Time for some limericks

 April 16 and it’s snowing like a banshee!  After a lame attempt at shovelling the heavy wet stuff, I returned to my new occupation—making masks.  My trusty Bernina sewing machine gave up the ghost and spent a few days in the sewing machine hospital before returning as good as new.  I have been given so many scraps of material that I will never be able to use them all. The donors seemed so happy to be rid of their scraps that I may have to find some new uses for these leftovers.

I have permission from my grandkids, now hanging out with their parents in Fort Collins, to share a bit of their at home recent creativity.

Abby is 26 and will attend graduate school at Columbia University to study Latin American language and culture this fall.

There once was a girl very fine

Who said, the future – it’s mine!

She applied to grad school

And felt quite the fool

It seems it will all be online!

Henry is 24 and coming down the home stretch majoring in oceanography and GIS at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He’s a food lover and made us a great dinner the other night.

There once was a man from the West

Who put his body to the test

He ate a whole pot of chili

Then felt rather silly

And decided he’d best get some rest. 

Mason is 22 and a junior at Middlebury College in Vermont majoring in Spanish and economics. He spent a semester in Chile and had planned to be in Cuba for spring but….

There was once was a young Matey-Moo

Who thought, one year abroad, I’ll make it through! 

In Chile he found 

He was mostly house-bound

And that is his current fate too. 

 There was an old lady who thought

 This virus may have been brought

To offer a lesson or two

About the best thing to do

When all of the world's so distraught.

Well I can't complete with these kids!

Here they are -photos from quite a while ago. Top to bottom: Mason, Abby , Henry

Waiting

11 a.m.,  Friday, April 3.

I feel the urge to write something—a blog?—but about what???

I’m weary of COVID-19 chatter, doomsday talk, and advice about how to stay sane while isolted.

I have watched some inspiring TED talks, especially J.K. Rowling’s Harvard commencement speech from 2011 touting the importance of failure and imagination, but enough is enough. I can only sit for so long.

I have hauled out my ancient sewing machine and stitched up 4 masks, none of them wholly successful, but all of them probably better than nothing.

I hate the idea, and feel, of wearing a mask. I hope that doesn’t mean I will find myself disobeying orders one of these days.

I have regrouted the tile in my shower. A nasty job. It looks better, but who cares?

I have nibbled at the edges of a writing project in hopes that one day I will figure out what I’m trying to say.

There’s a bit of snow on the ground, but the sun just came out and I’m outa here to move my body for an hour or so.

I’’ll be back. Maybe with a new insight.  Stay tuned.

12:10 p.m.

27 degrees, bright sun. It’s quiet out there in the world. A few walkers on the sidewalks. A few cars on the road. A few skiffs of snow in the process of melting.

The world seems to be in waiting for spring. Coming soon. We know that.

We’re waiting, too, for a new day to dawn. We’re just not quite sure when.