Weeks have blended into one another and I’ve done what some of us have done – let my brain turn to mush. We all have our routines and in another life these included getting ready for work and leaving the house. In seclusion, I’ve packed on some new habits.

I check the stock market most mornings. You see, I had time on my hands in mid-March, stocks took a slump and I figured the pandemic would only last a few months. I bought Disney stock at $97 a share on my new online trading account. As I watched my five shares move up and down I had faith that people would soon be lined up to see America’s most famous mouse, wearing $40 Disney brand hats.

Now I watch the stock market to see what I woulda, coulda and am glad I did not buy.

During this downtime, I formed the habit of logging each food item I ingest via the MyFitnessPal app. This habit certainly eats up time.

When you’re in a pandemic, you find ways to fill each day. Before it became blistering hot, I walked three miles a day, watched the PBS NewsHour and ordered things on Amazon. I also made fruitless phone calls, sometimes for hours, trying to find out why I have not yet received any funds from unemployment.

Sadly, I am also obsessed with Coronavirus statistics, adding numbers to an excel spreadsheet that tracks grim facts about the world.

And now, my focus needs to shift to teaching fifth grade.

The problem is, I need to stop doing all of these things that have become my mind-numbing new routine.

When I sit down to focus on work, it’s as if some of my brain axioms have dried up like the tomatoes in my dehydrator. I need to plan for my classroom, but somehow my mind thinks I should be logging my calories or checking my fictional stock portfolio.

If I’m having trouble, I can only imagine what sort of brain axiom retraining my students will require after five months of home isolation. Likely, their habits have included video games. Their hands may now be formed in new configurations that make it difficult to grip a No. 2 pencil.

Time doesn’t stop

In the meantime, my classroom looks beautiful. My district is in another county and the plan is to have students in masks, at a safe distance, listening to a teacher who is muffled behind fabric. I have moved seven houseplants to their new home in my new classroom. When I worked with the international program at Chico State last year, the participants gave me hostess gifts from their countries. The top of one bookshelf has become my “international corner.”

My classroom was stocked with an amazing number of books. However, I lugged in my own collection. When I loaded up every bookshelf I could find, I realized I needed to put some books back in my storage shed.

If all goes well, my students will be in the classroom at least long enough to remember school is a wonderful place. No one knows the future of the pandemic, and I may very well end up teaching online. I’d prefer that my students meet me in person if we end up continuing our friendships via pixels on a computer screen.

Garden gifts

As mentioned last week, I grow a lot of tomatoes but don’t eat them. This time of year, my food dehydrator might be heard into the wee hours, whirling hot air on the front porch. My house is small, and even one appliance spewing heat can raise the temperature from unbearably hot to incredibly unbearably hot. I run the extension cord out the front door and set a timer for 17 hours.

Dried tomatoes are easier to give as gifts than regular tomatoes. Most people I know currently have mounds of just-picked tomatoes on their kitchen counters.

When I taught third grade, the children loved dehydrated tomatoes only slightly less than those high-fructose corn syrup “fruit snacks.” When we had popcorn parties, I added a bowl of dried fruit near the popcorn, and the treats all made it into children’s mouths, and onto the floor.

So far, I have harvested and dried one overflowing bowl of home-grown tomatoes. The trick is to stop dehydrating when they’re still pliable when warm, otherwise you’ll have dried tomato chips, which children also love. I store dried tomatoes between layers of waxed paper in my great grandmother’s glass cookie jar. To keep them fresh, I add those little packets of silica, which I saved from packaged foods.

July is the price we pay for living in amicable Northern California.

Most of the time, we have it pretty good. We’re a few minutes from the Sacramento River, a few hours from the mountains, and there are still places where you can let your dog run off-leash. Our towns have community events. When we attend these events we actually run into people we know.

Yet, in July it’s fairly easy to feel like living here is a mistake.

Some of those otherwise nice townfolk are cranky, or maybe it’s me. Anything left in the car will melt and nights are sweaty and sleepless. Once upon a time I would go to the grocery story merely to stand in front of an open door in the freezer section. Coronavirus has killed that thrill.

This is why civilized cultures have siestas. There’s no use in even pretending to function like a normal human being when our brains are about as slow-cooked as Gramma Dorothy’s pot roast. A nap in front of the air conditioner is about all the work that should be done from noon to two.

Yet, we stay because we’re in too much of a brain stupor to pack it up and leave. Plus, everyone knows it’s too hot to move in July.

And soon, fall arrives and memories of the summer of our discontent will fade. The gingko trees will turn an electric shade of yellow, catching those long, slanted rays of last light. Before we know it, we’re taking afternoon strolls in the neighborhood, waving at our neighbors as if we didn’t have a big fight that day when we were both hot and cranky.

Summer escapes

I will not compare my sweat-filled, pandemic-impaired life to others. Thank you, Michelle, and David, and countless others who recently bragged on social media about their weekend excursions in Fort Bragg.

Going to the rugged beach town is almost a community event. Nearly every time I visit, usually in July, I run into another Chicoan wearing flip flops and cargo shorts as they snap photos for Facebook.

If we were not sheltering in place, I might be at Lake Almanor, which is the other place you’ll bump into people with Chico State license plate holders.

It’s July. We would rather be somewhere else. Yet, one month of unbearable heat is better than 365 days of horrendous Bay Area traffic.

Summer survival

If you’ve lived here long enough, you’ve learned a few survival trips. Here are a few from my war chest.

• Fill a cooler with blocks of ice. Rest feet in ice chest while pointing fan over the cool air. Make sure to point the airflow directly at your face.
• Frozen two-liter bottles in the swamp cooler.
• Eat popsicles for dinner.
• Run through your neighbor’s sprinklers.
• Linger in the milk section at Costco.

This week I had a solo version of a July barbecue. I had frozen pizza in the freezer, but there was no way I was going to turn on the oven indoors. I have a toaster oven, which I only use in July. Using an electrical cord, I baked half a pizza on the front porch.

Now I have room to freeze those peaches that were a gift from Dawna.

Remember your plants

My dear friend Roger called last week. He’s funny. Rather than simply pick up the phone to say hello, he makes up an excuse to call, usually a plant-related question. This time he was wondering why his cucumbers weren’t producing.

“They’re wilted,” he said, sounding a bit wilted himself. “I’ve been watering them twice a day, and nothing seems to help.”

They’re wilting, dear Roger, because it’s so hot they want to die. Cucumbers, and other plants with big leaves may wilt during the day, just like humans. I told him to check them with a flashlight after the sun went down, and likely he would note they had perked up.

Of course, as soon as I told Roger this news, the cucumbers in my raised bed died.

Move your pots

If your potted plants are looking beaten and disrespected this time of year, they may be trying to tell you something. They may be telling you they would rather die than spend another day in direct sun. Just because the gal at the nursery said the plants will survive the worst of Chico’s summer heat does not mean the plants actually prefer to be miserable.

This time of year, I try to remember to move my potted plants under one of those polymer sun shades.

You can also find the best places for sun-battered plants by checking where the stray cats nap in your yard. Chances are, your plants will prefer the shade vs. the Great Incineration.

Also, pay attention to plants in terra cotta. These faded orange pots are attractive, and they last a long time. Yet, they’re porous and the increased airflow allows the soil to dry more quickly. The air can help keep fungi and other plant boo-boos from populating the soil. Yet, I prefer plastic for most things except for cacti.

You can also find umpteen crafty ways to paint (and seal) terra cotta pots so they don’t dry quickly. However, that’s a project for any month other than July.