Wrangle Those Shots Friday Round-Up

Baby and her mama are going home in a few days. It’s time but we will miss them. It is something to have a newborn in your house – like an extended Christmas, where you carry around that feeling of specialness to places like the 7 Eleven and the diner down the street where the same omelet you ate last week is suddenly festive and glowing. I say this not being a baby person or even a child person anymore but I do love my people whatever their size and I’m glad this little one got her start in our old house where her mom’s footprints are embedded in the kitchen linoleum.

I got a haircut today and no longer look like Steve Bannon. Graysin, the stylist, said he likes it when I come in because he can listen to music and zone out on my hair since conversation with me is impossible with my hearing devices removed. I watch every snip. His concentration is hypnotic and I find that watching him is the first time I’ve relaxed in weeks. He also has fascinating tatoos on the inside of his arms which I see when he reaches across my face to trim an errant strand. I am quite taken with Graysin, which he understands and plays, but ever so sweetly.

The organization I work with, Street Angels, is planning to open a warming room for homeless people in November that will be open through the winter. This will happen in the basement of a church and the people will be in individual tents where they will rest and have their dinner delivered and not venture out until morning. This is because of Covid, the risk of which is giving us all deep, persistent stomach knots. The two options – leaving people outside with tents and layers of blankets or bringing them inside where they will be warm but essentially quarantined – has tangled us up for weeks. We are pressing on but it is worrisome in the extreme.

When I see the feathery marks of a mouse on the butter left out by mistake on the counter next to the coffee pot, I toss the butter and pretend I never saw the marks. This behavior comes out of a well-honed ability to compartmentalize and deny. Mouse? What mouse? If I saw a mouse looking me in the eye, I’d take action. Until then, just better to cover the butter and look the other way.

I have two arms aching. One arms aches from a Covid booster and the other from a flu shot. I am one lucky Buckaroo.