Verbatim

Hello, heat wave! I was thinking of things I'm saving money on during this pandemic, like restaurants and gas for the car, but another thing is sunblock. The only time I go outside is to take a walk, which is in the late afternoon and I try to keep to the shade—and I haven't even been doing that in this heat. So I haven't used any sunblock since we went up to Maine in June, and I won't likely need any for the near future… (And before you all get alarmed and start messaging me: Yes, my daily moisturizer has a small bit of sunblock in it, certainly enough for a 5pm walk in the shade.)

Speaking of things I'm saving money on: For the last year or so, I had been growing increasingly ambivalent about getting my hair colored. I liked the way it looked, but I kind of felt held captive by the schedule. I toyed with the idea of letting the gray grow out, but there was always some reason I didn't want to go through those initial few months of looking ridiculous (like when I was supposed to be giving a presentation at my editorial conference in April). But, guess what? I now haven't had my hair colored since January 31—and I don't think I'll ever go back! I was due to go in mid-March and obviously canceled, and here we are at the end of July. It did look kind of awful at first, with a quarter inch, and then a half inch of gray hair, and then more. But now I have several inches, and I can see that it's just in the front on top. The entire back of my head has no gray. So I'll be going for the Bonnie Raitt look. I do intend to ask Julie to give me a trim one of these days, though. Here's how it looks now, in my ubiquitous ponytail, while it's still growing out (and frizzy as all hell; cf. heat wave above):

In addition to not going to a salon, I have still not gone into a store or restaurant or, really, anywhere else in all these months. I have all my groceries and household goods delivered and couldn't be happier with that arrangement. Even if I were to go to the grocery store, it wouldn't be the kind of shopping I enjoy—leisurely browsing the aisles, examining the produce, looking at new items, etc. It would be dash-in-grab-my-stuff-dash-out, heart pounding. No thanks. For those who are interested, here's how I'm doing most of my shopping:

• I get as much as possible (nonperishable foods and household stuff) from Target.com. (This is different from ordering from your local Target for either curbside pickup or "Shipt" service.) Two-day delivery is free if you either have a Red Card (which also saves you 5%) or if you spend $35. But man, their prices are the real draw! Almost every item is a lot cheaper than anywhere else. 
• This has turned out to be a bad year to try to bring down Jeff Bezos's empire. I get regular deliveries from Amazon, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods. There are five of us here, and we go through a lot of stuff. But at least I can feel good that I have the Greater Boston Food Bank as my "Amazon Smile" charity, so they get a few pennies every time I order something. 
• I stopped using Instacart for my local supermarket—it was getting to be really expensive, and I kept getting conflicting info about whether they were treating their shoppers well (in addition to my very generous tips!). But there is a small local supermarket chain (Roche Bros., for my Mass. readers) that does home delivery sans Instacart, and I've been very happy with them. 
• My favorite discovery has been New England Country Mart, which is a fourth-generation family-run business that used to serve restaurants and now does home delivery of produce plus some other items, like meat, cheese, snacks, etc. Their produce is gorgeous, prices are very good, and customer service is a dream. You do have to spend $75 per order, but that's easy if you are feeding a family. If you live in Eastern Mass., the Cape, or the Newport area of Rhode Island, I urge you to give them a try! In fact, if you let me know, I will have them email you a $15 promo code (which is the cost of the delivery). 
• We are doing our best to support our local (non-chain) restaurants with takeout meals once or twice a week. We generally order extra so we can have leftovers. 

What I miss most is Trader Joe's! If I do decide to go to a store, that will certainly be the one—we have so many favorite TJs items, and there's no other way to get them. 

Somewhat related: Based on an online friend's recommendation, I recently switched my cleaning products to Blueland. You have a one-time purchase of reusable bottles, and then the various products (glass cleaner, bathroom cleaner, all-surface cleaner) come as a tablet that you dissolve in water. They also have hand soap and just added dish soap and dishwasher and laundry detergent. I think they work very well, they are all nontoxic, refills are only $2 each, and best of all, I won't be using any more plastic bottles.

Lessee … what else … oh, I read two more books! My book group met via Zoom to discuss Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. It tells the story of a well-off white suburban mom who hires a 20-something Black babysitter for her daughter. There's a racial incident that sets the plot ball rolling, and then a later Very Big Coincidence that complicates matters. (For the record, I did not find the coincidence to be preposterous, although a couple people in my book group did.) This is a very relevant book for our times, and it fostered a good discussion of the racial tensions (to put it mildly) prevalent in our country. However, I mostly found it to be somewhat superficial, with two-dimensional "stock" characters. And the writing itself was a huge disappointment. Not once in the whole book did I think, "Wow, what a lovely/clever/funny/interesting sentence!" In fact, there were some sentences that I couldn't even parse for meaning. While I definitely can't say you need to rush to get this book, it was definitely an easy, interesting read, with plenty to discuss. Just don't expect anything from the writing.

On the other hand, the writing in Sea Wife by Amity Gaige, is bee-yoo-ti-ful! It's the story of Juliet and Michael, who decide to leave suburbia behind and go live on a sailboat off the coast of South America for a year, with their two young children. It's all Michael's idea—he's got a chip on his shoulder about nearly everything and just wants to escape and be self-sufficient. Juliet suffers from depression and is getting nowhere fast with her dissertation on Anne Sexton, so despite many misgivings, she agrees. As you can imagine, their new living circumstances are at times terrifying and at times exhilarating. Along the way, we learn a lot about Michael and Juliet, their marriage, and the nature of love and trust and survival and so much more. Gaige is a terrific writer. The book bounces back and forth between our two narrators, and each felt thoroughly believable and distinct to me. And her descriptions of nature—the ocean, the wind, the various islands—are really lovely. I don't know a thing about sailing, but Gaige was able to describe all the nautical ins and outs in a way that made me understand enough to get by. I definitely recommend this one.

And finally: You know I do lots of various types of puzzles and word games and number games, but I have a new obsession: nonograms. They're also known as Japanese crosswords, but there aren't any words at all. Instead, there are grids where you have to fill in different colors (or black if you're doing black and white puzzles) according to the number of squares shown. When it's all solved, you get a picture of something. There are loads of sites and apps, but my favorite by far is Nonograms.org. If you've never done one, start with a tiny one. And I'd say start with color too, as the black and white ones can be trickier. I mostly do small and medium, but I've done a few of the large ones, and they really get my brain cranking! I do these all day long—whenever I need a work break ("When I finish editing this chapter, I get to do a nonogram!") and in the evening. I can do them on my iPad but find the iPhone much too small. Let me know if you like them!