Weekend Plans Post: Almost A Return To Normalcy
Way back when, in the beforetimes, when Maribou would go on vacation for a week or two, I was batchin’ it and my life would change. CDs would migrate out to the car. I’d order my pizzas from my places without even thinking about whether I should consider coordinating deliveries or getting pizza from my second favorite place instead. I might take a three day weekend and spend the third day not doing ANYTHING.
Last December, Maribou went away for a week and I took the week off and… well, that wasn’t particularly healthy. I turned into blobfish for a week. It was the type of recuperative that you need recovering from.
So, this time around, I didn’t take time off. Just work in front of the bad screen until it was time to switch to the good screen. Make spaghetti sauce. Make baked potatoes. Make homemade pizza. Make the GOOD hamburger helper (with jalapenos and a full onion and what many might call “too much garlic”). Go do my business throughout the day, do some cooking and reading at night, maybe watch some television, and get up and do it again.
Instead of it being an orgy of sloth like December, I had tasks, chores, errands, and purpose. It was like being the Omega Man.
Only without the shooting.
So now everybody is back, everything is back to a normal pace, we’re back to “safer at home”, groceries delivered, not meeting up with people, and normal, normal, normal.
And I very much want this semi-quarantine to end and get back to a normal, normal, normal that includes getting my own groceries, eating food with friends, and having exercise to do that isn’t merely run for an hour.
Maybe October.
Anyway, this weekend will be devoted to doing all of the laundry that Maribou brought back with her, perfecting the pizza stone, and maybe finishing up Avatar: The Last Airbender (I am a big fan of Uncle Iroh).
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is Alice wondering why in the heck the bald one keeps thrusting a black quadrangle in her face. Photo taken by the author.)
Normal, normal, normal will be great. Good to be home though.Report
Kitty! <3
Our blueberries are coming in, and there's a lot of pickin'. There is also a flock of turkeys with two young ones who patrol for bugs and fallen berries. Sometimes they get greedy and start hopping up to take berries off the bush, which prompts my wife to go out on the deck and scold them.
The other pest are the squirrels, who leap from trees directly into the top of the bush and take exactly one bite each out of a dozen or so blueberries. Those get the arrows (foam-headed Nerf-knockoff things from a bungee-cord slingshot affair, specifically chosen to give a forceful but non-injuring bop.)Report
Gah, squirrels! So much wasted produce. I take potshots at them with my son’s BB gun.Report
Would a barn cat work?Report
It’s a good thought, but there are too many coyotes running around for that to be sustainable; we’d have to bring it inside in the night, and that would be risky for our pet bird.Report
Same as it ever was here. (I wonder if I will reach a point where I think maybe the before-times were a dream or an imagining; I remember as a kid being on interminable car trips – it was a 14 hour drive to my maternal grandmother’s and my parents would try to make it in a day – I used to think about “what if sitting in a car forever is the real reality, and the times when we were at home or at Grandma’s were just dreaming?”)
I had a bad knee sprain last week, no idea how I did it but Monday it was bad enough I moved up my six-months checkup by a bit so I could let my doctor look at it and tell me if she thought I needed an MRI or x-rays or something. Turns out it was just a sprain and is almost better now, so maybe tomorrow will be okay for me to mow the lawn
Not doing much else. Dreading the logistics of us trying to re-open in person this fall – if we even do. The worst thing about this thing for me is the Schroedinger’s Box quality of it – I have to prepare for “in person with distancing” but also “all online” because I may literally not know until the Friday before the Monday classes start.
Even though I recognize I am in a privileged position compared to many people (farm workers, grocery employees, ER nurses), this still feels very much like Life On Hard Mode.
Also, not having any real fun, because the stuff I did for fun (other than sitting watching re-runs of Parks and Recreation and knitting) is either cancelled or is currently not sufficiently “safe” (at least in my mind) to do.
I hope I don’t have to grimly “hang on” too much longer, but I fear it will be quite a while longer.
Monday is the one-year anniversary of my dad’s death; if my knee is still okay I will be going up to a Recreation Area about an hour from my house; it was a place he liked to go when he’d come to visit. I feel like I should do something to mark the day even if Protestant Christianity (my tradition) is very weak on that kind of thing.Report
When I was a kid, we’d sometimes drive from Canton, Michigan to Muskeegon, Michigan to spend a few weeks at Lake Michigan in the summer.
It was 3 hours. THIS WAS INTERMINABLE. My parents did a good job of buying us special toys that we weren’t allowed to play with unless we were in the middle of the 3 hour car ride. We got special books (that ended for my sister who proved vulnerable to the whole “reading in the car == barfing” thing). We got a Speak and Spell.
I went back a few years back and spent a week in Michigan and my cousin mentioned that his father-in-law was doing a War Reenactment (Revolutionary) in Grand Rapids and if I wanted to go. HECK YEAH I DO!
Grand Rapids is about a half hour away from Muskeegon. We made the drive from Chelsea like it was nothing. It was nuts. This ocean of time turned into a few dozen songs on the radio and an argument over hockey and then it was over.
I hope you can get up to the Rec Area. Eat something and remember. That’d be good for you.Report
One of the things that struck me most profoundly in Road To Wigan Pier was when Orwell described the mental life of the bums he hung around with during that time–or, rather, the lack of such life. And he wasn’t judging them, he was matter-of-fact about the way that they lacked any sort of education or enrichment and how their idea of the good life was drink and junk food, and if you gave them more money all they’d do with it was spend it on drink and junk food because they literally didn’t know any better. They didn’t even know what opera was, let alone have one they’d want to go see if you gave them money for a ticket.
And you commenting about “long rides were forever when you were a kid, long rides are nothing when you’re an adult” makes me think of that, because most adults have so much more in their heads than kids. You know about all the different kinds of music to listen to, you know enough about hockey to have a strong opinion about it (and enough of rhetoric and argument to discuss and defend that opinion), you can look out the window and see something and relate it to your own life experience or to things you’ve learned about. You can pull things out of your head and turn them into worlds to fill an empty void.
And that’s why schooling matters, why it’s important, because that’s how you get that stuff. Creativity is the force that grows trees, but without soil and seed that force goes nowhere.Report
The wife was going to take a four-day-get-out-of-Dodge last weekend stretching into this week, but being that she is at the point of her career that there really isn’t a way to have an unbroken string of time off (dept. heads are so needy) that the last two days got canceled and my batching was foreshortened. So, she is attempting to do it again in a few weeks but nothing is on tap for this weekend as far as I can tell.Report
Some advice that I can easily imagine someone giving someone else: “If your department can’t do without you for a 4-day weekend, you need to ask for a raise.”Report
Fortunately (or unfortunately[?!]) when she took the position 9 or so months ago, there was a 20% raise. So, asking for more, at this time… not in the cards.Report
Crap! This means that the “hey, we gave you a raise!” is already baked in!Report
You meant “much garlic”, right? The “too” at the beginning of the phrase was a typo?
The weather finally broke after two horrible weeks of heat. I was able to briefly emerge from my air conditioning and venture out a little, but like a bizarro groundhog I could sense six more weeks of summer. Maybe Saturday will be comfortable enough for a walk in the park, and Sunday I’ve got reservations for Mass.
General question: what do people do for vacation? I can’t go visit relatives, I don’t want to go out among the great unmasked, but I’d like to go somewhere for a change of pace. Ideas?Report
There are Minnesotan types, not naming names, who think that garlic can make a dish “spicy”. A little bit is enough and more than that is excessive, apparently.
I think it has to do when the food is introduced to the child.Report
My wife’s MN friend once complained about a dish that had black pepper in it as being too spicy.Report
I’ve known New Englanders like that.Report
Can confirm, I’ve seen them look at a homemade mac-and-cheese recipe and say “that sounds great but please leave the pepper out”
“pepper is literally the only spice in this, it will be plain wheat pasta with cheese melted on it and a little milk”
“mmmm yeah that sounds really tasty! just please no pepper or anything spicy.”Report
“The milk flavor won’t be too strong, will it? Maybe you should use water instead.”Report
Oh, no, they like milk, they just refuse anything even vaguely hot, and look suspiciously at flavors that aren’t sugar-or-salt.Report
My Green Bay MIL would echo that complaint.Report
How rustic are you? If you’re looking to stay local-ish there’s good camping and not-totally-primitive cabins out in Green Ridge State forest. Decent hiking on the Potomac and an outdoor shooting range if that’s your thing. You’ll see people out there but not a resort or anything. Probably not worth a whole week but it’s a good weekend trip I do often.Report
I’ve got a lot of trails that are close enough for a day trip. Weather permitting, I need to take advantage of them more often. I’m probably just going through cabin fever because of the heat. I think once it drops a few more degrees and I can get out there, I won’t feel the need for a trip.
I also like hanging out at the beach towns off-season. No crowds, great scenery.Report
I’m the same way on the beach towns. Offseason is good but the thought of going out there right now makes me need a xanax or a stiff drink. A buddy of mine was in Bethany last weekend though and said it wasn’t too bad. I still have no inclination to go find out for myself.Report
Do you like camping? Maybe an Air Bnb in a rural area and some road tripping in scenic country? That seems like a good vacation for these times. My wife and I are doing a mini-vacay at her family’s cabin next weekend and early next week–a few days without the weekend crowd will be nice.
Edit: I posted this before I saw InMD’s post.Report
I have managed to turn two weekly gatherings into cyberspace gatherings. One uses roll20.com, the other uses TableTop Simulator. Both add voice chat from a different source.
This has helped a lot, though there are still things I miss, especially my martial arts, which violates every rule of staying safe, at least the way we do it.
Lately I’ve been playing Satisfactory (which just made it to Steam), and I’m doing a multiplayer with a friend.Report
How pricey is roll20? I did some light research and it struck me as a “give away the razor, sell the blades” website.Report
I have not spent a dime on it. And I’ve run an entire 5e campaign on it, with a DIY mentality. I maybe paid someone a bit for maps, but it was the map creator I paid, not Roll20. And I dig around/make tokens myself.
Yeah, they sell stuff through their store and sell a premium version, too. My daughter got the premium version, and she is running us in some L5R, using lighting effects and so on. But it doesn’t cost us a thing to have those things as players.
The premium version, though, is also not that pricy. Twenty bucks, I think?Report
I use roll20, The basics are all free: A diceroller, communal chat function, simple markers, interactive communal online map with draw and edit functions, communal journals and information storage, even character sheets online which are clunky but acceptable. The voice function is not good, you’re better off muting it and just using discord.
The stuff you pay for is fancy map stuff, fancy markers and other spruced up stuff. But if you are looking to be able to play an RPG online and have online tools to provide the visual queues that you’d normally have in person then you can get them without paying a dime.
Over all, pretty damned good service for its price (free).Report
I remember the plot description for the Omega Man from the newspaper TV guide (remember those) as “Charleton Heston stars as the last man on earth, with an unlimited supply of bullets and Scotch.” It was a fun move that let him chew up a little scenery.
As for this weekend, hoping to finish an Adirondack chair I’ve been working on for my sister. I’m completely not enamored of the plan, so it’s going to be a one of a kind. It’s #21 on this list: https://adirondackchairfactory.com/adirondack-chair-plans/Report
The wife has been hinting at me to make some Adirondack chairs for our porch, good to know which to stay away from. What is the issue, if I may ask?Report
Several, really. A lot of curved cuts(I really should invest in a band saw), which is a pain, and the 2 by lumber makes it seem kind of heavy (not weight, just over engineered, if you know what I mean). Plus, it’s a print at home thing so trying to translate from 8.5×11 to the wood is a major PITA. I’d recommend not cheaping out like I did, and purchasing a full-size, traceable plan.
I did a couple of these: https://www.popularwoodworking.com/product/all-weather-morris-chair-2/, which weren’t that hard, and look great. I modified the second one by cutting the stiles on the side and the seat back in half (doubling the number) to give it more of an Arts and Crafts look.
Whatever you do, have fun, and I’d love to see the finished product.Report
I totally get you on the over-engineered part, and it does sound rather fiddly. I will take a look at the Morris plans, as I have one for myself in the living room, but that is not really an outside chair. and the arts and craft look would be perfect, as we have a teens bungalow.Report
https://imgur.com/a/ua97bQK
The one one the left is the first build. Modified one on the right.Report
Nice work!Report
I started thinking about this one . . . like i Have the timeReport
Ha! Believe me, this is going pretty slowly.Report
No big plans. But on the big plus side the Dish is back! It’s weekly now instead of daily but it still feels very similar. I am chuffed!
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribeReport
I was happy to see that too. Went ahead and subscribed.Report
Ya know, with Taibbi over there also, substack is becoming one of my favorite spots for longer-form journalism.
It is good to see.Report
Mine too.Report
By George, I think I’ve got it.
That looks like a pizza with something for everyone!
We did a pizza and made our own crust this weekend, and my goodness, that solved ALL the problems we’d been having. We had been buying dough-balls from the store and using those, and they never quite worked right — they wouldn’t hold the shape, they wouldn’t spread, they never baked properly.
The thing that made it perfect was that we used our bread-maker to work the dough. It took about 90 minutes to do it, but if we’d tried to thaw a frozen dough-ball it would’ve taken about that long anyway; and it was so easy to just throw the ingredients in the thing, push the button, and then go watch the sun set over the blueberry field for an hour and a half.Report
One thing that I found:
I got my first pizza dough ball from Whole Foods. $2.99. This sounds cheap until you remember that it’s four ingredients. I suppose it’s made by artisans and that’s what you’re paying for… anyway, my pizzas turned out delightfully. I was proud of them and proud to show them off.
While at Safeway, I noticed that they also had pizza dough available. $1.99. Now we’re talking! I got it home and got it on the bread board to rise for an hour and I came back and, instead of rising, it flattened like a blobfish. It was more pancake than ball. This pizza was disappointing. Had I started here, I’d never have been inspired to show off my pizzas and wouldn’t have been inspired to make the post that resulted in my deciding to get a pizza stone and kicking my B+ pizzas into the realm of the As.
All that to say: If you’ve been getting bad dough balls, then that can completely wreck everything.
A breadmaker! I haven’t used mine since 2006!
I probably still won’t use mine, but that’s a great idea.Report
We never did try it before this weekend because we usually had a dough ball ready, and it was on a whim that we did this time. The only issue is that you need to decide at like five PM that you’ll want to eat pizza in two hours, which usually we don’t do…Report
The Whole Foods dough balls tell you that you’re either making pizza tonight or you’re making it tomorrow. MMMMMMMMMAYBE the day after. But, after that? Forget it.
So you won’t be deciding this at 5PM. You decided it already.Report
finally heading back to the gym. Have to drill with a dummy and class size is limited but it’s a start.Report
Back in Colorado after my Mom’s funeral. Remarks in order of importance…
My sister did an amazing job of organizing and running things under current conditions.
How did I live for those years outside Omaha in the summer heat and humidity?
I made a point to tell my children that if they are the stuckees organizing any sort of funeral for me, my wishes on the matter are BBQ, craft beer, and 70s pop music. The only speeches allowed are humorous stories about me, preferably humorous at my expense.Report
Condolences from down here. I wish that there were words for this sort of thing that weren’t dumb.Report
If I can get 25 hours of overtime done by 7/30/2020, I will be paid double time.
I worked 13 hours this weekend. Four hours last Thursday. The coming Tuesday and Thursday will have four hours of overtime. I will submit my stuff and hope they do come through rather than argue if I wasn’t playing right.
So far my employer’s been kind, but I remain wary like a feral shelter cat who hasn’t been around good humans enough in life.
I’m listening to Jeff Lynn sing “Telephone Line” on repeat for the past two hours. Also today is Esperanto Day, the day when Unua Libro was first published back in the 19th century. I’m only tweeting in Esperanto.Report