Category Archives: Musings

Pandemic Masks

Memories, Musings, Obsessions, Things, ,

Is it too early to talk about the masks we wore to protect us and others from Covid-19? I’m talking about the earlier days — the fabric masks. The handmade ones, the ones that suddenly appeared on Amazon. The ones that really were not that effective.

To be clear, I was happy that we were not expected to wear masks when out and about at the very beginning. I’d seen people wearing masks in my day and I was happy I didn’t need to do that — it seemed so odd and embarrassing. I just didn’t leave the house — so I didn’t need to worry about getting Covid-19. I was completely devastated for many reasons when it was announced that the general public should begin wearing masks. To begin with, I didn’t know where to find a mask. The good ones were reserved for doctors, nurses, first responders. A FB acquaintance even went so far as to shame anyone who was able to get N19 masks. I don’t recall her exact words, but they were sharp and scathing and she didn’t back down when some people explained that they had N19 masks left from house projects or dealing with forest fire smoke.

Another reason I was terrified to wear a mask was because I didn’t know how to and I felt uncomfortable about doing so. I thought they were ugly and bothersome.

My first concern was eased by someone on our neighborhood email list who offered to make masks for people in exchange for a donation to her favorite charity. I made a donation and stopped by her house one day and picked up my mask on her front porch with the instructions to wash it in hot water in case she was inadvertently passing on Covid germs.

My first mask

My second and third concerns were eased only by experience.

A local women’s group held an outdoor mask sale to benefit their non-profit and I bought one or two masks there. I bought more on Amazon, two through King Arthur Flour, and a few from the company that made KA Flour’s masks. I gave some away for Christmas that year as well. My friend Catherine who’d just moved to Seattle sent us one that had ‘VOTE’ on the front. I gave that to Dean because it was too big for me.

Dean modeling my VOTE mask

My favorite mask was my Kate Bush mask that featured a woman in a red dress standing in various poses with ‘You know it’s me — Cathy’ written on the bottom. Unfortunately that was just for looks because the material was too porous. I wore it over another mask when I was out and about.

My Kate Bush mask
Daughter’s IG story about my mask

Most of the masks were too big for me so I bought beads to string on the ear bands and hooks to wrap the ear bands around my head.

Eventually we were able to easily purchase N19 and KN19 masks and the fabric masks became redundant. I even have unused masks left over.

I’m keeping my fabric masks for the time being. Not that I think I’ll need them, but because, in a way, they make me feel a little safe.

The Fruit Basket

Family, Musings, Photographs, , , ,

Christmastime 1969 my family was given a fruit basket as a gift. It’s possible it was the first fruit basket we ever received because we took at least three photos of it.

In the above photo, Kevin, Mom, and I sit beneath the Christmas tree with the Fruit Basket in front of us. We’re all dressed up, so we must have been heading out to a relative’s soon — so it could be either Christmas eve or Christmas day.

This is a perfect photo to show off my mom’s creative endeavors. Mom’s painting of the African American woman was based on an image she saw in a magazine. It hung in the living room for a long time. I have it now, along with another, similar-sized painting of an Asian man with a rickshaw.

To the right, and below the painting is another craft mom made. It is a candle holder made out of several terracotta pots, partially spray painted black, then shellacked.

Also in this picture could be the only proof that mom made stained glass windows out of tissue paper and tape. I think mom wanted curtains over the windows and dad did not. Dad got fed up with the tissue paper stained glass and took a razor to them. After that she put black tape on the windows to represent segments of a stained glass window. I think Dad took a razor to that too. They eventually got wooden shutters to put on the inside for privacy.

In these two photographs Dad looks sad, angry, or depressed. Kevin looks mischievous.

Dad rarely smiled for photographs, but usually had a smile in his eyes, but in this case I don’t see any of that. I wonder what happened to make him so sad. It could simply be that he didn’t want to pose with the fruit basket but mom wanted him to so he was being passive-aggressive about it.

The first photo shows the curved shelf I remember well from the kitchen. I can see mom’s recipe box. on the second shelf.

I do have memories of the (or a) fruit basket and I think they might have gotten it from Dad’s workplace — this might have been the year he began working for Reber’s Appliance. I don’t know, however, why so many weird photos were taken of it.

Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle

Musings, Places, Things, , , ,

I grew up in a town not far from Chicago. Chicago has several museums and in grade school our classrooms visited them often. My favorite museum was the Museum of Science and Industry. Its exhibits were memorable including the coal mine where an elevator took you “below the earth” (actually you started up high and it only seemed you were far underground) where a train awaited you and took you on a tour of the mine and the, now gone, room of fetuses in glass jars and cross sections of a human body that were preserved between two pieces of plexiglass.

My favorite exhibit, however, was Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle. I could stand for hours looking into that exquisite dollhouse at the tiny rooms filled with miniature furniture. I imagined myself suddenly becoming tiny enough to wander through the fairy castle, napping on Sleeping Beauty’s bed in the princess’ bedroom, bathing in the princess’ silver tub, eating at King Arthur’s table in the dining room.

I loved it so much that I bought myself a souvenir booklet describing the dollhouse so I could see inside the dollhouse from the comfort of my own home. I still have that booklet and I still look through it now and then. And still, fifty-something years later, I like to pretend I’m small enough to live in the castle, but now I visit the magic garden and library too.