Well, that didn’t happen. But let me get you caught up before I start really writing about the lake life again. That IS what this is supposed to be about, right?

• We’re 1 1/2 years into the pandemic
• I’ve had a couple of jobs during this time and also unemployment
• I had to have my lovely 16-year-old Boo put down, but what a life we had together!
• We loved Doug Ford for a while
• We mostly hate Doug Ford because he really blew this pandemic thing
• I’ve had 1 vaccine… AstraZeneca, the rebel vaccine!
• Who knows when where or what I’ll get for the second vaccine
• I’ve had 4 rapid tests at my dad’s retirement home – all negative

And right now we are into the grossest thing to happen in all my 20 years at the cottage:

GYPSY MOTH CATERPILLAR INVASION!

It is so gross… too gross to even post pictures. They are everywhere. Their poo falls from the trees that they are destroying covering EVERYTHING in something that looks like God twisted a peppercorn shaker over the earth for a week. Mix that with pollen and the goo of all the caterpillars you’ve stepped on. Jeeze! With that and the pandemic, could the locusts and frogs falling from the sky be far behind?

But I’m well, the family is as well as can be expected. I miss my cat, but Pinky is hanging in with me. Speaking of which, here she is. Seriously, cat pics are better than caterpillar pics.

How are y’all doing?

But still…

I’m bored of cooking and eating by myself. I used to think I was good company. Not so much.

I feel like I’m in grade four again. Why, you ask?

• First, my place smells like Ivory Soap. When everyone else was buying and sanitizer, I bought a 12-pack of Ivory Soap. I don’t think I’ve had this brand in my house in this century. It makes me think of bath time when I was a kid.
• Second, I admit it…I’ve been having Campbells Cream of Tomato Soup about once a week. And I’ve made my own version of Kraft Dinner. Several times. Comfort food, I guess. Or am I regressing…?

Also, maybe it’s because the outdoors smells so nice these days, but seriously my feet smell! No, it’s my slippers…yes my slippers. I suppose it’s because I’ve been inside more than usual, never taking my slippers off except to go shopping…and now that it’s hot and humid…

Ok sorry. Too much information. Here are my cats.

How are y’all doing?

No, not THOSE Orioles. But holy geeky, eh Batman?

But the confession isn’t about being a long time Baltimore Orioles (the club) fan. Though I do confess my fandom, and did you know Brooks Robinson – number 5 – was also born on May 18th?

I confess that the gorgeous orange and black…or yellowish-orange and black (female) birds are driving me up the wall! Of course when they showed up, I wanted them to come to my deck. So I cut up oranges and put some grape jelly out on the old feed table. And did they come? Yes they did! One at a time, mind you. A couple of adult males, one adult female, and a couple of immature males (and you know how THEY can be!) It’s great!

But then the other morning, I heard a bird starting to tweet at 6:30 am. A simple, single, long, loud TWEEEET. I hadn’t hear this before. A new bird? I stood in the yard in my pajamas, with my binoculars, looking up and trying to follow the sound. And wouldn’t you know it? It was an Oriole. A song/call I’d never heard from them before. Problem is, it tweeted that tweet ALL DAY until 8:30 pm! Only stopping to load up on jelly and oranges (now accounting for half my weekly grocery budget.) The next morning, it started at 5:30 am! All. Day. Long.

Maybe I’ll stop feeding them. So I can sleep in. Maybe when this container of grape jelly is done…ya maybe then…

Walking in the rain and realizing I didn’t give the rinse cycle(s) enough of my time and energy and soap bubbles form on my clothes and blow back behind me…

Yep.

That’s me in a Christening Gown given to our family by Queen Victoria.

What?

Yep. You see the old woman in the picture? That’s my Great Grandmother (Isabella Ferguson Davidson) who was from Ballater Scotland, the town that happens to be where the Royals’ summer palace, Balmoral Castle is. When Great Granny was a young girl, her best friend’s mother was one of Queen Victoria’s dressers when she was in Scotland. The girls used to play in the castle, and the Queen got to know the girls. She even invited them down to Buckingham Palace for lunch one day. The girls were thrilled, and the Queen made sure all the servants for the visit that day were from Scotland so the girls would feel at home.

Fast forward to the time Great Granny got engaged to a Canadian who was studying in Scotland. My Great Grandfather (Thomas Davidson) brought her to Ontario for the wedding. And guess what? Queen Victoria sent her a bouquet of orange blossoms to hold as she walked down the aisle. And when the Queen learned that Great Granny was pregnant with her first child, she arranged to have a dress that belonged to one of her own children sent to Canada and to my Great Granny to use as a Christening gown.

So for a hundred-odd years, our family and cousins and nieces and nephews have all been christened in this gown.

Yep. All true.

This year, my 60th birthday fell on Victoria Day. At first I felt a little melancholy, as there would be no big family celebration. But I know, I’m just one of the millions who have missed marking a big occasion with friends and family this year. So I’ll suck it up.

But a couple of things happened that made the long weekend a joyous one after all:

• The hummingbirds came back
• Grant and Jacques showered me with thoughtful gifts
  • even a sheet/slab cake over zoom!
• The Orioles (not the ball club) came back
• Grant interviewed me for his ongoing “From a distance” series which was cool because I was the centre of attention even though I don’t always like being the centre of attention but this was fun…go listen/watch!
• A pair of Rose Breasted Grosbeaks alighted on my feeder…yes male and female! First time I saw the female!
• My neighbours made a delicious beef stew and left a carton of it on my porch (YUMMY!)

(Yes, a lot of birds, but they make me happy.)

Finally, on the afternoon of my birthday, my friends from the south part of the lake had a little gathering in their large back yard area. A group of us, including some family, had a spring celebration. A me celebration. We played our guitars and sang. I got some lovely things.

I am very lucky at 60 in isolation. Because I’m not really alone. None of us are. Reach out if you need to. Your friends are everywhere.

Thanks, team Stewart Lake!

It’s the traditional beginning of cottage season and I just don’t know what to expect. The province says to cottagers, “Don’t go up, stay home as Muskoka doesn’t have the capacity…” But then a week or so later, the province says, “It’s ok to go up to your cottage but bring your own food and social distance…” The Mayors of all the Muskoka Townships have said one thing then the other. Am I the only one who doesn’t know what’s right and wrong these days?

For instance, the other day I went to the Sobeys in Parry Sound rather than my local Foodland. I had my mask on and was donning my blue gloves to go in and shop. The guy outside the store said I wasn’t allowed to wear gloves. He said I could use one of their pairs but i don’t have to. And he wasn’t wearing a mask. My Foodland had no one at the front door (I bet that changes this weekend) and I was able to wear my gloves.

The MacTier LCBO has a protocol of asking people all the questions, and making us all use their hand sanitizer. I even use it on my blue gloves. But the Port Carling LCBO just leaves the sanitizer out in the doorway, no questions asked.

Pretty much I don’t know what’s going on anywhere, so I just stick to my own protocol.

And then there’s toilet paper. Remember the toilet paper crisis? Well, I never really paid much attention to when I needed to buy toilet paper or coffee filters or other basic things you don’t think about much in “normal” times. But now i seem to mark time by toilet paper. And filters. And cat litter. And laundry. I don’t even know what that means for sure, but these every day things have just become more real, more noticeable because there’s not a lot else to do.

Like this silly app I “play” with every day, Neko Atsume. How many 5-days-of-entering-the secret-password-to-get-a-prize have passed? How many 10-day stretches where I can use Hermione’s special potion have passed?

Maybe it’s just me.

• I heard a Loon (yay they’re back!)
• It snowed.
• I saw a Pileated Woodpecker.
• It snowed again.
• I saw a heron (yay they’re back!)
• I cut my bangs.
• I organized my spices and my pantry.
• It snowed again.
• I had a dram of Lagavulin. Maybe two.

That is all.

Sigh.

Oh sure, I’ve been there before, but not for 15 years.

Anyway, the hail has just turned to rain.

I’ve been sitting here thinking about time. Two months have just passed and what do I have to show for it? Stacked wood. Is that it? Am I going to regret that I had ample free time to finish that novel? To get back in shape? To practice the fiddle? To create the perfect garden?

That little voice in my head is revving up to beat myself up for wasting time. When this prison sentence ends, will I be mad at myself for not accomplishing the things I could have?

No. Rien de rien. Je ne regrette rien.

This unplanned downtime came with so much anxiety, so much we couldn’t know and still don’t know. I’m going to look at the next three weeks and think, “I wouldn’t have seen that bird, that sunset on the lake, the trilliums, if I were in Scotland right now.”

We are very much in the present like never before. So I’m going to give myself a break; I’ll write that novel some day, I’ll sharpen my fiddle and mandolin skills some day, and for now I’ll just settle in with the cats to watch what happens every day.

During one meeting to strategize a plan for a client, our account executive suggested we do some viral marketing. Everyone nodded their heads, thinking, yes, a viral campaign would be good for this client. Puzzled, I asked, “Isn’t that a little dodgy? Are you saying we should create a computer virus and send it to customers in an email?” Of course I got laughed out of the room.

Fast forward about 10 years, and again I was sitting in a creative brainstorming meeting with another agency. We needed to come up with something that would win us the business, as we were making a pitch. “Let’s be really crazy and do an anti-pitch to be ironic. We’ll get their attention. Let’s disrupt the status quo.”

Fast forward another 10 years and here I am. Sitting in my cabin on Stewart Lake. Being disrupted by a virus. In every way. It just got me thinking about words and how we use them and how ironic everything is these days in my life.  I was a pioneer in the “new media” world. I am a pioneer again. We all are. And I miss doing my daily pigdump.com updates. So this.

And I have clean clothes.

Me? Sometimes I get a little down when I think of the things I and others have missed. I already wrote about my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary in isolation. No family. A friend of mine celebrated their first anniversary with no party. There are new babies that aunts and uncles and grandparents haven’t seen yet.

And the entertainment and travel plans that have been disrupted. Since this is my platform, I’m going to whine just a little bit. Just a little. I promise.

Yes, I was one of many thousands who waited online for two or three hours for my turn to buy tickets to Hamilton. Those dedicated hours added on to the two-plus years I’ve been dying to see this play…sigh. Like I said, I’m not the only one.

Then there was this…

Sigh. I know. First world problems. But I was going this May with my friend Laura because we both turn 60 this spring! (There I said it.) My first big trip in…oh never mind. It’s happened to many of us, not just me. Maybe I’ll turn 60 next spring instead.

My family had several big events this year so far, all without each other. My niece Hannah, the clarinet queen of the Western Marching Band, graduated from university without her friends and classmates. My nephew Chris turned 30, celebrating with his mum, brother, and dog. My brother Bob will turn 55 later this month, and his daughter Ellen also has a birthday near the end of May. In fact we have four family birthdays in May, as my niece Kelly has hers on the 12th. We usually have the big birthday celebration on May 2-4 weekend at the parents’ cottage…

Sigh.

I know. It’s not just me. It’s not just us. There are billions of us in the same boat. So my whining is done. And I’m okay with the sacrifices. But now I want cake.