April 6, 2020
My sourdough bread still isn’t doing well. I did a lot of things wrong. But I’m hoping that yeast, and nature, and maybe gravity will figure it out for me.
My wife and I went grocery shopping right when the store opened. We wore masks and gloves. The store wasn’t very crowded, which was nice. Most people had masks on - the mask was kind of comforting, but seeing everyone in masks felt post-apocalyptic. It was weird. We got everything on our list except liquor and cake meal, which we need for the Passover sponge cake. I guess that means one more shopping trip this week.
April 7th, 2020
I baked my first sourdough loaf yesterday. I’ll be honest - mistakes were made. There were a few times I almost threw out the dough, but then I figured I may as well just bake it. So I did, and while it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, it was still pretty good. It gives me hope for next time.
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The weather here is pretty nice so far this week, and it’s supposed to get even nicer. They’re saying it’ll be 72 degrees in a couple of days. I wonder what social distancing will look like when everybody wants to be outside.
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We watched another Phish Dinner and a Movie, it was the Jam-filled donut night from the Baker’s Dozen run. The dinner was Page’s tuna fish sandwich, with pretty much the most basic tuna recipe imaginable. We made tuna sandwiches, but ours were better, and we had them on fresh, hot homemade bread.
People are starting to go outside and howl at 8pm every evening. In our neighborhood, there’s only a bit of activity, but I hope it catches on more.
Good night!
April 8th, 2020
Another beautiful morning. I masked-up and gloved-up and went to a different grocery store this morning, to get the few things we couldn’t find Monday morning. I also went to the liquor store, but they changed their hours and weren’t open yet. I guess that’ll be one more shopping trip this week, and then hopefully nothing for a couple of weeks or more.
I read that yesterday, COVID-19 was the leading cause of death in the US. But also, there are signs that this thing is starting to turn around. Good news, bad news, I guess.
Tonight is officially the first night of Passover. We’re not going to have our Seder til Saturday, but tonight we’ll stop eating leavened bread and clean our house with a feather. Well, except for the part about cleaning our house with a feather. And not eating bread. Really, we’ll just continue with the same-old, same-old quarantine lifestyle we’ve been enjoying so much the past few weeks.
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Big day today. I ventured out into the world a second time, so we could stock up on liquor. I signed my receipt with my fingernail, which I guess is legit, since as far as I know, nobody has ever actually checked my signature on a receipt even once in my entire life.
My cat came into work today to visit. He never used to do that, when my office was downtown. My other cat lives exclusively upstairs, so he’s never been to my office, which is down in the depths of the daylight basement. Maybe today I’ll see if he wants to check it out.
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The governor of Oregon just announced that schools are closed for the rest of the school year. This week my son started distance learning - the first week is review of the previous trimester, with ungraded assignments and optional Zoom teacher office hours. Next week, they’ll start their new third-trimester classes and things will be graded, just like normal! Nobody seems to know yet what the actual classes are going to be like, but I guess they’ll figure it out. I think a lot of kids would have thought that canceling a few months of school would be great, but when I think about it, it just makes me sad. School is such a huge part of a kid’s social life, and it’s just gone now. On the other had, our pets don’t seem to mind the new world at all :)
April 9th, 2020
It’s another beautiful day, and I’m sitting in the basement with fluorescent lights. I did get out for a walk/jog this morning, the first time I’ve jogged in maybe forever. It felt good to get my blood pumping, even just for a bit. I don’t know if it’s temporary, but I’m getting the feeling that things are turning around with the Virus. I just hope that people continue to take it seriously once it starts to really feel better, so we don’t have another spike.
April 10th, 2020
I jogged again this morning. That’s two days in a row, for those of you counting. My son is going to make dinner tonight, at my wife’s request. Exciting times! Now I’m “going” to work.
April 11th, 2020
My son made little sausages and roasted potatoes for dinner last night. There must have been some kind of vegetable, too, but I don’t remember what it was. Mostly cuz I forgot to write an entry and I’m faking it from memory. So that’s all I have to say.
Today we had our Passover Seder. We had ten houses on Zoom, and we went through our custom-made family Haggadah together. We had gefilte fish from a jar, instead of the homemade stuff my cousins usually make, matzo ball soup (of course), asparagus, beef stew instead of the traditional brisket, tapioca pudding and Grandma Cele’s sponge cake for dessert. As is tradition, I ground up a horseradish root and I cried and screamed a little while doing it. And we made nut-free charoset, which, it turns out, everyone in my immediate family likes better than the traditional charoset we ate at Passover for 40+ years.
After dinner, dessert, and a shit-show of after dinner songs, some of us hung out on Zoom for a couple more hours. Rumor has it that my sister and cousins stayed on for more hours after that. But I had better things to do. I just don’t remember what they were.
April 12th, 2020
We got our chest freezer today, and I think we’ll get all the uncured and un-sausaged parts of our half-a-hog tomorrow. Pretty exciting stuff! Also, my brother in law told us how to make a box that sanitizes things the same way they do it in the hospitals. I ordered some stuff so I can make a box for us and a box for my mom. Once it’s ready, we can use it on our masks, which is apparently better than washing them, and our mail or whatever else we bring into the house that might be contaminated.
I was playing drums in the afternoon and a piece fell off of our ping pong table. So I spent some time fixing that, and it’s better than ever. This evening, I’ll watch Better Call Saul with my son. We’re a few episodes behind, and I want to catch up so I don’t hear any spoilers when I go into the office Monday. It’s funny cuz my office is really just a room in my house. Cuz of the Virus. Haha.