I have completed the first circuit of the line-a-day journal I started on Election Day of last year: I am now making a SECOND entry on each page. (I chose this particular cover, but there are many, many, many, many, many options.)

(image from Amazon.com)

It is of course very upsetting to re-read the entries for the days following Election Day. It is not much less upsetting to be adding entries such as “The Supreme Court ruled in the Tr*mp’s favor that SNAP benefits can be halted while he appeals a federal judge’s ruling that he must reinstate them” and “The Supreme Court temporarily allows Tr*mp’s rule that passports can only show the holder’s assigned sex at birth” and “The U.S. has blown up a 10th boat, claiming without proof that it was a drug-running boat—not that that would allow us to blow people up.” But it was refreshing to add “Not only Z0hran Mamd@ni but also Abigail Sp@nberger and Miki3 Sh3rrill won their races.”

Hello! I have been assigned my Secret Santa children for this season, and I am extremely excited. Also: I have some questions to put to the group-mind.

ONE! Do you use air-freshener thingies in your car? And if so, what would you say are the superior ones—good scents, really work, last a nice long time, not too overwhelming, maybe a little pricey? And separately, do you know which are the COOL ones—like, if you were a teenager?

TWO! If you were looking for a good “dress-up / pretend play” gift for a 2-year-old girl who wears size 4T-5T, and you didn’t know what she might already have, what might you choose? We also know that she loves pink, and dinosaurs. I purchased a couple of really good Melissa & Doug dress-up outfits when my own kids were little, but that was when I knew exactly what they wanted to dress up as (knight, pirate), so I was willing to plunk down a chunk of money on just one outfit. It’s more difficult when I’m not sure. Should I buy one dinosaur suit? Or an assortment of tutus? Maybe she already has the princess/mermaid set. Maybe she’d prefer more of a doctor/construction/astronaut/firefighter set. WHY DON’T THESE FORMS HAVE MORE DETAILED INFORMATION?? I feel like if I were signing up my kid, I would have to be physically stopped from filling up multiple pages.

It’s extra difficult when I can’t even give you an approximate budget. We’re supposed to spend about $100 total per child (I will tell you privately that I fudge this and go higher), and we pick from a list including practical things (bedding, clothes) as well as fun things; so what I typically do is get a whole bunch of ideas for all the categories, and then start narrowing down, depending on what I feel like I have the Best Ideas for. So maybe I will find a dress-up set for $70 and it is the most perfect thing I have ever seen, so I will prioritize that; or maybe I will feel too uncertain about any of the options, so I will skip it and buy other things instead, or I will get a much smaller $10 dress-up item. My FAVORITE is a nice distribution among the categories, so I guess for a dress-up set I would be imagining $20-30.

You might think, as Paul immediately did, that I should prioritize the fun things. But there are TWO Secret-Santa-type programs: one is TOYS ONLY, and that is served by all the toy-collection bins that show up around town, and that is a fairly hearty program. The other is THIS program, which is supposed to have an emphasis on more practical items—but then they list toys, too, which leaves me a little uncertain. I generally LEAN toward the practical, but I try to make them fun (i.e., FUN/character bedding set, COOL clothes), and then I always include items from the toy list as well.

I have gotten distracted from my list and I still have one more question:

THREE! Do you have any particular Little People sets to recommend—especially considering the child is 2 and likes pretend-play? I was browsing the options, and it seemed like some were FUN but I wasn’t sure about the play-value (tree animals, Christmas wonderland); and some had more play-value but it feels more likely the child would already have that set (school, house). On the other hand, we’re supposed to provide gift-receipts, and we bring everything in a couple weeks before Christmas, so there’s no such thing as a an utter disaster: if I accidentally buy something the child already has, the parents can exchange it. I could also do a character/animal set, making the assumption that those could be integrated into existing sets OR played with even without a set.

1. Today I was restless after work, and

2. I have been trying to run more errands in the afternoons after work, rather than letting them pile up for my day off, and

3. I have been trying to buy the cats’ special Hills Science Diet Oral Care cat food (the vet recommends mixing it into their regular food for routine dental care) locally instead of from Amaz0n, but the local store keeps being out of stock, while promising they will have some soon, and

4. I needed to complete a Pokémon task, so:

This afternoon I went on an outing to the local gardening/pet store, with a stop along the way to complete a Pokémon task. On the topic of Pokémon tasks: I have become very self-indulgent. I have thought, “This is a hobby, and it is a perfectly acceptable hobby, and if I need to pull over into a parking lot for a few minutes to complete some sort of task to acquire some sort of prize, then TELL ME: WHAT HARM IN THAT?” Anyway, I went to the gardening/pet store, which has a task-completing Pokémon thingie in its parking lot, and don’t worry if that part makes no sense to you.

They DID have the cat food I was looking for, but only in the 3.5-pound bags, which is a bridge too far for me, expense-wise. The 3.5-pound bag is $25; the 7-pound bag is $35. My frugal heart cannot tolerate that math. So I went home and ordered the 7-pound bag for $38 from Chewy.com, which scores well on Goods Unite Us. This is how we live now.

Where was I? Oh, yes: so, I was disappointed in my quest—but, on the way in, I’d noticed the gardening/pet store was having a 25%-off sale on fall bulbs. I like to live dangerously, in re fall bulbs. That is, I like to plant them VERY LATE. We have ABUNDANT CHIPMUNKS, who love nothing more than FLOWER BULB SALAD, and so ideally I like to plant the bulbs MOMENTS BEFORE the ground freezes solid. This results in a pleasing partnership with my frugal heart, which likes a sale. The fall bulbs go on 25% off when we are beginning to play chicken; when the bulbs go on 50%-off, it is CHICKEN GAME ROYALE.

But we are more financially comfortable than we used to be, and 25% off is enough to at least cause me to browse, especially when I have been disappointed in the cat-cookies quest. (The vet calls the big-chunk oral-care cat kibbies “cookies,” and now so do we.) I bought a bag of 7 white daffodils—an extra-fragrant variety with a thin red rim around the trumpet; these were abundant at our old house and I miss them. I bought another bag of 16 mixed pink-variety daffodils. Another bag of 7 fluffy yellow daffodils. And a bag of 4 allium giganteum, which you should look up if you’ve never seen them; our library handyman planted a bunch of them around our library sign and they are spectacular. Big purple lollipop puffballs. Chipmunks/squirrels allegedly find daffodils bitter; I don’t know how they feel about allium.

The clerk commented, “And if you don’t mind being out in the rain, this is a PERFECT day to plant them.” I do mind being out in the rain (especially I mind my glasses getting speckled), but I don’t mind it as much as I mind LOSING TO CHIPMUNKS. I went out with my little trowel, and I planted all 34 bulbs in the yard, in the rain. The rain will help water them in, and will also help cover my tracks (chipmunks are apparently alert to Disturbed Soil).

If you tend to feel crummy in the winter, may I recommend planting bulbs. All winter I can think about them, and look forward to them coming up. They are the epitome of hopefulness. I have already started hoping.

Since reading An Episode of Sparrows, I have read two more books by Rumer Godden. The first was Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy. It was surprisingly gritty/modern in parts (a significant portion of plot takes place in a brothel, and in some of the before-and-after circumstances surrounding members of that brothel), and then surprisingly meandering/religious in others. Like, I didn’t measure, but if I had to ESTIMATE what percentage was gritty and/or focused plot and what percentage was nearly-unrelated meanderings about day-to-day convent life, including who was assigned to which daily chores and which saint-day it was, I’d say 30/70. I read the whole thing, but was sometimes unsure why I was still reading. And then one of the major plotlines, which seemed to be building to a book-long Ultimate Plot Confrontation, went utterly unresolved! Just, “Welp, I guess we’ll never know! Okay bye!” Definitely I liked it less than An Episode of Sparrows, and I also felt it did not hold together well. It was like the author got super interested in nuns/convents and just wanted to write about that, but felt she had to incorporate it into a fiction plot, and then couldn’t figure out how to resolve the fiction part.

Then I read The Kitchen Madonna. I would never, ever, ever have chosen this book off the shelf without having been motivated to read more Rumer Godden. Here is the cover:

I mean, absolutely not! But I enjoyed it enormously, and it was similar in some ways to An Episode of Sparrows: quirky interesting children pull off a relatively minor feat that will nevertheless have you breathlessly rooting for them to succeed. And there are illustrations! And by the time I finished the book, I felt so fond of the cover I can’t even express it to you; you will just have to try it for yourself and see if you feel the same way. I do wish Mary weren’t a blonde. And are her eyes blue? Let’s say they are not. This is a book I might want to own, and might want to re-read annually, perhaps near Christmastime, even though it is not Christmassy. The vibe is Christmassy.

In other vintage-media news, William has been working his way through old Halloween/scary movies, and we have joined him sometimes. (Not for The Exorcist, which William described palely as “very medical.”) Last night we watched The Invisible Man (1933), which reminded me of the Disney Sunday Night Movies I enjoyed so much in my childhood (Escape to Witch Mountain! The Cat From Outer Space! The Absent-Minded Professor!). I would have found some parts much too scary back then (lots of invisible throttling, and a Scary Invisible Voice), but I could imagine a version of it where I would have just enjoyed the thrilling special effects. Tonight we watched Werewolf of London (1935) which I found even more enjoyable. There were many genuinely witty moments. Both movies end (spoiler alert!) with the monster (a MAN who has REACHED FOR WHAT MAN SHOULD NOT REACH FOR!!) dying dramatically and conveniently, with Final Words Expressing Regret and Humanity, as well as devotion for The Blonde Love Interest. If I were compiling a list of movies to watch every Halloween, like I do at Christmas, I would add Werewolf of London for sure.

I have thoroughly cleaned a toilet, and I am feeling triumphant about it.

Even after months of physical therapy for my knee replacement, and being assured by multiple professionals that I MAY kneel on that new knee, I have not been able to COMFORTABLY kneel on that knee. It feels Wrong. In part this is because that knee is still numb, more than it is supposed to be—and I can tell it is more numb than it is supposed to be, because the surgeon’s PA keeps trying to act surprised/incredulous, and also as if it’s fine (“Technically you don’t NEED to kneel ever again,” she says, age 32 and I’ll bet still doing plenty of kneeling herself without seeing it as unnecessary), and/or as if I am confused or imagining it (“Well, it WILL be permanently numb over HERE, but you’ll only notice that when shaving!”—indicating an area adjacent to the numb area, which is indeed also numb), alternately. Kneeling on it feels the way it does if you put weight on something swollen/numb/sore—which is to say, my body gives me immediate, strong feedback that NO YOU SHOULD NOT DO THIS: it is a combination of Intense Discomfort and also Panic. And yet: all the professionals agree that I am not doing any actual damage if I kneel on it, and that I can ignore those signals. DON’T listen to your body!—as all the professionals constantly tell us.

Well. I don’t know about you, but actually I used to kneel quite often, and consider(ed) it pretty important. Perhaps that is WHY I ended up having to have a knee replaced relatively young, for what the surgeon described as “wear-and-tear” damage. I definitely used to kneel to clean toilets, and to clean the shower floor, and to clean the bathroom floors. And now I feel stuck, because I married a man who has never cleaned any of those things and never will, and when I hired housecleaners they stole from us.

I can kneel on the OTHER knee, though perhaps that is not wise if I want to keep it. And also: it turns out that kneeling on one knee is about 1/10th as useful as kneeling on both. (Try it! It is…surprising.) For one thing, it is harder to move around: if I am down on one knee, and I need to change position, I have to sort of HITCH and SCOOT. Also: I get uncomfortable much more quickly. Also: it’s all just so frustrating. I have wept over it. Am I glad I had the knee surgery?, lots of people want to know. Yes. But.

I bought a gardening kneeler, but that was much too firm and didn’t help. I can kneel on, for example, a mattress (the physical therapist had me do my practice-kneeling on a mattress), so I have wondered if maybe it would be best to put a small plump squooshy soft pillow into a plastic bag (germ/chemical protection for the absorbent pillow, since I am dealing with bathroom floors and cleaning supplies), and kneel on THAT. But tonight what I did was I knelt on a combination of (1) the original knee and (2) the surgically-replaced knee, placed carefully/judiciously on the pile of towels I was about to launder anyway, which I had cast onto the floor. That worked pretty well. I still had to scoot around a bit, because I found I still didn’t want to kneel much on the replaced knee, even if on towels. But! I was down on the floor, and I was able to thoroughly clean a toilet that badly needed it, and that felt very satisfying and good. (The toilet has not gone nine months uncleaned. When Henry was still here, Henry cleaned it. But he left in late August. Since then I have frequently scrubbed the toilet bowl, and have sprayed/wiped the toilet ring/seat, and have sprayed/wiped the floor in front of the toilet (blood rushing to my head as I leaned down) because of who I married—but today is the first time since January I’ve cleaned THE WHOLE ENTIRE THING and THE ENTIRE FLOOR AROUND IT. I feel HIGH. …and perhaps in need of more sources of joy and satisfaction in my life.)

I was so invigorated by this success that I went on to clean multiple things I could have cleaned at any time without kneeling: the half-bath sink, the kitchen sink, the toothbrush cup, etc. And I have cycled two loads of laundry, and ordered a few Christmas gifts. One triumph leads to more triumphs, and I don’t know why I cannot fully incorporate this knowledge.

I cannot seem to figure out a way to be thin enough to be physically comfortable, without living a life of constant deprivation and/or exercise.

All three college kids had a long weekend this past weekend, and all three opted to come home, which led to some complicated logistics and a lot of driving and a fun visit. I took two photos total, which is hard to explain since normally I take one million photos. I think I was a little preoccupied with the number of PEOPLE here and the amount of FOOD needed.

This was Henry’s first time home since leaving for college. He walked in the front door and said “Oh right! Now I can assess What Our House Smells Like! It smells like…varnish…and coffee…and…something else?” Me: “Ha, not cat box, I hope.” Henry, joyfully: “YES! Cat box!” Great. I do feel it’s inevitable that a House With Pets is going to smell like Pets—but also I spent extra time this weekend scraping the boxes and adding baking soda to the litter.

Henry, who is having an excellent freshman year, told us very casually that OH BY THE WAY, no-bigs but both of his roommates (he’s in a triple) moved out a week or two ago, on the same day, without telling him. This was, as you can imagine, riveting news to all of us. Upon questioning, we learned that the day before the disappearance, the roommates were packing boxes—but like books and stuff, not bedding, and they didn’t say anything about it, and Henry couldn’t think of any casual way to ask what they were doing. (As a group, none of us could think of any natural/casual way to ask either.) (As a group, we also reflected on how awkward it also could have been for the roommates to explain what was going on. Like, what are they going to say? “Oh, hi! We have conspired and we are both leaving you, because we don’t like living with you and would rather not!”) The next day Henry came back to his room after class to find both roommates and all their things gone, and his perishables from the shared refrigerator were sitting warmly on the windowsill. (Much discussion about this. If there were no hard feelings, why not put the items in the dorm-floor fridge, and leave a note? But also: I remember being 18, and not always finding it easy to think of Solutions. I can imagine the thought process that goes something like “We need to take the fridge with us == We cannot take our roommate’s items with us == There is no other fridge in the room == No solution found.”)

We discussed it multiple times, at some length each time. (My first question: “Are you…a terrible roommate?”) Many theories, many questions—especially since in the case of Roommate Issues at this school, there is a process involving the Roommate Contract and a sit-down meeting with the RA and if necessary the RD, which did not happen. Which means the roommates did not lodge any sort of Complaint about Henry.

When I asked if Henry had had had ANY issues with his roommates, Henry said it was true that his roommates wanted to watch movies until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and that he, Henry, had sometimes taken his comforter and gone to sleep in the dorm lounge. I asked had he been HUFFY or DOOR-SLAMMY about it; he said he MIGHT have been a little huffy by definition (one cannot leave the room at 2:30 a.m. with a blanket without being Huffy) but NOT door-slammy. I asked had he made any vocalizations of huffiness, and he said he THOUGHT not. But even so: if he HAD been vocally huffy at 2:30 in the morning—would that be enough to cause roommates to move out?

I have no satisfying answer for you, but I do have a theory that holds water. Henry mentioned something we hadn’t known before, which is that his two roommates met during freshman orientation (which is held early in summer), and had decided during orientation that they wanted to room together. Because of the way the housing lottery is handled, the most likely explanation is that when they logged in during their housing selection time, the only available housing with space for both of them was a triple, so they took it. The college requires a 6-week waiting period before switching rooms, but you can submit an application any time during that waiting period; so they may have signed up immediately, even before meeting Henry, to switch to a double if/when it became available—and, when the six-week point arrived last week, they may have been approved. It’s hard for me to imagine circumstances leading to an EMPTY DOUBLE—but there is apparently ample housing this particular year.

Still, questions linger. Why didn’t the roommates say anything? (Well, actually, when I try to think of what I would say if I were them, especially if I imagine being 18, I find I flounder.) Maybe a better question is, why didn’t the RA say anything, or check in on Henry? Imagine being the resident assistant for a floor of freshmen. Imagine there is a triple where TWO students suddenly move out, six weeks into freshman year. Wouldn’t you…make sure the remaining freshman student was okay? SOME freshmen would be dancing around the room in their underpants to loud music, yelling “YES! YES!! YES!!!!”—but surely others would be feeling abandoned, hurt, rejected, isolated. It seems like it would be WORTH CHECKING IN. It’s been nearly two weeks and she has not checked in. Elizabeth, weighing in: “The RAs are high and don’t care.” Oh…kay.

Update on vaccine reactions: I felt a little icky in the night, but not feverish, just kind of icky. Now it is midday, and I have felt tired and a little emotional, but not sick, and I have not felt as if I need to lie down, or nap. I drank two quarts of Powerade yesterday; I don’t know if that helped. My arm (I got both shots in one arm) is quite sore.

I have just finished a dear, lovely book. Our library still has it even though it was published in 1955, which suggests to me that some of you will already be familiar with it. It is called An Episode of Sparrows, and it is by Rumer Godden, and look at this pretty cover:

At first I thought I was bored. It went on so long about the Garden Committee, and the street, and the children, and the dirt and soot! But gradually it wove the story and roped me in. Little comments from characters, before we even know their connection to each other, referring to a future time when we all will know all: after we read that a child had very little pocket-money, the narrative cuts in with “‘I don’t know how she managed,’ Olivia was to say when she and Angela were told everything.” Little remarks by people we haven’t met yet: “What Vincent said was worse, but he did not know Lovejoy was listening. ‘No one who loved their child could give it a name like that,’ said Vincent.”

I cried multiple times, in a good way. I enjoyed the characters, and the development of those characters. I found the ending extremely satisfying. I got used to the name Lovejoy. I can picture this being the kind of book I might read again and again over the years. It was restful, but not treacly: there is drama and distress to keep the plot realistic and interesting.