I am so not feeling this post right now, but I’m hoping writing it will make me feel a little better. My cat is still sick going on 12 days now. She went back to the vet Friday and the vet said she thought it was due to a reaction from the rabies shot she got, but she’s not getting better. Even with the anti-nausea meds the vet gave us she’s still vomiting anywhere from one to three times a day. She’s off at the vet getting tests done and wasn’t allowed to eat this morning, so I’m super sad and stressed thinking about her being stuck there starving, stressed out, not feeling well and not understanding why her humans are subjecting her to this torture. Also, we’re supposed to be going to visit my family for Easter on Thursday, but it’s looking increasingly likely that I’m going to be going solo and my husband is going to stay home with the cat. I’m really not looking forward to making the drive by myself. Anyway enough whining. Let’s get to the good stuff.

• Taharka Brothers Ice Cream. Taharka Brothers Ice Cream is a local Baltimore ice cream distributor. They have a few shops at markets in the area and sell to lots of restaurants and local grocery stores. You can also order ice cream to be delivered. The only draw back of that is that you have to order 8 pints, which is a little excessive. However, they do monthly special flavors and several times in the last six months or so I have really wanted them, so I’ve gotten a friend to split the 8 pints with me. So we each just get 4 pints instead. We just got another order this past week because I really wanted their banana pudding and chocolate chip cookie dough special flavors. And you can’t beat their honey graham, which is happily one of their always flavors. It’s so good.
• Sunday Walks. I know a lot of people adopted walking outside with friends early on in the pandemic, but that’s not something I ever really did. It’s only been since this past February that I started doing that on the regular with the same friend I split the ice cream with. At some point in February I hit one of those particularly rough pandemic lows. I hadn’t had any social interaction in awhile because the weather was too cold to do outdoor activities and I think even my online game night was canceled that week, so I was like I need to get out of this house and talk to someone that isn’t my husband. So I asked my friend if she wanted to meet up for a walk on Sunday afternoon and now we’ve pretty much done a Sunday afternoon walk every week save for the weeks when one or the other of us has been out of town.
• Side of Rice at Ekiben. My husband and I got dinner from Ekiben on Thursday night. It’s not his favorite unlike everyone else in Baltimore, but it’s literally steps from our house and it was raining so I suggested we just do that for dinner. I ordered him a side of rice and was very amused by the description “Side of Jasmine Rice. A really good option if you want 2000 of something for only $2.”
• Long Shadow. After days and days and days of nothing but rainy weather it was finally sunny for a little while on Friday including my morning walk. When I was coming home at one point the sun was at my back and it created the longest shadow of me I think I’ve ever seen. It stretched almost down the entire block. I enjoyed watching my long, tall shadow self bopping along.
• TV Binge. I enjoy a good TV binge, but it’s been a long time since I’ve watched a show that I just wanted to sit down and keep playing episodes of. I don’t even remember the last show I did it with it’s been so long. I spent a good portion of this weekend binging the show You’re the Worst and it was nice to get sucked into a show again for a little while.
• New Yorker Salt Box Article. The New Yorker had an article about Baltimore Salt Boxes and how a movement to create them into community art pieces brought them to new life. As I said on social media when I shared this, usually when Baltimore is featured in a national news article it’s about something terrible. It’s stuff like this that makes Baltimore a great city despite its many problems, so it was really nice to see something positive about the city for a change.

And now for your musical delights.

• Sunday night we finally used our season tickets to the Hippodrome five shows into the season. The show was Pretty Woman: The Musical, which was fine but nothing anyone really needs in their life. However, at the very end of the show there was a part where the whole cast was out on stage and they all hit this note together and the power of it made me tear up. That communal joy in live music and performance is something I have missed more than anything in the past two years and it was so great to experience it again in that little moment.
• I heard this song on my way to work one day last week when I very much needed the message it was providing. I didn’t know what the song was, so as soon as I got to work I looked up the radio station’s playlist to find out what song I had been listening to. I could have guessed for a million years and never guessed that it was by Weezer. So that was a delightful surprise in and of itself.