Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Three Beautiful Things 06-03-2025: Hey! Get Out of the House!, St. Vinnie's and a Sunshine Muffin, *Deadish* Abides

 1. Warning! 

I'm going to write about being peculiar, about being odd. 

First of all, I believed what I read and heard a few years ago that the new virus going around was highly contagious and that some one like me who was in his late sixties and lived with pulmonary damage and progressing kidney disease was likely at greater risk of not only contracting Covid, but getting hit hard by it. 

Maybe that's not too peculiar, but sometimes, I felt like an oddball, out of the ordinary. 

(What's new? Ha!)

So, in light of what I accepted as highly likely about this new virus, I stayed indoors a lot, and alone, especially when Debbie was helping Adrienne and Josh with their kids in New York. 

The really peculiar thing, you see, was that I enjoyed this time of solitude, not because I'm anti-social, but because I spent my days doing things I REALLY enjoy: reading books, listening to podcasts, watching movies, working puzzles, listening to music, blogging, cooking, and maintaining contact with friends via text messages, emails, Zoom, Facebook Live, occasionally the telephone, and sometimes visits outdoors. 

The oddness is compounded now by how, even though the virus's communicable powers seemed to have weakened, I often will go a few (or several) days and not leave the house. 

I read, blog, work puzzles, cook,  listen to music -- well, all those things I did indoors when I was, without complaint, quarantining myself. 

Today, I told myself that I had to get out of the house! 

Enough is enough! 

So, I went uptown to Beach Bum Bakery and loaded up on bagels, had a splendid conversation with Rebecca, and accepted her gift of a Sunshine Muffin she was concerned had become a little too old to sell.

2. Debbie had collected a small pile of things to donate to St. Vincent de Paul's. 

So not only did I leave the house and go uptown, I drove all the way to Osburn and dropped off the donations. 

After putting them in a shopping cart at St. Vinnie's, I crawled back in the car and decided to give the Sunshine Muffin a try. 

Maybe, maybe maybe maybe, it was a tiny bit dry, but the muffin sure worked for me and eating it reminded me that when Beach Bum Bakery first opened as a small portable shack parked at the Furniture Exchange, the first purchase I made was a Sunshine Muffin. 

It's an awesome treat. 

And, as Beach Bum Bakery reminds people every day: Don't panic! It's organic! 

3. Wow! This getting out of the house was working pretty well. 

I invigorated breaking out of my hermitage in the car by playing Jeff's May 29th Deadish broadcast via the KEPW.org archive.

He played an eclectic mix of tunes recorded live across the nation, all on May 29th over the years, and so not only did I get to listen to Grateful Dead tunes, but also to Miles Davis, Zero, The Yardbirds, the Chambers Brothers, and more, while driving the wild streets of uptown Kellogg, cruising the open highway to Osburn, and sitting back at home in the living room with Jeff's voice and his ingenious music selections playing on my wireless Bose speaker.  

Staying home is good. 

But leaving the house for something other than grocery shopping and blood draws and transplant follow up appointments is pretty good, too. 

I might just try it more often! 

No comments: