My sister was telling me about her friend — someone I found admirable. She is a medical laboratory scientist in Louisville, Kentucky. Her name is Eleanor.
Prior to the pandemic, my sister wrote an account of this wonderful woman:
“Various cacti and lush plants notably display her keen sense of decoration throughout her home. According to Eleanor, they are positioned purposefully to support a healthy equilibrium of aerobic respiration for all the eukaryotes in her household, pets and humans combined. I am suddenly embarrassed that the only thing close to nature in my house is the sad artificial ivy hanging from my kitchen cabinet tops.” (Again, this was one of her many hobbies prior to the pandemic).
How she has time to take care of all the living creatures astounds me because she is constantly on her feet at work. Eleanor gets up before dawn — 5:30 am to clock in at her standing job of running centrifuge, LC-MS machines, hematology analyzers (checking for blood coagulation) and other things that lab scientists do. She had been doing this for years.
So, she comes from her essential job to see her non-essential hubby doing nothing but being down, drinking beer and watching the tele. We get it — sometimes people need to just be depressed and do nothing for a while. But Eleanor was pissed.
The grass on their lawn was up to her waist. She gave up and mowed the lawn after her 8-hour shift.
There’s a saying in our household: “If you need something done, delegate a task to the busy person.” Well, she was always busy and she took to the task without delegation.
By dinner time, she was fuming. Words were hurled. But that wasn’t all. Pineapples — the only fruit they had were hurled at each other. Fortunately, they both had bad aim because no one was hit. Both went to bed after.
Eleanor woke up for her essential job and wondered why there were pineapple pieces and juice everywhere. Then she remembered.
“Oh god. If a person like Eleanor — someone who has it altogether, totally consistent, intelligent, etc. — loses her sh*t, what hope is there for the rest of us during this nutty period?” I worried out loud.
My sister shrugged over the phone with a chuckle. She needed to get off the call to feed her kids and get them ready for school on Zoom.
I thought about all the smashed pineapples. I would just pick up the pieces, wash them off and cut the rhinds.
Then I’d slice them into small cubes and freeze ‘em. Once frozen, they’d go through an Omega juicer with the Blank Cone piece instead of the strainer.
And there’ll be something for Eleanor and spouse to cool off with. Pineapple ice cream is a non-essential, foodwise. Essential for times like these? Absolutely.
I scream. You scream. But let’s do it with ice cream.