Covid on My Mind

Posted on 11/28/2022 by chick

I had a cold last week. It was mild, and I wasn’t coughing or sneezing much. But, after getting negative results from two rapid Covid tests and subsequently spending time with friends and family for Thanksgiving, I totally lost my sense of smell and taste. It was very upsetting, because that’s such a classic Covid symptom. I wouldn’t have left the house at all if I’d thought I had Covid.

I still don’t know if I had Covid. The belief is that the rapid tests will show if you’re super contagious, and it’s possible that I had Covid but wasn’t likely to spread it. In that case, the risk would have been minimal. Or maybe I had Covid and was contagious and breathed it all over everyone in the world. Geez, I hope not. Or maybe I didn’t have Covid, and it was just permanent or semi-permanent damage from my previous case of Covid that made it possible for an ordinary cold to wipe out my sense of smell (that’s my husband’s theory, anyway).

I went for a PCR test today, though, because I would like to be certain at least of whether or not I had Covid, and presumably I’d still test positive on a PCR test at this point if I did have Covid. The thing is, all four of us ultimately got the cold, and we did a total of four rapid tests among us. If the rapid tests can’t detect Covid in 4 out of 4 tries, then I need to know that. I’m a “Got Covid, Stay Home!” kind of girl.

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Random 11/16/22

Posted on 11/16/2022 by chick
  • I found a few more autumn-themed romance movies, which made me happy. That doesn’t mean I’m forgiving everybody for going overboard on Christmas already, though.
  • I am so tired. One night of inadequate sleep is enough to ruin several days for me. I stayed up too late on Monday. Yesterday was utter misery, so I tried to go to bed early last night, but I couldn’t sleep, and today has been miserable, too. Ugh.
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Let’s Hear It for Hats!

Posted on 11/14/2022 by chick

My mother, who was a French major in college, learned a lot more about the French language than I ever did. She once told me that a circumflex is often indicative of an S having been removed from the word at some point in its history (the circumflex is the little “hat” that the French sometimes put on top of their vowels (â, ê, î, ô, and û.). Why the French felt the need to memorialize the lost letter permanently is beyond me, but it’s interesting and sometimes helpful.

My favorite example is “la fenêtre,” the French word for “window.” If you add an S after the circumflexed letter, you get “fenestre.” Then you can see a clear link between it and the English word “defenestration.” (My kids think the word “defenestration” is hilarious, BTW, right on par with “exsanguination,” which is another word with a French connection–“le sang” means “blood” in French.)

Knowing that a French word might have once contained an S can sometimes be helpful when trying to figure out its meaning. For example, the other day I came across the verb “hâter.” Always looking for cognates, I naturally guessed “to hate,” but that didn’t fit the context, so I tried adding an S (“haster”), et voila! The meaning was revealed. It means “to hasten.” Similarly, “la hâte” means “haste,” “hâtif” means “hasty,” and “hâtivement” means “hastily.” Now I will be able to remember the meaning of “hâter,” because all I need for remembering a French word is something to hang my hat on, and in this case it’s the “hat” itself!

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Commit or Let It Go

Posted on 11/13/2022 by chick

I started this blog back in 2007. I haven’t been celebrating my blogiversaries lately, but this year, in April, was my 15th. The fact that I still write posts, however sporadically, after fifteen years is impressive. Most people don’t keep up their blogs even a fraction of that time, sadly. I don’t know which is worse: a blog that starts out with a few really strong posts and then just stops, or a middling blog that goes on for a few years and then just stops. Either way, the stopping is the problem. It’s human nature to wish for anything that is good, or even just familiar, to go on forever and ever.

So I’m proud of myself for keeping the blog alive all these years, always coming back, keeping it on life support. But, the blog is not free, and once again I find myself wondering if I’m really getting my money’s worth out of it. This year year has been particularly lean in terms of posts. Maybe blogging just isn’t my thing anymore.

Well, as they say, use it or lose it. My blog hosting auto-renewed at the end of October, which means I’m paid up through next October whether I blog or not. So I’m going to make a deal with myself now. Life support is not the same as living–commit to the blog by writing at least a post per week (not a big ask), or let it go.

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Reading Report: 11/12/22

Posted on 11/12/2022 by chick
  • I am currently reading a book of poetry (Come on All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder, 72/108 pages), a book in French (Le Lion, La Sorcière Blanche et L’Armoire Magique by C.S. Lewis, translated by Anne-Marie Dalmais, 144/186 pages), one of the Top 100 Children’s Books (Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, 118/243 pages), and I will be picking out a new English-language, non-kid’s novel soon, having recently finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. Whichever book I finish next will be my 52nd for the year!
  • The Grace Keepers by Kirsty Logan, A-: This melancholy but beautiful novel is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the sea has risen so high that there’s hardly any land left. The only people who live on land are those who are born there and those who are rich enough to afford to buy their way onto it. Everyone else lives on the sea. One of the main characters is a young woman who’s part of a “dampling” (sea-dwelling) circus that voyages from island to island to earn food. Her circus act involves a tamed bear that she lives with in a small coracle hitched to the other circus ships. The other main character is a young woman who is, in effect, a funeral director for damplings. She lives alone, on her own small island, with little company except for “graces,” which are a type of bird used in the funeral ceremony. In this ceremony, the body of the dead dampling is dropped into the sea, then a grace is caged on the surface above. When the grace dies, the period of mourning ends. That aspect of the story is horrible, almost enough to make me not want to finish the book. The character struggles with the morality of that part of her job herself, often feeding the graces even though she’s not supposed to and doesn’t have food to spare. IMHO, this would just prolong the birds’ suffering, but I can see why she’d still feel compelled to feed them (and of course, symbolically, this means that mourning is supposed to be short, but she’s making it last longer for some reason). Each of the women has a secret, which will be revealed as the exigencies of life and death bring them together. While the story overall was sad, the ending was vaguely hopeful.
  • The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) by Michael Scott: Twins Josh and Sophie get mixed up in the war between good and evil and the battle for possession of the Codex, a book of powerful magic. On their side, the immortal alchemist Nicholas Flamel, his wife Perenelle, and the warrior Scathach. Against them, the immortal John Dee, and other agents of evil, including the Morrigan and Bastet. This was a fast and fun read, but I don’t have time to continue with the series right now. Though Nicholas Flamel is also mentioned in Harry Potter, there is otherwise no connection between the two series.
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Too Much Christmas, Much Too Soon

Posted on 11/10/2022 by chick

My husband and I stopped at Target on Tuesday to return a few things. While we were there, I checked to see if they had any discounted Halloween candy, because I had a hankering for candy corn. Whoever was responsible for ordering the Halloween candy at Target had totally overdone it on the Brach’s Autumn Mix this year. There were boxes and boxes of it left over. We arrived just in time to snag a bag of it. A Target employee was removing the product from the shelves even as I debated over whether to get the traditional candy corn or the Autumn Mix. I don’t know what they were planning to do with the excess candy (the woman said they were “getting rid of it”). It’s sad, but there’s no room in the world for leftover Halloween candy anymore. Everyone’s obsessed with Christmas now. Considering that some stores start putting Christmas stuff on the shelves in October, skipping Halloween and Thanksgiving both, I guess I should be grateful that Target at least still lets us have Halloween.

In related news, I am irritated that Hallmark and other streaming services have pretty much skipped autumn and moved straight into winter/Christmas romance movies. Don’t they know that autumn is awesome? There ought to be oodles of autumn-themed movies, and that’s what I want to watch right now. If I were to start watching Christmas movies now, not only would they be totally out of season, but there wouldn’t be any new ones left by the time December rolled around. Save Christmas for December. Meanwhile, give me more romances featuring Halloween, fall foliage, hayrides, pumpkins, apples, and other fun, fall-related things!

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Today’s Surprise

Posted on 11/09/2022 by chick

Today I found out that my former friend ran for State Representative in the election on Tuesday. I feel a little proud of her, because running for office is a big deal, and I feel a little sorry for her, because she lost. But she deserved to lose, because she was running as a Republican. On the bright side, I feel better about our friendship having ended, because I see now that it was probably inevitable.

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Random 11/6/2022

Posted on 11/06/2022 by chick
  • I got my flu and Covid vaccines Monday before last. I had anticipated feeling like crap for at least 24 hours afterward, but in reality it wasn’t that bad. I got one shot per arm. The flu-shot arm hurt for a few days, as expected, but the pain from the Covid shot dissipated quickly. My joints were a little achier than usual for a while, and maybe I felt more fatigued (hard to say–I’m always fatigued), but that’s all. That is to say, the side-effects were minor. I’m glad to have gotten that done and over with. It’s going to be a long winter.
  • I have a new cell phone. It’s so ridiculously complicated that it’s driving me nuts, but it works better than my old phone, and it has a camera in it that’s better than my actual camera. I’ll probably be getting a monthly phone plan soon, too. Wouldn’t that be something.
  • My book-buying obsession has escalated, because now I’m buying books in French as well as in English. But, most of the French books are cute, little things that don’t take up a lot of space (so I tell myself, anyway).
  • My French lessons aren’t going as well as I’d like. The most recent block of lessons covered both le conditionnel and le gérontif. Both are relatively simple, but because they both involve tacking endings onto verbs, they’re kind of mixed up in my head now, and that’s not good. I miss my high-school French teacher. She would have made sure that I got all it down right (again). Teachers are so much better than apps.
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Random 11/1/2022

Posted on 11/01/2022 by chick
  • Having given myself permission to buy a whole bunch of books didn’t also magically create space to put said books. How unexpected and unfortunate.
  • I never thought I’d be persuaded to try kale, let alone enjoy eating it, and yet now I like it in several dishes, including today’s lunch of kale roasted with sweet potatoes and chick peas.
  • Packing tape can indeed be used to hem a skirt for a short period of time, such as the amount of time it takes to go trick-or-treating with the kids, when the stakes are low. Masking tape would have been better, but I didn’t have any, so I gambled on the packing tape, and it paid off.
  • I was a queen for Halloween, crown and all. I was a cold queen, too. October gets chilly, don’t you know.
  • This morning, after seeing the kids off to school, my first task was to attend to the family “mold farm,” as the kids called it. We had had a slow cooker dish for dinner a few days ago and then apparently forgot to clean out the pot. Gross. On the other hand, one doesn’t often see pink mold, so at least there was that novelty.
  • I managed to ditch my morning caffeine addiction months ago, but I often flirt with danger by drinking decaf coffee and even the occasional caffeinated beverage. Caffeine would love to get me back into its evil clutches. Can I keep my hard-won freedom? Time will tell. My odds would be better if I never drank caffeinated beverages, though, especially in the morning.
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Reading Report: 10/30/22

Posted on 10/30/2022 by chick

On the Bus with Rosa Parks by Rita Dove: I started this book of poetry back in 2021, but got distracted from it repeatedly. Last month I decided that enough was enough. I deliberately sat down and read it, cover to cover, over the course of a few days. My favorites were “Black on a Saturday Night,” “Incarnation in Phoenix,” “Best Western Motor Lodge, AAA Approved,” “The Peach Orchard,” “Against Self-Pity,” and the one I liked the best: “The Pond, Porch-View: Six P.M., Early Spring.”

Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville: How often is a book title so perfectly self-explanatory? Here is a sweet little book for anyone who ever wished they could hatch and raise a dragon (ooh, me me me!). I would have read this story as a child if I could have, but it hadn’t been published yet. Better late than never.

Harry Potter à L’École Des Sorciers by J.K. Rowling: This is the first book I ever read entirely in French. Reading in French is difficult, but I’ve gotten better at it. I know the language well enough to distinguish the parts of speech, and I can make reasonable guesses about the general nature of the words (e.g., “this is a verb of motion,” “this is an adjective having something to do with darkness,” etc.). That allowed me to continue reading even when I couldn’t guess the precise meanings of words, but it made reading a strange experience. So much detail was lost on me, and the images that the words created in my mind were drab. But was I was rewarded with great moments of victoriousness every time I managed to translate a knotty sentence without resorting to the dictionary (I didn’t want to get bogged down in definition hunting!). The big payoff was that I learned a lot of new words. My favorites: chuchoter (to whisper), jumeau (twin), and the tricky au-dessus/au-dessous pair (above/below).

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