Very good Friday

What a very good Friday I had yesterday.

A nice long walk (and talk in person!) with Joe and Lexi, continuing my introduction to the largest park on the island. (I’d never set foot in it before my first walk there with Joe a couple of weeks ago. It had a reputation for the ease with which one could get lost, so I  had avoided it. Unbeknownst to me some effort was made a few years ago to improve the signage and it is now relatively easy to navigate.)

Going out on these walks with Joe and his lovely Labrador adds weight to my suspicion that it would probably be a very good thing for me to have a dog in my life. Not only would a dog force me to go out for walks and thus improve my sloth-like lifestyle, a dog would also stare at me with utter devotion and love. A dog is, however, absolutely not on the cards while Stella is with me. She’s never forgiven me for bringing Roxie, another cat, into the house for a few years. I cannot imagine what would happen if a dog was introduced into the equation. So for now it’s walks with dog owner friends.

After Joe and I parted company I went to the home of another friend in order to drop off some film for him to edit. He and his wife and I had an entertaining, safely physically-distant half hour chat. As if simply talking to other human beings in person wasn’t enough excitement, he sent me off with one of the sourdough hot cross buns he’d baked earlier in the day.

Brief change of subject.

As I said on Facebook earlier in the day, it turns out there is something as annoying as toilet paper hoarders: frigging pandemic bakers. There is no flour to be had in the shop. What the fuck? I know they’re trapped indoors, but can’t these people just pick up their kid’s crayons and draw a fucking picture? Why do they all have to suddenly start baking? At least there are alternatives to toilet paper if things get desperate. The novels of Ayn Rand spring to mind. (Not that I have any of her novels, but you get my drift.) There is no alternative to flour when you want to make a loaf of bread. If I end up having to buy bread for the first time in years, someone is going to have to pay. (I’m not quite sure who or how, but someone will pay.)

Anyway, the hot cross bun with a cup of tea when I got home was a wonderful treat.

But the excitement wasn’t over yet. After visiting Ray I stopped by my favourite island restaurant, which is trying to keep afloat with takeout and delivery. An email to one of the owners early in the day had confirmed something I was hoping to hear: there are no mushrooms in their frozen lasagna. (You can never be too careful, Fucking fungus sneaks in everywhere.) Before purchasing one of these frozen lasagnas (which will easily provide me with three meals) I chat to the two owners for at least ten minutes.

That’s right, folks. Five actual human beings in one day. Five. I haven’t seen that many people in one day since a month ago (feels a lot longer) when the Bad Girls Book Club decided to risk their lives by getting together to discuss that month’s novel. Ironically, said novel was Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, which tells the stories of a disparate band of survivors of a global pandemic.

Five human beings in one day. I’m sneaking out this afternoon to go for a walk with another one. Sadly, two of my favourite places on the island are not options, as these are provincial parks and they’ve just been closed to the public.

Washing the windows can wait until tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.