Operation: Cafe Fatima

What does a girl, er woman, do when her province leads north america in COVID cases? She gets her ass moving by finally getting rid of the carpet that came with the balcony of her condo. The work was postponed while my building was getting its trim painted. I clearned my furniture and hauled it into my already cluttered living room. Once finished, I applied Tremclad white paint to my bistro chairs, using my old carpet to catch any paint. I bought a heavy-duty box cutter and began cutting up the carpet in pieces, disovering it was an indoor carpet used for an outdoor space. Underneath was lots of dust to carefully sweep, even with a painter’s mask on. The sweaty, gritty work took the early after noon before taking a shower to cool off and clearn the dust off my ankles.

It’s more than cleaning, it’s rebuilding. My condo looks cluttered and chaotic compared to early pictures of when I moved in. I rarely sit in my living room and mostly sit in front of my large desktop to watch streaming services, every space piled with books, papers, and clothing. It’s what happens when parents die and a pandemic shuts down everything including, well, me.

Is it possible to envy an actor, taking in the opera, in an afternoon?

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A post shared by Richard Armitage (@richardcarmitage)

I miss movie theatres. I miss patios. Most of all I miss my parents.

During therapy I amde the following comment, “I have taken care of my parents for so long I don’t know if I can take care of myself.” So many people have told me to take care of myself, to do some kind of self care, or something like that. I found myself thinking this advice was karmic pay back for all the useless advice offered while people are knee-deep in crisis and trauma. I wanted to say hello, I am going through a thing and that YouTube thing you hoped would inspired me, makes me want to sleep until this pandemic ends. There’s nothing wrong with showing me something like this:

However, recommending it while my father is dying and my brain deals with the stress of that, and a global pandemic, might not be the way to go. I graciously thanked the person who shared it and CJP Grey’s YouTube channel seems to have a lot of useful stuff.

However, time really does work wonders and time has taught me things are shifting into a new normal, not that post-pandemic new normal, but the new normal where my parents are no longer around. Not everything has shifted into place. I made the misake of taking a course in online learning and now I struggle to finish it. It’s a course I paid for and hoped to take a certificate in online learning. I am not ready for that yet. Instead, I want to finish my projects around work and sit on my balcony aka ‘Cafe Fatima.’

It’s a place I listened to a spicy audiobook in 2019, narrated by Richard Armitage of course, and nearly drowned in lust, reclined in my zero gravity chair. It was a meh romance novel, by an author I wouldn’t read, but he sold it. By ‘sold it,’ I mean, inspired a cocktail of lust during one shower scene. (Lust cocktails, the best kind of non-alcoholic, non-drink cocktails.)

At the moment, I enjoy a wine buzz with a beautiful sunset. I hang onto hope as the cool breeze blows itnto my space. I hang onto to whatever hope I can find.