Life of Wry

I attended a poetry reading on Zoom tonight because I wanted to be able to say I attended a poetry reading on Zoom.

Because life is just weird these days.

Dr. Andy was quick to note that many of us are feeling some Zoom fatigue. True that. Yet, I must say this was a pretty great application (which makes me wonder… did I ever write about the trivia game I played over Zoom a few weeks ago?). It was relaxing and surprisingly enjoyable. I’d do it again.

We heard two poets read.. this guy: David Alpaugh who has a collection out, “Spooky Action at a Distance,” which is a phrase in quantum physics used by Albert Einstein himself, and some of his poems made physics references (got my attention!).

I really liked this poet though, Connie Post, who read from a collection called, “Prime Meridian.” Accessible, powerful, intimate, brutal stuff.  I am more inspired to massage my own experiences into poetry after listening to her.

At one point, she had to mute herself so she could yell into the next room to tell her husband to turn down the TV. She said that was her Italian talking.  What’s not to like?

There comes a time in every parent’s life when their kid’s knowledge — really, their overall brain power — surpasses our own. That happened long, LONG ago with Peter… his brain cells on a meteoric rise, ours on a feeble, steep decline. As it should be. He runs circles around us (well, I’ll speak for myself), easily grasping and trying to explain math and physics to us (me) and it’s like trying to filter water through a block of steel.  It goes nowhere. Of course. He’s smack dab in the middle of a university education, learning and studying all the time.. and we’re.. uh.. very much not.

Yay for that. Yay for time and tuition well spent.

A couple of days ago, he sent us a paper he’d written. It’s about calculus. He wrote it because he’d been tutoring a high school girl in math — calculus — and thought he’d try and summarize some key concepts in a one-sheet that she could use as a reference. It turned into 10 pages and he was pretty pleased with it.  It’s informally written because he wanted it to feel conversational and accessible… and yet… it’s all mathy.

Here’s the intro:

And a couple of random snips from the pages I read, some of which I absorbed, some not. (The good news is that I was reading this while lying in the hammock in shorts, and the temperature was probably about 90 degrees with a light breeze, so no matter what I was reading, it was sublime.)

No? Well maybe this, then:

I did have some input.. mostly grammatical.. (never mind that I misspelled acceleration) but it was fun to get a little bit of math on..

It took me about an hour to get through the first 4 pages (with small dozes here and there).  I hope to finish it tomorrow. We talked with Peter tonight and I think that will make the second half perhaps a little easier to understand.. we’ll see.

(Note: I wrote this on May 7, but am filling in a missing entry for May 6..  not that anyone will notice or care.. but.. you know.)

I wish I could remember the event for which we purchased a bunch of low-end chardonnay. It could have been a decade ago, maybe more… in fact probably way more. Somehow, two bottles remained and have been in the liquor cabinet (we now have a liquor cabinet) since the pantry was completed eight or so months ago. Before that, they just moved around from closet to closet … wherever I tucked away low-priority liquor.

Out of wine, I decided I’d open one of these to have with dinner tonight.

I’d made vinegar!

Bummer. Forwent wine with dinner.

Speaking of dinner, though, wow. It was a standing ovation of a dinner.. all leftovers, but leftovers of some of the best things I’ve ever made, certainly lately.

Lower left is an artichoke, lemon chicken made with boneless, skinless chicken thighs.. quite possible my most favorite ever chicken part. This preparation is fantastic; we both gave it 4 stars. Upper right is a rectangle of potatoes and leeks au gratin, which was more complex than you’d expect and shockingly good. Couldn’t eat it every night, but will definitely make it again. Also four-stars from each of us. Dessert was the last of Jim’s birthday cake. Martha’s killer chocolate, of course. Best cake ever.

Who needs vinegar?

One of the cleverer memes around — children’s books re-titled in coronavirus themes.

There are many, many more, but I chose these because each and every one of these is a book we have in our collection and one we spent so much time reading to Peter when he was a wee one.

Sniff.

Photos and memes that tell a small part of the story… as we’re experiencing it here on A Street.

This is a dishtowel that is actually hanging on the oven door. And yeah… it IS our first rodeo. Seems to say a lot about how prepared we are and how we are moving through this weird and unique time in all of our lives: quite uncertainly.

We do a lot of this in our house… mostly because it’s interesting, but also, were a virus to invade our bodies, it might show up as a drop in blood oxygen levels. So at least we’ll know that. 

This isn’t my check list, but it has some worthy goals on it…

Yes… cooking a lot, baking a lot, eating a lot. Fortunately, exercising a lot.. though perhaps not enough.

Related….   the quarantine wardrobe…

Today is Day #51. How ’bout that. Here are more calendar facts:

To be quite honest, I’m prepared to go the distance. I can take another month, or six… whatever it takes. I have a feeling there will be increasing movement toward relaxation of the guidelines. At this moment, that sounds like a terrible, terrible idea. But we’ll see, I guess. Given the lag time between exposure and illness, we won’t know what all this current easing will yield for a couple of weeks.

Of course, I have the luxury of an easy decision; not everybody does. I am very aware of that and feel for those who are stressed and suffering. The path forward for the collective whole is not clear and not easy.

But until there’s a vaccine, I don’t expect I’ll be changing very much of my day-to-day practices.  I’m satisfied with the notion of holing up until we get a true all clear.  I don’t mind just staying out of the way, not pushing any boundaries. I’m getting better at making the most of my time and learning a lot. So there’s that.

It’s what he does.

I see this sheet of paper on the counter in the kitchen and I know…. something’s coming.

A small hunk of aluminum and lots of noise later, he walks into the house (kinda proudly, I might add) with this:

Evidently, a lathe can make things like this. This little item is threaded, it fits into something, it does something sort of clever (like things might tighten in opposite directions depending on which way you turn it?). (He DID explain it somewhat better than that.)

Whatever it does, I’m impressed.

Couldn’t figure out what to write about. Still can’t. There is plenty that’s just plain awful — heartbreaking, frustrating, confusing, frightening, maddening — but I don’t feel like souring a nice summer-like Friday evening.  There is also a lot that feels pretty damn good, like how I feel like my getting-more-regular-every-day daily rhythms are actually healthy, or how grateful I am to be spending a lot of my days working on some truly worthwhile volunteer efforts (political, of course), or how I’ve actually learned some crazy new things (running Zoom meetings and managing social media political campaigns) and/or rediscovered (and am enjoying!) some old things (cooking), or how I’m doing things I’ve wanted to for a very long time (podcasting, watching tv shows from this century), or doing things I never wanted to do, but don’t actually hate (domestic chores). But I don’t want to write about any of that.

Lots of awful, lots of good. Nothing to say about any of it.

I looked through my photos to see if anything jumped out.. and this did! Took it yesterday or my #walkswithvicki. Not a single pixel of editing. It’s mostly of the turtles on that square, wee island, next to the bushier island.  Hard to see the turtles, but the shot is stunning (says point and click me). I’ve worked harder for shots that were nowhere near as lovely!

Jim turned 67 today!

The cake was our all time favorite — good ol’ Martha’s Killer Chocolate Cake. Highlight of the evening was talking to Peter and having him sing happy birthday with me on Facetime. Excellent dinner, too. Maybe I’ll share details another time on that, but suffice to say the potato leek gruyere cream au gratin dish was beyond beyond.

Love my guy.

We’re heading for a clash.

Yolo County extended its stay-at-home orders until the end of May. That’s a whole nuther month, folks. While frustrating, it gives me time to really fine tune the groove. I’m not complaining. More importantly, I’m supportive. Governor Newsom expects the entire state will be observing public-health-motivated guidelines for quite a while yet. He released, yesterday, what sounded like a well-thought out phased plan for balancing public health and economic concerns and getting the state to a safe and sane place.. as facts & science warrant.

So, that’s what the smart people are doing. Science, facts, public health priorities.

Then, there’s the other. This side is tired of this shit. This side wants its freedoms. This side says only scaredy cats wear masks and hole up indoors. This side says the other side is a buncha fascists. The powers that be on this side don’t wanna pay unemployment or incur any costs/liabilities associated with people not working, or people working and then getting sick.  This side is planning to stop publishing stats on the number of people dying. This side is going to start focusing only on the economy, now that they’ve taken care of the virus [pat selves on back]. This side is done with public health whiners (especially since their voters aren’t the ones dying). This side is ready to take its victory lap and proclaim mission accomplished. 

So…. as of two days from now, the federal guidelines will be all but lifted. The high population blue states will continue their sensible guidelines (though the freedom-loving residents in those blue states will flout them, screwing the rest of us), while the less dense (population-ly-speaking) states will move on with their lives, also screwing the rest of us.

Or not. I guess we’ll see.

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Well…   this is not the duel I started out writing about. The “Pandemic Duels” of the title refer to life in our household today … me with my projects, Jim with his.

Mine were of the domestic variety. Classically domestic. Housewife-ily classic. First up, bread baking. Quarantine has brought a third loaf of homemade bread to our kitchen. This one — as one would hope — is the best so far.

Whole wheat (half ww, half white, actually) and millet:

Tastes as good as it looks.

Following bread baking, I decided to clean the oven. I can’t take a lot of credit, since it’s a self-cleaning oven, but I did have the idea, I did stress for the 3 1/2 hours it took to do the job at some ungodly high temp, and I did wipe down the whole inside when it was all done and cooled off.  Lots of ashy remains. It’s pretty impressive. A bit scary, too, given that high heat.

Will ya look at that!

Every 14 years, whether it needs it or not.

I also baked a cake, made dinner, sat through two meetings and yadda yadda, none of it counts, because..

Jim’s project takes the prize!

While I swung in the hammock yesterday, Jim took a measurement: how high must a table be such that a person swinging in adjacent hammock can reach out to her side and move a wine glass from table top to mouth and back with nary a strained muscle.  He built the table to that spec, and crafted a good looking one, besides.

Jim wins this round. But the quarantine orders continue.. so there’s time for a comeback.

I spent all my blog time tonight editing last night’s post about the hammock stand. I decided to add detail to the construction process, since one day this blog will be bound into a book and Peter will have it on a shelf, and since he’ll also inherit that hammock stand, he may as well know how much work went into it. (Haha.)

Check out the added text and photos, here: https://lifeofwry.com/2020/04/27/life-of-wry/

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So, tonight’s blog is a shorty.  It’s my nearly daily snack during quarantine… the ol’ celery with peanut butter. Oh so fresh, crispy, salty and oily.  Snack perfection.