Mental Sampler 21
Two “mental samplers” two weeks in a row? The virus is giving birth to small thoughts.
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I needed to take my car in for an oil change. At this point in the pandemic, I’ve learned that it’s best not to wait on things that could create more problems in the future. The devil I know (the pandemic today) is better than the devil I don’t know (the pandemic in the future). I didn’t want to damage the car by putting it off too long. So we made an appointment and a plan with the local garage.
I’m taking their word that they wore a mask in the car and wiped down the surfaces they touched afterward. But not taking any chances, I drove home with all windows open and then sprayed down the seats with Lysol fabric spray and wiped every surface with disinfectant. I couldn’t believe that I felt so stressed out about an oil change. I also never want to forget how stressed out I was about an oil change.
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For the first time… ever(?)… I have no paper library books in the house. I have digital books checked out, but we brought back all of the paper books we checked out before the pandemic. It felt very weird to return the final book through the slot. I had an irrational thought to try to stick my arm back through the slot and snatch one back.
We can’t enter the library to browse, but you can request books and do contact-less pick-up from outside the library. But we’re not going to do that for now. We’re sticking to paper books we own and digital library books.
The whole thing just made me feel sad. The library is such a huge part of my life, and it has been weird not to go inside for the last five months.
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One of my mint plants has given birth to a new baby mint plant. I have no clue how it happened because I didn’t root a cutting. It just spontaneously happened. The first day it poked its head out of the dirt, I had no clue what it was. But two days later, I realized that I was seeing tightly packed mint leaves, and now it’s growing at a rapid rate and looking like a normal mint plant. I love it. And a second one popped up its head a day ago, too.
What is new in your world?
7 comments
Our library has returned to “normal” service (which is not really normal, but I can go inside and get books and stuff). The surface issue does not really concern me too much, so I have less stress about it. I wonder if one of our cars is due for an oil change though – I had to take it for an emissions test in June and that was a little stressful. But we have places here where you can drive in and sit in your car while they change the oil. That may be on the agenda for next time. (I took the other car in March – it’s not due to go again for another 2000 miles.)
I bought a mint plant for an area behind my garden because I know it’s a spreader. We have lots of annoying weeds back there, but I though it could compete with the primrose and Columbine and Russian sage and the can choke out all the other weeds.
I’m wondering if I missed news about a tropical storm because it has been pouring rain and thundering and lightning for about 12 hours now, which is not typical for us this time of year.
Apparently now in NC it’s fine to have a hurricane, tornado, and earthquake in one week. 15 years of living here and there’s always more to learn.
As for books, I just keep on buying what our local indie bookstore recommends to me. I have a little luxury money, and that’s what it goes to.
I have had a couple of dozen visitors to my blog from yours recently, so thank you!
If I may ask, what is stopping you from using the curbside pickup from the library? Is it that the online catalog is hard to use? Would you prefer talking to a person, requesting books on the phone? Or are you concerned about what we are doing to make sure the books are ok to handle? I really want to know as we are trying our best to encourage patrons to use curbside pickup to keep us open and save our jobs. Right now all the pages are ‘suspended without pay’ but if we can increase circulation and interest, maybe we can bring some staff back.
Not much new here. I feel like I’m stuck in a repeating loop, like in the movie Groundhog Day.
I’ve never had the relationship with a library in the way you have. (Well, except for my local library when I was a kid, and where I spent a summer working when I was at university.) Our city’s central public library has been closed for months – not because of COVID, but because of earthquake risk – and I know that many are mourning its loss too. But because I read mainly e-books, I am not. However, I do miss knowing I can go and browse and borrow specialty books (craft books, or books that they don’t have as e-books because of IP issues).
I think you’re wise to have had the oil change. The devil you know is indeed probably better. But I’m sorry you had so much stress about it.
Yay to new mint plants. How’s the basil going?
Gah! My CHECK TRANSMISSION light came on the other day and I right away got my car to a nearby transmission place (I’ve always babies my 10 year old care for just the reasons you say — prevent problems or take care of them when they’re small).
The place, which I’d never used before, fixed my car in 2 days and the cost was reasonable (for transmission work, anyway). BUT…MY CAR SMELLS LIKE SMOKE!! There was even cigarette ash on the steering wheel column. NOT OK!
I let it air out for a few days to see if it would, but today I called and they are going to have my car details. But ew. I hadn’t even thought of Rona germs in there. But clearly the mechanic was NOT wearing a mask. And now I need to have detailers in there.
All this would be worth it if I could come over and you’d make me a mint mojito.
I have no experience growing mint, but my understanding is it grows like wildfire & can take over your garden & lawn in no time. Mint juleps, anyone??