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Cautious Optimism
May. 28th, 2020 10:18 pmAnother week, huh.
Work on Monday (Memorial Day in the US) was very weird.
For the first time since the coronavirus hit in late March, the phones were nearly silent.
It was eerily quiet. It was so quiet that a few work from home employees called us to check that their equipment wasn't malfunctioning. A lot of people were freaked out by the silence.
On Tuesday we were back to insanity though, so I think it was just that businesses were closed and people were doing other things for a change.
Pretty soon we're going to lose our little COVID perks--the $2/hr extra hazard pay, paid medical leave, free meal once per week, and absence forgiveness. A lot of people will complain about the pay going back down but we are funded by the government after all, it's not like we sell a product to earn for our employer. I'm certainly going to miss the money, it was definitely needed, but overall nothing has changed. It was just a little pressure lifted, for a while.
A lot of my coworkers have friended me on facebook. I'm actually really happy about this.
I have very, very few friends. I am a difficult person and have a lot of chunks missing from my socially acceptable behavior map, so I find myself alone or having fair weather friends most of the time. That's ok, but at a time like this when it feels like everything is falling apart it's nice that a little bit of acceptance is offered, even for someone like me.
It seems that Disney might open sometime in July depending on how things go.
This is really great news for Jameson, who has been maintaining a deep hope that he'll still get to do the Guardians of the Galaxy band, and that his friends will get their jobs back. I really, really hope this will be the case. I know how much it means to all of them. Crossing my fingers HARD.
Jameson has a gig scheduled next week. It's just a bar gig in a place that wouldn't normally see crowds, so it should be fine. I hope it works out.
I had a video chat with my family a few days ago, that was nice.
Everyone seems to be doing well, although my sister who is a nurse has had to intubate more COVID patients in our small hometown. Never a good sign. My other sister who lives in California is extremely busy lately, her daughter has become a toddler and is tearing around, tons of energy and with everything closed there aren't many options for play. She's been taking little Elliotte to the beach (for walks, it's prohibited to stay on the beach right now) and trying to keep her occupied in the house, but I'm sure she can't wait for the daycares to open up again.
Like a lot of people, I'm wondering if there's going to be a second wave. A lot of top scientists are saying "definitely", but let's be real, nothing is definite in this world. A little nagging part of my brains keeps saying, "Maybe you should keep the freezer stocked", and such, urging me to stock up a little on the things that we now know from experience may run out again if there's another panic. I'm resisting the urge for now.
Apparently I was very tired by Wednesday, because I slept in LATE. Late for me is 10am.
I was having a dream about being on a train. It wasn't the circus train, and it seemed to be somewhere non-America, like Russia maybe? Anyway, it was a vintage-looking train kind of like ours was. In the dream I had a ticket and was supposed to get on but it started moving before everyone had boarded. A lot of people were yelling and such, I just grabbed the leverage rail that I knew would be there and pulled myself onto a vestibule (ok, it looked a lot like our train haha). After that things got weird but we were moving, moving, and I did not want to wake up, didn't want to lose that sensation.
But I woke up, and it was gone.
I went out to the garden to pick some thyme for my eggs.
Thyme is so underrated you guys. It's such a boring-looking little plant, but seriously I think it's the best-tasting herb ever and I absolutely love that all I have to do to get some is step outside. You know they sell a handful of fresh thyme for $4 at the grocery?? Pssh. Just buy a plant for $2.50 and you'll never have to buy thyme again!
Of course I went to look at all my other lovely plants too.
I can't begin to describe how happy the pollinator garden makes me.
The milkweed will bloom soon, can't wait!
On a slightly sour note, last night the passion fruits fell off my passin vine :(
I'm not really sure why, but the plant itself looks healthy so I think either A) the recent storms knocked them down or B) the plant is still very young and just doesn't have the resources to be growing fruit yet. It's a bummer but I'm mostly just glad the plant is ok.
Interestingly, by Thursday night they had turned a sort of pinkish color and have started smelling sweet.
They might actually be edible. I'm going to keep them until they wrinkle (as they're supposed to) and see how they look inside.
My peppermint plant has taken OFF. I know that mint is very invasive, but this speed of growth is just amazing.
The leaves have grown huge, some are almost three inches long!
I'm going to have to remove it from the planter or at least separate some of it out. I don't want to loose those healthy big leaves by putting it in the crappy sandy soil of the yard, but there may not be another option. My chocolate mint is in a pot and it's not nearly this big.
After I was done in the garden I made some egg salad for Jameson and I. Basic recipe, easy lunch.
I didn't really do much all afternoon, stayed in my pajamas all day. It was nice. There were thunderstorms moving through all day so couldn't really do anything outside, and I'd bought all my groceries earlier in the week. Nothing to do but relax. Mmmm :)
Some plants after a shower. This little mystery sprout has a yellow spider on it <3
I'm still mystified by what those sprouts could be. Today iNaturalist said laurel or camphor, but neither of those are nearby, and one of them has huge seeds that I like to think I would have noticed. I mean I'll continue to keep them but at some point I'll need to know what they are.
For dinner I made tortellini with alfredo sauce, chicken, peas, and prosciutto ham.
I didn't actually "make" anything but the alfredo sauce, so no pics, but it was tasty.
I did make some roasted carrots as a side. Also tasty.
I was supposed to have my steno class that evening but my teacher postponed to Thursday.
Ugh, I don't like being in suspense for that. The more time I have the more I feel I haven't prepared enough.
Thursday I got up earlier, made breakfast, enjoyed some Rick and Morty. I decided to go ahead and separate out some of the mint since really there's nothing to it, you just hack it in half and plant it somewhere. Because it's so damn resilient. So I chopped both the peppermint and chocolate mint in half and planted the peppermint along the property fence, and the chocolate mint past the fence off to the side of my pollinator garden. We will see how they do. I want to keep on keeping some in pots near the house too, I'll just have to be really aggressive with pruning it I guess.
I spent the afternoon prepping breakfasts, packing lunch for tomorrow, and reviewing my sister's story (she asked me to edit it, I'm flattered!!) Later on I did a little steno while Jameson had a meeting and practiced some stuff for his upcoming gig.
For dinner I made Japanese-style curry rice. It's a very simple recipe, made slightly more difficult by having to make my own roux. You can buy curry roux/mix in any grocery, but it is absolutely loaded with salt, MSG, and other weird stuff that neither of us wants to eat. Jameson has an MSG intolerance so it was obvious we weren't going prepackaged on this one!
The roux was just butter and flour with the curry mixed in.
I cooked onion, garlic and ginger together, then added chicken.
When that was brown I stirred in carrots and chicken broth, then brought it to a boil.
I skimmed off any fat that floated up to the top, added salt and honey, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.
Then I grated in a whole apple and got the potatoes cooking for 15 minutes.
When the potatoes were done I dissolved the roux I'd made in some of the broth, then stirred it in along with some soy and ketchup.
Served it over jasmine rice. It turned out pretty good if I do say so! Even Jameson, hater of spicy foods, liked it!
After that I had a short video chat with my family before finally taking my steno class.
That's about it. I guess it was a pretty lazy weekend, although I did kind of do a lot of cooking.
I expect next week will be very similar. Sigh. Maybe we can find more ways to break up the routine.
Jameson got us a new minigolf game to play, maybe that will be fun :)
Work on Monday (Memorial Day in the US) was very weird.
For the first time since the coronavirus hit in late March, the phones were nearly silent.
It was eerily quiet. It was so quiet that a few work from home employees called us to check that their equipment wasn't malfunctioning. A lot of people were freaked out by the silence.
On Tuesday we were back to insanity though, so I think it was just that businesses were closed and people were doing other things for a change.
Pretty soon we're going to lose our little COVID perks--the $2/hr extra hazard pay, paid medical leave, free meal once per week, and absence forgiveness. A lot of people will complain about the pay going back down but we are funded by the government after all, it's not like we sell a product to earn for our employer. I'm certainly going to miss the money, it was definitely needed, but overall nothing has changed. It was just a little pressure lifted, for a while.
A lot of my coworkers have friended me on facebook. I'm actually really happy about this.
I have very, very few friends. I am a difficult person and have a lot of chunks missing from my socially acceptable behavior map, so I find myself alone or having fair weather friends most of the time. That's ok, but at a time like this when it feels like everything is falling apart it's nice that a little bit of acceptance is offered, even for someone like me.
It seems that Disney might open sometime in July depending on how things go.
This is really great news for Jameson, who has been maintaining a deep hope that he'll still get to do the Guardians of the Galaxy band, and that his friends will get their jobs back. I really, really hope this will be the case. I know how much it means to all of them. Crossing my fingers HARD.
Jameson has a gig scheduled next week. It's just a bar gig in a place that wouldn't normally see crowds, so it should be fine. I hope it works out.
I had a video chat with my family a few days ago, that was nice.
Everyone seems to be doing well, although my sister who is a nurse has had to intubate more COVID patients in our small hometown. Never a good sign. My other sister who lives in California is extremely busy lately, her daughter has become a toddler and is tearing around, tons of energy and with everything closed there aren't many options for play. She's been taking little Elliotte to the beach (for walks, it's prohibited to stay on the beach right now) and trying to keep her occupied in the house, but I'm sure she can't wait for the daycares to open up again.
Like a lot of people, I'm wondering if there's going to be a second wave. A lot of top scientists are saying "definitely", but let's be real, nothing is definite in this world. A little nagging part of my brains keeps saying, "Maybe you should keep the freezer stocked", and such, urging me to stock up a little on the things that we now know from experience may run out again if there's another panic. I'm resisting the urge for now.
Apparently I was very tired by Wednesday, because I slept in LATE. Late for me is 10am.
I was having a dream about being on a train. It wasn't the circus train, and it seemed to be somewhere non-America, like Russia maybe? Anyway, it was a vintage-looking train kind of like ours was. In the dream I had a ticket and was supposed to get on but it started moving before everyone had boarded. A lot of people were yelling and such, I just grabbed the leverage rail that I knew would be there and pulled myself onto a vestibule (ok, it looked a lot like our train haha). After that things got weird but we were moving, moving, and I did not want to wake up, didn't want to lose that sensation.
But I woke up, and it was gone.
I went out to the garden to pick some thyme for my eggs.
Thyme is so underrated you guys. It's such a boring-looking little plant, but seriously I think it's the best-tasting herb ever and I absolutely love that all I have to do to get some is step outside. You know they sell a handful of fresh thyme for $4 at the grocery?? Pssh. Just buy a plant for $2.50 and you'll never have to buy thyme again!
Of course I went to look at all my other lovely plants too.
I can't begin to describe how happy the pollinator garden makes me.
The milkweed will bloom soon, can't wait!
On a slightly sour note, last night the passion fruits fell off my passin vine :(
I'm not really sure why, but the plant itself looks healthy so I think either A) the recent storms knocked them down or B) the plant is still very young and just doesn't have the resources to be growing fruit yet. It's a bummer but I'm mostly just glad the plant is ok.
Interestingly, by Thursday night they had turned a sort of pinkish color and have started smelling sweet.
They might actually be edible. I'm going to keep them until they wrinkle (as they're supposed to) and see how they look inside.
My peppermint plant has taken OFF. I know that mint is very invasive, but this speed of growth is just amazing.
The leaves have grown huge, some are almost three inches long!
I'm going to have to remove it from the planter or at least separate some of it out. I don't want to loose those healthy big leaves by putting it in the crappy sandy soil of the yard, but there may not be another option. My chocolate mint is in a pot and it's not nearly this big.
After I was done in the garden I made some egg salad for Jameson and I. Basic recipe, easy lunch.
I didn't really do much all afternoon, stayed in my pajamas all day. It was nice. There were thunderstorms moving through all day so couldn't really do anything outside, and I'd bought all my groceries earlier in the week. Nothing to do but relax. Mmmm :)
Some plants after a shower. This little mystery sprout has a yellow spider on it <3
I'm still mystified by what those sprouts could be. Today iNaturalist said laurel or camphor, but neither of those are nearby, and one of them has huge seeds that I like to think I would have noticed. I mean I'll continue to keep them but at some point I'll need to know what they are.
For dinner I made tortellini with alfredo sauce, chicken, peas, and prosciutto ham.
I didn't actually "make" anything but the alfredo sauce, so no pics, but it was tasty.
I did make some roasted carrots as a side. Also tasty.
I was supposed to have my steno class that evening but my teacher postponed to Thursday.
Ugh, I don't like being in suspense for that. The more time I have the more I feel I haven't prepared enough.
Thursday I got up earlier, made breakfast, enjoyed some Rick and Morty. I decided to go ahead and separate out some of the mint since really there's nothing to it, you just hack it in half and plant it somewhere. Because it's so damn resilient. So I chopped both the peppermint and chocolate mint in half and planted the peppermint along the property fence, and the chocolate mint past the fence off to the side of my pollinator garden. We will see how they do. I want to keep on keeping some in pots near the house too, I'll just have to be really aggressive with pruning it I guess.
I spent the afternoon prepping breakfasts, packing lunch for tomorrow, and reviewing my sister's story (she asked me to edit it, I'm flattered!!) Later on I did a little steno while Jameson had a meeting and practiced some stuff for his upcoming gig.
For dinner I made Japanese-style curry rice. It's a very simple recipe, made slightly more difficult by having to make my own roux. You can buy curry roux/mix in any grocery, but it is absolutely loaded with salt, MSG, and other weird stuff that neither of us wants to eat. Jameson has an MSG intolerance so it was obvious we weren't going prepackaged on this one!
The roux was just butter and flour with the curry mixed in.
I cooked onion, garlic and ginger together, then added chicken.
When that was brown I stirred in carrots and chicken broth, then brought it to a boil.
I skimmed off any fat that floated up to the top, added salt and honey, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.
Then I grated in a whole apple and got the potatoes cooking for 15 minutes.
When the potatoes were done I dissolved the roux I'd made in some of the broth, then stirred it in along with some soy and ketchup.
Served it over jasmine rice. It turned out pretty good if I do say so! Even Jameson, hater of spicy foods, liked it!
After that I had a short video chat with my family before finally taking my steno class.
That's about it. I guess it was a pretty lazy weekend, although I did kind of do a lot of cooking.
I expect next week will be very similar. Sigh. Maybe we can find more ways to break up the routine.
Jameson got us a new minigolf game to play, maybe that will be fun :)
