Mary Novaria

It’s late March, a typical Colorado quarantine evening, except that my toilet paper is somewhere in China’s Guangdong Province.   The Safeway shelves are empty… but we aren’t out of TP yet. It’s too soon to freak out.   Still, when an ad pops up on social media, I make a panic buy: 40 rolls.   “Ships in 12 hours,” the ad says. My friend Judy checks out the website and proclaims it “kinda scammy.” I eventually admit to her that I know my order will never arrive. ***   The paper goods aisle in the store remains pillaged. What if the unthinkable happens? Remember when Elaine from Seinfeld sat in a bathroom stall that was out of toilet paper? Is that my destiny?   A friend posts on Facebook about several varieties of leaves you can use instead. I shudder recalling that teenage summer and the hideous case of poison ivy I got after squatting in the woods during a bonfire at the beach…   Weeks go by. The company’s website has disappeared. I email the sellers and d...

Published on August 11, 2020 An Unexpected Gift of Ginger by  Mary Novaria Like serotonin for your soul, ginger root during the pandemic can be a balm for anxiety—among its many other benefits. Mary Novaria spins a yarn about how the superfood brought her relief.  Photo credit:  Getty/Dmitrii Ivanov) Before the first   COVID-19   death in the United States, and before I learned of my neighbors’ inclination for hoarding toilet paper, I got my first taste of coronavirus deprivation in the produce aisle.  It was the end of February, two weeks before the World Health Organization proclaimed the virus a pandemic. What would soon become an international nightmare and a horrifying domestic health crisis was weeks away. I was annoyed because there was no fresh ginger root at my local grocer.  Continue reading...