Day One Hundred Four

It has been such a strange year. I know we all know that, but sometimes you pause for a moment and the enormity of the WTF-edness overwhelms you like a tsunami of impossibility. HOW IS THIS ALL REAL? I mean, every time we think it's gotten as bad as it can get, we find another false bottom in the barrel of suck and dive a little deeper.

And deeper.

And deeper.

The thing that is currently drowning my joy is the realization that I'm so dependent on other people to keep my family safe. I can do everything right and focus all my energy on keeping them healthy and happy, but one false move by someone else can be the thing that ruins it all.

I'm looking at you, jackhole family not wearing masks at Mila's dance recital this weekend.

By "recital" I mean HOLY NOT NORMAL, BATMAN. In a typical year, dance recitals involve 3+ hour extravaganzas with hundreds and hundreds of people. Legit, the girls' studio has over 1000 dancers, so it takes two full weekends and multiple performances to run through all of the classes. This year it will end up taking several weeks and countless separate little "recitals." Mila's performance was one of 5 that was lumped into a recital together. FIVE! IT took less than half an hour to get through the entire show, which is roughly how long it usually takes for me to want to start poking my eyes out with a dull lollipop stick. Each dancer was limited to 4 people in the audience, which means that I'm not crazy when I say there were fewer than 100 people in attendance.

We were spread out over a 15,000 square foot space. The stage was smaller than what it would have been if not for COVID-19, but everything else was bigger. Emptier and bigger. The nearest we ever came to anyone was probably 15 feet, and that was passing through the doorway on our way out.

Even with that cautious approach, I couldn't help but glare. There was an entire family - four people - not wearing masks. They were the only ones and they were in the back corner, far away, BUT STILL. There is very little we can do to control our world right now and most of that involves a simple piece of fabric across our pieholes. It may be possible for one person to have a valid reason to not wear a mask, but an entire family? I call shenanigans. That's a choice.

And I'm still pissed the studio let them in. The performance was live-streamed, so it's not like there wasn't an alternative.

That's the thing that has broken me, at least for now. I can't control that family. I can't control the people who have been thrust into a position to enforce the most basic of rules. All I can do is hope that the dumbest thing either of them has done in the past few weeks is allow for that moment to happen.

This timeline sucks.

(But OMG Mila was so freakin adorable and did such a good job and I'm glad we went because the kid positively glowed for hours afterwards.)

Day One Hundred Three

IT HAPPENED AGAIN.

SERIOUSLY.

I went through the Starbucks drive thru this week, and ended up having the exact same conversation with the exact same barista almost exactly seven years after the last time I had it. That barista has worked the drive thru at that Starbucks for as long as I've lived in Pittsburgh, which I think means she deserves a very big award. She has handed me a lot of cups of happiness by now.

ANYWAY. The repeat of that conversation reminded me that I had posted about it before, and it just so happened to come along with a recipe that is very well times.

It's fate, right? The recipe below is a repost from July 2013.

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I am the very definition of random, so it's not at all surprising that I recently found myself stuck in a Starbucks drive thru talking about picnics. It was a meandering sort of conversation (just like every freakin conversation I have), so it started out making sense, but before long, I was listening to a barista tell me about how she is a terrible cook, so she takes her "signature dish" to every event. Her signature dish happens to be potato salad, which somehow made me think of my mom's so-called signature dish.

Fruit salad.

My mom's thing wasn't exactly THAT, but rather a twitch-inducing simile. Any time we were invited anywhere, she made a fruit salad out of canned mixed fruit, vanilla pudding mix, and rainbow marshmallows.

I won't lie. It was goooooood. It was terrible in most every way, but still so good.

I decided I needed to make a variation of it that involved fresh fruit. I also kicked out the rainbow marshmallows because the green ones are gross and you can't convince me otherwise.

It turned out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. As an added bonus, it was rather festive when I served it at our 5th of July party this past weekend.

5th of July Fruit Salad

2- 8.5 oz cans sliced pears (You can use the ones packed in juice or syrup. Both work.)
1 pint blueberries, cleaned
1 pound strawberries, cleaned and sliced
1- 3.4 oz. package instant vanilla pudding (or make your own)
1 cup mini marshmallows

1. Dump the pears and their syrup into a large bowl. If you want the pears cut up smaller, go for it.

2. Add the vanilla pudding. Stir until dissolved.

3. Add the blueberries and strawberries. Stir.

4. Throw some marshmallows on top.

5. Put it in the fridge for at least half an hour so that the pudding has a chance to thicken a bit.

6. Prepare to be asked what the white fruit is in that bowl. I guarantee at least one person won't recognize the pears outside of their native surroundings.

Day One Hundred Two