhow, she had this slight smile and she was very Eve in the Garden of Eden and she was gorgeous.

Maybe I still have it somewhere. I have a box of old college photos in the attic. I should look.

But like I said, we didn’t hang out much and then I didn’t hear from her again until recently, when we connected on facebook. Our college classmates have a pretty strong group and we suck in anyone that we can in our online vortex.

We were chatting online and she wrote, “I’ve got a cannabis company here with a couple of partners. It’s fascinating and fun and the wild west. We have two retail stores and an indoor farm. We cut our first harvest tomorrow, which, with luck, will help us be operating in the black.”

Which.

What?

I knew she went to Rice.

I knew she went to law school.

I knew she lived in – well, I won’t be more specific. But it’s a state where this is legal.

But. Whoa!

But I’m cool.

I’m cool.

Me: That’s AWESOME!

Me: My former company had bought a software company from this guy in Montana. He stuck around for a year or two, but then left to start a grow operation. His software was all about managing maintenance and processes for institutions and factories, so he is all about process. He weighs the dirt and has all the processes down. The regulators love him.

E$: It’s scientific. Everyone thinks it’s going to be easy. Only the super scientific, business oriented people who have the processes down are successful.

Me: How did you even get into that?

[Thinking – I need a job. Is this something I could do? I can grow tulips. I can grow tomatoes. Or I can when it doesn’t snow in May. OH WAIT IT’S NOT LEGAL IN WISCONSIN.]

And she tells me how she got into the grow business.

Which is just as you would expect.

She used to deal a little on the side when the kids were younger and decided to integrate vertically.

NO THAT’S NOT IT!

Ha!

No, it’s the OBVIOUS path, which is her manicurist recruited her.

E$: The woman who does my nails. Her son went to cannabis college, “oaksterdam,” in Oakland California. She asked if maybe I knew someone who could back him.

Because this is the kind of conversation I have ALL THE TIME with the guy who does my pedicures.

Wait.

I don’t even remember pedicures. I had one last year. Then I thought, Why am I even doing this when my feet are covered all the time? This is just dumb.

Even when I had pedicures at the beauty school and talked to the students, we talked about boring stuff

My. Life. Is. Boring.

E$: I thought it sounded interesting, and my friend K thought it was a good idea. K backed out of it, but I started looking at warehouse space to retrofit for an indoor grow.

I don’t even know how I would start to look for warehouse space.

My. Life. Is. Boring.

Really is there anything sexier than a man doing housework? Not to me

I was messaging with a college friend, E$ (pronounced “E Money”). We knew each other in college but ran in different circles but now it’s corona time and I’m unemployed and I have time and we are on facebook and dang, it’s nice to talk to people who already sort of get you who aren’t the same people in the house with you with whom you have had the same conversation like a gakillion times.

Ooops. Typo.

I was going to correct that “gakillion” to “gajillion” but then I thought nah let the Freudian chips fall where they may.

I JOKE!

Anyhow. E$ and I were messaging and she’s hilarious and wonderful and we are both wondering why we didn’t hang out more in college and then we remembered that we were busy with other things back then but isn’t it nice that we can be friends now?

She asks if I knew her husband, whom we shall call Mr E$, when we were in college. She, too, married a guy from our college (which is Rice U, as should be obvious from the sweatshirt that Mr T is wearing in the photo above, although perhaps not everyone knows what a Rice Owl is, I guess), although she didn’t wait until our 20 year reunion to find a Used Husband.

Yes, I tell her. I did. I mean, I knew who her husband was because we had several mutual friends.

And then I think about what to say next because this is kind of delicate and possibly weird but then I think oh for pete’s sake it’s been over 30 years —

OMG we are old when did we get so old?

I remember bartending when I was in college. I was bartending at Homecoming at the 35 year reunion event. One of the attendees was asking me about my major and school and all kinds of stuff and all I could think of was, “YOU ARE SO OLD YOU ARE OLDER THAN MY DAD.”

He looked at me as if he knew what I was thinking, gave me a small smile, and said, “It all goes so fast.”

And he was right. It’s been over 30 years – 35! 35 years! – since that happened and I still remember every word he said. It. Goes. So. Fast.

So we are old. It’s been 35 years since we were in college and I would not recognize Mr E$ if he walked up my driveway, so I say, “Ummmm. How do I say this? He was hot. I thought.”

E$ laughs (I imagine) and agrees with me (I know, because she writes it).

Whew. Because I didn’t want her to think I was coming on to her husband, whom I have not seen in decades. It was more of, We are women we share intimacies as part of our conversation.

Is good.

Then we have a long conversation about the business E$ and some partners started a year ago, which, is the typical business for Women of a Certain Age – a grow operation. And it’s going well. So that’s cool.

And then I have to go because Mr T is vacuuming and he is about to vacuum by me and I do not want to stifle his muse ever.

I send E$ a photo to prove to her that I am not blowing her off – that Mr T is indeed vacuuming by my computer.

And she replies by noting that Mr E$, he does not vacuum.

To which I reply – well, there is the employment/housework tradeoff.

Mr E$ Is Still Hot

Two days later, she messages me again.

E$: So, remember when you said Mr E$ is hot? I just watched him vacuum bits of Cool Ranch Doritos off of his bare belly.

E$: Marital nadir achieved.

Me: You don’t think that’s hot?

E$: I guess I can’t complain anymore that Mr E$ doesn’t vacuum.

And Then Something Happens

And then two days after that, E$ scares me. I worry that there is something really wrong. It’s Saturday morning and I see a desperate message from her. “Everything I knew to be true is no longer true.”

Crap. I know she has three kids.

I know she has a new business.

I know she’s married.

What horrible thing could have happened to my friend?

I am so worried.

My phone buzzes with a facebook messenger call, but I can’t figure out how to answer it in time.

In a few minutes, there is another message.

“Trying to figure out how to use the video thing on this phone so I can show you what is shaking my foundations.”

Now I’m really scared.

And then

And then

And then I see this.

It’s a video.

Of Mr E$.

And

He

Is

Vacuuming.

It’s a COVID-19 Miracle.

A tear comes to my eye.

How much for the leetle girl?

Do you guys remember when we were teenagers and we thought marriage was all about s-e-x and it would be all s-e-x all the time?

And that was a very very exciting idea?

Oh? That was just me?

OK well never mind.

So you guys knew even back then that marriage was not just about s-e-x but was really a lot of arguing about things?

Things like – even in ordinary times – the proper way to wash dishes?

Or how to put them in the cupboard? (One of us maintains by color and then by size, as even the large white plates have some slight variations in thickness.)

Or how to store food in the fridge? (One of us maintains by which foods go together, like the rice and the gumbo, even if the rice is in a square tupperware and the gumbo is in a round glass container. The other says that the containers should be stacked by shape and size to optimize storage efficiency and that of course USERS ALREADY KNOW WHICH FOODS GO TOGETHER.)

Or when to go to bed?

So imagine if you will all the Togetherness that comes with quarantine and add ordinary marriage to that.

Oh wait. You don’t need to imagine! If you’re married, you’re already there!

And if you’re not married, let me assure you this is not all a bed of roses.

It’s all the things that bug you the most about the other person EXCEPT IT’S EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF EVERY SINGLE DAY AND YOUR HAIR LOOKS LIKE CRAP AND YOU ARE WEARING THE SAME CLOTHES 40 DAYS IN A ROW AND WHAT DAY IS IT EVEN?

In addition to the regular things we argue about, Mr T and I have added to our repertoire.

We have argued about the proper timing for sending a wedding gift. I have always sent the gift before the wedding, when I get around to it.

Mr T maintains one takes the present to the wedding or sends it after.

I said why does it matter and why are we even arguing about this, but no, it is Not Done to take the gift to the wedding anymore because People Are Crap and steal presents and even if they don’t, it just means someone has to Be In Charge of taking the presents from the reception to the bride and groom’s home and that’s a pain in the neck AND WHY ARE WE EVEN ARGUING ABOUT THIS?

We now also argue about – because we decided that quarantine was the perfect time to abandon our previous successful for 15 years policy of each of us having our own tube of toothpaste – how to squeeze a tube of toothpaste.

Which led to, as I am sure you can understand, arguing about How To Argue.

Which did not go well, as I am sure you can also understand.

We are now each in our separate corners. Fuming. But back to separate tubes of toothpaste.

Because apparently, I missed having something be The Boss of Me

Who knew that sourdough would be A Thing during Quarantine?

(Which you probably already know by now means “40.” You’re welcome. That’s all I remember about it, although it has something to do with Lent, WHICH IS OVER.)

(And yes, I got my half-price Robin’s Eggs and Cadbury’s chocolate eggs – but M&Ms were not on sale so I was cranky about that – at Walgreen’s the day after Easter, which was super easy because I was about the only person in the store.)

(And now I remember – I have remembered several times – that if I eat too much candy, it makes me feel sick to my stomach.)

Anyhow. I knew everyone was baking bread because suddenly, everyone has time and is bored.

Which means there is no flour and no yeast to be found.

And that means that people have turned to sourdough.

Which I was not going to do because – eh – I have yeast. I have flour.

And even if I didn’t, I live in Wisconsin, where everyone already bakes so the grocery stores already keep supplied for that.

And – I just checked. Plenty plenty plenty of flour and yeast in my local grocery stores.

But in places where people don’t usually bake, I guess it’s a problem?

I know the King Arthur Flour website is out of yeast. And my friend in Houston can’t find King Arthur flour in the store. (I don’t know about other brands.)

So what do you do when you can’t find yeast?

You make sourdough!

Hahahaha. I kid.

You find a friend who has sourdough and you get some from her.

If you want to make sourdough from scratch, it’s a dang nightmare.

It involves putting organic grapes in cheesecloth and immersing them in water and flour and singing to them every night at 11:00 p.m. and sacrificing the tongues of nightingales and hummingbirds and ripping out your liver and re-growing it by morning.

And not just that, but according to Nancy Silverton, I am supposed to feed my starter three times a day. And part of that feeding involves THROWING AWAY MOST OF THE EXISTING STARTER.

Nancy clearly is not from Wisconsin.

So I was not going to make sourdough from air and fairy dust and unicorn breath. And then throw most of it away.

But then I saw that my bonus daughter, M, had some sourdough. And I was intrigued. She was telling me all about what she had been baking with it.

She dried some and mailed it to me, along with letters and cartoons that our Bonus Grandchildren had written and drawn for us – cats and tacos are Big with kids this year – and it sat in my cupboard for two weeks while I thought about Things.

Then I was ready.

I found the King Arthur Flour instructions on rehydrating sourdough and sort of followed them.

So there is this demanding schedule of feeding with weights of water and flour and the water is supposed to be at 78 degrees (Nancy, not King Arthur, cares about the water temperature, but they both WEIGH THE WATER AND THE FLOUR) and all I can think is, “Didn’t sourdough start by people scraping some of the flour from the chinks in the walls of their log cabins?”

Even regular sourdough – the kind you don’t start from the yeast in the air (which sounds like a great band name: The Yeast In The Air) – is a bit of a wasteful tyrant. King Arthur only wants me to feed once a day but they, too, have me throwing away a lot of starter, although at least they offer suggestions of what to do with the discard, like making sourdough chocolate cake.

(Which I did.)

(With a double recipe of cream cheese frosting.)

(Which Mr T thought was Too Much Frosting until he saw the cake and realized I WAS RIGHT.)

So of course I had to google about the log cabins and how picky is sourdough REALLY and I discovered that I was close. Close enough.

This truly is not rocket science. I mean, I am sure that if I were running a commercial bakery, I would be all sciencey and would want everything on a schedule so I could scale and control. I would be All About Process.

But in my own house? With my own baking?

I WILL NOT BE HELD HOSTAGE TO SOURDOUGH.

So I have decided that I WILL DECIDE WHEN THE SOURDOUGH GETS FED AND HOW MUCH IT EATS THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

For now, the sourdough is in the fridge, which should cool its hunger. (Ha.)

And I have made some bread.

And will make more today.

But after that, sourdough is not my boss.

PS Those of you who can’t find flour and yeast? Try the Amish stores. The intersection between “People Who Have Just Started To Bake Bread” and “People Who Shop At Amish Stores” is probably zero. The Amish stores have flour and probably have yeast. Just saying.

We are not all on the front lines, but we can support those who are

When it seemed like the world was coming to an end and all was lost, it wasn’t the government that stepped up. It wasn’t the military. It wasn’t the church. It wasn’t industry.

It was the Makers.

It was the people who build flaming crossbows and Daleks* who said, “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”

The Makers saw that our medical workers didn’t have the PPE they needed. They saw that the inventories weren’t there and that the supply chains weren’t ready. They saw that there was a problem and they put down their crossbows (after extinguishing the flames) and put down their laser cutters and said, “We need a fast, inexpensive way to protect our family and friends who are working on the front lines against covid 19.”

And within days, these artists and engineers and creators had a solution. They designed a simple face shield. They cut the HDPE frame on a simple CNC router and they attached a sheet of clear plastic to it.

That’s it. A simple face shield that can be cleaned and re-used. A simple face shield that costs less than a dollar per shield for materials. A simple shield that can be made in under an hour and delivered to a doctor, a nurse, an orderly, a janitor – to someone’s daughter, someone’s brother, someone’s mother, someone’s friend, someone’s loved one.

A simple face shield that can save a life. That can save many lives.

“People have said we can’t change the world with what we do in our space,” says Pete P, one of the Makers, “but maybe right now, we can.”

(And that, my friends, is what I have been doing with my time. I have been doing the back office work for the artists and engineers who came up with this solution.)

* I am still not quite sure what that is.

Why not plant tomatoes? she asked herself

I read in the paper that there is a shortage of seeds!

Yes! There has been a run on vegetable seeds!

People are worried that they won’t be able to get food and think that they are going to have to grow their own.

I hadn’t even thought about buying my vegetable seeds yet. It’s still cold here. It snowed yesterday.

(I hate winter so much.)

But if I have to rely on growing my own food, I am screwed. We have a very short growing season here and a small back yard without much direct sun and the things that grow well here – lettuce, dill – are not the foods that sustain life, like potatoes.

I read the story on my phone as Mr T and I were driving back from the food bank, where we had worked a shift processing inbound inventory.

(Don’t think we are noble. We are not. We are both unemployed. We have time. We can either use it to help others or we can use it to be stuck in the house and fight with each other and possibly kill each other, our corpses not to be found until months from now, when the cats,, in desperation, will have eaten our cheeks and other fleshy parts.)

I read the story and jumped quickly to my favorite seed site, Seed Savers Exchange, which, even today, two weeks later, is not accepting new orders.

NOT EVEN FROM LOYAL CUSTOMERS LIKE ME.

“We have to go to the hardware store!” I gasped.

Mr T, to his credit, did exactly as I asked. He pulled into the parking lot at our neighborhood Ace and waited in the car while I ran in.

Of course there were plenty of seeds.

In Wisconsin, everyone already gardens.

They already ordered inventory assuming everyone would be buying seeds.

I grabbed basil, parsley, dill, lettuce, zinnia, cosmos, and nasturtium seeds.

None of those are food items that will help.

But who grows tomato from seed in Wisconsin?

NOBODY THAT’S WHO.

But – what if they don’t open the garden shops? What if I can’t get tomato seedlings in May?

I ran back to the seed racks and grabbed three packets of tomato seeds, praying that it wasn’t already too late. I know there are ways to start seeds indoors and to transplant them, but that’s for Serious Gardeners and I am not a Serious Gardener.

All I know is what I learned in Girl Scouts a long time ago.

(In Girl Scouts, I also learned how to make flour tortillas. The secret is lard. You’re welcome.)

I took the seeds home and did this:

And this:

So now, like the people in On the Beach, we wait.

Happy Passover. Happy Easter. May this be the renewal, rebirth, and release from bondage that we all need.