Feeling Useful

Days pass and I don't go outside.  The alarm people laugh when I call them to cancel; yes, it's 1:20 in the afternoon and yes it's the first time we've ventured outside today and who would have thought that was possible before we entered the year of the plague, Pandemic 01.

I have inadvertantly reserved real, not e-, books from the local library.  They're available now.  Two of them are waiting for me.  The librarians will bring them out to my car; apparently they've been sanitized to within an inch of their lives so they are safe to touch.  I drove around town today, dropping off birthday brownies and healing brownies and visiting with Dr. K and Not-Kathy in the parking lot between the bagel store and the Urgent Care (don't ask).  I drove past the turn off for the library on more than one occasion (okay, I'll admit to driving on auto-pilot and paying no attention to my ultimate destination, thereby necessitating a u-turn and retracing of my tire tracks).  

The bottom line is, I had many opportunities to pick up new reading material  and I never managed to accomplish the task.

I'm now afraid of books.  

But now, this evening, as I was defrosting the last package of Costco boneless skinless chicken breasts (which, somehow, don't seem to require a comma between the adjectives) a text allowed me to re-engage with the world.

Prince's principal is a fabulous human being who is now frantically registering students whose parents decided to wait until just before school starts to show up with the documentation required.  The masks which were made for her have yet to be picked up; for some reason, I'm running a bit behind. 

For some reason?  Don't get me started.

I have a donation ready to help with the internet connectivity divide.  It's a lot of money to be thrown at a problem that should be solved by the legislature and the utility companies (in spell checking, I found that I had spelled that futility, which made me laugh).  But, as with most things education, it's bake sales and charity that will foot the bill. 

If only people could decide what to do. The principal had some information, but no time.  She gave me the phone number and now \ I can cajole and plead and try to make something good happen.

I have phone numbers and I have time and I have the ability to pick up and deliver masks and those lanyards I bought.  I can take the burden off someone who's otherwise engaged in important work. 

I feel useful.  

For the first time in a long time, I can't wait until tomorrow so that I can get started.