Deep in quarantine

Mark has a pretty regular schedule for being retired in pandemic. He gets up, does chores – makes the bed, opens the curtains, scoops the cat litter, while brushing his teeth. Then showers and if it’s an every other day, shaves. He eats a banana, then goes for his long walk, and gets coffee to go at what seems to be the last open place. He comes home, has breakfast, and reads. Then it’s time for his second walk, screen time, and the 5:30 news. Yesterday he interrupted the reading time to do some cleaning since our cleaners are not coming til May 5 at the earliest, but still, nice, regular schedule.

Today I woke up feeling depressed and worried, and a normal routine would probably help, but I’m too easily distracted. I mean, I have patterns but I get sidetracked. Sometimes I forget to brush my teeth. I come downstairs, make coffee, bring in the newspapers and bleach the doorknobs, but the timing is always in flux since I’m always debating when’s the best time to go out and touch things and bring them in and possibly infect the house. Can’t simply grab the newspaper and take a sip of coffee, for example. Don’t want to have food on the counter when I bring in the papers.

I wander around the kitchen wondering what I should do to feel better. Go for a walk? Already a bit too late for today, to get back in time for my first online meeting of the day. I started thinking about dinner and all the food in the house that I haven’t photographed and took some pics of leftovers (more on that in a minute). I decided we’re having leftovers and veggies and dip for dinner tonight and wondered if I should mix up the dip so it could get flavors mingled by dinner. Guess I’ll do that after my 10:00 meeting – but that’s when I probably want to go walk.

By then the trash had been picked up, so I combined bringing back the bin and getting the newspapers. I’m observing that wiping down my wooden kitchen work island with my home made paper towel bleach wipes that I use on the doorknobs and the papers themselves is drying it out, so I went in the basement and got a cleaning rag to wipe down the counter with soap and water, and that lead me to think I should do laundry. Wash all my half-worn clothes hanging in the bathroom, including the pajamas I had on (old Rose Records tie dye t-shirt, loose pink sweatshirt that used to be nice enough to wear to work and now has bleach spatters, old Land Ends grey stretch pants that were my mom’s), get a fresh start. I went up to strip the bed and carry the sheets back down, trying to figure how to work in a load of wash with Mark’s shower. So, wait. Then I decided to add last Sunday’s NYT and some plastic bags to the recycle bin, since that hadn’t gotten dumped yet, which meant more hand washing and bleaching ‘cuz who knows what virus bits might be lurking on the plastic bags and newspapers, plus I was holding them up against my chest in that pink sweatshirt so wanted to wash that even more. After taking out the extra recycling and washing my hands again, I started to collect the laundry and thought my color looked good in the bathroom mirror, the light was nice, and wondered if a selfie was in order. Took a couple and didn’t like the results, and also tried posing in the kids bathroom, and started listening to a Charlie Berens vid on my phone, but realized I had to get dressed, so I could get the laundry started, because I want to put my PJs in.

Got dressed, going with leggings and a knit dress and a sweater, braided my hair – today is the day to just braid it without brushing since I washed it two days ago. See, patterns.

All of which means it’s now 9:07, I can hear that the laundry has stopped, so I better go put it in the dryer and head to work at home. And I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.

In addition to general worry, I’ve also been worried about forgetting what I’ve been doing.

Saturday I went through Mark’s pantry looking for pasta, and found an exploded can of tomatoes. Probably originally purchased by my mom in 2003 or so, when she lived in the upstairs apartment. It was like the tomatoes had been burned onto the shelf, like boiled over tomato sauce on the stove. I’ve never seen anything like it. I cleaned it up and we went though the other stuff: more canned tomatoes, Zatarain’s rice mixes, ancient pasta, canned chicken broth, a jar of pasta sauce, Capri Sun juice bags, and in the baking cabinet, a carton of Quaker oats, and hard brown sugar, and threw most of it out. I was going to make pasta, but since all the pasta was way past its date, we ordered a pizza and watched the big world together at home concert. And I drank – two beers and a shot of whisky.

Sunday using one of the cans of tomatoes that we deemed new enough to safely eat, and some roasted poblanos I’d thawed, and a bit of jarred salsa for the sauce, I made huevos rancheros – with refried beans cooked in bacon fat – delicious – and home made tortillas, and a few seasoned oven fries.

I made a quilt square to send to the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts, for their Quarantine Quilt.

Monday I brought back my electric coffee maker.

I had class, so we didn’t eat dinner together Monday night. I made a quesadilla with one of the leftover eggs and refried beans and ate it before class, and then after class we had dessert together, rhubarb bars made from the old Quaker oats, and the old brown sugar that I revived by putting damp paper towel in the bag, and last of my frozen rhubarb cooked into into puree. The bars has a little too much rhubarb to crumble – you couldn’t pick them up and eat them – and as a fork dessert were in desperate need of ice cream – that we didn’t have.

Tuesday I made the pasta I’d been going to make Saturday. Spinach and sundried tomatoes, and it should have garbanzo beans but I thought Mark would like it better without, so I left them out.

Tuesday night I toasted the last of those old oats, like this 101 Cookbooks recipe, and had some for breakfast on Wednesday and packed up the rest for future breakfasts, like Thursday.

We ordered a staples box from the co-op, and in the middle of the afternoon I went and picked it up and did some other shopping as well. The co-op was pretty well stocked – I was able to get flour (grateful, although some floofed out of the bag and got on my phone and was hard to get off) and chocolate chips and brown sugar and even frozen peas. No toilet paper. The bananas in the box are pretty ripe so not sure if we’ll be able to finish them before they have to turn into banana bread or something, but it’s still cool so maybe we’ll manage to eat them before they’re totally brown.

On Facebook someone called pandemic grocery shopping dodge & weave, and that’s a great description. You feel like you have to get in and out fast and you forget stuff. I find I am the most comfortable at the co-op of all the stores I’ve shopped at during these times; they’re really doing the pandemic rules right, but I still forgot parsley.

I also bought cream that I made into ice cream to go with the rhubarb crumble, because there’s no acceptable ice cream at the co-op, at least by my lights. I mean there never has been, pandemic or no.

Thursday morning on my walk there was a giant turkey in somebody’s yard on Forest St. This is the best shot I got. And the purple hellebore are from Monday’s.