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Welcome to Auntie Inga’s Geriatric Curmudgeon Hour, pandemic version.
Anyone who has been reading my column for a while knows that I’m a sucker for those internet articles about how to make yourself look 20 pounds thinner (Photoshop?)
It occurred to me that one of the difficulties in these coronaviral times is that even people we think of as kindred souls have very different levels of comfort as to how much social distancing and disinfecting they require. It would be nice if there were a scale that would give people a score that they could just pass on to their friends and relatives so you wouldn’t have to go through this whole laborious “we’re doing this but we’re not doing that” dialog. As my contribution to pandemic living, I have created one.
I recently recounted the saga of the untimely crumping of our stove in March during a time when neither repair people nor appliance installers would set foot into your home because of the coronavirus.
February 2020 almost seems like a lifetime ago.
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I have to confess that I wasn’t initially all that worried about the coronavirus.
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A common question that I hear people pose is: “What’s going to be the new ‘normal’”?
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Our dog, Lily, is definitely an emotional-support animal, even if she doesn’t have a diploma.
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Pandemics have always been a part of my family story.
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Last year, I wrote about my husband, Olof, taking up sourdough bread making as a retirement project.
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Let me say up front that I am hardly a germophobe. (One look at my house would convince you.)
Latest
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La Jolla Presbyterian Church holds drink drive for homeless With public drinking fountains turned off and restrooms closed in La Jolla because of the coronavirus pandemic, La Jolla Presbyterian Church held a drive-through event July 27 to collect sports drinks it could distribute to homeless people.
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At the La Jolla Backyard Produce Exchange, neighbors get a chance to trade their homegrown fruits and vegetables with one another and in the process cultivate community spirit.
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Letters to the editor: If a building is rehabilitated so it doesn’t resemble the original, how is it ‘historical’?
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A La Jolla parish has raised $110,000 for a Puerto Rican group of nuns who have been showing grit during adversity, their building decimated by recent earthquakes.
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Swimming from The Marine Room down La Jolla Shores, I noticed recently that the stingrays are back, their petticoat frills kicking up sand as they scutter away from my looming shadow.
A journal of the COVID month: March 15: Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, all the public libraries are shutting down tomorrow until further notice.
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My last two columns have been about the early days of my relationship with my first husband, Fred. We divorced in 1983, and now that he is ailing (not COVID-19), we have found ourselves reconnecting on a more positive plane and reviewing our marriage with a different eye. I’m actually glad to have the opportunity. Marriage, I learned long ago, gives you not so much a helpmate as a scapegoat. I actually got my first exposure to this concept before I even married Fred, but I was too enamored of his handsome body, quick mind and potential earning power to pay attention.
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Last week I wrote about meeting my first husband, Fred, when I was in college and he was a student at Albert Einstein Medical School in the Bronx. After six months or so, he decided to risk introducing me to his parents even though they would be disappointed that I wasn’t the nice Jewish girl of their dreams. “Disappointed” may be a little bit of an understatement. The gist of that meeting, as I recall, was “Are you trying to kill your mother???”
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In the last year or so, I’ve been able to reconnect on a more positive basis with my first husband, “Fred,” from whom I’ve been divorced since 1983. He’s been ailing and I’m probably the only one around who remembers his parents, his family home in New Jersey, and certainly his medical school years at Albert Einstein in the Bronx. Pleasantville, New York, where I grew up, was exactly 22.8 miles from Albert Einstein, but the Bronx might as well have been in another galaxy.
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Every time I drive by 1590 Coast Walk — the ever-burgeoning behemoth at the juncture of Prospect and Torrey Pines Road — I can only conclude that La Jolla’s motto should be “Build it and you will get away with it.” Of course, I’ve come to the same conclusion over a number of projects built in my own neighborhood.
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Those who celebrated the Chinese New Year on Jan. 25 know that this is the Year of the Rat. I couldn’t help but reflect that in La Jolla, it is always the year of the rat. The little buggers really like it here. Qualities attributed to people born in the Year of the Rat (a 12-year Zodiac cycle) include intelligence, charm, ambition, quick wit and practicality. Good qualities all. If you were born in 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 198, 1996, 2008 — you were born in the Year of the Rat.
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I think every family has some classic lines that everyone remembers — including and especially the person who often regrets uttering them. Others are just shorthand for favorite family stories that can be resurrected with a single phrase. Here’s a few from our family.
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As anyone who has read my column for any length of time knows, I truly believe technology will be the death of me. Probably literally, when I can’t figure out how to call 9-1-1 on my cell phone as I’m having a heart attack. But I do have to admit that my iPhone has given me ways to interact with my young grandchildren that I wouldn’t have otherwise. “Interact” may be somewhat of an exaggeration in the case of the 4-year-old who has on occasion FaceTimed me eight times in a single day just so I’ll appear. As soon as I do, he chortles and hangs up. He just loves the power.
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I’ve long since given up on New Year’s Resolutions, but for years I’ve kept a somewhat varying list of 10 Rules to Live By. At the end of the year, I look at it and give myself a grade. Some stuff should just get dropped from the list because I get an “F” every time. But where it’s health-oriented, I feel morally obligated to at least pretend I’m going to do better next year.
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As a dog owner, it turns out there are worse things than your dog rolling in poop. And that’s your pet contracting a truly nasty bug or eating something in your yard that she really, really shouldn’t have, and inflicting massive intestinal mayhem all over your beds, furnishings and floors for two weeks.
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Welcome to Auntie Inga’s Curmudgeon Hour. Grab your preferred beverage and sit down while I whine again about why life has just gotten too perplexing for me. Recently, for example, I wanted to attend a fundraiser only to discover when I went to buy a ticket online that the only type of payment accepted was PayPal. I e-mailed the agency in charge of the fundraiser whose solution was that they would help me set up a PayPal account. This was not what I had in mind.
