David, I'm so sorry about your friend.

Monday was laundry day when I was wee. My mom made up a batch of liquid starch and dipped and hand-wrung my dad's work uniforms, then pulled the pants onto pants stretchers and hung them on the line on the back porch. The shirts she laid out on the kitchen table one by one, folded them and then rolled them up and stacked them in a plastic bag and stored the bag in the fridge--a little logpile of work shirts. Tuesday was ironing day, and she set up the board in front of the little kitchen tv and watched her game shows and stories while she ironed my dad's dress shirts, her cotton blouses and shirtwaist dresses, and my cotton dresses with the sashes that tied in the back. She got all the fine clothes done before pulling one rolled starched shirt out of the bag in the fridge and ironing it and hanging it on a wire hanger. The starched-stiff pants and shirts, when dry, hung just inside the door of the utility closet where he could reach them and dress for work in the morning.

When that was done, I got a spray bottle of water, the board lowered, and the basket of my parents' handkerchiefs, plus the week's dish towels and pillowcases to iron. It was actually kind of fun when I got into the rythym, and making things smooth where they had been wrinkled was nice. But we never ironed sheets.

Hec, I'm so sorry to hear about Todd.

TBH, I have thought about ironing our top sheets--the part where it folds over the blanket, closest to the pillows, gets horribly creased and it bugs me. Sadly (or maybe luckily), we don't have an ironing board. Before my dad's house burned down, I loved using his board, which had an extra fold-out smaller board for sleeves, cuffs and collars, and a special light, and an on/off timer so you couldn't accidentally burn down the house (I ironed a lot of stuff, but of all the things that *might* have contributed to the fire the ironing was last on the list).

Beverly's laundry day with mom sounds exhausting but oddly satisfying.

Having had covid, shrift, I too recommend against it. But thank you so much for self-isolating, and if you need any local errands run while you're under super-lockdown, we're right in the neighborhood.

Yesterday I did a crapton of stuff around the house and collapsed into bed so completely that when I missed a message from my friend's mom whom I've been helping out since my friend died, her poor mom woke up at 6 this morning in a panic and hovered over her phone until 8 so she could call to make sure I was still alive. Which--her own daughter went to bed in the next room with what looked like an upset stomach and never woke up, so I can't blame her and I feel bad for making her worry.

But, Matilda and I went by today and checked on her to say hi and do some minor paperwork auditing of stuff from my dad's house that I've been storing in her spare room, and all is well again.

We also (barely) made it to church--11 attendees including us, but it was sweet and lovely. The helping-out pastor was celebrating his 35th anniversary since his ordination, and introduced to the rest of us two friends who had flown up from his longtime LA parish to celebrate with him, a guitarist and a soprano who played/sang The Prayer of Saint Francis and then Ave Maria (singer unmasked but both distanced, and outside). Ave Maria was sung twice, once in Tagalog (his first language) and once in Latin.

And the guitarist had a soft, light touch and the soprano had a soaring birdlike voice and it had been almost a year since I'd heard any live musicians at church (but the last time I'd heard the Prayer of St. Francis was when Nancy Pelosi quoted it during her press conference the day after the failed coup, because he's the beatnik hippie rebel patron saint of our City and his words are always solace), and so of course I cried and Matilda hugged me a bunch. Then our actual pastor, who got a morning off due to Anniversary Guy's anniversary, came out to greet everyone at a safe distance, and he and I talked about Hillary's memoir What Happened and trash-talked the fuck out of the current occupant, and I told him about the Kenyan news headline kat perez had found shouting WHO'S THE BANANA REPUBLIC NOW? (he's from Tanzania, which like every other nation in Africa has felt the weight of our scolding wagging finger) and he laughed and laughed and then looked abruptly sick.

It was ALSO the third birthday of Coco, the emotional support chihuahua one of the church ladies adopted a while ago after her sister died, and he basked in our copious praise and kisses for being such a big grown-up doggo while his human whispered to us (so as not to spoil the surprise, in case he was eavesdropping) that he'd be getting a birthday steak for dinner tonight.

Then we got coffee at a neighborhood coffeehouse, just to spend some money there, and saw my friend's mom, and then went to Goodwill, where I found an amazing completely reversible Adventure Time/Star Trek sundress that fits me! I almost suspect that this dress was in fact made by me, in some alternate timeline in which I have a whole crafting room with a working sewing machine, and it slipped through the timestream to here/now/thiswhen where I happened to find it. If that isn't how it came to be, I really need to track down whoever in this timeline made it and either adopt or be adopted by her.

In a little bit, Hec is firing up the DVD player so we can watch a Wes Anderson movie to close out the day, and that shall conclude the weekend. Please, everyone, stay well and alive and free of insurrection. Please?

Somehow this means that I'm MORE worried about getting Covid in the next couple days than I was in the previous 9 months. Brain, you are downright weird.

You’ve just seen too many cop movies.

I'm sorry about your friend, Hec. That's just awful.

JZ, that dress is amazing.

I fell asleep at 8p, so now I'm wide awake.

Theo, I'm so glad you're getting the vaccine. I think you're the first person I know who is.

I'm so very sorry, Hec, hugs to you all.

I’m sorry about your friend, David.

JZ, that sounds like a nice weekend.

My condolences, David.

Dana, Thank you for posting that.

David, I am so sorry about your friend.

That sounds like an amazing day, JZ.