Life of Wry

New thing for our little family and such a sign of the times — tech-wise, society-wise and global pandemic-wise.

Our check in last night (wish it was a regular event, it isn’t, but we do manage about once a week) started as a phone call, which morphed into a Facetime call so Peter could show us something, then I decided to ramp up to Zoom.. mostly because Jim hadn’t sat in on a Zoom call yet and, well, why not? I’ve participated in countless Zoom calls at this point (though, of course, I am counting them), but had never set one up myself… so as Peter was describing a lab experiment, I was setting up the call on another channel, so to speak, then, this happened!

There is some kind of fluid in that contraption that, as the video progresses, will begin to form waves (he’s taking a wave engineering course of some sort). It was so very, very cool to be able to not only talk, but have Peter show us stuff. It kind of amazed me, too, that we went right into the substance of the experiment within seconds of arriving to the Zoom platform.. like, well, yeah, of course. Didn’t miss a beat.

But soon we moved on to a story that Jim shared. It’s the one where the man walks into Sutter Hospital last week, says he’s there to pick up the covid-19 sample, the staff hands it right over and thinks nothing of this odd little exchange…until they see him riding away on a bike. (TRUE STORY!) (The poor fellow has mental illness issues, but the staff sure doesn’t.)

That was pretty funny. And when Jim thinks something is funny, and begins laughing, we ALL laugh because it’s just so hilarious to see Jim laugh that hard..

I love my family.

And now we Zoom.

Jim took the first baking shift this morning…

Cinnamon rolls for breakfast:

He used the bread maker to mix, knead and raise the dough, then put the dough in a muffin pan and baked the rolls in the oven. Worked pretty well.

We each ate four. FOUR. As great as they were, this may explain my day-long stomach ache. They were great going down and that sugar glaze was insane.

I took the second shift…

Tried that no-knead dutch oven bread everybody’s been talking about and it worked pretty well!

Heavy as all get out. Jim’s theory is that were a person to knead-rise-punch-down-repeat, the bread might come out lighter and airier. Also, maybe half whole wheat and half white flour? I’m eager experiment and try adding ingredients, like olives or cheese… we’ll see.

Nice to have fresh hot bread, in any case.

I have to conclude that spring is a good time to walk the North Davis ditch. Second weekend in a row I’ve met Janet up there… and I’m liking it a lot.

I did nothing to this picture; it’s that green.

About to cross over the top of the ditch on that bridge out of North Davis Farms…

This is the Whitcomb pond (right?) north of the  bridge.. nice to have your own private pond…

Looking north..

So… it’d been 11 days since our last shopping trip.. and this time it was my turn. Damn.. it’s tedious shopping for so many days. It took at least an hour in the store, then getting all of it from the car into the house, then another near-hour to get everything scanned (that’s Jim’s deal) and put away (my deal). Good lord.

We’re definitely getting ourselves a lot more organized on this meal planning, shopping and cooking thing. I’d picked a bunch of recipes to try (thanks New York Times cooking section, which I pay for) and shopped accordingly. It’s rather time consuming, but seems a good front end thing to do to make a couple of weeks of cooking a lot easier.

I tried a new pasta tonight…

Caramelized six thinly sliced shallots and 4 thinly sliced garlic cloves in olive oil:

Added anchovies and tomato paste (and more kosher salt and pepper).. another recipe where anchovies are added and which melt into the dish, leaving just an intense flavor that you can’t quite put your finger on, but is significant (we’re not sure we like it):

Then added al dente pasta, a cup of hot pasta water which will completely cook off, leaving a thick, rich paste that coats the pasta. Then you toss fresh parsley and some finely chopped garlic upon this earthy pasta and voila, dinner!

Jim’s comment: edible.

He may give up on my cooking pretty soon, but for now I’m still having a good time. I have to admit this one was more enjoyable to make than to consume. Still…

Then I started a new batch of bread! Feeling a lot like a Suzie Homemaker. Will report on that adventure tomorrow.

So, gosh.. Day #35..

I finally fell asleep at 5:00am.. got about 3 hours of sleep last night. That was weird.. and left me a bit fuzzy of brain today. Still, got a workout, a yoga session, two zoom meetings in, made some progress on my Inbox Zero project, attended a Distance Cocktail Party and made some great scalloped potatoes to go with the last of the meatloaf. Off to watch season 7 of Veep.. Pretty good day for a walking zombie.

But I have no pictures.

Just for fun…

I ran across this photo attached to a long-ago email (one of thousands I’m trying to cull from my inbox). Saved the picture, of course.. I mean, wouldn’t you?

He was just about to turn 6.

And I did manage a picture of those scalloped potatoes. Very low cal: half and half, butter, parmesan cheese.. and a pincha freshly grated nutmeg (oh, and 2 russets).

Little did we know that when we came up with the dinner plan for tonight — leftover pork tenderloin, a bottom-of-the-veggie-box veggie and a standby carb — that we’d end up with a color palette devoid of… color.

It was so spectacularly bland that it required a photo, and then, of course, provided a focus for a quickie blog entry (a good thing because I didn’t have a better idea).

We both agreed, however, it was an extremely tasty dinner.

These are pre-amber waves of grain.. when they are greener than green. Jim took this picture a few days ago.

Lucky for him (us), he’s been able to continue working during California’s stay-at-home orders, largely because this big ol’ contract he’s been working on for weeks and weeks takes him way out to the far reaches of the county where he’s all by himself, in fields, far away from folks. So, beaucoup social distancing.

Also, lucky for him, it’s just beautiful out there.

And he’s good at capturing that beauty.

I just cried at an Uber commercial. I mean, it was beautiful, it really was. But wow.. an Uber commercial?

That got my attention. It made me take a pause… and do an emotional check-in.

What’s got me down?

• I just listened to an epidemiologist from Harvard’s school of public health who suggests that social distancing and at least some form of self-isolation could extend into 2022, or at least until effective immunizations come along. We knew that.. right? If we truly think about this, we understand our risk doesn’t go away when some of these guidelines are lifted. We’re not miraculously immune. Jim and I are still 60-somethings, squarely a part of the at-risk population (we don’t believe this because we’re fit and in good health, of course). We know that when they lift guidelines, it won’t apply to us; we will be told to continue wearing masks in public and not to be a part of any crowd. It will suck big time. And nobody with a brain believes the president’s suggestion that “we are close, closer than anybody thinks,” and soon will have a beautiful rebound like nobody’s ever seen (no mention, of course, of the public health side of this equation because, for him, it’s all about the strength of the economy which, of course, is essential for his reelection). Anybody who listens to public health experts understands that we remain vulnerable until there is a vaccine, and that the overall impact on the public at large is lessened through some combo of testing (diagnostic and antibody) and effective treatments for those who get it, which could lessen the overall death rate. We understand there will need to be careful re-openings in targeted areas and that we may expand and relax the guidelines as the incidents go up and down, as measured by the capacity of the health care systems to handle it all. We all get that. He’s ignoring all that, of course, because he’s transactional and self-absorbed and can’t see beyond his self-interest and re-election. The ultimate me-president
• My back hurts from all the sitting

But.. what’s got me up?

• Our hand sanitizer finally arrived, ArtNaturals (62.5% alcohol) (soon to be followed by alcohol wipes and disposable plastic gloves.. preparing for the long haul)
• It was 80 degrees today
• I wore just a t-shirt (well, and leggings)
• At Jim’s suggestion, I turned off the heat and opened the doors and windows
• I sprawled out on the window bench (a first!) and (almost) read
• I smelled my first barbeque wafting through said open windows, complete with lighter fluid, a sure sign of spring 
• Peter got the tennis racquet we sent and is playing a lot of tennis with Ray.. AND we might get to talk with him tonight

So for tonight’s photo, I’m going to post a screen shot of something that really got my attention (and puts me in a good mood).. this was a couple of weeks ago, but I’ll share it now. It’s a screen shot of a University of Michigan webpage that officially lists Peter as a student (Jim came upon it while searching on the UM website to see if Peter had an official UM email address yet.. which he does:

Check out that title!

The most productive thing I did today was to close 50 browser tabs.. some that’d been open for over a month. Scratched that one off the list. Seriously, that was a big deal for me.

I intended to make progress on two other new goals for the week: inbox zero and start/finish a book (The Dog Stars — a post-apocalyptic (due to a pandemic) story about a man who lives a lonesome existence in an airplane hangar.. sound cheery?). Didn’t start either.

The funnest thing I did was to participate in a campaign launch zoom meeting for one of those down ballot races (Kelly’s running for a seat on the Los Rios community college board). That’s a new thing for me.. to be involved in someone’s campaign for elected office. Looking forward to that.

But, truly, that’s all I did today (well, I did work out and yoga’d, but that doesn’t count).  It actually doesn’t feel very good to be that sluggy. I’ll do better tomorrow.  (Ironically: one of the browser tabs I closed was an article “Stop Trying to be Productive,” from the NYT which gives people permission to just veg out and stop expecting to get a lot done.)

Just ugh.

So.. no pics.. how ’bout another round of memes:

I listened to a podcast today on a beautiful arboretum walk (aren’t they all). Listening to a lot of podcasts on solitary walks these days. And now with masks. Talk about weird, talk about isolating. Not only are you sealed off from others, people go out of their way to avoid getting anywhere near you (and you them), like walking off paths, or stepping behind bushes, like we’re all a bunch of pariahs. Nobody can see you smile at them. Alone, even in public places.

Brene Brown was talking to a grief expert, David Kessler. I cried under my mask when Kessler spoke of how we’ll never really go back to our lives as they were. It’s a shocking and scary thought; we didn’t get any time to prepare ourselves for this kind of transition. The planet was thrust into this sudden crisis, forcing everyone into near-immediate sequester, and now we’re looking at the likelihood that when we emerge from this, however that might happen, it will be into a new reality.

I hope that’s true, actually. I hope we return with a renewed focus on what is more important in our lives… for us, for our planet, and especially for our children. Skies are really clear, roads are easy to navigate, we’re not making as many unnecessary car trips, we’re making better use of resources, we’re spending time alone, thinking more, becoming more resourceful, mindful. For starters.

So maybe it’s all a big giant reboot. And I certainly hope we start fresh with leadership and return decency, justice and caring about humanity to our politics. We need to kick that great big baby out with his soiled bathwater.

Okay, so that’s not what I was going to write about.

It’s Easter.

In all our years, we’ve never settled on any reliable traditions. Been all over the map with different things in different years, all fine. Egg hunts and baskets and chocolate bunnies during the kid years, usually family gatherings, especially when Peter was little. Sometimes even hot cross buns and ham. We don’t celebrate the religious aspects of the holiday, but I think both of us look forward to the season. Spring is Jim’s favorite time of the year (I like them all), I love the symbolism of renewal and rebirth for a trillion reasons, including flowers. Here’s our front yard on this sparkling day:

Nothing not to love about that.

One of our new pandemic routines is Jim serving up Sunday breakfasts, rotating between pancakes, french toast and waffles (we’re thinking of cinnamon rolls next Sunday!). Today we were back to barnyard animal waffles…

This is a cow, lobotomized, with bonus udders:

We may be senior citizens, but we love our juvenile humor.

Here are a few shots from my walk today..

Nice ducks swimming in formations..

I saw this fellow sitting on a log with his dog in the sun. He had two canes, a bandaged hand and seemed a little lost in thought.. I was glad he had a dog. I wanted to say hello in there, channeling a John Prine song. I couldn’t catch his eye. I just teared up.

Sat for a while in the grove. Hung out with a couple of ducks who had to check me out. She said hello in there. I just teared up.

Walked around a little checking out some flowers..

I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the petal design on a purple iris…. so beautiful.

Then I saw these…

.. and lots more besides. Somebody played Easter Bunny and left I-don’t-know-how-many easter eggs around the grove. It was so sweet and unexpected, and such a total delight, even though I’m 64. I teared up again.

Not sad.. just a little melancholy, a little weirded out by all of this, a bit anxious with uncertainty, a lot overwhelmingly grateful. Headed home to make dinner.

We had pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, zucs with parmesan. Exceptionally good. I made bread…  though 1) it wasn’t done until well after dinner, and 2) it was the first batch I’d tried in our bread maker in about 20 years so I went basic with the only flour we had (white). Edible for sure.. but it sure is.. white. We’ll be experimenting with this….

Day #29, the usual stuff: workout on my stationary bike; a two-hour zoom phone banking session for a congressional candidate in Modesto; laundry (it’s Saturday, after all); a nice conversation with Matty; a whole lotta nothing; a 7-ish mile walk in North Davis.

I texted Janet to see if she might want to meet and talk over her fence for a few minutes as I passed her neighborhood. She did, but that turned into a long walk with her around the pond, then up by the ditch, then a long meander back through the North Davis greenbelt. Lots of folks out, not that many with masks.

This is what walking with a friend looks like:

She said she was smiling.

The ditch..

The park over by Senda Nueva and the Domino sculpture…

Greenbelt art…

No cars on Covell! Taken from the Covell bike over-crossing…

Late breaking: Davis Police just released an alert about a stolen Covid-19 specimen from Sutter Davis hospital. The suspect, whom they got a great security camera photo of, wore a UCD sweatshirt and made his escape on a bike (of course he did). They later recovered the specimen, still in its protective wrapping, in a shopping cart over at the Marketplace shopping center. Suspect still on the loose.