Glimmer of normal?

This weekend, the weather started to warm up. While it doesn't get very cold here and we're certainly not dealing with the terrible storms hitting Texas and parts of the midwest and east coast, temps still drop and our homes are not well insulated.

After Sunday morning ballet class, Gigi and Yuki asked me to go with them to a local coffee shop that was around the corner. We got our coffees and sat at a curb just to chat. 

Afterwards, I felt a lightness that I hadn't felt in almost a year. And I realized that it wasn't just meeting and catching up with friends. It's also the spontaneous nature of our coffee meeting. Those kinds of get togethers are the small but vital activities that we lost in the pandemic. 

As we start to see the light at the end of this long dark tunnel, and as we mark 500,000 deaths in the US, I hope we can get back those small things as much as the big ones.

Pandemic birthday

Last spring, I felt bad for people having pandemic birthdays. I thought I had just gotten mine in last February and assumed things would be back to some semblance of normal by now. It became clear shortly thereafter that COVID would be with us awhile so here we are, my turn at a pandemic birthday. 

So, it was a day like any other pandemic day, except for taking the day off work. I hung with the cats and watched them nap.

Did my grocery errand today instead of Saturday and hung out with my neighbours with a mini cheesecake they got me. Not a bad way to spend a birthday under any circumstances.

The best news happened for the cats: they have a new cat momma! I met with Azar via video a couple of days ago and she seems like a real cat person. I'm so excited for Grubs and Roly to find their forever home.

And it turns out Azar is a neighbour! She lives about 10 min from me. I love knowing the boys will be close.