Lockdown: Close to the edit

I forgot to say last night’s walk totaled nearly 15,000 steps, all of them after midnight. My total for Sunday is 17,487. I skipped the Sunday evening walk to get some work done. Thank goodness I have the work to show for it, or I’d feel pretty deflated.

I just got done with first edits on the last of the Hawaii Stories pieces. Half are ready to publish; for the other half, I’m waiting on responses from the writers. Now it’s past five in the morning and I’m an idiot for taking so long, but I’m happy to have the hardest work done.

I got a little mopey Sunday. Nothing major; it might just be my normal Sunday thing, which I’d probably do every Sunday if I didn’t go to see my folks most Sundays when we’re not in lockdown. I got a little more active on FB than usual, trying to connect momentarily with a wide swath of people. It pretty much worked. FB is good for that when you don’t let it take over your day.

Aside from the editing, the major accomplishment was grocery shopping. I actually didn’t need much, but I knew if I didn’t put some veggies in my fridge soon I was going to hate myself. I still spent more than I’ve spent on groceries in a year, like nearly a hundred and thirty bucks. What the heck?

Some of it was replenishing stuff I don’t buy often, like chia seeds (for the overnight oats) and cornstarch. I prefer tapioca starch, but it hasn’t been playing nicely with the things I’ve made lately, so I’m going back to cornstarch to see if it’s me or the ingredient.

I went a little crazy on veggies. Baby bok choi, broccolini (two large bunches — it was on sale), carrots, and a huge bunch of watercress. Oh, I also bought a bunch of frozen berries and granola to mix up the breakfasts once in a while. That’s where a lot of the money went.

My fellow grocery shoppers were not as mindful of social distancing as I was, and uuuuurgggggggh.

Oh I bought pepperoni too. Something I don’t often splurge on. But I’ve awoken the toaster-oven pizza beast in me and want to play around.

For breakfast, I had the other half of a can of corned beef hash I opened sometime last week, with brown rice. Lunch was a couple of hot dogs with sauerkraut, ketchup, and mustard. So yummy. Dinner was steamed potatoes with a lot of broccolini. I’m probably going to have that for lunch Monday too. They came out great.

I want to try the yoghurt-making function on the Instant Pot sometime next week. To eat with the frozen berries and granola.

Crush Girl responded (very briefly) to something I asked early Saturday. I said something funny in return and she replied with haha, and that was it.

While I was working on Hawaii Stories, Ali in Boston responded to something I said Saturday, and it turned into another thing. But she let me talk through where I was sure the miscommunication was, and I think I cleared things up. Then we got into a thing (she started it, I promise) about the kinds of questions I ask her, and it led to my frustration with this topic, which has been a thing with us since we first got to know each other.

We communicate so well when we’re clicking. We communicate horribly when we’re not.

I’m toying with the idea of doing the laundry early Wednesday morning instead of my usual Tuesday morning. With the holiday Monday, will people who normally do their laundry right before the work week save it for after the weekend? In other words, is Wednesday the new Tuesday this week, and is Tuesday the new Monday, laundry-wise?

I’ll decide Monday based on how much stuff I get done. I think my boss will let me take Wednesday morning off even though I’m taking Tuesday morning off. We’re being encouraged to burn our use-them-or-lose-them vacation days now-ish, even though we have until the end of September. They don’t want us all taking them in September. Makes sense.

I don’t have as many to burn as most years. We get to carry fourteen days from year to year, but we earn twenty-one days or something like that. I usually carry the max, because those days are more valuable to me in their existence than in their use, if that makes sense. I love knowing I have them and can use them. Actually using them, especially since I seldom travel, is almost never as good.

I need to talk more about this later. My trip to Boston a year and a half ago awakened some of my old wanderlust. I need to figure out a way to do more traveling even though I make peanuts.

I finished my re-watch of Orange is the New Black season three. That last uplifting scene did it to me again. It’s beautiful. I’m not sure the downer of the rest of the season leading up to it was worth it, though. On to season four.

Need to call my folks Monday. And do some work on the Monster. Not a lot, but enough to feel good. Since I did a little bit of major housecleaning this past week, I feel okay doing the minimum on the Monster. It’s just that doing something Monday makes it possible for me to do more during the rest of the week, which I would really like.

The sun’s coming up. Time for this vampire to head for the cave. Listen, however you’re going through this lockdown, if you’re not connecting and you really want to, please reach out. I’m here for it. Even if we have weird miscommunication problems that make me insane sometimes.