Today I took a short drive to a beautiful trail. It had legal street parking, was only ten minutes from my apartment, and there were wide, relatively level trails that were totally appropriate for a toddler wearing a leash-backpack.
It was absolutely beautiful. The weather was cool and the air was crisp and delicious. The redwoods and huckleberry surrounded us and it was basically my dream come true.
Not so for little Lulu, who seemed to completely loathe the experience. I brought Cheerios, water with a silicone straw sippy cup (the kind that are a real big pain in the ass to clean). I didn’t try to force her into a carrier or a stroller. We brought Meow-Meow (a leopard lovey that Emmylou calls Meow, but pronounces like “Mao"). All that in my bag of tricks, I didn’t have anything else. She cried most of the time, made me carry her half the time, and wailed on the drive home. Life is rarely about getting what you want, especially if you are a parent, or a child.
Sorry, no photos were captured in that glorious redwood setting.
During the last disaster that had me stocking emergency supplies (California wildfire season of 2019) I swore I would stop buying so much food at once. I’d buy more canned goods here and there to slowly stock emergency supplies, but for regular groceries, my new goal was to shop more like I had one of those mini fridges that are common in European apartments.
It would reduce food waste in regular circumstances (you can’t cook or eat what’s hiding behind the cilantro and beer), and during a planned power outage during wildfire seasons (we were cautioned that last year’s planned outages would be repeated in the future).
The current ongoing crisis has forced me to do the opposite. Instead of buying $12-$20 of groceries every day or so, I’m buying $200 of groceries every week or two. Limiting our trips out, knowing the risk of exposure, time to wait in lines, and likelihood of empty shelves in certain sections.
I feel jarred and a bit embarrassed when I grab an item, and return to my cart—my instinct says “whoops! that’s a stranger’s cart! You’ve never had a full-sized shopping cart overflowing! Oh wait, no, that’s mine…”
I’m still concerned this will lead to food and financial waste, which seems especially criminal now. So now, I do a fridge clean and reorg more often, and I have to admit: we eat a lot of eggs and string cheese in this house.
