Close Encounters of the Furry Kind

I was letting Brio out at 4:30 the other morning, and luckily I had him on the leash, because he tried to take off barking after something in the yard. I saw a dark shape go clambering up the drainpipe and onto our roof. Raccoon. (The word sends shudders into the soul of every home owner.) Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it, so I went to lie on the couch and snooze for another hour before starting my day in earnest.

As dawn began to break, I heard scratching and rattling on the roof overhead. I peeked out the window and saw the raccoon dangling by his front paws from the rain gutter, trying to get a toe-hold on the downspout with his back feet so he could get down again. I knocked lightly on the window, and he turned his head and looked at me, and then did a mighty chin-up and pulled himself back onto the roof. A moment later, his triangular head appeared over the edge of the roof directly above me, and he gazed upside down at me for a while before apparently deciding I was no threat. A moment later he lowered himself by the front paws from the rain gutter again, reaching with his toes to grab the downspout, and finally managed to grasp it. I could hear a scrabbling of claws on metal, slither slither frantic slide ping! and he was down. Hilarious! You always imagine wild creatures as perfectly adapted to their environments, graceful, adept. Not clumsy and awkward. You don't picture a flock of birds colliding with each other mid-flight, or a deer snagging his antlers on a tree while trotting through the forest. And it hadn't occurred to me that a raccoon could be quite bad at climbing. Endearing!

Garlic Scapes and Lavender

Summer is officially under way! The garlic scapes are ready, those smooth, soapy-feeling curls of utter goodness. And the lavender is just starting to bloom, meaning it's time for lavender cookies. Every road has its milestones and landmarks, and mine is studded with such miracles as these.

Canada Day and Thoughts about Fireworks

Almost 15 weeks in quarantine. Next week it will be July already, and this year there won't be public firework displays or parades. We'll each quietly celebrate at home, possibly in our groups of ten, perhaps alone. In place of fireworks, I will watch the peonies blooming in the backyard, and instead of beavertails bought from a food truck, maybe I'll make deep-fried scones with honey butter. The pipe band can't march, but hubby might stand in the driveway and serenade the neighbours. We won't have a big barbecue bash for the family or go to the lake, but I can float peacefully in my pool while the sun comes up.

I don't mind having a quiet holiday this year. It's good now and then to have a time of introspection, when you can just count your blessings and reflect on all the factors and history and people and sheer luck that combined to land you where you are now. I'm in a good place, and stopping to appreciate it and be grateful is just as patriotic (or more so) as waving flags or parading.

A Word from my Husband

Me, looking at real estate (surprise!): "I'd love to live in one of those modern homes that's basically a one-room, simple, glass box, overlooking the ocean. But there'd be no separation and we'd be on top of each other."

Husband, without missing a beat: "Not if I have the whole ocean to throw you in."

Fun with Home Insurance

I have renewed our home insurance, and I spent some rolicking time today reading all the fine print in our policy. Basically it says "We cover you for all of this, but if/when you make a claim, we won't cover it." It even says, essentially, "this isn't covered even though we said it would be." Flood coverage won't cover water damage, but only fire or explosion caused by flood. (Fire caused by water? Trying to picture it.) Terrorism isn't covered either, so there goes my claim if Erin Mills is suddenly attacked with napalm. And the fun thing is that the contents are valued at the same cost as rebuilding my house (I look at my Valu Village secondhand furniture and giggle).

The policy is meant for residential dwellings, and it says all over the first page that if your home is a total loss, you have the option of receiving payment for the value of your home without being obligated to rebuild, in case you decide not to. And then in tiny print it says this does not apply to residential dwellings. Um...

My favourite clause, however, which left me scratching my head, says this, verbatim:

"We do not insure loss or damage caused by mysterious disappearance of property."

Immediately my mind tried to envision what sort of scenario might result in the mysterious disappearance of one's house. A UFO hovers over the dwelling and beams it up to transport to a far galaxy? David Copperfield throws a blanket over the house, mumbles "abracadabra," and whoosh! it's gone? How fascinating! A surreal glimpse into the mind of whoever crafted the wording.

Thirteen Weeks In

On Friday it will be thirteen weeks that I've been at home. The first couple of weeks it felt sort of like hunkering down in a fortress against a siege. There was a weird unreality about it, as if I were in one of those post-apocalyptic movies. Do I have enough food? What is my back-up plan if it gets so bad no one is operating the water treatment plant? Do I have a good supply of books and puzzles at hand? It was right at Passover, and it felt as if I should start painting lamb's blood on the lintel. I did a bit of research on the Spanish Flu and watched the news a lot and wondered what was coming.

After a couple of weeks there was a brief period (about a day) when I was really irritable. The people in my house wouldn't stick to the rules; they kept going out. Nothing was exactly how I wanted it. I harboured unworthy thoughts of wanting to move into the pool shed to get away from everyone. I found it exhausting having to join video-conferences every day. I had no interest in any of the things I'd thought I'd accomplish while in quarantine. I couldn't settle down with a book, and all I wanted to do was eat chocolate. My dog turned into Velcro and couldn't be away from me for more than a minute. I noticed a more desperate tone on social media as well -- people expressing things about having chosen the wrong person to quarantine with and joking about knitting a noose. A video of a teacher screaming went viral.

And then people around the world started doing creative, crazy things -- clever videos and home haircuts and singing from balconies and putting on concerts and holding "Living Room's Got Talent" contests and rewriting the lyrics to musicals. It was hilarious, watching some of the things people came up with. It was as if everyone's latent creativity just burst out and went haywire. Shy, ordinary people became movie directors and comedians.

As the days passed and the sun started coming out, I got into more of a routine, and working from a laptop all day became easier. I saw that we weren't, in fact, going to run out of toilet paper. And the water treatment plant was still running. We became a nation of bread bakers and gardeners. We figured out how to do things we never thought we'd do, and we found we could trust ourselves to learn them. We learned we could find instructions for anything on Youtube. We discovered we're pretty resilient. Things seemed to snap into priority and perspective, and people started talking about realigning their life with their values once things returned to "normal." My husband and I went on a couple of short drives in the countryside, but it didn't feel like escaping. I started participating in regular guided meditation and yoga sessions on line.

Now we're heading into week 13, and I have to say, it feels like normality, as if we've always lived this way. I don't find as much funny and creative stuff coming out of people's homes into social media lately. It's as if we no longer need to make jokey videos and laugh about home haircuts. There's nothing left to gasp or groan over, really; we just quietly adapt and groom our own dogs and sew our own masks or whatever else needs to be done. I am filled with comfortable contentment.

I ventured out today to Walmart to buy much-needed shoes (my only pair developed big holes in the bottom, so I was walking the dog basically in my socks). And I found the whole process of shopping annoying, not a relief at all, and I really don't want to ever do it again. I am content to live small, stay local, be more self-sufficient. I want people's distress to end, of course, and for no one to die of Covid, but I am not at all eager to get back to life BC. I prefer this new normal.

Forty-five Years Ago Today

Forty-five years ago today, I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was baptized by my dad, and my good friend Sheri was also baptized on the same day. My faith has been a constant source of comfort and strength to me all my life, and I find it especially so right now during this pandemic.