Random February Layoff in Orlando

[taz_39]

Covid Tests to Date: 50

This week we have another layoff! Yay! Yay? We're not getting paid, it's a LAYOFF.

It's just a random week, so maybe they couldn't squeeze this show into a theatre schedule on our route.
That is not uncommon. Especially after a pandemic comes through and messes up everyone's touring patterns.

I woke early and split an Uber with Kathy (actress, plays Rita the Producer in our show), arriving to Atlanta Airport around 8:30am.
Per usual in Atlanta--especially a few days after a massive blizzard in the northeast--it was already starting to get busy and it took much longer to get through security and to the terminal than at other airports. Even with PreCheck it took nearly 45 minutes to get to my gate. But, that's why I wanted to leave so early.

The flight was short and pleasant, I retrieved my luggage and called an Uber because Jameson was on his way out the door for a gig tonight at the Villages. I actually got home right as he was leaving, so we had time to hug and laugh about being passing ships in the night before he was out and I was in.

To be honest, I was glad to be alone for unpacking.
Why? Because every time I come home I want to clean!
And I think that makes Jameson feel bad, like he hasn't been cleaning "right" or "enough". But he has!

I like to clean for us, even if he has cleaned already.
And this isn't meant to offend, it's just the truth: I happen to clean more thoroughly than he does.
Like when I "wipe down the kitchen", I take EVERYTHING off the counters and SCRUB.
When I vacuum, I move furniture.
When I clean the bathrooms, that mirror is gonna have NO STREAKS when I am done with it and there will be not one hair on any flat surface. Jameson cleans too, and does a great job!
It's just that, when I'm home, I want to do it for us in my super-thorough and complete way so that hopefully he will have to do less of it while I'm gone. I want to leave the house cleaner than I found it.

So the fact that he wasn't here tonight made that a lot easier to do,
though I am sad that we have to wait until late tonight or tomorrow to catch up.

I got so much done though. It was great.
I did laundry, got groceries, checked my plants (the bananas are TRAGIC, pics later), vacuumed, dusted, wiped down the kitchen, washed the sheets in both the bedroom and guest bedroom, made the beds, cleaned the bathrooms, swept and mopped the tile floors, unpacked a little, chopped up some butter for the freezer, and threw out a bunch of expired condiments. Now the only cleaning I have left before I leave is scrubbing the shower. Phew.

When that was done I dug through the mountain of accumulated mail, which included tax documents, my vehicle registration, a letter from my former employer asking what I want to do with my 401K, and four packages.
The packages were a shirt, pants, some N95s, and a new electric skillet as mine bit the dust in the last few days of Atlanta; the lid had cracked to the point where it had a hole in it and I hadn't even noticed, and the non-stick coating had begun to peel off. It WAS only $18 after all.
There were supposed to be rapid covid tests in there too, but they were missing.
I suspect Amazon ran out and refunded me (they have done that before without notifying me, strangely) so I'll have to check on that.

The shirt, which is a 70s-style black sheer polka-dot number, fit absolutely perfectly and I love it.


This is not so you can admire my butt, but so you can see how nicely the shirt fits in the back as well :p


Detail/Up close. I will need to work on my bow-tying skillz.


The pants are too long (always the case) but they are near-perfect in the waist, so I'm going to take them to a tailor and see if we can make some alterations. They're not my usual style so I'm a little unsure what to do with them, but I'll do some research and see what I can find. I was hoping to wear the 70s black shirt and these pants together for gigs, actually. The reason for all this is that I have a long torso, and I think the high waist will give the illusion of longer legs and be flattering.

Here's what the pants look like:


With all of that done I made myself a cup of tea and went out to finally retrieve my Meyer lemons.
They seem to have survived the cold snap very nicely!
They are huge, just like last time, the same size as most navel oranges and a beautiful golden yellow color.


Here is one next to a regular lemon for scale.



Funny thing: Meyer lemons are actually supposed to be smaller than regular lemons!
But fruit size can vary widely due to rootstock and all sorts of factors. Maybe I just got a good little branch.
(Reminder that my lemon "tree" is barely two feet tall)

Now I am exhausted, but glad all that work is out of my face.
The rest can be spread out throughout the week.
For now I am just excited to make lemon bars!!

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Tuesday, I woke up because Jameson was up and looking at his phone at 9am. I was surprised!
He usually wakes up around 10, but has been getting up earlier to go to the gym. Good for him!
We had breakfast and he went to work while I got started on the much-anticipated lemon bars.

The lemons were just as beautiful inside as out :)


One single lemon resulted in a whole half cup of juice!
The recipe called for 4-6 lemons to get 3/4 cup.
It only took one and a half of mine to reach that. Damn!
I zested them as well, then blended some zest with the dry ingredients and frozen butter to make a sort-of crust.


I pressed the crumbs into the bottom of a 9x9 pan and stuck it in the freezer for 15 minutes while I cleaned up a bit and got the oven preheated, then in it went for about 40 minutes to get golden brown.
Meanwhile in a saucer on the stove I mixed lemon juice, corn starch, sugar, and salt over medium heat, first whisking and then stirring constantly. Eventually it started to bubble and thicken, at which point I let it boil for 30-60 seconds.


When it was done I strained it into a bowl and then poured it over the crust.
Back in the oven for 10-15 minutes. When it was done I let it cool to room temp before shoving it in the fridge.


While that was setting I took my pants to a tailor, who agreed with the hem job but suggested I leave the waist alone.
She would only be taking it in an insanely small amount, she said, and I might want that half-centimeter for when I'm sitting down, or eating, or trying to play my instrument while sitting down. Fair arguments; I left the waist alone.

On the way back I stopped at Walmart because I promised to make egg salad for us and needed ingredients.
I don't go to Walmart often at all, but knowing that they carry the WEIRDEST stuff I did some fun exploring and found that for some reason there are loads of products flavored to taste like breakfast cereals. Why is that??

TikTok by @tromboneontour

Back at the house three hours had passed, and I was impatient, so decided to cut up the lemon bars.
They are still a little wet, but my god, I don't care. They are awesome.


I actually like them a little soft even though it makes it difficult to pick them up.
It's like a super-silky custard. It would make a fantastic pie.


By the time I was done playing with that it was dinnertime. Jameson got groceries while I placed an order for Greek food.
We ate and watched speed runs and had a lemon bar each for dessert. So good.

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Wednesday, Jameson had a massage scheduled before lunch so he ate light and then took off to Relaxation Town.
When he finds interesting videos on TikTok he'll often send them to me.
One of the videos recently featured air fryer soft-boiled eggs.
It looked so easy to do, I really wanted to give it a shot!
And since I'm making egg salad anyway why not do it now.

Right away we had issues; the video said to do 375F for 6 minutes.
My air fryer does not have five degree increments, just ten :/
So I tried 370 for 7 minutes. Idk.
Here is the result:


Pretty good! But I've never had such difficulty peeling an egg, good lord.
I think they dried out on the side that was facing up, such that the albumen cooked onto the eggshell.
Later on I boiled and peeled 12 eggs for egg salad and didn't have any problems, and most of the eggs were from that same carton.
Egg salad is simple and yummy for lunches (though higher in fat than I prefer).
I season mine with the usual mayo/mustard, celery and onions, black pepper, dill and paprika.
And I'll usually throw in a teaspoon or so of Worchestershire sauce as well. My secret :)


After that I got cleaned up and Jameson and I went for a nice walk around the neighborhood.
The weather was lovely and it felt good to get some exercise.
At night we ordered tacos and watched Gordon Ramsey scream at people.

Oh, and here are my tragic banana trees. I trimmed the leaves off today.


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Thursday.
I woke up a little early to have breakfast before giving myself the company-provided PCR test (still hurts when you do it yourself!).
Then I drove to a FedEx drop location to send that off, and went to Whole Paycheck for wings and no-sugar-added peanut butter for the peanut butter bread.

Oh, did I even mention that up until now?
There's a guy on TikTok who bakes all sorts of old-timey recipes (bdylanhollis) and recently he made a 1932 recipe for peanut butter bread.
During the depression eggs and butter could be hard to come by, and so this recipe cleverly utilizes shelf-stable peanut butter to replace those ingredients.
Jameson recently expressed interest in trying this out, and it's so easy, it only takes one hour to make! I figured, why not? We can always freeze whatever we don't eat.

Here you go:

TikTok by @tromboneontour

Actually, when I cut further into this, it had a raw dough tunnel running right through it :(
But like I said, it only takes an hour to make. So what the heck, I just did it again!
The second time I checked very carefully with a thermometer and made SURE it was done.
I sliced the loaf and put half the slices in a ziploc on the counter and the other half individually wrapped because they're probably going in the freezer on Sunday when I leave.

After that I did some research on stocks, then responded to a very disappointing email from Fitnescity, the place that was setting up my DEXA and RMR tests for next week. Fitnescity is a pretty new company and it definitely seems like they haven't quite got it together yet, because despite me very clearly and repeatedly saying that I'm only in Des Moines for a week, they've rescheduled both of my appointments outside that time frame AND outside Des Moines proper. I will have to call them tomorrow to try and resolve this, or get a refund if necessary.

I scrubbed the shower (hate that chore but glad it's over with) while Jameson worked on some arrangements in his studio, the repacked a little until dinnertime when we ordered pizza and I made air fryer wings. For some of the wings I used the spice rub that my friend Don gave me last week. It was REALLY good! It's kind of a Chinese five spice deal, but with a little extra heat. Very delicious and worked wonderfully.

Tomorrow is my birthday, yay!
Our only special plans are to have dinner at The Pinery, a semi-upscale restaurant.
The rest of the day will be normal; I may go to the gym with Jameson, and will repack some more and deal with Fitnescity.

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Friday!

I woke up to many nice birthday messages from the peeps on facebook, and family and friends.
This is always surprising as I'm terrible at reciprocating. Thank you everyone for thinking of me.

I toasted a piece of peanut butter bread for breakfast and it was awesome.
Lightly crispy on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside.
When Jameson was done with some work we went to the gym.
It's been ages since I've been, and it was nice to see how busy it was in there!
I didn't do much, just 15 on the elliptical to get warmed up and then 15-20 minutes of upper body.
Since it's been so long I'll probably be sore tomorrow!

Back home it was a chill day of repacking my large suitcase while Jameson worked, and responding to well-wishes.

In the evening we drove out to The Pinery, a new restaurant that just opened last June.
It came up on my radar not from a Google search, but while I was "street scrolling" around other restaurants that had come up on Google (I "street scroll" within a search sometimes because Google does NOT know everything, case in point this fabulous restaurant).
Although it's a bit pricey, I wanted to try it; I wanted to take us here to get Jameson some new and exciting food, and a nice night out!
And yeah of course this was for me too, lol.

The place was HOPPING. It felt very post-pandemic! Energetic and social and a normal Friday night out.
Even so, our server took care to seat us very well distanced without anyone having to ask, which I thought was awesome.
We had drinks and an appetizer within minutes. They had house-smoked fish dip served with pickled onions and peppers on multi-grain crackers, it was very delicious!

For entrees, Jameson got spicy clam linguini which came with some roasted tomatoes and crusty bruschetta-looking bread.
He said it was very good! But I think mine stole the show. I got the Florida grouper, a seared filet served with buerre blanc, honey-roasted sweet potatoes, and brown butter brussels sprouts.

The fish was perfection.



I'm gonna remember that fish for the rest of my life.
I gave Jameson some and he was duly jealous :)
Luckily I got to control the pour on my buerre blanc too, because I don't care for it much.
While we ate we watched other food come out of the kitchen, and everything looked amazing.
We agreed that we absolutely want to eat here again, and bring friends and family too when possible.
I hope The Pinery is around for a LONG time.

Back home we had a lemon bar each for dessert, then watched the Winter Olympics opening ceremony.
It was beautiful and perfect, so typical of Chinese diligence and effort and precision.
I'm sure there's an undercurrent of politics and human rights violations beneath the pageantry, but FFS, the artists were clearly happy to participate, the athletes looked excited to be there, and just that the Olympics can happen this year should be a Good Thing.
I loved watching the ceremony and hope everyone involved in the games have a great time and a great, fair competition.

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Saturday, and I am sad because soon I have to leave Jameson. Again.
It's almost harder to see him and keep leaving.
But if I didn't get to see him at all for these nine months, I don't know if I could stand that.

I had breakfast and went out to get my pants from the tailor. They're perfect!
By the time I got back Jameson was up.
We had talked about playing minigolf today, but it was dreary and cold out and we decided against it.
We watched tv and I did laundry, and my sister messaged to say that she and my stepmom and sister had collaborated on some sort of birthday present for me, which would be arriving tomorrow.
I had asked for no gifts, but you know how family is :p
I wonder what it is!

We finished our lazy day watching hours and hours of Olympic events.
The figurskating as always was spectacular. We enjoyed the ski events as well.

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Sunday, I am sad because i have to leave tomorrow :(

Yes I am happy to be on tour and have this opportunity, but this will be a long time before I get to see my Jameson again.
It's hard.

We had breakfast and went to the gym.
I'm still sore but was glad for the exercise anyway. It always feels better to go with Jameson, too. I'm less willing to go on my own.
After the gym we just chilled out for most of the day.

Jameson got a delivery of an artwork from the Soundwaves Art Foundation, which made only fifty prints of this sound wave from "Who Wants to Live Forever". He hung it up right away and is very happy with it.


To my surprise, I also got a rather large box from my sisters and stepmom.
Turns out by their powers combined they sent me a new stand mixer!!
The brand is Acuma, which I've never heard of before, but it has good reviews and seems to be very powerful.


I'm excited to try making enriched breads with it since that's something I haven't been able to do with Jameson's mixer, because the dough climbs the hook and gets entangled in the motor which is gross. This mixer seems to have a pretty large guard around the dough hook, so I'm hoping it'll hold up better in that department. It's a very thoughtful gift! I've got an amazing family :)

To enjoy one last meal together, we decided to hit P.F. Chang's.
Jameson loves Chinese food but can't have a lot of it because of the whole Meniere's/MSG thing.
P.F. Chang's is generally safe for him, but it's far away. So this is a special treat.
We chatted as we ate, just wondering what our futures will be like; what kind of jobs we might have in the years to come considering that Jameson is burnt out on his and mine is only temporary; our prospects and our plans if all else fails.

You know. Millennial problems.

Our meal was good, with the highlight being the chicken lettuce wraps (I could just eat those tbh).
Back home I dragged my luggage to the door and made sure I'll be ready to go in the morning.
Then we watched the Olympics until bedtime.

Tomorrow I am leaving the house around 4:45am (uuuuugh).
I'm very worried that an Uber may not be available at that hour as we don't live near downtown any more, so I've booked a taxi service.
It's a lot more expensive but at least I can sleep tonight knowing I definitely have a ride tomorrow.
A short layover in Atlanta and I'll be in Des Moines by 11:15am or so.
It's gonna be cold and the hotel may not have a room ready for me, but I'm hoping to be able to drop my luggage and maybe get my groceries out of the way while I wait. We'll see.

Off we go again!