Supply Chain Lament

I haven’t been to the gun range or to my local pool since COVID, and I really miss both. Recent unfortunate events in the news have led me to reflect on my time at the range, and I really want to try to get back there again regularly. They re-opened a while back, but ammo has become rare and expensive, and I just couldn’t manage dealing with a mask on top of all of the other sensory deprivation involved with shooting—I have sensitive hearing so I need strong ear plugs as well as the standard ear protection, plus goggles, which tend to steam up even without a mask. Adding a face covering to the whole situation just felt like a bridge too far to me, although it’s probably a net good in terms of keeping lead dust out of one’s nose and mouth. I have now backtracked to the point where all of my initial anxiety around shooting has reared its ugly head again, and I am going to have to start over from scratch working my way back to feeling confident around firearms. But I truly do miss the range and all of the cool and awesome people there.

My neighborhood pool recently re-opened after a very long closure, and I would love to resume my weekly swims, but my swimsuit is baggy now and God knows how long it’s going to take to get a new one at this point. It was impossible even pre-COVID and pre-supply chain woes trying to find any swimsuit at all, much less one that fit, and that was a long time ago. As I recall, I finally found a suit at the one specialty shop at Northgate that carried them, and that place has been long gone. When I went to Ocean Shores in September, my local pool had been closed for almost two years, and I was shocked at how badly my swimsuit fit when I put it on to swim in the hotel pool. Luckily, there was never anyone at that pool so it didn’t matter that my suit sagged in certain key areas, but if I’m going to swim again on the reg in public, I will need one that adequately covers my parts, and I don’t know where to begin.

On top of all this, I couldn’t find any of my normal products at Bartell’s this weekend, which I found mildly upsetting. They were completely out of my beloved Dr. Teal’s Himalayan Sea Salt Soak, as well as all of my eyeliners. Just as I have become enamored of polishing my nails again for the first time in years, they had no nail polish at all, and no eye-concealer. They attempted to mitigate this with multiple signs posted everywhere stating that they were having supply chain issues “like everyone else”, but that didn’t get me my eye concealer. When I complained to Mr. Typist about this, he suggested that I consider no longer wearing make up, which is just not an option. I am very fond of make-up. It’s my armor. Also, I enjoy the morning ritual of slathering my face with it. And I get regular compliments from women about my ability to keenly match my eyeliner color to my clothing, which makes me happy, because every women’s magazine I’ve read since childhood admonishes against that. Ha! Take that, dumb women’s magazines. I enjoy wearing green eyeliner with my green sweater, people like it, and it makes me happy, so go to heck with your preachy make-up advice.

Here’s hoping that one of these days, those container ships get unloaded and trucked into the stores. In the meantime, here’s some joyful belly dance for a gloomy Seattle Sunday. 

 

--Kristen McHenry