Using all my screen time for work

So, I feel like I haven’t been recording the things on my blog that I normally do. I mean, in theory my tagline is “reflections on life & food”, so I like to write about what I’ve been watching and reading and cooking and eating.

But it’s winter and it’s too dark to take pictures of dinner by the time we eat (I hate doing food shots when I don’t have natural light – the food looks ugly and yellow); I’m trying to get two online classes up and running by Monday … ulp; meetings have kicked back in at work; and the news is ranging from positive to awful to just effing weird.

Case in point, here’re today’s headlines:

I think I told you about some of the cooking I did last weekend, like Cowboy Cookies. I don’t think I mentioned that we watched the movie Ammonite last week Friday. We wanted to watch News of the World and all the publicity said it could be streamed that day, but when we tried Amazon said $19.95 for “early access”. Amonite was about $8. I was really struck by the sound design. All the little noises were amped up. It starts with water sounds during the credits – you think maybe it’s washing dishes or a shower but it’s a woman on hand and knees scrubbing the floor of the British Museum. It’s a good way to emphasize the different valuations of men’s work and women’s work, which is one of the points of the film. I guess it was done Johnnie Burn, who also worked on the Lobster and the Favourite.

I made beef stew on Saturday, and I know I posted a pic of the rolls we had with it. Yes, they have lard in them. This Friday I made the stew into a shepherd’s pie, well, a cottage pie really, because it’s beef and not lamb, and we ate it with a baguette. No lard, and none in its companion boule, either.

A lot of good stuff happened on Wednesday, Inauguration Day. And the night before – this memorial in Washington, 1,000 luminaria, one for every four hundred people who have died from the virus, is grim in its reckoning. But there’s something about this picture of the about-to be-sworn-in President and Vice-President and their spouses that is just so comforting somehow, to me anyhow, that we have leaders who are acknowledging the toll of the pandemic, and taking part in appropriate rituals that we all need as humans to work through this thing.

On the day, I missed seeing Lady Gaga sing the National Anthem – I watched her later online – but I did hear the terrific reading by Amanda Gorman.

And then on the night of Inauguration Day when I was in bed checking email one last time on my phone, I got two emails about getting vaccinated. One from University Health Service said I could make an appointment right away, so I did and I’m going on Monday. The other, from my regular provider, said I could make an appointment starting Monday.

I’m still dreading having to go take one of the University’s drool tests to get into my building, but that might get put off. The next time I’m planning to go in is Feb 3, when my cleaners come, and they just texted me yesterday that they have to go back to Mexico because their mother is not well. We vacate so we’re not in the house the same time as the cleaners are working to avoid sharing air with strangers. We’ve been going for a walk in a county park since early summer (when we felt like it was safe enough for the cleaners to come at all)  but the trails we went on are now cross country skiing. We went to my office the last two times. And ha, just realized, since the cleaners come every other Wednesday, we were there on insurrection day and Inauguration Day.

And I did make some masks on Monday, but they’re not quite right yet – need more practice.

I’d had an urge to make Scotheroos, not really sure why, so I did that today. I got a fair amount done on my classes, and still watched a few sessions at the virtual librarians’ conference (Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha Blain talking about this book, and Ethan Hawke talking about this one), so now, since it’s Saturday, it’s movie night. We will watch The White Tiger and eat Scotheroos. Although I think all I really want to do is read Bridgerton – after watching the Netflix series, I bought a nice-priced e-book combo that’s the first three volumes. The stories of the three oldest children, not quite in ABC order – Daphne, Anthony, and Benedict. Then, even though I resisted, I paid the single volume price that was about half of what the 3-book combo cost for book 4, C for Colin, and even more about his charming love and Bridgerton family friend, Penelope Featherington. And then I thought I’d stop, and tried to wean myself with the free sample from the next child’s book, Eloise, but ended up buying it on Thursday. It’s so cozy to go to bed right after the news at 10:30 and read an ebook on my phone for an hour. I guess I can still do that after the movie tonight.