We now have too many masks. Ed says my coat rack, where I hang them, looks like one belonging to an crazy person who has a mask fetish. I think I already explained that I was upgrading cloth masks as my travels were approaching and it wasn't until the end that I caved and switched to the paper disposable ones. These days if I'm to go indoors for any prolonged period of time, I take the disposable. Surgical or KN95, depending on my rudimentary assessment of how many angry anti-everything people are likely to be present.
This morning, I handed a KN95 to Ed before dawn. I had an appointment to conduct phase two of my oral surgery. The part where the surgeon chops up my sinuses. I don't really understand why -- possibly to make room for the coming implants (that's phase three, out of a total of five). Anyway, Ed had to come with me because I'm enough loopy after surgery that I should not be let loose on the road. Since he had one of those 6 hour Zoom meetings scheduled for this morning, he took his lap top and planned to Zoom with his engineering colleague from the waiting room. That's pretty public and my assessment was that it's high risk so I sacrificed a KN95.
The only good thing about having all these oral surgeries is that they wrap you in a very comfy blanket and they dope you up with something that feels awfully nice before you zonk out. So there we were, in predawn hours, me waiting for that blanket and that nice doped up state when the surgeon asks me -- how come your sinuses are so full?
Well, they've been tilting toward full since the pandemic started. Maybe longer. Maybe like decades longer. I don't know. Usually I can be accused of making mountains of small symptoms so I try hard to ignore stuff that doesn't really interfere with life. Full sinuses do not really interfere with life. They just lead me to take Covid tests a lot because I never know if it's sinuses or you know, The Big One.
Anyway, he says I should see someone about the sinuses before he chops them up. Why? Because if we proceed without an ENT okay, he may be accused of making things worse. Not that he would, he assures me, but these ENT people, they like to point fingers at oral surgeons.
Well fine, but that means that my five phase dental job has just earned itself two extra phases, belonging to an ENT doc. And more importantly, I wasted a good KN95 for Ed, who, it turns out, did not need to take me, and did not, therefore, need to wear it. Perhaps I did not mention this, but my guilt over purchasing so many cloth masks has made me extra strict and downright stingy in acquiring disposable ones. Each one is, therefore, precious. And now we're down by two. (I wore one as well of course.)
Back at the farmette...
... breakfast is solo because it was either that or having Ed join me with his computer and Zoom call. I thought that was okay for a one shot deal a few weeks ago, but listening to them speculate about the twists and turns needed to place a machine on slabs of granite just isn't great fun the second time around.
I was supposed to be "resting all day," so I had nothing planned but of course, there is suddenly nothing to rest from, so I (reluctantly) planted a few Fritillaria Imperialis Lutea and a couple of Narcissus Le Torch bulbs and then settled in for a Zoom chat with my friend across the ocean.
I could have used the remainder of the day to write something. It would be really cool to get back to my second great writing project, but unfortunately, being away from it for a couple of weeks makes me realize that I like the sentences enough, but I don't like the story at all. Meaning the forest sucks even if the trees are agreeable enough. That's not good.
Maybe with the new year I can resolve to do better. Isn't that what New Years are for? To resolve?
In the meantime I light my candle and sip my tea and bring back concepts I'd abandoned last March already -- concepts such as hygge and cozy, and I bring out socks that have a bit of wool in them. For the days ahead.
