But what about yard sale season?

On the topic of What do you do with all your spare time? Louise writes off the top, “This is what I can’t decide: -Whether I don’t have any spare time at all, or whether most of my time is spare time.”

Finding a bread recipe for which I have all the tools and ingredients took a bit of searching. No bread stone, stand mixer or even metal loaf pan at my disposal, I’m trying this one and using the dual cast iron alternative method because I also don’t have a dutch over. I’m suddenly craving yard sale season.

Last season I was moving into the apartment I am in now and I needed trash recycling cans. I was working full-time at that point so I went to Bed Bath & Beyond and struggled with the decision between the $50 single canister or the dual auto-opening $200 can for 15-20 minutes when I came to my senses and bought the $50 one. I carried that still relatively expensive trashcan around in my car for a good week, feeling not quite right about the purchase. Ahhhh… wait. I’m out $50 bucks and I still need another trash can? Then I remembered that yard sale season was approaching and I brought that trashcan back. .

It was a particularly magical spring. I devoted a wholeSaturday to the activity of finding trashcans and other things, did the mapping and everything and then I hit the motherhood- an entire subdivision of sales! Turns out it was an annual thing; they had a banner! I walked past house after house of friendly families and elderly home-girls, appliances and clothes, tools and sporting equipment, sun on my face, all for far below retail value, gently USED stuff! I had a full dopamine release, a feeling akin to orgasm, my legs got weak and I had to sit on a curb. I ended up with a nice tall white can for $3.00 another small stainless one, almost identical to the one at BB&B for $5.00 which I haggled down to $4.00 (on principle.) Im not going to pay $5.00 for a trashcan at a yard sale, common.

Its hard to tell how this pandemic will effect the yard, garage, rummage sale biz… will people be de-cluttering and cleaning or ware they finally using all of the stuff they never had time to for before, like Norwegian whisks and proofing baskets?

Louise goes on to say that since she enjoys everything she does, aside from cooking, and because it is all necessary to survival, “there is no demarcation between work and play.” Then she writes at greater length about smelting, or the process of catching very small sardine-like-fish with a short running season, at much greater length than she discusses giving birth. The bread came out just fine, a mere morning of light work between writing this and doing poorly at my boundaries by listening to the news and texting friends. Basically anything that is not looking for ways to make income or temporary relief from unemployment is considered spare time for me and like Louise I enjoy it all, most especially the cooking. I’m going to get to the whole income thing right after I finish detailing all my shoes and watching my favorite Vermont Hippie Mom friend make cookies on google chat.

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Boundaries and Bread

Because yesterday I completely descended mentally, I decided its time for some boundaries- not always easy for me. For example, my cats go wherever it pleases them. “Are you supposed to be up here?” friends will ask them (me) as the cats sniff around the bar top and our dinner. Thats my cue to pretend as if they are behaving badly and help them down, only for them to hop right back up because they don’t actually know any better. I give my friends that, “what are you gonna do? look how cute they are!” shrug and we resign ourselves to watching carefully for cat hair in our chili.

I think it is important to have more time carved out for peace than pandemonium on the day to day. My work will be closed for the next four weeks at least and that means I am asking myself what I think most service industry people are right now- do I trust our government systems to come through while I learn to bake bread or do I go work for Amazon? Since I’ve always aired on the side of the soul, I’ll likely choose the former and go ahead and set the dough to rise. But this also means a ramping up of responsibility, structure and self-discipline. To start I’m giving myself an 8 hour span to engage with the world and then putting my phone on do not disturb for the rest of the day and night, exception given to those contacts I’ve labeled favorites. This morning my mind has been more like the cats on the counters, pacing my text and Facebook messages for attention, so its gonna take some work.

After the Camp Fire in Paradise, CA my aunt, who lives in the town just down the hill, described how the valley was dark with smoke for days. The entire town walked around in a state of shock. The past week has felt a little like that. As the reality that this is going to last longer than we could have thought sets in, I notice myself and others reaching past their immediate and closest contacts to the next layer of friends and acquaintances, like feeling in the dark to see where evertone is at. “You guys ok?!” What I notice is that for the most part, those people who I already respected are falling into the flatten-the-curve camp, and are staying away from most people, gatherings or public places except to get necessary supplies. I admit I took longer to come to this than I feel good about, but everyday feels different and vastly consequential. If I were to graph my respect for the individuals and establishments which continue to carry on willy nilly, beep bobbin around like little kids with fingers in their ears, it would look like the graph of confirmed coronavirus cases, only inverted and dropping exponentially each day. Out of respect for myself and those doing the difficult thing, despite financial fears, discomfort and mental health concerns, I’m not hanging with those fools.

Back on track and on the topic of my current read, “We took to the Woods.” The chapters are more like parts, and are structured as common questions, which I rather like as a clever strategy for organizing a book of this kind. In part five, Louise breezes through motherhood and birth in mere 13 pages, titled Aren’t the children a problem? With an attitude about the whole rigmarole I find refreshing, she writes “Nothing is more tiresome than another woman’s pregnancy,” and then goes on about how misery comes from other people passing on their poor experiences and that by living without those influences she, “had a very pleasant pregnancy, thank you.” She gives birth 3 weeks early on a cold December night in their home after a day of ice-sliding. Her husbands face, so full of worry, calms her and she tells him to heat up water for no reason other than to keep him busy. He comes back into the room after five minutes she says “to find himself a father. … that early, primitive responsibility that devolved upon Ralph toward Rufus left its mark… Ralph can’t think of himself only as the guy who buys Rufus’ food and clothes and administers spankings. Fundamentally he is always the guy who tied his cord and greased him, when there was no one else to do it.” She effectively transfers a fair share of the responsibility parenthood to her husband from there on out in a way that feminists everywhere could find envious and frees herself up for 33 pages in part six, titled, What do you do with all your spare time? A relevant question for us right now, wouldn’t you say? Comment below. Its quarantine Thursday and I’m attempting bread.

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