Apparently there is no way to avoid Valentine’s Day Angst every year, just as there is apparently no way to adequately aforehandle Mother’s Day. I thought Paul and I had finally settled into our solution: I no longer expect anything from him; I buy my own heart-shaped box of chocolates; and we go out to dinner (on a nearby day, to avoid the crowds) and get cocktails AND we split the fun overpriced dessert sampler. I bought heart-shaped plates (last year Target had red ones, this year they have pink ones) to put the kids’ dinner on, and I give each kid a giant Hershey Kiss. I have a cute heart mug to drink my coffee/tea out of. In recent years I’ve had a Galentine’s Day party with my local girlfriends. Some years I send valentines in the mail.

I’ve tried to make the Valentine’s Day holiday be about all kinds of love, and about the cheeriness of pink/red/hearts/candy in the middle of winter, and not about how disappointing heterosexual men can be, and what very low bars so many of them fail to cross. (I have NEVER had a relationship with a guy who could handle what I consider the absolute straightforward simplicity of Valentine’s Day. I am not a TRICKY woman with a series of SECRET PUZZLES that need to be solved or else the man FAILS. I like all The Usual Things. I like a heart-shaped box of chocolates, especially if it is extra pretty ((ribbon, flower)). I like flowers from the grocery store. I like doughnuts and pastries and other bakery things. I like wine, I like jewelry, and neither of them have to be expensive for me to like them. I like meals out or in. I am willing to say all these things I like, rather than making the poor man wrack his own brain to think of something himself, and I am perfectly happy to get the same thing every year, no creativity required; I am ALSO perfectly happy if the guy LIKES to come up with his own ideas! So why is all this apparently TOO TOO DIFFICULT?? GAH. Anyway, apparently it WAS too difficult, so I GAVE UP and released BOTH OF US from the entire annual issue so that we would NEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT AGAIN.)

Anyway, yesterday, one week before Valentine’s Day, Paul heaved a huge sad sigh and said he just didn’t know what to DO about Valentine’s Day. I said I thought we’d already released ourselves this entire thing and no longer had to go through this each year; I reminded him that our plan this year was to get Valentine’s Day take-out and eat it in front of the children, who could make their own sandwiches. He sighed again and said that just didn’t seem like enough. Then he listed all the things that he sadly just could not get for me, either because of pandemic or because he put it off too long or because I already bought my own chocolate or because he didn’t think I’d like the earrings he’d pick out. So here is another thing I realized I needed to add to my Making Valentine’s Day Work For Me list: I am not comforting men about it anymore.

(cc’d to baby name blog)

One of you mentioned the other day that you wished you could “like” someone’s comment, and I thought yes, that would be so fun, too bad it isn’t an option. Then someone else said it, and I thought, well, maybe I should just make sure that wasn’t a possibility, and I poked around behind the scenes in the commenting options area but there was no option for “likes”—too bad. Then someone said it VERY VEHEMENTLY and I thought “OKAY FINE I WILL CHECK FOR SURE” and I searched online and…found something. And I THINK, I THINK I have enabled “likes” on comments.

However. Beta testing by a helpful friend indicates you may need to be logged into WordPress in order to like a comment. Do any of you happen to know any way around that, and/or are you good at researching such things? (It took my maximum tech research effort to get as far as I have.) I don’t want it to be a feature available for WordPress Members Only, and may remove the “like” option if that’s the only way it can be.

(A note: I hope it is intuitively clear that I can never, ever, ever hit “like” on ANYONE’S comment, or else I will need to hit “like” on EVERY SINGLE comment, and one of those strategies is less work and less likely to go amiss than the other, so that is the one I will be doing. It will be UNDERSTOOD that Swistle automatically MENTALLY hits “like” on every comment.)

Follow-up: It looks like the comment-likes system is a WordPress Members Only club, so I am turning it back off.

Just now I was in the kitchen updating the list of chores the kids are supposed to work on today. As an aside: I’d started out letting the kids choose their own daily chores, since that would have appealed to me as a child. Only Rob and Elizabeth responded well to that system—which is interesting because they are both the Little Grown-Ups type of child, the kind who from infancy seems embarrassed to be considered a child, and would prefer to sit with the grown-ups, and so on. My other three are all the Babies type of children: didn’t mind being considered babies or treated as babies when they were in fact babies, don’t particularly seem to mind being considered and treated as children while they still are children, content to be told what to do and how to do it. The clear diagnostic line for me between Little Grown-Ups children and Babies children is this: Do I HATE to have to correct them and do I cringe at the idea of telling them no—the way I might if the other person were a peer? Or do I feel perfectly and automatically comfortable with both correcting and naying? With Rob and Elizabeth, I HAAAAAATE telling them no or bringing a mistake to their attention (LITTLE GROWN-UPS); with William and Edward and Henry, I don’t think twice about it, it’s super easy (BABIES).

Where was I? Oh, yes: so Rob and Elizabeth choose their own chores and do them without being told, and I write chores on the dry-erase board for the others, and I am still not tired of choosing which color markers to write with each time. After I wrote the chores, I stood there a minute, uncertain of my previous trajectory: how did I come to be in the kitchen, writing chores, when I remembered recently making tea and bringing it to my desk? After a moment, I gave up trying to figure it out and went to my desk/tea—where I saw an email confirming an orthodontist appointment. Ah ha! I’d gone to the kitchen to look at the calendar to make sure we had that appointment, and then I’d seen the dishes on the counter and put them in the dishwasher, and that had reminded me of the chores I wanted the kids to work on so I’d written those on the board. Then I’d stood there, wondering what had happened to my tea. I find this happens increasingly with age, as prophesied by our elders.

Yesterday I took a day off from keto and it was a glorious day. I ate one of the chocolate-chip cookies Elizabeth had made the night before, and some leftover Christmas cookies/bars from the freezer, and a grilled cheese sandwich, and ramen soup, and chicken nuggets, and garlic bread, and buttered toast with cherry jam, and the new Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie cereal which I was impatient to try and which did not disappoint, and some white cheddar popcorn chips, and quite of a few of the freeze-dried Skittles my sister-in-law sent for everyone’s stockings this year, and some fruit cups, and oh it was just great. But then I woke up at 2:00 in the morning with esophagus pains/spasms, and I took Tums and I went downstairs and took a few peppermint oil drops and made peppermint tea, and gradually I felt well enough to doze off in a recliner, though I kept waking up, giving myself plenty of time to wonder was it the FOODS THEMSELVES? or the overeating of those foods? or maybe the food COMBINED WITH my recently-renewed ability to drink coffee? I feel like my body is getting well into the long slow-but-escalating process of disintegration, and my first two prizes from the Aging Lottery appear to be Knee Pain and Assorted Heartburn/Esophagus Issues. And, like Nora Ephron, I am starting to feel bad about my neck.

Oh, and near Christmas I used a bunch of Advent calendar beauty samples on my eye region (sparkle eye shadow, eye creams, face creams), so I don’t know which if any of them DISPLEASED MY EYE LIDS, but it was apparently SOMETHING, and they’ve been intermittently unhappy since then: they’ll be fine for awhile, and then there is a little recurrence of itching/pinkness, and the skin continues to look a little rougher than I remember it looking before—though perhaps that too is an Aging thing, and I just didn’t notice it until there was some itching to make me look closely. I am having another little recurrence now, so I am putting some Eucerin (the kind that’s like Crisco) around the area, because the roughness of the skin reminds me of eczema, and because I remember the pediatrician telling me Eucerin was the best thing to use on a newborn’s eczema, and eyelids seem about that delicate, and the Eucerin does make them feel better; and I’ve also been using some allergy eye drops when the itching gets worse. WHY SO MUCH FALLING APART, BODY. I am feeling like everything’s so SENSITIVE now: have to be careful how I move, have to be careful what I eat, have to be careful what I put on my skin.

Would you like to make some Physical Ailment complaints, particularly the age-related kind? My friends and I have noticed that, as we get older, we need to set aside a nice chunk of time during each get-together for that particular topic.

Grocery shopping day! The last time I went was before Inauguration Day, and I could see/feel a LARGE CHANGE in my attitude from one trip to the next. Last time I was thinking, “What if the government collapses, and the violence and the pandemic continue on year after year? Should I be stocking up on more flour/yeast/beans? What is the right amount of canned goods for an Armed Insurrection?” This time I was relaxed: “This won’t go on forever! The end is in sight! I do not need another flour, because I have plenty! Soon there will be cleaning supplies again, so I will not worry about it!”

And, like a dove-fetched fresh-picked olive branch showing that the flood waters were indeed receding, there were small cans of Lysol disinfecting spray! and ABUNDANT paper towels filling not only the shelves but part of the aisle floor! and BRANDED HAND SOAP!

We still appear to be experiencing the national Grape-Nuts shortage, but I feel that’s survivable.

They had some little Hickory Farms sausage/cheese holiday gift sets marked from $10 down to $3, and I stood there frozen and indecisive until I gave myself a little shake and said “IT’S A MATTER OF THREE DOLLARS, JUST BUY ONE.” Ditto for NEW! Pretzel Pop-Tarts. Yes, it’s obviously a big lifestyle decision, but let’s not stand here breathing the air for any longer than necessary.

I had a mask panic on Twitter the other day, and several people advised wearing TWO masks: the disposable non-surgical kind first (I have a box of those left over from my days as an in-home elder caregiver), with a cloth mask over it. I tried that today, and it worked well: I didn’t notice a difference in how well I could breathe, I only noticed I felt a little more humid/itchy around the edges of the mask. Well worth it.

There was a guy wearing his mask fully on his neck in this The Year of Our Lord 2021, 11 months into a pandemic. I considered making a faux-panicked remark (“Sir!! Your mask!! It’s slipped!!!”)—but my assessment was that anyone blatantly not wearing a mask in January 2021 knows what they’re doing and is hoping to pick a fight.

I CRAVE YOUR GROCERY NEWS.

I was so worried that Something Bad Might Happen yesterday, I couldn’t write any posts, because I winced to think of us talking happily/optimistically, and then having Something Bad happen and those happy/optimistic things still posted, and anyway now that yesterday is over I feel like MomQueenBee stretching out in a comfy position that doesn’t hurt anymore, and also like Mimi Smartypants done throwing up but still shaky and weird and not able to do much. I’ve seen many other people remarking on the phenomenon of how all of us are MARVELING at things that ought to be normal: a non-combative, accurate-information-giving press secretary; a president who takes the actions available to keep the country’s citizens from dying unnecessarily; not having to wake up flinching about what latest terrible/revolting thing the president might have done/said while we were asleep.

I could hardly believe that the inauguration happened, and that no one died from it. And then the man who was president yesterday morning was suddenly No Longer President, and there was no longer any chance for any “Oh, whoops, actually he still is” to happen. He didn’t manage to collapse the government/country. And as many, many people are reminding us, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen (and in fact it’s MORE likely to happen, now that it’s been shown how close even a bungled/inept/unsophisticated attempt could come)—but it didn’t happen THIS time. (*gif of Moira Rose saying “Let us CELEBRATE that”*)

I appreciate our new president’s urge to have unity, even though I don’t think it’s possible/reasonable to unite us all; it’s just that I appreciate having a president who WANTS that, instead of a president who wants us to fight to the death in a gladiator ring for his entertainment. But we CAN’T unite with certain viewpoints, when those viewpoints are not just Different but Inherently Wrong/Bad. And so what I REALLY appreciated was the much-less-emphasized part where he mentioned the concept of Enough Of Us. That the reason the United States has pulled through other really bad situations was that ENOUGH OF US wanted to get through it. Not that we UNITED with those of us who thought slavery was great, actually—but that ENOUGH OF US thought it was wrong and we shouldn’t have it. Not that we UNITED with those of us who thought women shouldn’t be able to vote or own property or leave their abusive husbands—but that ENOUGH OF US thought women should be legally equal to men. Not that we UNITED with those of us who thought that God hates people who are gay or transgender, but that ENOUGH OF US thought that people are people, and love is love, and that that’s not an appropriate use of the concept of God, and so forth. And now: not that we UNITE with those of us who have shocked us over the last four years with their cruelty and bigotry and violence and selfishness, but that ENOUGH OF US want to live a different way. (IF enough of us DO.)

I have a long and, if we are to draw any conclusions from Paul’s glazed-eyes reaction to even the brief summary, rather boring story to tell!

I recently bought myself several Demeter Fragrance Library samplers on sale. I have been trying them. Yesterday I tried a scent called Fuzzy Sweater, which reminds me of some of the perfumes I wore in high school. The one that came floating to mind was Chantilly, though I don’t remember what it smelled like so I can’t really say if it DOES smell like Fuzzy Sweater; the name Chantilly was just stored in the same part of my brain that categorized Fuzzy Sweater as a High School Perfume.

That led to a feeling of nostalgia for Chantilly, and also curiosity to remember/know what it DOES smell like. I remember it being inexpensive (anything I wore in high school was inexpensive), so I looked it up, thinking I’d buy a bottle for $10-20ish and have the fun of trying it again.

Well. WELL. It turns out, the whole topic of Chantilly is fraught. FRAUGHT! You can find message boards online where people are discussing their STRONG and VARIED opinions, as well as confusion in the face of other people’s opinions! Some people RHAPSODIZE about [one particular scent note] while others claim to be unable to perceive anything except [other particular scent note], and then there is further discussion about whether those particular scent notes are GOOD or BAD; there is also an entire sub-topic about whether it is An Old Lady Perfume, and what does that mean anyway (and I mean ACTUAL ANALYSIS of what it might mean, in terms of the various elements of fragrances—not just huffiness).

And gradually I became aware of another issue, which is that people might be talking about DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF CHANTILLY. If I am following the saga, the maker changed at Some Point. I wearied of research before being able to discover WHEN this happened, but interestingly, the bottle shape I remember is right in the overlap between makers. That is, there are bottles made EARLIER by Houbigant that look very different from the bottles made LATER by Dana, but in the middle there is a particular bottle shape that (1) was used by both, and (2) is the bottle I remember. It looked like this:

(image from Amazon.com)

So! WHICH KIND DID I USE, HOUBIGANT OR DANA?? Furthermore, in the same part of my brain where I store the memory of Chantilly, I store a vague feeling of disappointment. Such as: I’d tried the sample bottle many times in the store, then finally bought a bottle, and felt it wasn’t as good as the sample. And/or: I bought a small bottle to start, loved it, finished it, bought a new bottle, and it wasn’t as good. That kind of feeling. And yet I DID wear Chantilly for years, so it wasn’t THAT disappointing. But still: maybe the sample/first bottle was Houbigant, and the bottle I bought / second bottle I bought was Dana!! Depending on which of those memories, if either, is accurate!

I started poking around on EBay, which is a great place to buy old perfume and also a terrible place to buy old perfume. The prices vary wildly! Shipping varies wildly! With or without box! What percentage full! Etc.! And I am sure the site is just PACKED with fakes. Like, WOULD someone have a new-in-box bottle of Chantilly from decades ago? BUT MAYBE THEY WOULD! Sometimes people receive perfume as gifts and never use it! Or sometimes they buy ahead: I myself have a new-in-box bottle of Charlie that I bought YEARS ago on clearance for when my current bottle of Charlie is empty, but that day may never arrive! (Though I am wearing Charlie today, because now I am in the mood for perfume I wore in high school.) Plus I have several new-in-box bottles of various L’Artisan perfumes that were being discontinued, because I knew if I didn’t have another bottle waiting I’d hoard what remained of my current bottle. And there is the concept of Old New Stock, where apparently a bunch of stuff is found in an old warehouse! But also: I would expect fakes to be new in box, so perhaps I should stick to the partially-used bottles which seem more likely to be real. It’s not as if I am going to keep the box! (But on the other hand it’s so appealing to have it!) You can see how all this easily absorbed over an hour of time.

What I did was, I just kept putting candidates in my cart until I felt tired of browsing. Then I sorted them into two heaps, Houbigant and Dana. And I tried not to overthink it, but did overthink it a little anyway, but no matter, because I felt happy with the decision: I ended up ordering two used/partial bottles of matching sizes; one has the box and one does not; both had free shipping.

I am excited for them to get here! I hope they don’t smell exactly the same and also not good!

…Sigh. While proofreading, I took one more stab at finding out when the switch from Houbigant to Dana took place, and found there is also apparently ANOTHER switch to New Dana. Which is unfortunate, because I see the Dana bottle I bought is actually New Dana, but feel too worn out to find out if that matters or not—and yet, certainly the kind I used was NOT New Dana—but very likely New Dana is a name change ONLY, and there was no change to the formula. (Although…”New”…maybe that specifically means the fragrances were updated.) I tried to get myself interested in starting the whole process over again and buying a Dana bottle, but then noticed that I’ve been neglecting to take into account whether the bottles were eau de toilette or eau de cologne or eau de parfum, and I don’t remember which one I had in high school ANYWAY. Since I remember it being cheap, it was probably eau de toilette—but maybe THAT’S the solution to the Memory of Disappointment mystery: maybe I tried a sample of eau de parfum, then bought the eau de toilette.

…Okay, I forced myself to persist, and I now have a THIRD bottle of Chantilly on its way to me, a Dana-not-New-Dana one. For heaven’s sake. If they all smell the same and/or I don’t even like the smell anymore, we will have to do a giveaway!

Let’s just keep distracting ourselves with chatty things.

Julia asked if we could have another stranded-mail check-in, and I’d like that too. I’ll go first. The package I sent to Paul’s sister on December 11th finally arrived several days after Christmas. Something I ordered for Henry on EBay arrived in the week after Christmas, too, and I could see from the postmark that it had been mailed December 8th. We got lots of Christmas cards after Christmas, many postmarked weeks earlier (the record was the one postmarked December 9th that arrived December 31st). I don’t THINK I had anything completely lost in the mail, but on the other hand I don’t keep very good track of such things, so I can imagine suddenly saying “Hey, whatever happened to…???” And of course I don’t know how many Christmas cards might have been lost.

Speaking of suddenly thinking of something, I suddenly realized I’ve been focusing so hard on January 20th, I wasn’t remembering Valentine’s Day. We don’t do MUCH for Valentine’s Day (I put dinner on heart-shaped plates, and I buy myself a box of chocolates because I have given up on making that happen any other way), but I do always buy the kids these giant Hershey Kisses, and a pandemic year is not the year to accidentally forget a tradition. I was able to order them for Drive-up, AND they were 50 cents less if bought that way, AND this week is 20% off all Valentine candy, so that was good timing.

(image from Target.com)

I wish there was a way to say “No reply needed” on letters to representatives/officials. Or rather, I know there is a way to say it, and it’s by saying it, but in my experience they don’t HEED such instructions. I needed to write an email recently to a bunch of people in charge of our school system, and now emails are coming back to me saying the things that they have to say when they get input from a parent, and I am wishing we could SKIP IT. One email said the things and ALSO promised to reply at more length later on, and PLEASE DO NOT. And last time I wrote a letter of this sort, someone CALLED ME to say the things they are required to say, and that was the WORST.