Uh, grateful this week – well, I mentioned at the top, it's the eve of my 2 year anniversary contributing to Michigan Diaries Project. I feel like it's only fitting to say that I'm grateful for Michigan Diaries Project and the team. You know, helps me feel less alone. Feels like I have a place to record my thoughts for my own benefit and, you know, for this potentially linguistic research benefit and potentially historical benefits. It's – and of course, just it’s fun to me to participate in the project. You know, hopefully with the – we don't have to keep going over the COVID news. If it's here, I think we'll go over it. But, you know, fingers crossed we’re getting out of the COVID stuff. But uh, but yeah. Just really appreciate it, Michigan Diaries. I don't have a super clear idea about everything that goes on behind the scenes, but seems like a lot of work, seems like, seems like you enjoy it. And I appreciate you doing what you do.

“Am I a person who gets convinced to do dares?” No. But have I been convinced to do a dare? Yes, and it fills me with great regret to this day. It was so stupid. No one even was – no one was hurt during this dare. So yes, I have been convinced to do a dare. And the first one that came to my mind was when I was in fourth grade, maybe fifth grade, and my mom's boyfriend was in the kitchen with me and my brother and the phone rang. I was a very shy child, and I'm still afraid of the phone to this day, talking on the phone, just – I get so nervous. The phone rang. And for some reason, I have no idea why. I don't know why he said it, I don't know why I agreed to it. But my mom's boyfriend dared me to pick up the telephone and just say in a – like the meanest tone, not yelling, but like louder than normal – to just pick up the phone and say, "What?!" And I think the presumption is it was probably my mom calling home from, from work because she always did right around that time, you know, to check in or to let us know what's going on. So, I picked up the phone in the kitchen believing it was going to be my mom. And so I went through with it and picked up the phone and I go "What?!" And it was my fifth grade teacher and I have no idea why she was calling 'cause I was a good kid and teachers don't usually call home in my house. I just know that I melted with embarrassment. I handed the phone off to my mom's boyfriend. I don't even remember what became of it, but it was the worst. It might have been the last time I ever took a dare, 'cause it was just – I died of embarrassment. And in hindsight I wonder what she thought. I mean, at the time, I wondered what she walked away thinking. But now that I'm a teacher myself, she had to have gone and gossiped to her fellow co-teachers like, "I just called like my sweetest boy, and he answered the phone by just yelling “what” into my ear. He didn't even say hello." She…

Well, this was maybe more of a last week kind of thing, but about a year ago, I probably came on here talking about going to a birthday party for a friend's dad who turned a hundred. And that was significant because oh my gosh, you know, this guy was turning a hundred, that's a big deal. It also was the first time I think I really subjected myself to a gathering like that. Like to travel like I did and then to, like, be in a big room full of people. Anyway, I – Mr. [friend’s father’s name] lived for another year. So I went back for his hundred and first birthday party. And it was interesting because in, in some ways it was like a very different right now, everyone's vaccinated and nobody's masking. But my friend [friend’s name], his daughter who's, you know, my close friend, she flew from California to be there. I came in on the train from Michigan to be there, you know, other people were coming from all around and we were talking about it and you know, like, numbers are going up and [friend’s name] was like, "I really wanted to do this, but in some ways this feels like it's maybe even more dangerous than last year and like am I hosting a super spreader event?" And you know, she obviously, she wants to protect her dad, he's one hundred and one, but it ended up being a really nice celebration. And no – just about nobody masked. I obviously masked on the train all the way to well, okay, most of the way not all of the way, I think I took it off for part of the trip. But – ‘cause, you know, it's no longer required, but I just felt like I, you know, I just wanted to stay safe. Like, when you're around a whole bunch of people you don't know. Anyway, I guess I'm, I guess I'm getting off topic, but I actually think COVID-19 continues to permeate nearly everything I talk about. I mean feels like that's the, the new normal. Anyway, the party was really nice. Instead of last time instead of – they, they, like, everybody had their own plate set in front of them because I think then people were still concerned about, you know, like how much you might transmit it…

I was gonna go through my diary, my online journal that I write - I write in it every day, it helps with my anxiety. If I put things down and on paper. I was gonna go through it and, and kinda write a book about mine and my husband's love story 'cause it's all in my journal. How we started talking on the telephone. He called me and then later, I mentioned to him that I was moving and I was having a big yard sale and he offered to come help me with my yard sale. And he brought things over for him, for him to sell at the yard sale, you know, kinda making it bigger for me. I thought, you know, you can – as, as I read my journal during certain parts of the, certain parts of the year, it was about a year love story that took place. And you can see the progression in the journal, until we got married and now we're waiting for our leases to be over so that we can finally move in together as husband and wife and, and start living our lives together instead of separately. And we live our lives together now, but he goes home to his house and I stay at my apartment at the end of the day. But I thought that would be cool. A cool book to, to have, a self-published book about our love story. I don't know what I'd call it, but, I met him on Plenty of Fish, POF, about fifteen years ago. And we dated way back then for a little over a year and then he asked me to marry him. And I, I said, yes, and then I couldn't do it. I wasn't, I wasn't ready to, to be married. And so we – I broke it up, off with him. I broke up with him, broke it off with him, however you wanna say it. And then we got back together. We took baby steps, phone call, the garage sale, then he helped me move into my apartment. And we'd go out to dinner. We'd go places and do things. It just progressed. It was pretty awesome. But that's something I've been thinking about doing here as a next big project.

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. Did you see the eclipse during the middle of the day several years ago? What made you think -- or what did you think about it? Did you get special eclipse glasses to watch it happen? Yeah, the eclipse 20, was that 2016 or 17? Yeah, I definitely remember that. My company actually took the day off of work. Basically. We kind of had a party. We went to a big park in Ann Arbor. It was close to a river and probably was the Huron River. I don't remember a hundred percent, but we did tubing. I think. And of course general barbecue stuff. Like hot dogs, hamburgers, potato chips, potato salad, stuff like that. As I recall. And yeah, the eclipse I remember that being weird. It was a little weird. It honestly made me feel connected to people from the past because, like today, you know, there's a tendency to feel like as modern people we’re so smart with science and everything, but with something like that eclipse happens, like it's just dark in the middle of the day and it's weird as h***. And it's like, it's been a few years. So I don't remember exactly but it was darker than just clouds going by. It's like, whoa, what is happening? Like it was unsettling a little bit. And yeah, I definitely remember the funny, the funny eclipse glasses cuz obviously the sun is very bright. And if you look at it for a long time, you could potentially damage your eyes. So yeah, they were -- I don't remember what was super special about them. I think they were just dark. I don't remember if the polarization of the lenses mattered. The main thing was it just being dark. I'm pretty sure. Kind of like when you're – if you were like welding or something, you wear the face shield and you don't want to look at the super bright light similar. I remember seeing pictures of some people actually used welding masks to, to look at the eclipse. Similar like approach and technology there. But yeah, the eclipse several years ago. Great times.

I was looking back to the pandemic. Oh, was there a moment that I realized it was going to be a big thing? I honestly don't really know if there is a moment when I think it was a going to be a big thing. I don't think I'm really the right demographic for that question 'cuz I'm a weird demographic. I'm not quite an adult and not quite a child either. I'm like in the middle, but I think -- I don't know. I was definitely, I knew from the beginning that it wasn't something to be taken lightly. Like I was not in school for the last couple days, when uh last couple of days before all the Michigan schools closed, but I, I was kind of worried. And then I just didn't, to be honest, I didn't do anything when I was in the early stages of the pandemic. Because I would just stay inside and just really study for my AP exams. Oh, wow yeah! But study for the AP exams that were coming up. And then, yeah, I'd hop on video calls with my friend and just cram for those tests which actually did pretty well on, but yeah. Pandemic, yeah, like I said, I don't really know a time when I realized it would be a good idea because I mean, a big thing. I don't know what I'm talking about “a good idea”. A big thing because like, that's kind of, it's -- for me I just sat through it long enough and now it's just a big thing. Like I never, there was never a point where I was like, oh, this is going to be over tomorrow or like this is already over. I think I was a bit skewed because in the middle, I did go to Interlochen and I had live schooling my junior year of high school in 2020, 2021 that year. Where like we I mean we all had to wear masks, we had to social distance, but it was like it was, it was different and it felt more normal. So, now wearing masks all the time, doesn't really bother me, and it doesn't really -- it honestly doesn't didn't really feel real when I went back to my house after going there for the first time -- going here for the first time, going to…

I wanted to talk today about COVID again because it's reared its angry head in our lives again. I'm watching numbers that positivity rates have been going up in our area. My mom called me last night to tell me that she tested positive yesterday and I know that COVID isn't necessarily a big deal. Testing positive isn't necessarily a big deal. My parents are both triple vaccinated. My dad just had his, his second booster. But it just sucks when it, it comes close again. I had just seen my mom this weekend. We -- my parents live up, up north. And so we had actually driven up. And then up near them, drove back down with my parents to watch my son's soccer game and then drove back. So spent four hours in the car with my parents on Saturday. So now there's that anxiety again of exposure. Worrying about “I'm a little stuffy this morning. Is it allergies? Is it something more?” I know that I've been triple vaccinated as well, but haven't had COVID after being vaccinated. Makes -- still makes me feel more apprehensive. I know that most people -- that COVID is kind of here in that most people do just fine with it. But I've also had -- I think that I come from a biased spot that my experience with COVID was not great. That I still feel like a year later, I haven't returned to, to the level of health, to the level of fitness, the level of energy that I had before. And I'm sure there's many factors that go into that. And then the experience we had with my sister-in-law who was on a ventilator and on ECMO, and we didn't think was going to make it. It definitely makes me stress more with it. And I also feel like, maybe I've talked about it before, in the beginning there was a clear path. You knew what to do. Now I feel like, well, I've been exposed, but I don't think I'm supposed to do anything different, but I feel like I should do something different. That, you know, that was pretty direct exposure. And I know vaccinations decrease intensity of illness but they're not perfect in that certainly can still catch, catch it. And I don't want to expose anybody else but we also have to live our…

We planned to have a garden. It's a small space. We've had a garden in this space before, but it really needs to be fully tilled and turned over every year before planting. And we just have a tiny, little battery-operated rototiller for getting weeds. Not really to till a garden and so my husband was like, “Well, I've been looking for -- doing searches for people who till gardens and we can rent one but that's a hassle. You have to go get it and it’s expensive. And it takes time. And, you know, I just wish we knew somebody,” and I was kinda racking my brain, trying to think of anyone and hadn't come up with any names, either. And he was outside yesterday, getting the boat ready, actually, and he was in the yard and he hears a little tractor driving down the road in front of our house and looks up and sees it happens to have a little garden tiller on it. And so he ran kind of out toward the end of the driveway and sort of flagged the guy down. And the guy already been by the house, but he saw him and backed up, came and turned in the driveway and my husband asked him, “You know, hey, you got a tiller on that tractor. Would you be able to till my garden?” And he said, “Well, I'm actually just headed into our little town and gotta do a garden in there, but I'll probably be coming back this way in about an hour. If you wanna,” you know, he says, “maybe I'll be able to do it then.” And was asking how big it was and all that and sure enough, about an hour later, the guy came back and our little garden, it took him like four passes back and forth and it's all tilled up and ready to go. And my husband says, “Well, how much do we owe you?” And he said, “Twenty bucks’ll be great.” ‘Cause, like, he was already driving by our house to go do somebody else's garden, so it was just a little extra for him too. And we actually ended up giving him a dozen eggs from our chickens and a half gallon of maple syrup from our trees, which is probably the most valuable thing out of the whole transaction, but it…