Welcome to Marchtober!

I am losing track of time. Tuesday feels like Friday, and who even knows what date it is? It seems like the 32nd of Marchtober. This doing nothing so often makes time fly, oddly enough!

If “the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup,” where does that leave those of us who don’t drink Folgers? Or coffee?

Wherever you live, it is inevitable that you will, at some point, hear some sort of crash or banging sound and say these words out loud, “What the hell was THAT?”

The same is true of aging. Recently I found a black-and-blue mark on my finger, but other times I’ll get a sudden pain in my ankle while walking and say out loud, “What the hell is that?”

It is officially fall, which means ice cream is out and soup is in, along with hot chocolate. Soon the crockpot will be pressed into duty for comfort food prep of goodies such as pot roast. I just hope we don’t have to hunker in the bunker again this season – but I’m not optimistic.

I was trying not to go into full panic mode when, for some still unknown reason, my TV could not get the Food Network for an entire day. I wondered if this was a sign that Guy Fieri thought that we were spending way too much time together and needed a break.  UPDATE: Guy & Co. were back in the house the next day.

So, it turns out that eating out so much was not responsible for my weight problems after all.

It is getting chilly at night but I am trying desperately to hold off on putting the heat on. I'm not sure why this is a thing.

I am changing my last name to Mental, so if I ever go into the judiciary I will be called “Judge Mental.”

If you can be overly-cautious, can you be underly-cautious?

How can I possibly chip a nail just by eating dinner and washing the dishes? It’s not like I used Craftsman tools to cut the meat.

You know you live in an active adult community when management schedules a free, outdoor concert for 1:00 in the afternoon and the name of the group performing is the “Hip Replacements.”

Why is abbreviation such a long word?

Why do we say, “It is raining cats and dogs?” I mean, have you really seen rain pelting against your windows accompanied by beloved pets?

Q: What do you want for your birthday?
A:  Caftan, “one size fits most.”

My Zoom game has really slipped. I went to a recent meeting wearing a t-shirt that read “Busy doing nothing,” not even bothering to change. I was wearing pants and I did comb my hair, so there’s that.

I have gotten gas for my car three times since the pandemic began. I don’t know what kind of mileage I’m getting, but I can go for months between fill-ups.

I got a message regarding my EZ Pass account. I think they want to know if I still own a car.

If you have never seen the movie “About a Boy,” you should. It is entirely charming in a way that Hugh Grant carries off beautifully. One of the things I like most about it is that Grant’s character – a semi-retired songwriter still living off his one big and annoying hit – is that he sits around all day doing nothing. He sees the day as divided into units of time. There’s a timed unit for getting up and dressed, a unit for whatever other activity he has planned, etc. I really get that. Today I have a little under 60 minutes to watch an hour-long show, but I know I won’t exceed my time limit because I’m watching it on the DVR and I will fast-forward through the commercials.

People who text with “K” instead of “OK” are saving all of one character. How much time does it take to type “OK?” It’s not like I am insisting on the full “okay.”  Okay?

Why do we wish people “many happy returns” when they celebrate a birthday? Are we anticipating that they will receive really bad gifts that have to be returned to the store where they were purchased?

I have one mask in my car that I consider my “go-to” mask because I wear it whenever I go to ShopRite or…well, I WOULD wear it elsewhere if I went any place in addition to ShopRite. I’d like to know why my face starts itching immediately after I take off the mask. Between the store and the ride home, I want to scratch around my eyes, my nose, my mouth – you know, all those places you are NOT SUPPOSED TO TOUCH!

Between me and the cashier at ShopRite, I think we packed my $86 order into 86 plastic bags. She reminded me that these bags are going to be outlawed in NJ in the next 18 months, which encourages me to hoard them so when that happens, I will have an ample supply to use when cleaning food out of the fridge, lining the waste cans, etc.

People, you must stop using the term “very unique.” Unique stands alone. There are no degrees of unique. Something is either unique or it isn’t.

I took four years of French in high school and never came across a swear word in English, so why do people say “pardon my French” when they swear – in English?

What is more panic-inducing than entering your log-on and password and getting that message in red type that you have entered in the wrong information? I even have a password manager and things sometimes get screwed up.

Have you ever thought about how much dirt we have consumed in eating baked potatoes? In my case, it must be enough to sustain a small farm. I scrub vigorously, but there is no way to remove all that dirt, so, let’s face it, we are eating dirt along with the potato. And I’m still here!

I don’t know what goes on in my washing machine, but after a cycle, the clothes emerge inside-out, upside down and with battle fatigue.

I have found a way to thwart my socks from trying to break out of Shawshank: I now wash and dry them all in a mesh bag. I haven’t lost one since I started doing this.

My laundry standards have slipped during this pandemic. Now I look at yesterday’s top and think, “That seems cleanish.” Cleanish? Why put on a new shirt when I didn’t do anything to dirty the old one? So, it seems acceptably clean – or cleanish.

Just wondering: How is it possible to pull a groin muscle while sleeping? Or sitting on the couch? I must really be out of shape.

When I was a kid, there were two – 2! – kinds of apples: Macintosh and Delicious. I’ve always been a Mac girl. Now, I am overwhelmed in the produce section by Fuji, honey crisp, gala, Roma, Granny Smith, empire, Courtland, jazz, Braeburn and more!  And the last two times I tried to buy apples, there were exactly NO Macs on the shelves. It appears that I will have to expand my apple selection through no intention of my own! And where are my Macs?

I like to put on a little spritz of perfume every day, and one of my favorites is a scent I bought after a massage at a day spa. It is light and smells refreshing – which is really amazing, because I must have bought it at least 15 years ago. I’m still using the same bottle, and I still enjoy wearing it. It is safe to assume I wear it sparingly.

Fall is here, and you know what that means: Pumpkin-flavored EVERYTHING, crisp fall air and the disappearance of my beloved “The Golden Girls” from their rightful place on the Hallmark Channel every morning and evening so that the “Countdown to Christmas” movies can begin. I have to hand it to Hallmark for churning out the same movie in various locations with slightly different, albeit lookalike casts. I know some of you are loyalists, but they have the rest of the day to play their movies, as well as a separate Hallmark Movie Channel, so why can’t they leave my Girls where they are supposed to be?

I found yeast again in the supermarket and attempted a second go-round with baking challah. This recipe has you put all of the ingredients in a Ziplock bag, which keeps things from getting messy, but there is also no egg in the recipe, so the finished bread lacks the typical yellow challah hue. And then there is the braiding. If this had been a requirement to graduate from high school, I would have had to go for a GED, because my braiding is sub-par at best. I have found another recipe that calls for several eggs, and I’m willing to give it another try – eventually. Let the braiding begin!

Two of the women I admire most were only 5' tall but were giants in life. One was a Supreme Court Justice. The other was my mother, who taught me to revere women like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.