Boomer in a box

BPRIME SEASON oomer

in abox

I’m a senior citizen who quite happily lives alone in a very small cottage near the ocean. My income is fixed, my needs are few, and I try to live sustainably and cheerfully. Sometimes I grow vegetables, but this year I’m working on expanding my bee-and-butterfly gardens. I’m vegan (although I will eat fish),

Eliz abeth

Morse Read I don’t own a cellphone, and I wear one of those nifty Life Alert pendants in case I get lost in my backyard.

No matter the weather, I spend my days moving at my own COVID -19: theall-purposeexcuse pace, hopping back and forth from cooking to writing articles Okay, I’ve gotten used to not being able to find toilet paper, to reading Nordic Noir mysteries to calling my friends to hand sanitizer or Clorox wipes, but why can’t I find things like binge-watching CNN. I drive a 2006 Hyundai with 36,000 miles bulbs of garlic, pipe cleaners, or tofu? Who on earth is hoarding on it, and never leave my house in the early morning without a all the tofu? When I ask what the problem is, I’m told, “All the detailed shopping list. Then I come home and take a nap. shipments are screwed up due to COVID-19.”

So when the curtains suddenly dropped on “normal” life with So, instead of leaving my house to shop quickly at one store, the stay-at-home order, I didn’t see where it would really change I end up doing the bar-hopping version, going from one store my daily rhythms all that much, seeing as I already lived like a to another, trying to find what I need. And, for someone who hermit. But a funny thing happened along the way… recycles religiously, I’m suddenly drowning in plastic bags and

Ho topreventyour glassesfrom foggingup

Wet both sides of your eyeglass lenses with warm water, then put a small dab of dishwashing liquid on your finger. Work up a little lather on all four sides of the lenses, then rinse thoroughly. Vigorously shake off the excess water – do not wipe dry with a towel – and let them air-dry. When you put on your mask, make sure that your eyeglasses are sitting on top of the fabric, even if it means pushing them closer to the tip of your nose than you normally wear them. Try not to mouth-breathe.

can’t find anywhere to get rid of them. (Although I did find a use for those flimsy plastic produce bags – wrap your hand inside one when you have to use an ATM or P-O-P touchscreen.)

Yes, I’ve resorted to purchasing more and more online, but invariably I get alerts that delivery will be indefinitely delayed “due to COVID-19.” (Why don’t they warn you of that before you hit the send button?) And why have so many of my masks and gloves orders gotten “lost in the mail”?

Theysaynecessityis themotherofinvention – I’vecreatedsome interesting (thoughnot successful) substitutes forhard-to-finditems

They say necessity is the mother of invention – I’ve created some interesting (though not successful nor recommended) substitutes for hard-to-find items. For instance, I read that you can mix aloe gel and 70% alcohol to make hand sanitizer. I couldn’t find either, so I bought some Banana Boat “after-sun lotion with aloe” and a bottle of 100-proof vodka. (100 is higher than 70, right?) I couldn’t find surgical gloves, so I bought cotton gardening gloves. Of course, I didn’t plan on them shrinking to half their size after going through the washer and dryer, so now I look like I have claws instead of fingers. (Try pulling out a credit card from your wallet gracefully while wearing those.)

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Peanutbutterbread Use only an all-natural peanut butter brand like Smucker’s (just peanuts and salt) instead of some gooped-up sugary brand like Skippy or Jif – your arteries will thank you. Creamy- or chunky-style peanut butter is up to you. You can add chocolate chips or M&Ms to the batter – just don’t put them on top. Preheat oven to 325. Grease a loaf pan with cooking spray. Whisk together: • 2 cups flour • ¼ cup sugar • 4 teaspoons baking powder • ½ teaspoon salt

Stir in 1 1/3 cup milk (and chocolate chips, if wanted) until blended, then ½ cup + 1 Tablespoon peanut butter. Use a spatula to spread it evenly in the loaf pan and bake for about an hour until top is crispy-looking.

Test with a knife – if it comes out wet or streaky, bake it for another ten minutes. If the knife comes out clean, tip the loaf onto a cookie rack and let it cool before slicing.

Seniorshopping hours

I appreciate that stores created special hours specifically for seniors, but something got lost in the planning. For instance, if the seniors-only shopping hours are 7 to 8:30, why doesn’t the pharmacy section open until 9? Or if the seniors-only shopping hours start at 5:30 a.m., didn’t anyone realize that many seniors can’t drive in the dark? And, as for those little arrows pasted to the floor telling me which direction I’m allowed to go – who are all those people coming at me from the wrong direction giving me the evil eye?

And will someone please explain how, if the stores really care about the health and safety of us seniors, there’s only one cash register open? All those oldies-but-goodies with bad knees and weak bladders are fidgeting in a jammed-up conga line, blocking traffic. They’re already hyperventilating behind their masks and fogged-up glasses (see sidebar), trying not to get herded over to the self-checkout section.

Pan(dem)icattacks

My forays out of the house these days start with a suiting-up ritual worthy of a moonwalk. I have to wear a jacket over my zip-up hoodie, not because it’s cold outside, but because I need four pockets to carry my new arsenal. But sometimes I forget that these aren’t normal times, and I’ll suddenly look around madly in the parking lot, mumbling, “Where’s my pocketbook?”

MyNe Year’s resolution as toloseten pounds. Thankstothestay-athomeorder, I only have 26 poundstogo

(And why do some people use the handicap parking spots to stow their empty carts?)

Even scarier has been waking up in the morning, not having the foggiest idea what day it is or what I did the day before, or else rummaging through the random piles of half-finished projects and mystery purchases all over the house, wondering exactly what I was trying to fix, do, cook, or build. Ah, yes – the museum putty was to stabilize those framed pictures that always tilt sideways when I slam the door. Oh, right – the bag of lemons was to finally clean my 30-year-old Revere copper-bottom pans. The jug of white vinegar was for decalcifying my coffee maker. The badminton net will supposedly hold up the honeysuckles I planted. And the alcohol swabs and Q-tips were for finally cleaning my TV remote.

Anti-depression recipes

My New Year’s resolution was to lose ten pounds. Thanks to the stay-at-home order, I only have 26 pounds to go. I’ve been cooking nonstop, leaving ready-to-eat casseroles for friends who, between working and/or home-schooling, don’t have much time to cook. But I’ve also been making casseroles for myself, rationalizing that it would go to waste if I didn’t finish it all in one day. I’ve even tried to recreate childhood comfort foods like finnan haddie (a few drops of Liquid Smoke does the trick), vegan BLTs with carrot bacon, and pot pies of leftover veggies and Beyond Meat crumbles topped with Bisquik.

But the stay-at-home order was an excuse for me to, once again, try to learn how to bake. (Ask my kids – I cannot bake anything, even if it comes pre-mixed.) Anyhow, I somehow ended up watching a Canadian cooking show on YouTube – a Depression

era recipe for peanut butter bread (see sidebar). Sounded pretty easy, but then I had one of my I Love Lucy moments – Oooo! Oooo! My best friend loves Reese’s peanut butter cups, so why not sprinkle chocolate chips on top of the dough? As a nonbaker, I envisioned the chips melting, coating the crust with a thin glaze of chocolate. Much to my surprise, they didn’t, but when I tipped the bread out of the loaf pan onto my bare hand, I discovered that the chocolate chips had turned into molten lava.

Anti-socialdistancing andotheroddities

Times of stress often bring out the best in people, but sometimes they bring out their inherent weirdness. Like the woman who, when asked why she and her friends were not practicing social distancing, replied, “Well, six feet means different things to different people.” Our commander-in-chief is hawking Clorox cocktails, endoscopic light shows, and fish-tank chemicals, claiming he inherited his scientific genius from his Uncle John who taught at MIT during WWII. I’ve seen adults throwing foulmouthed tantrums (or shooting people) because they have to wear a mask in public. (I wonder if their children wear seatbelts or bike helmets.)

Some people have burned down 5G cell phone towers because they’d read online that they spread the virus. California’s first case of Covid-19 was traced back to a nail salon, yet one of the first businesses the state of Georgia let reopen was nail salons.

Other things that I’ve noticed lately – seniors don’t yap on their cell phones incessantly the way some people do. Nobody looks friendly in a mask. Most people I see badly need a haircut or a root touch-up. Gas is cheap, but there’s nowhere to go. I haven’t seen a school bus or a New York license plate in a long time. And try finding a notary public when you need one.

I’ve also noticed that meat is in short supply and the cost of groceries has shot up. Long lines of upscale cars are lined up for food donations; meanwhile, farmers have had to euthanize hogs and chickens, destroy their crops and pour milk down the drain because they can’t get them to market.

Wait a minute – wasn’t it just last year that I.C.E. was raiding meat-processing plants and herding up “removable aliens,” but now those removable (i.e., deportable) aliens are considered “essential workers” and have been forced to go back to work? Go figure.

Quesera, sera.

I have vague memories of the polio epidemic when I was very young. I remember my grandmother showing me a photograph of her only brother, who had stayed behind in the old country, only to die of the Spanish flu. My mother survived a bout of “the sleeping sickness” (encephalitis) as a small child, but one of her friends died of tuberculosis a few years later. In graduate school, I studied the Middle Ages and learned way too much about the Black Death. I moved to New York City just before the AIDS epidemic erupted.

This, too, shall pass. Do whatever’s necessary to stay safe and healthy, and try to find something to smile, shrug or roll your eyes about every day. Pick up the phone and make a friend laugh – their life has been turned upside down, too.

ElizabethMorseRead is an award-winning writer, editor and artist who grew up on the South Coast. After 20 years of working in New York City and traveling the world, she came back home with her children and lives in Fairhaven.

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