“Settling in for the long haul”
This is the week when I feel like we settled into a regular quarantine routine. I felt myself stopping fighting against things and just relaxing into the flow of the days. Part of our routine is watching live streams of music from some of our favourite artists and bands. Most of the time the technology works pretty well. This would have been such a different experience prior to the internet, wifi, and readily available video conferencing.
Music on Monday night came from Eric Lindell. It was Sheri’s birthday and she and Sean were also watching from California. It felt very vaguely like going to a concert together, as Lindell performed in his bathroom (he noted that, as is typical, that’s the room in his house with the best acoustics). The show was good but not anywhere near as much fun as seeing him at One Eyed Jacks, Carrollton Station, or the Kessler.
Music continued with the regular Tuesday night Band of Heathens Good Times Supper Club show, from their homes in Austin. Gordy and Ed trade off on songs, the rest of the band shares cocktail recipes, favourite albums, a classic Grateful Dead show archive recommendation, and even reads a portion of Shakespeare. Quite the eclectic hour and a half of entertainment.
Earlier on Tuesday, it was my turn to pick the workout routine. I found a core workout for runners (yes, after almost 4 weeks we’re calling ourselves runners) that looked interesting by a Swiss guy. It ended up being way too difficult for us – what the Swiss gentleman made look easy was well nigh impossible for us. We found a much more suitable one, although McD complained that it was a bit too easy.
The routine on Wednesday was from Diana’s trainer Amy, who recommended alternating situps, pushups, and tricep dips after a run. Apparently D is going to add in squats the next time we do this – yahoo!
Since Diana made a lovely dinner, I agreed to watch the new version of Little Women. Not as bad as I anticipated, with Chris Cooper, Laura Dern and Saoirse Ronan (had to check that I spelled her first name correctly) all giving good performances.
My weekly work happy hour on Thursdays is always good fun. Isaac was our trivia victim this week. He had several good questions, one of which was what is his new skill picked up during quarantine? Choices included:
(a) Beer Brewing
(b) Cocktail Creations
(c) Shoe and Boot Shining
You don’t know Isaac, but what do you think? Turns out he’s been digesting YouTube videos on shoe shining, learning techniques and the best products. People have been dropping off boots on his doorstep to give him practice. I’ll have to pick his brain on this new skill.
We added an office tour into the routine this week. Doug showed us all his mementos including artifacts from his Dad’s butcher shop, a Wizard of Oz collection from his stay in Kansas, pictures of grandparents and grandchildren, and lots of other interesting things. One of the benefits of this time is really getting to know people better. Isn’t it strange that when we’re the most disconnected, we take the time to connect in a deeper way?
With all this time on video calls, I decided to spruce up my image with behind camera lighting and an adjustable tripod for my webcam. Diana finds it all quite entertaining.
This came in handy for another happy hour on Friday night. While I was doing that, Diana was on a video call with PCD in Australia, catching up on the last year or so in his life, and getting a video tour of his new apartment.
Week 4 of Couch to 5K concluded on Saturday morning. Diana was really pushing me, pulling ahead on several occasions. I had to wait for a “hill” to catch back up again. The picture of our route is a bit fuzzy, but we covered a solid 2.2 miles – our longest yet.
Later in the afternoon, we made our weekly trip to Rye restaurant to pick up our meal kit. This week we got quail with risotto, green beans and mushrooms, and a ribeye steak that D was begging for. She hasn’t been able to get any decent meat anywhere. The Rye version is dry aged and vacuum sealed and should be delicious.
The quail turned out well. I’ll make a slight adjustment with the next batch to make the quail meat a bit rarer – I think 8 minutes instead of 10 in the oven. The black cherry sauce set off the quail perfectly. The meal kit is for a family of 4 and we always seem to get about 2.5 meals out of it.
Sunday was a dark and gloomy day. And it started earlier than I was expecting. At 7am my wife was spotted coming into the bedroom with her stepping stool over her arm. “What on earth are you doing with that at this time in the morning my love?” Apparently it was an ideal time to do a deep sort and reorganization of her closet. Maybe she’s not relaxing into this routine as much as I had previously thought.
I spent part of the day on an annoying work issue but was able to finish up the NYT crossword in less than an hour in the background while listening to troubleshooting talk. I always have a big sense of accomplishment if I can finish without looking anything up and break the 1 hour barrier.
You can see the last clue I got, “Sign of winter’s end”. Spring? No. Some kind of thaw? No. Ahh, the other kind of sign, an astrological sign, Pisces. Geez.
After the puzzle I made a decent brunch with left over fungi salad, sausage omelet, and grits.
We may have created a monster out of Clorinda, Diana’s Mom, this week. After a few years of trying, she’s now sufficiently bored that FaceTime is appealing to her. She ends the session each day with “See you tomorrow”. We’re practicing patience as she wanders off for several minutes at a time, returning to be surprised that we’re still there. That’s Andy, her amazing neighbour, photo bombing. He was helping Adamo to install a new vanity.
Here are a couple of pictures that I enjoyed this week. A funny one of Wilson virtually herding, and a touching one of a rainbow spanning across the very troubled city of New York.
My book this week was “Deacon King Kong” by James McBride. Set in a public housing project in the late 1950s, this story features a crazy bunch of characters. McBride was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in 2016 “for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America”. There’s certainly plenty to reflect on in this novel about the struggles of citizens living in public housing and working low income jobs. I enjoyed the story and particularly the development of a number of very interesting characters as the plot unfolded.
This song from Amy Black and the delightful Blind Boys of Alabama caught my ear this week. A good message and sound for these times:
I had one of those mornings earlier in the week where a melody and one line of a song was in my head but I couldn’t for the life of me place it. Was it the Tedeschi Trucks Band? No, too high and reedy of a voice. I worked on it in the back of my head for a couple of hours before giving up. Then just after lunch it popped up. The line about Marlon Brando was the hook that got my brain to pull it up – “Pocahontas” by Neil Young. Of course!
Stay safe and kind!