“Remoted” – Day 40

Today, for reasons I do not fully understand, got under my skin. It kicked off with working for five hours during which the system started ok but became increasingly sluggish. While I was working, the canine overlords were especially needy – barking, whining, and crowding each other, which usually leads to a fight when one bumps into the other. Luckily, today it didn’t provoke a scuffle.

Is Chuck hiding, or resting before
heading over to the flower bed buffet?

When work was finished, it was yard time for sunshine, fresh air, and harvesting the poop (my other job). That’s when I discovered that Chuck, the groundhog-or-whatever-it-is that lives under my shed, the neighbor’s shed, and all over the neighborhood, has been dining on the perennials and there will likely be no pretty purple flowers that managed to escape the buffet and bloom last year. It’s time to spread the nice jaggedy crushed eggshells and the stinky coffee grounds in the flower bed to deter whatever is repelled by foot lacerations and odors.

There was a text notification from FedEx about a delivery that had arrived an hour before I saw the notice – and which the canine heralds failed to announce. I checked the fully enclosed porch with two access doors where, for most of the past three years and up until earlier this week, most deliveries have been left. No box. Checked outside the porch door that opens to the front steps. There have been a few times when boxes were set on the top step against the door so when opened from the inside, the box topples down the concrete stairs. (Passive aggressive delivery person games?) No box there. Checked the porch side door to the deck and saw the produce box basking in the sunshine. What is the logic of leaving boxes in an open area, subject to the weather and visible from the street, immediately outside an enclosed and sheltered porch? And even though gate access codes; front, back, or side doors; garage; and a few other options are available as choices under lists of “special delivery instructions,” never do I see the supremely logical “in the enclosed porch sheltered from weather and view of porch pirates” as an option.

As I took the box inside, Winston decided to run outside. There was one of the usual street/porch social gatherings underway across the street with maybe eight visitor vehicles parked all over the place, people on the porch, and a guy standing in the street leaning on a car and talking to the people inside the car. This house has a driveway that is three cars wide and a big yard with a privacy fence, pool, and a tiki bar, and yet, they prefer to cram onto the porch, front stairs, and sidewalk.

Anyway. Winston took off through the front yard and kept going, apparently to crash the party across the street and visit with the guy talking to the people in the car. Moose followed behind, but to his credit, when I called them both, Moose turned and came back home. Winston cozied up to the guy in the street who started patting him. And I, as a reflex, had already run into the street to get the little brats, putting me close to and probably within the six foot range of some total stranger who was hanging out at what is likely infection central for the entire city based on daily traffic and visitor volume alone.

So, today was the 40^th day of not leaving the house and interacting with society at close range, except I kind of sort of maybe accidentally did, which felt like a colossal failure and the icing on the annoyance cake. 

Then I opened the produce box that got us into crossing invisible lines and discovered a bit of disappointment. In the mix of stuff including gigantic pears, apples, a mango, and potatoes, were three puny carrots, the largest of which is black and rotted at the end, and two different kinds of lettuce. Seriously? The thing that wilts and goes crappy the quickest is what there is the most of? No tomatoes or cucumbers or peppers or anything else logical for a salad, but a whole lot of frigging lettuce. Maybe if I toss it into the yard, Chuck will take a break from eating my plants. 

Delivery and wine for the win.

Ordinarily, most of this stuff would be too trivial to even notice, but for some reason, today I am especially thin-skinned. The cumulative petty annoyances of the day amassed enough volume that I couldn’t even drag myself to make supper, in spite of the overflowing pantry and crammed-full lettuce bin. Instead, it was “support a local pizza joint” night with a “no contact” delivery order of a steak and cheese grinder, sweet potato fries, chips, and baklava. No, all that food was not necessary. I really wanted the baklava, the rest of the order was built around justifying its delivery. The chips were added to hit the $20 level so I could use the $3 off coupon sent by email. Having supper delivered and a glass of wine was exactly what was needed.