Weekend Plans Post: Batchin’ It In A Time Of Covid
Maribou did the math for how to visit her bestie out in Seattle without having to use an airplane and given that a train ticket was somewhere around four *THOUSAND* dollars if she wanted a private car (and she did), she concluded that driving out there was the best bet. Leave on Saturday, get there on Sunday. She’s working remotely anyway so have a normal work week. Leave on Saturday, get home on Sunday. Additionally, this is probably the last weekend that we could reliably say that the mountains wouldn’t be a snowy problem driving back. Will next weekend be bad? Maybe not, but maybe, and we had no way of knowing last week.
So this week was the last real window to visit either until the end of the plague or the end of the snowy season.
Which means that, locally, this weekend will be spent batchin’ it.
It’s weird. In the beforetimes, when I was batchin’ it, there were a ton of little things that I could easily ignore. Hey, I’m going into work, right? So most of my time was eaten up by work and evenings were eaten up by goofing off. But we’re in a pandemic. All of the little chores that we had to do like going to grocery stores or the mall or something like that just aren’t on the table. So little things that you’d put off until Friday Night, like the laundry, or stuff that you’d put off until Sunday Night, like the recycling, are just sitting there and you can say “well… I can take care of that now and then it’ll be taken care of” which means that, come Friday Night, all the laundry is already done. Well, there might be *A* load. But not, like, 4. The recycling might have a couple of Amazon boxes in it… heck, if you take care of it now, you won’t have to take care of it later.
Heck, you don’t have to wait until Saturday to change the bedclothes… change them on Tuesday! It’s not like you’re not going to have opportunities to wash them!
Time has no meaning. Chores have no set schedule. We are radically free, to do whatever we want, whenever we want.
I have a load of jeans drying in the dryer right now.
Which means that, come this weekend, my schedule won’t involve laundry (well, there might be *A* load), and it won’t involve taking out the trash/recycling, and there won’t be anything to do on Saturday except finish up building my computer.
Which makes Saturday Night’s dance card full up.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Pillow Fort”. Taken by the Author.)
I’m reminded of Dave Barry; “[M]arried guys assume that all unmarried guys lead lives of constant excitement involving hot tubs full of naked international fashion models; whereas in fact for most unmarried guys, the climax of the typical evening is watching an infomercial for Hair-in-a-Spraycan while eating onion dip straight from the container. (This is also true of married guys, although statistically they are far more likely to be using a spoon.)”Report
One of my buddies only very recently terminated his bachelorhood. He got married somewhat later in life… he was in his mid-30’s when he got married. (Well, when *I* was a kid, getting married at 26 was being “a late bloomer”.)
Anyway, he was a quintessential engineer/programmer. He was one of those School Of Mines guys who puts together cubesat designs for fun. Prior to his marriage, his constant excitement involved putting stuff together after taking it apart. But, for fun, when he had a vacation… he did THIS: 70000 TONS OF METAL.
A cruise with 120 concerts on it!
He was talking about what he was going to be doing and someone asked “think you might meet anybody?” and my quip was “remember the ratio at the School of Mines?”
Anyway, no. He didn’t meet his wife-to-be on the Heavy Metal cruise.
But he did go on it. (And it wasn’t the first time he went on it.)Report
On the one hand, you wonder why they don’t just hire a bunch of girls to, y’know, hang out on the boat, and then charge extra for the “Yes There Are Chicks” version of the cruise.
On the other hand, dudes who go on a cruise like that are, probably, honestly not doing it for the chicks, so they’d think of that as a distraction. “I wanted to hang with LaBrie but this girl grabbed him and dragged him into her room and nobody saw them for the next seventy-two hours!”Report
Oh, and I got my flu shot.
Get your flu shot.Report
I had a doctor’s appointment two weeks ago, and she was all like, “Hey, you want your flu shot while you’re here?” and I’m all like, “Yeah, I want you to save me an extra trip to Target or Walgreens or wherever!”
So yeah…I got my flu shot.Report
Last push to put everything in boxes for the movers on Monday…Report
Probably going to be working, at least part of the weekend. By choice. Because the existential dread seems less dread-y when I am busy, and “busy” these days is “writing exams or prepping new material to teach”
This afternoon I have to go out and get a (long delayed by various things, mostly my own inertia) set of soil samples for an ongoing soil invertebrate study. I am hoping the eventual manuscript of this is looked on favorably and not “I know there was a pandemic on but why didn’t you sample in August or September 2020”
I turned in my absentee ballot yesterday, so if our cases are jacked to the moon in early November or there are other worrisome shenanigans going on I won’t worry about “how do I vote safely, or do I just sit this year out (I know, I know, Kristin, if you’re reading this: but if my choice is voting where my votes tend to go against the predilections of those living around me, and so they cancel me out, I’d rather not stand in line for an hour in front of some unmasked coughing guy and maybe risk my life).
Other than that, IDK. I should probably do a “big” stock up trip soon (more laundry detergent, maybe more TP, more canned goods, more of the small comforts of life) because I do suspect November through perhaps next March is gonna be ugly, case-wise, and I’ll probably be spending a lot of time at home (sigh) again.Report
Re stocking up, I’ve noticed that the local supermarket chain is starting to run short on assorted things again. Not as bad as it was last spring, but there are some noticeable gaps on some of the shelves. Not just us; my niece, near Omaha, has all of her relatives buying the biggest available package of her preferred disposable diapers if they see them.Report
The Brookshire’s (probably the nicest fanciest grocery this side of Dallas and where I went today) had signs up telling customers the limits:
– four cans of vegetables (I know not if “of one kind” or “four of ANY kind”)
– two cans of beans
– one pack of TP.
I mentioned to the young woman at the checkout “Just tell me if I went over any of the limits, I can have you pull that item, I won’t be mad” and she looked at my stuff on the belt and said “No, you’re fine, but thank you for paying attention to the signs.”
I imagine they’ve taken a fair amount of crap in recent months. She did note the restrictions were worse earlier on. (Interestingly, I don’t remember the Kroger having limits, but they are in a less upscaley area – this is where the wealthy folks from N. Texas have their lake homes and I wonder if some of them are “bunkering.”)
I did get my allowed two cans of beans; I figure it’s always a good idea to have beans on the shelf. There’s a lot you can do with black beans. And I got more TP even though I’m probably good for a year, and please God, let us be on our way out of the pandemic by October 2021….Report
I’m going to attempt to make an apple pie, including the crust, from scratch. With lattice top.
Other than that, no specific plans.Report
Zic’s crust recipe is the bomb. Easy to make and nice and flaky.Report
https://imgur.com/gallery/bZdVXiT
Got this guy all assembled this weekend. Wood filler and paint to go.Report
Nice! I was all set to make a couple of those, but yesterday, I was at an estate sale where I found in the free pile a complete but with issues Morris chair. So, as per usual in Aaron’s life, I have been distracted.Report
That’s a lucky find!Report
Yeah, I was really stoked. Its mission style, and is currently being broken down in my shop to scrape, sand, reglue, restain, and recover the cushions.
It should look beautiful.Report