If you are staying home for months at a time, in order to avoid COVID-19 and the variants, then you need to have a fairy godmother and a fairy godfather. I’m so fortunate that I have both!
Tom Richter is my next-door neighbor, whose house is attached to mine. He lives alone, and his red car is usually parked behind my red car in our joint driveway. The few times during this pandemic when I had to take one of my cats to the Bryn Mawr Veterinary Hospital, Tom would come into my house, catch Honeyboy, the fat tabby, put him in his carrying case, carry him out to his car then drive both of us to the vet.
Since no one is allowed into the facility, you just call on your cell phone and someone comes out to take the cat and the carrier out of the car and into the doctor’s office. Then you sit in the parking lot and wait to hear the verdict.
When the X-rays and shots have been completed, the doctor calls on your cell phone, the clerk brings out the cat in his carrying case, and Tom drives us both home and carries the cat and carrier back into my house. Whew!
Now he has a thriving real estate business, and he drops everything when I need assistance. And a week go, the mouse stopped working on my computer. I could not type anything so I could not order food from a restaurant or groceries as I usually do. Even though I changed the batteries on my mouse, I could not get it to work again.
Tom was kind enough to drop whatever he was doing Friday night and drive over to Staples in Narberth to pick up a new mouse which I had ordered by phone. After I started using the new Logintech mouse, I was able to open up emails – but I still could not get the laptop to allow me to type anything.
My best friend since kindergarten, Debby Wolff, Esq., had shared the information with me about her tech guru who seems to be able to handle any computer problem.
Oh, I spent hours on the phone with support.com and then with the Staples tech guy in Narberth. On Saturday I had to pack up my computer and hauled it over to the Narberth Staples, but even there the tech desk could not find out what the problem was.
So I packed everything up, drove five minutes to my house, and called Debby’s computer guru. He showed up on Sunday, spent an hour, did the impossible and made my old laptop start accepting my typing again! He also started my new computer which I had purchased at Staples, but I am not yet ready to start with a whole new system.
I have written about my fairy godmother, Michele Kassarich, before. She is the thoughtful neighbor who called me and asked if I needed her to reach out to her friend who was good at gaining appointments at Rite-Aids for vaccination against COVID-19. Michele drove me all the way out to a brand new Rite-Aid, walked me in, waited with me while I prepared to receive the Pfizer vaccine, then drove me home. It was a good 45 minutes ride each way. I could never have found it on my own.
Weeks later she drove me back again to get the second shot, I was able to book the Wynnewood Rite-Aid for my booster shot by myself. But I had not been able to order any matzoh for Passover by using my computer to access the Instacart delivery service from the Narberth Acme or the Wynnewood Giant.
But my fairy godmother, Michele, twice bought boxes of matzoh for me and left them on my doorstep. And this was while she was teaching at her Montessori classroom and then staying with her mother who was recuperating from hip surgery.
In between there were other thoughtful neighbors as well, like Rosa Serota who baked lasagna for me and Maureen Schutz who shopped at the supermarket for me several times. I have trouble breathing while wearing a mask because of my asthma, which is the main reason why I mostly work from home and rarely venture out.
But I am truly blessed to have thoughtful neighbors. I do not see a time when I can forego the mask and venture out in public safely, not with another variant version of COVID making the rounds everywhere. But I am praying for a time in the near future when weddings and religious services and celebrations can be attended in person safely. By all of us.
Bonnie Squires writes weekly for Main Line Media News News and can be reached at www.bonniesquires.com. She hosts the “Bonnie’s Beat” TV show at MLTV- MAIN LINE NETWORK
