This week has been a bit tough. It’s usually the best week of our summer holidays, as we celebrate both my husband and my step-daughter’s birthdays. We are normally traveling somewhere fun and doing extra special things to mark the birthdays. Last year, we were in Hawaii, and this year, we were supposed to be in Orlando. Also, my stepdaughter is turning thirteen, so it’s a big birthday.
I feel grateful that we are all healthy and that the adults are employed. We are much luckier than many. This acknowledged, it is difficult that we had to cancel our vacation, especially since we have not seen the kids since last summer. We feel that our London trip in the fall has about a 50/50 chance of happening, so that’s also tough. We miss the kids.
In honor of past vacations, I want to share one of my favorite family vacation photos from our Walt Disney World trip in 2016.
We have been celebrating Dan’s birthday, which was on Tuesday. Last Saturday, I took him to dinner at The Melting Pot. We felt very safe there, as the restaurant is huge, and they very much spaced out the guests. We had a alcove to ourselves, which was not only private, but very romantic!
Here is a picture that we took as we were heading to dinner.
And a few at dinner. We did have masks on at all times, except while eating.
I planned The Melting Pot for Saturday night, because I thought that it would be too much to enjoy on a work night, but on Dan’s actual birthday, it seemed sad not to go out, so we went to Carboy Winery. Carboy Winery is very strict with their mask/social distancing poiicy, plus they have awesome wine-slushies, so we like to support them. They are one of my favorite local discoveries.
The birthday fun continued as we received a surprise dual-birthday ( mine is in early August) surprise from my mom’s best friend, Nancy. I had told her about holding the chicken at the farm last week and how I wished our local community allowed pet chickens, so she sent us a pair. In her card, she told us their names are Bertha and Ernesta. Yes, one is missing a beak.
I love them so much. They’ve been given a place of honor on the curio cabinet, right behind our Ukulele from Hawaii!
Besides feeling down about the vacations, I’ve been feeling confused and frustrated. I have a close friend, someone whom I care very much about, who is deep into conspiracy theories regarding covid. She shares news stories that often get labeled as false or misleading by Facebook. Breitbart stuff. I disagree with her, but I also care about her.
I’m conflicted. I feel like I should say something, because I think what she posts are harmful ,and it makes me even more worried to see others agreeing with her. However, I’m not sure how to approach her, as I know she is sincere in her beliefs and they are her truth. I see conspiracy theory and she sees rock-solid evidence. What to do? If I lived closer and could see her, I’d have a conversation. A phone call would have the same tone, where you can really feel the vibe of the situation. I’ve felt compelled to respond to her Facebook threads, but I think it would come off as antagonistic or unkind. I feel angry about it though. My tolerance for anti-mask, “covid isn’t a big deal” talk is gone, but I’m left not knowing what to do with people I love who persist with this.
In writing news, I didn’t advance to the final round of the NYC Midnight Microfiction contest. I was disappointed, but I understood. My round-two piece wasn’t great.
Instead of writing, I began my new ELS Tutoring Youtube Channel: A to Z with Zora G. It’s still very rough, but I’m going to keep working on it. Dan has been a huge help!
In health news, I found out that my health scare from a few weeks ago, was nothing to worry about. This is a huge relief! HUGE!!!
We finished watching The imagineering Story documentary on Disney Plus. It’s great and helped fill the void of missing the theme parks. We also watched the latest Charlize Theron Film, The Old Guard. The Old Guard is fantasy movie about immortals. I wasn’t sure about it for the first fifteen minutes, the premise seemed silly, but then it had me hooked. Plus, I really like Theron.
We had a few amazing sunsets.
Dan took this picture of me in our nearby field.
And finally, cute cat pictures from this week. Slinky was trying to sit on my lap while I was trying to write.
