A Year of Pandemic MVPs
Surgical masks! Another Covid-19 MVP. And aprons, too. See, I can already tell that I’m going to have to write a Part Two for this list.
I’ll confess (though I don’t need to, because the proof is right there in the dateline) that it’s been longer than usual since my last blog post. I’m sorry! I blame the good weather! While I knew I was excited for the return of spring, I didn’t realize just how excited I was; just how much of a difference it would make, being able to go for a run in a T-shirt, being able to drink iced coffee again. Lest we forget, we’re still in a pandemic. How much of a difference can T-shirts and iced coffees really make in the midst of a pandemic? Well, according to my mood: a whole lot!
Thursday, March 11 was especially beautiful. At the end of the day, Andrew and I brought a bottle of wine to Central Park and sat on a bench and had a little al fresco happy hour. We were far from the only people with this idea. The park was lively. The sound of a Mister Softee truck jingled over from Fifth Avenue. That Thursday was also the day that pandemic-versary coverage really kicked into high gear. This day a year ago Tom Hanks was diagnosed with Covid. This day a year ago the NBA cancelled its season. It felt both totally bizarre and totally perfect that the pandemic-versary would turn out to be a day of such gentle, lovely, hopeful weather.
The Internet has been flooded with pandemic-versay coverage. This makes sense. It’s the nature of collective trauma: everyone has a story to tell.What day did you decide to take this pandemic seriously? Where were you when the world shut down? Those March days are so sharply etched in my memory (I’m sure they are in yours, too). And maybe, because of that, I don’t feel a great desire to tell that story again. I don’t need to write about those days in order to hold onto them.
A year (a year-plus!) into this, I am filled with gratitude for the very real light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. I am also filled with gratitude for the little things that have gotten me through. Andrew and I made a game of this, last year. If we had to declare our Pandemic MVPs, our sanity-saving little things, what would they be? I’ve been wanting to write this list up for a long time. And let me forewarn you: this is purposely materialistic and silly. We should talk about the deep, meaningful, spiritual/existential awakenings wrought by Covid-19. But I hope there’s room to talk about the dumb stuff, too.
This is list is NOT comprehensive and, in fact, even as I type this, I can think of other things I should have added. But this has been languishing as a draft for long enough, and it’s time to share it with you, because what good is having these hot takes if you don’t get to share them with the world!?
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MY HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE MOST-VALUABLE-PLAYER AWARDS
2020-2021 SEASON, COVID-19 EDITION
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HALL OF FAME: PELOTON AND SOURDOUGH (I bet you’re all sick of reading about these things so I am going to spare us yet another rhapsody about the joy of fermentation and the inspiration of Robin Arzon. But yes, I love these things to a dorky degree, I am predictable, sorry not sorry!)
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Grocery list Google doc. I don’t trust Google docs. I never have. I don’t know why, I just don’t! For the longest time, in an attempt to drag me into the 21st century, Andrew tried to get me to write down our grocery list in a shared doc, so we could both add and subtract things as needed. I refused. I liked my method of writing things on scraps of paper and then letting those scraps of paper languish in my tote bag/wallet/pocket. But when we left New York and moved in with my parents last March, suddenly our grocery list required military planning: there were more of us, and we tried to go to the store as infrequently as possible. I conceded the wisdom of a shared, editable document. This document became our grocery list, but it also became the place where the family linked to recipes we wanted to make, and recorded what we cooked for dinner each night. We stopped using it a long time ago (“Last edit was on September 1, 2020”) but I’m so glad this document exists. I treasure this time capsule, with its a comprehensive record of what we ate every single night from Week 1 (white bean soup) through Week 17 (shrimp, tomato, and arugula linguine). For the record, I now see the utility of Google docs, but I still don’t quite trust them.
Ice cream cones. In May, Andrew and I stayed with his parents in Philadelphia for a month. One of the rituals we missed most was walking up to Bredenbeck’s for after-dinner cones. On those balmy late spring nights, it just felt plain wrong not to be strolling the neighborhood with a cone of Philly Graham Slam (objectively the best ice cream ever) in hand. Needless to say, eating ice cream out of a regular old bowl just isn’t the same. And then, one day, it occurred to us that we could buy ice cream cones from the grocery store. Not only that: we could buy sprinkles, too! This became our new ritual. We became very good (although not nearly as good as the teenagers at Bredenbeck’s) at scooping and filling and sprinkling. After dinner, we took our cones and wandered down the middle of the empty streets. The neighborhood was so quiet on those late spring nights.
Baking scale. I promised I wasn’t going to talk about sourdough! But, briefly, please allow me to credit the practice of bread-baking to finally making me the see the light on a baking scale. People always said it was better and easier than using volume measurements, and they weren’t kidding. I bought this scale last fall, as the weather got cooler and my baking really ramped up, and I LOVE IT. I love not having to use measuring cups. Anything that means fewer dishes to wash = worth it, in my book.
Knife sharpener. I asked Andrew to write this entry, because he is the evangelist for this particular product: “Five dollars and ninety nine cents is all it costs to slice and dice your way to COVID serenity. Order now and it will be at your door tomorrow.”
The Calm app. I’ve had a meditation practice for a few years now, and before Covid, I never relied on any apps to help with that practice. I thought I didn’t need them. (In fact, part of me took pride in not paying for an app. Why bother, when I could get the right music/soundtrack on Spotify or Youtube? Take that, capitalism!) But when Covid hit, my practice grew wobbly. Sticking to it required a little extra help. So I downloaded this app, and even though I felt kind of like a sucker paying for it, I’ve become a fan. Sometimes I do guided meditations; sometimes I just use the music; but either way, it’s become like a friend to me, and having it right there on my home screen, staring me in the face, is a good reminder to keep up the practice.
Famous Ray’s (NYC) / Little Country Pizza (RI). When I was a kid, my family had a Friday night ritual called “pizza video night,” which is exactly what it sounds like. Every Friday night without fail, we’d order Domino’s and rent a movie from Blockbuster. (If I recall correctly, this began as a form of bribery to make sure my sister and I made it on time to the school bus every morning. If we missed a day, well, too bad—no pizza video night. Although I don’t think that punishment every actually materialized.) During Covid, once my parents’ local pizza place in Rhode Island began doing takeout, we revived the tradition. It was a thing to look forward to, and a good way of demarcating the week from the weekend. When Andrew and I got back to New York, we kept with the tradition. Every Friday night we call in our order and walk down to Famous Ray’s and pick up our large pie and our large Caesar salad and let me tell you, the pleasure this brings me is without parallel. I know that someday soon we’ll have other options on a Friday night. We might get together for dinner with friends; we might sardine ourselves into a crowded bar; we might go to the movies; we might hop on a plane at LaGuardia or JFK for a weekend getaway. And I’m so excited for those days—truly, I can’t wait for those options to return—but I also suspect that a little part of me will feel nostalgic for those weekly trips to Ray’s, when our world was so small that even a simple cheese pizza could bring me this kind of intense, child-like happiness.