TGIF (Thank God Its Food)!

Yes, IT'S FRIDAY!  Rah rah.

I have friends who question whether it matters.  It does.  Not sure how much.

But it's Friday.

We struggle for another day.  Fighting time, boredom, and repetition.

But one thing to bring up here is that maybe that F should be "food," not Friday.

Because there is A LOT of food in my Twitter feed.

You have heard about the Covid 15, right?

Weeks ago someone postulated that we were going to be stuck at home for weeks, not getting enough exercise (in fairness, I see people in their Twitter feed talk about exercise programs while stuck at home, too, but not nearly as many as I'm about to recount about food), eating, and we'd all gain 15 lbs. 

Fifteen?!?!?!  I'd be in a place I've never been before (admission, I was not my slimmest when this started).

How? Why?

First, again in my Twitter feed, I keep seeing all these "you can only pick 3" options -- out of 9 pictures.  One of these was casual dining places (someone said "hard pass" to picking through these), but many others put out picks.

Then there were a whole series of the  9 picture thing with snack food: one may have been sponsored by Little Debbie!  I mean, with pictures, over and over, of Hostess chocolate cupcakes, honey buns, twinkies, hohos, and whole bunch of cookies.  Where's the gun GIF?

But I'm not done.  There are a whole series of feeds with recipes.  One had "fifteen meals you can make quickly with 5 ingredients."  Eight of them made me gag.  One, as I remember, was carved out butternut squash to make a kind of taco (gag, gag) -- lots of spaghetti.

I've seen a whole series of recipes from supposedly famous chefs.  I did recognize Bobby Flay, famed for hamburgers, who surprisingly didn't just pitch two weeks worth of different burgers (and shakes, don't forget) but put out a series of meals that would be easy to prepare -- starting with a couple chickens that you then turn into chicken soup and chicken salad. 

Are you beginning to see the issue here? 

I won't go into all the people on twitter baking -- either desserts or various kinds of bread.

Just the pictures would put on 5 of the alleged 15 pounds.

So, today, as you sludge through another work day, or another just dreadful day, just think of food. 

Twitter will help.  A lot!

Chin up, we'll make it, it looks like New York's curve is flattening, rah effin' rah. 

The Thursday Blahs: the perception of quarantine

Yes, it's Thursday. 

Just a reminder.

For those of you in sweatpants for the zillionth consecutive day. :)

Thursdays have never been my favorite.  Wednesday gives you the hope of the hump, but then you have the doldrums of grinding through another work day.  With TGIF right behind.

And it decided in NCPA to be cloudy, rainy and colder today. ):

I have realized that the struggle isn't that I can't go out -- it's that I want to!!! 

You see, I have also realized that, other than work, I really don't leave the house that much.  As troubling as that realization may be.

But now that I can't -- I want to.

I suspect this is the paradox of prison.  You don't really have a place you want to go, you just want to go.

Anyone else know what I mean?

Like, was going to the grocery store even necessary, or did I "run an errand" just to feel like I could go when and if I wanted to?

[I will save my notes about the movement of time for another day -- I think we all are aware of how long March was...and how long April is going to be...and now our governor has closed schools for the rest of the year, so maybe there'll be a STAH order till June...]

Thursday.  Thor's Day.  It really does hit you like his hammer.

Happy Hump Day!

Yes, it's hump day.

Remember it?

In case you need more help, it's WEDNESDAY!  the middle of the week (thus the hump, we all think)

Remember those GEICO commercials that popularized the term with the talking camel walking through office cubicles asking "What day is it? What daaaaaaayyyy is it?"  And, of course, Mike.

Now we are all the camel's foils.  What day is it?

Wednesday.  Hump day. 

Of what we were told by various people at the overused White House podium would be the worst week of our lives -- our Pearl Harbor.

I'm not sure they got that right, several different ways. 

But it's a struggle working from home.  Not going out for this or that.  Of masking up to go to the grocery store.  Of not traveling anyway.

But is it the worst week ever?

I wonder what we'll think if or when we go back and read this in weeks or months.

But we have to go on, plodding like our camel, remembering the day, working, going on. 

Here in NCPA it's the best day we have had all spring -- 70 and sunny.  Spring is here.  Flowers are blooming, trees are budding, birds are chirping.

It ain't all bad.

And maybe, just maybe we've flattened the curve enough to hope.

Maybe.

Maybe it's really hump day. :)

You've got mail!

[Ed. note: this is a series of short blog pieces, one per day (maybe) <aren't we all bored, looking for something to do?>, talking about some daily thing affecting our lives on a personal level -- not comments about the feds, outside states, etc. That's the purpose.  Let's see...]

Yes, I missed yesterday.  Or was uninspired.  A word that covers a lot of days these days.  Agree?

One funny aspect of WFH and week 4 is how I have begun to notice, and enjoy, the delivery of the mail.  I remember previously there would be conversations like, "Did anyone get the mail in?" or "Did you see the mail, I was looking for..."

No longer. 

I'm excited as a puppy for the mail carrier to arrive.  It breaks the monotony of the day -- ours comes in the early afternoon -- 2ish.  You can see the little van-like vehicle parked down the block and hear her (ours is currently a her) steps on the porch as she delivers.

Admission: some days it's a bummer -- junk mail.  It is concerning how many companies, mostly airlines but sometimes Capitol One, want to give one of us in the household a new credit card at almost no interest.  I thought the banking and credit system had tightened after the Great Recession.  Not if they are sending us open-ended requests!

But then there are the good days: some days a box or soft pack comes from a subscription service!  For instance, yesterday it was Birchbox (which wasn't for me, but still...).  Those days the arrival of the mail, and gathering of it, is a moment of excitement in days lacking anything else to look forward to.  

Since I keep seeing people talking about "the big picture," maybe this is an effect of this pandemic -- we will again appreciate the whole mail delivery thing.  The people and technology involved.  

Just as we should better appreciate those who work at pharmacies and grocery stores.  Especially the stockers.  God bless them!

But today I await the mail, again.  Tail wagging. 

PS. It's only a matter of time before I spend one of these rhapsodizing about streaming service drops. :)

Another sportsless Sunday

[Ed. note: this is a series of short blog pieces, one per day (maybe) <aren't we all bored, looking for something to do?>, talking about some daily thing affecting our lives on a personal level -- not comments about the feds, outside states, etc. That's the purpose.  Let's see...]

Yes, it's Sunday.  Sunday.  Sunday.

Remember the day.  Here in this house it is day 23 of quarantine.  Grrrr...

It's Palm Sunday.

Yet no one (sane) is out and about enjoying a spring-like day, or worshipping at the beginning of Christian Holy Week. 

We walked through our park around noon today.  We met no one. 

Our evening walk met a few, but it wasn't crowded, despite 66 degree temperatures.

In between: no sports. 

This would have been the Sunday between the March Madness seminfinals and the final on Monday.  Most years there would be baseball, this year in its second week, and probably golf -- priming for next week's (of course now postponed) Masters.

None of that was on. ): None of that will be on.  For awhile.

We are a nation that loves its televised sports.  March Madness, baseball season, golf, and, soon, NBA playoffs.  Gone, gone, gone, and gone.

And if you think all these "let's replay this game" things make up for it -- bull shit!!!  A big part of watching live sports is the drama: who wins, who plays well?  If you know Seton Hall beat Michigan in 1995, making PJ Carlissimo such a household name he is still on TV, then there's not much reason to watch, other than to see how long everyone's shorts were that year.

No. There's drama these days in live horse racing, this weekend from Tampa Bay, Gulfstream Park and Oaklawn Park.  I watched a little yesterday (it keeps raining at Oaklawn, which is in Arkansas) and it's fun to watch them go at it, even if you don't know who's who.  Part of the fun is in the not knowing how it'll play out -- will that crazy horse that goes out to the lead early and looks like it's running away hold on?  Will the one that looks uninterested in last place sweep past everyone and win?  Or will someone sneak through on the inside, having been pretty much ignored the whole race?

It's Sunday.  Palm Sunday.  We miss the drama of live sports. 

It just makes the days harder to take.  And harder to keep track of. 

Sigh...

New Notions of Time (pssst, it's Saturday!)

[Ed. note: this is a series of short blog pieces, one per day (maybe) <aren't we all bored, looking for something to do?>, talking about some daily thing affecting our lives on a personal level -- not comments about the feds, outside states, etc. That's the purpose.  Let's see...]

Some people read yesterday's first blog.  Thanks! 

Today is Saturday.  SATURDAY! 

I have a friend who has asked the last couple of weeks if it makes any difference what day it is -- yes! Yes! Yes! 

But we all, here in most of America, have gotten used to, or are getting used to, a whole new meaning of time.  

The first, funniest meme I saw on this was:

I have now lived through seven decades

The 60s

The 70s

The 80s

The 90s

The 00s

The 10s

March.

LMAO!  

Feels so true.  

But let me put it out there: if you thought March was long, wait till you see April!  

None of us were quarantined all of March; it looks like everyone will be for all of April.  

Oh, shit. 

T.S. Eliot said "April is the cruelest month" and though he lived through the Spanish flu epidemic, he had no idea about this.  

Is it only noon? 😒

We have all begun to strain as we can't separate one day from another, since we move our workspace, or not, a few feet, so that Monday is like Tuesday is like Wednesday is like Saturday.  

I have a new way to measure time:

Since I quoted Eliot above, this seems to be 2020's variation on his "Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,/I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."  We are measuring ours out in sheets of TP.

There was a piece on the internet where the person calculated how long toilet paper lasted.  You know, two weeks ago in the beginning of the rush to horde.  Aren't we all calculating that? 😠

And, if you haven't read about it, here's a good article about why there's a TP crisis. 

Search Results

Web results

What Everyone's Getting Wrong About the Toilet Paper Shortage

Eliot made a life of tea parties and social events sound like hell.  Now we have a life with no tea parties or social life and we know he was wrong. 

But we'll get through it:

Remember, it's Saturday!  Hooray!  

Notes from the Edge (of the Apocalypse): E Tu Brutus?!

[Ed. note: this is a series of short blog pieces, one per day (maybe) <aren't we all bored, looking for something to do?>, talking about some daily thing affecting our lives on a local level -- not comments about the feds, outside states, etc. That's the purpose.  Let's see...]

So, my thing today is: why can't local grocery stores get their act together to do curbside service?

Two weeks ago, TWO WEEKS AGO!, I tried to get groceries without going into the store.  There are two grocery stores within a mile of my house.  Well, the first, Weis, didn't do it.  Their app said they did, but it wouldn't go beyond filling the cart, so I called the local store.  I was told they didn't do that.

Then I tried the Giant app.  Which switched me to Peapod (I'm just reporting).  In the end, I couldn't schedule till five days later?!?!!?!? 

WTF!?!!?

How hard is this?  I've been in Giant when their "associates" were filling these orders for people -- it doesn't look like rocket science (or, as the joke goes, rocket surgery), so it doesn't seem like it is about personnel (and as of now there are only a handful of Covid cases in this county, so it can't be people out sick), and they do it with a scanner on their arm that tells them they are getting the item ordered. So, it doesn't look tricky.

So how can grocery stores not have this figured out?  Why don't they have their personnel doing this already? How hard is it?

It's something we all want -- access to groceries without having to stay this far away from each other --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcn6sah5vf8

So, today's first day rant is this: why can't grocery stores get their act together and provide enough slots for us all to drive up and get our groceries?  Or most of us? 

Get your act together?!?!?