Ponderings and Musings

This COVID-19 pandemic has given us the opportunity to slow down and reflect on our own priorities. I know I’ve been much more reflective and there are some aspects of pandemic life that I’m actually enjoying. We eat at home more, we’re spending more time together, I cherish family time, and I’ve been in more consistent contact with my family back East.

This readjustment of life has also given me a better perspective of life in Chicago. Is The Windy City as appealing when everything is closed down? Are summers as memorable when there’s no street fairs, no block parties, or no rides on a boat on the Lake?

Life is what you make of it.

I’m not willing to risk my health or the health of my family just to sit in a corner pub to eat some grub and have some drinks. I value my life, and the life of those I love, more than that. Yes, I would be happy if my husband would finally get a haircut, but I don’t want him to contract Coronavirus just to have shorter hair. We’ll get through and maybe one of these days he’ll actually let me near his head with my Oster 76 clippers.

I don’t like seeing my airline pilots friend out of work. It breaks my heart. But I have to admit I’m not sad about less pollution in the air. Does everyone need to fly everywhere? It’s nice to travel to far off places but in most cases it’s not necessary.

Maybe if we start seeing this pandemic as an opportunity to slow down and take stock of our priorities we’ll find some good and learn something along the way.

I know this experience has changed me. If anything, I hope it’s made me a better person.

There are people working everyday at the local elementary school. For the past 60+ days I’ve noticed March events on the marquee. I guess they’re too busy cleaning the building to share well wishes or even a blank message on the sign.

The lingering messages of events in March are a reminder of what was and what is now.

My favorite scent of the season is the scent of lilac. Dark purple, light purple, white, doesn’t matter, lilac is a glorious scent that makes me feel centered and happy.

Grandma City had several lilac bushes along the back fence of her backyard back in the day. I wonder if the lilac bushes are still there. Every spring she’d cut a couple of flowers and have them in a vase on the kitchen table. The scent was wonderful in the carpeted kitchen. She took a couple of shoots of one of the bushes and planted them near our mobile home in the early 1970s. It grew slowly but sturdily and would have a couple of flowers for the rest of the springs we lived on that lot. I missed the scent of those lilacs when we moved across the street to the new house. Curiously, we had no lilacs at the new house. I always wondered if there was just too much sand in the soil. We lived over what had once been Lake Ontario thousands of years ago. There were sand dunes not too far from our little village, even though the shore of Lake Ontario was seven miles to the west.

When my husband and I moved into our first house together in 1997 I was happy to see there were lilac bushes along the back deck. When we had new landscaping installed a couple of years later the lilac bushes all stayed; the new landscaping was designed around the lilacs. Over the years a couple of smaller bushes started popping up in the vicinity of the older bushes. We took one of them with us to the new house in 2003. When we moved to Chicago in 2017, the relocated lilac bush was tall and strong and doing quite well. I hope it’s still there.

There are a few lilac bushes along the sidewalks in our neighborhood. At this time of year I stop and smell them during my morning walk. I think of Grandma City. I can hear her saying, “Hi, John”, in her Grandma City voice.

It all makes me smile.

Last night was the series finale of ABC’s “How To Get Away With Murder”. No spoilers here; so you don’t have to worry about the content of this blog post.

My husband and I have watched the series since day one and while some of the storylines have been a little out there and there has been some unevenness along the way, particularly with the last one or two seasons, Viola Davis is a powerhouse and for the most part the supporting cast has been strong.

With the series finale I know I’m a little sad to see the story come to an end but they wrapped everything up well and didn’t take any last minute wild detours to try to close everything up with a pretty bow. In the series’ universe little of the finale felt contrived.

I particularly enjoyed the addition of Amirah Vann to the cast a couple of seasons ago and I always enjoyed her scenes. While a completely different experience, I feel the same way I felt when “Downton Abbey” came to an end, satisfied with the ending, hopeful for a movie someday, and sad that our regular viewing has come to an end.

I’ve spent much of the evening doing research for my ultra-geek website, The Vintage Point of Sale site. Tonight I concentrated on the systems at the long defunct department Store, Zayre. Or, maybe it was spelled *Zayre. Either way, I’m pretty sure *Zayre was using the asterisk long before Wal*mart, which is now *Walmart.

As I browsed through some old *Zayre commercials, I remembered that back in the day they were the stand-out discount department store at the holidays because they were (gasp) open 24 hours a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Unheard of in the 1980s!

I know everything is open all ways all the time these days, but back in the 1980s *Zayre would feature these “60 Hour Sales” during the holidays, where everything was specially marked for 60 hours straight, morning to night and back to morning again.

I shopped at *Zayre in the middle of the night during the 1986 Christmas holiday shopping season simply because I was in college and I could. It was around 3:00 a.m. and there were quite a few people in the brand new store in Dunkirk, New York. There was a little bit of a kicker though; you couldn’t check out for about an hour in the middle of the night because the cash register system was doing its close of day. So the staff invited you to browse the specials while they moved the date up a notch.

I don’t think I’d want to walk into a *Walmart in the wee hours of the morning in the 21st century, but back in the day shopping at *Zayre in the middle of the night was kind of nifty.

Ah, simpler times.

I haven’t ridden the train in over two months. This is highly unusual but to be expected with this whole pandemic thing going on. On my daily walk this morning it suddenly hit me, I miss silently observing people and watching the world go by.

It’s difficult to sit and observe people when everyone is trying to avoid one another and/or have masks covering their face. I thoroughly enjoy watching people just go about their business. I learn from people and I learn to appreciate people. Two months into these lockdowns and I’m realizing this may be the hardest thing I’m dealing with, not being able to watch people as easily as I’d like to.

Being around people, but not necessarily interacting with them, is what keeps my introverted self happy. Many think of introverts as folks curled up in a corner reading a book. That’s definitely something I enjoy. But I’m probably happier when I’m alone in a crowded room. Let me sit on the sidelines and watch people be people.

People are fascinating. Yeah, lately they’ve been rather irritating, but for the most part, people are fascinating. I’m almost always impressed in some way with a person.

I look forward to the day when we’re all able to be in relatively the same space again. It’ll be nice to watch the world go by again.

I’ve been doing a lot of walking during these pandemic times. It looked like a gorgeous day today but it was very cold for this time of year. I don’t think it got above 40ºF today. We are under a freeze warning for tonight.

I’ve been admiring these tulips across the street for past couple of days. They bring a smile to my face. I’m thankful our neighbor has taken the time to cultivate them.

I hope the tulips survive the freeze. I hope I do as well.

Before the quarantine we used to enjoy eating brunch at one of the many places we have nearby here in Chicago. The Windy City is a pretty brunch-centric place and many of the restaurants offered a wonderful spin on the experience. It was an experience I would look forward to.

After six(?) weeks of quarantine and all sit-down restaurants being closed, I’m finding I enjoy weekend brunch at home more than the dining out experience. Now, I’m quite lucky because I’m married to a man who definitely knows his way around the kitchen, so perhaps my perception is a bit biased.

This got me to thinking; after the COVID-19 pandemic is part of history and no longer part of the present, what lessons will we learn from this experience? I’d like to think we’d be a little more caring as a society. Perhaps we won’t be as eager to be on the run trying to do the latest and greatest thing all the time. Will we have learned to ramp back the pacing just a bit?

Judging by the number of people storming capital buildings to demand businesses open up so they can get a haircut or a manicure, I don’t think the U.S. will change all that much in the greater scheme of things. Other parts of the world may adapt, may slow down, may appreciate what they have right at home, but too many people in the U.S. seem to thrive at a frenetic pace, hence the frenzy of folks protesting safety precautions.

I’m going to concentrate on slowing down a little bit and most importantly, finding ways to better connect with the Universe again. If these grand thoughts are a result of skipping an overpriced brunch at an eatery, so be it.

Any start is a great start.

The view from our condo on the north side of Chicago gives me the opportunity to see flights on approach to both O’Hare and Midway Airports. The night view is especially compelling; I can easily see flights on approach to Midway. However, the skies over Chicago have been noticeably quiet since the Coronavirus concerns began. Midway doesn’t seem to have much night traffic at all and the flight going into O’Hare have no need to get in line over Lake Michigan, so they’re using closer fixes to the airport to make their final approach.

It’s interesting, but it’s sad at the same time. It’s a sign of the times.

We are on the front line of history right now. Generations to come will read about what we’re doing right now. How did we respond to the pandemic of 2020?

I know what I want history books to say. I fear not enough people think the way I do.

Boy, I sure miss watching the regular flights in Midway and O’Hare.