Category Archives: happy things A to Z

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Our town Covid-19 quarantine list

This is fiction. Though many of the people may exist in some form or other.

Subheading of police report:

Current covid-19 quarantine list

1. Katherine is quarantined for 10 days for chasing a deer out of her front yard with a broom without wearing a mask. Many thanks to the two neighbors who called in. Also, quit talking to deer and singing to the chickadees. You are just confusing everything.

2. Bob 1 is quarantined for 10 days for biking down his drive way without a mask on. Yes, we know you wore the mask for the other 48.25 miles. We don’t care.

3. Bill is quarantined for taking off his mask while hunting elk. No, being thirsty after butchering is not an acceptable excuse. You just be glad that you had that elk tag.

4. Two more Bobs are quarantined, one for playing the piano and the other for playing the fiddle, both with the windows open while not wearing a mask. It’s too cold for that right now and germs. Geeze.

5. Russ is quarantined because he can still talk fast, even through the mask. We aren’t allowed to say what else he’s done.

6. Joey is quarantined for miming fascism in public. We can tell who you are through the mask. Stick to magic, dude. Miming facisim is just creepy, ok? You are giving us nightmares.

7. Lou and Amelia are quarantined for abandoning the post office and for being too nice to bicyclers. What are you two, liberals?

8. Leah is quarantined for wearing that peek a boo mask and it didn’t match the rest of the outfit. Ok, you had matching gloves, shoes, hat, coat, dress and lipstick, but the mask was not right and we’re outlawing the peek a boo thing. People just get too hot.

9. Patrick is quarantined for nursing in public right out in the open. Really, now. Currently those fall under the mask rules too. You can use a big scarf or go indoors. It’s not socially acceptable yet for guys.

10. Geoff is quarantined for exposure to the 80 year old neurologist who is still working doing Independent Medical Exams. You guys took off your masks between patients in the back room. Fools.

11. Sue is quarantined for being around Geoff. Double fool.

12. Barbara and Carl and family are quarantined because they left everyone sad and hungry on Christmas Day 2020. Carl did not make the 500 gallons of hollandaise. We will happily set up a social distancing grid with 10 foot colored places for people to sit, with the neighborhood cordoned off for two blocks in all directions from your house. That is, we’d get eggs benedict first and any time one of us came on or off shift. The High School Robotics team has agreed to repurpose their robot to deliver to each person who is masked and sitting in a grid spot. We envision a pattern using both sides of each street so that the robot doesn’t go on the grass and fall over. We might even fund a second robot. Please? Could we have Christmas this year?

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Apple crisp by Malene

Malene’s apple crisp

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Slice apples and place in baking pan.

Mix:
1/2 C. flour
1 C brown sugar
1 C oatmeal
1 stick butter
dash cinnamon

Mix the flour and etc and put the mix on the apples in the pan.
Cook in 350 degree F oven until brown. 30 minutes in my oven.

You can peel the apples or not.
You can add some apple juice.

sliced apples
topping for apple crisp
ready for topping
ready to bake
yummmmmmy
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Thank you for the music

I have been in Rainshadow Chorale since 2000. My father, Malcolm Ottaway, was one of the eight people who started it in 1997. He and my mother moved here in 1996. My mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, died of ovarian cancer on May 15, 2000. Rainshadow agreed to sing a Byrd Mass for my mother’s memorial. My father asked if my sister and I could sing in the chorale for the memorial. We were told yes. I had moved to Port Townsend at the end of 1999.

After the Memorial, I asked if I could stay in the chorale. The answer was yes and I have been in it ever since.

Our director, Rebecca Rottsolk, is retiring from the chorale after our next concert. She has picked favorite pieces. I have sung in nearly every concert since 2000, though I couldn’t sing in the one right after my father died in 2013. He followed my sister, who died in 2012. My throat wouldn’t let me sing that one.

So Rebecca, thank you for the music and thank you for being a wonderful director and forcing us to level up over and over. I am sending you peace and love and joy.

And everyone else, put this concert on your calendar.

Rainshadow Chorale practicing outdoors wearing masks in a fine rain. Dedication.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: thanks.

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kitten in a bag

I have two new kittens, named after rivers. They have been here two weeks and two days.

They were only about 7 weeks when I got them, boy and girl, just fixed and groggy from anesthesia on the ride home. They had been fostered a little, and are well trained for catbox and for not using claws on hands.

The first favored toy is a cardboard box, the right size to hold one of them. They spend a lot of time with one inside the box and one outside. Sometimes with a toy mouse on the inside too.

This am before I got up, one of them went into a bag. However, it was a small gift bag with the handles. Apparently he got caught in the handles, panicked and tore around the room and then down the stairs. That was the tiger. I lay in bed laughing.

The black one just did the same thing. She got her neck through the handle and then tore through the kitchen and living room. She got out before I got to her so I couldn’t help laughing at her. Nine weeks or not, she stomped away with her ears in the embarrassed cat position.

Good that I didn’t leave the bag out the first week they were here. I was supposed to “keep them quiet” since they were post-operative. You can guess how well that went. One jumped over the back of the couch from the floor and landed on me when I was half asleep and then tore off the couch. They seem fine.

I am leaving the bag out to see if they investigate further.

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even if

even if

I never see you again
you never speak to me again
you never love your bearish parts
you never let yourself get angry
you never let yourself get sad
you never let yourself feel
you tell yourself you are happy
you tell yourself everything is the way it should be

even if

I never see you again

I still love you
I still forgive you

I still love you

I hope that you truly do

find happiness