The governor of California has extended the shelter-in-place mandate until the end of May! Good grief! I have committed myself to nattering on about my thoughts and feelings until the shelter-in-place days are over. But what am I going to drivel on about? Because, let’s face it, drivel I do. Let me marshal my options on possible subjects:

1 -Hubby. The man I married is an endless source of material. Love him though I do, he is responsible for much amusement around the house. And aggravation.  Usually, he’s endearing and thoughtful. He has been known to clean up the kitchen, load the dishwasher, and do a load of laundry, all before I get up in the morning. But just when I think he is the most thoughtful man in the world he goes and does something thoughtless, like leaving one of the stove burners on after he’s cooked something for himself. No matter how many times I tell him to turn the burners off BEFORE he lifts the pot from the stove, he keeps forgetting. We even have little signs – “The fire marshall is watching YOU.” Someday I just might pull the stove out and put in one that turns itself off when there’s no more weight on the burner. That stove is right around the corner, should the house not burn down beforehand.

2 – Ellie, my cat. My darling, adorable, tubby Ellie is a spoiled brat, indulged beyond belief. I not only acknowledge the fact but stand firm that it is totally my doing. I say with no small amount of pride that I can take any ordinary alley cat and turn it into a neurotic French Poodle in less than three months. I like to think of it as a gift.

3 – My hair, my nails, my weight, my age, my very being. Boring as hell, but often perplexing and idiotic. Just how dumb can a smart broad be? The answer is very. Case in point: We still have two large unopened boxes of booze from BevMo sitting in the middle of the living room. This is because when I placed the online order in the first place, I accidentally made a duplicate order of everything. Then when I went in to cancel one of the duplicate orders, I doubled both. What was delivered was FOUR times the amount of wine and liquor I’d meant to order in the first place. And they won’t take any of it back. This is where hubby is a doll, if not a saint. He says we will eventually get around to drinking it. Maybe next year. Or the year after. Or in 2030. Maybe we should leave some of it in our wills to our nearest and dearest. Hmmm.  I’ll look into that.

4 – My writing. I love to write. It’s just who I am. I find my mind never ceases to come up with stories, puzzles, solutions, humor, and words. I love wordplay. In fact, I had been thinking about something. Or daydreaming. What if I could go back in time and meet just one person, one person in all the world who existed before? Follow just one person around for a week? Immediately I knew it would have to be Shakespeare. No doubt at all. And it isn’t that I might be able to understand what he was saying, him being English, doncha know. It’s really that he had such a way with words and such insight into the human condition. And he could express it in ways I could never even dream of doing. I love the Bard. But not as much as I love my hubby. Even if he does leave the stove burners on now and again.