Aaaand tonight I’ll start with: work. I got home from the laundry and went to bed, getting up an hour before I was scheduled to begin work. I took the morning off, so I didn’t have to be on the clock until noon.
Emails took a little longer than usual, and I had to do some reading for a Zoom meeting about potential future proposals. Then the usual daily Zoom meeting, and work on some copy introducing one of our publications.
That didn’t leave a lot of time for working on the two stories I have lined up. It’s okay. I’ve been thinking about each for more than a week, and I’ve already done the interviews. Unless something comes up, I think I can get both done in a day.
I skipped the walk Tuesday evening. I’m trying to reset my clock, and although I can’t get it all back in one night, if I can get to bed very soon I’ll be okay Wednesday at work and then hopefully set the clock back another hour or two for Wednesday night. That’s the plan, anyway. I can’t simply let myself continue to slide later and later into vampire hours. It’s ridiculous. The sun’s been out and shining almost every night by the time I put myself to bed lately, Monday night the lone exception for the laundry.
I did a few chores, then tried to get water refills at the supermarket. No luck. It was still out of order. So I looked up alternate locations in my area. There was one in an area suuuuuper sketchy at night. I chanced it. Actually, I almost chanced it. On my way there, I saw some machines outside a convenience store in a slightly less sketchy area. The machines looked a little sketchy, but what the heck. At the worst, they’re just selling me regular tap water. And regular tap water is fine as long as it doesn’t taste like the water at my house.
Hopefully I won’t have to go through this again. I’m set for just under a week.
Okay I gotta hurry.
Breakfast: leftover penne. Lunch: sourdough bread with good cheddar. A simple but delicious meal. Dinner: I didn’t want to do this but it was getting late, so on the way home from refilling my water jugs, I went to McD’s and had a local deluxe breakfast platter. It’s a cholesterol bomb. I probably erased weeks worth of overnight oats.
For snacks, I had three tiramisu Oreos.
Then I watched Joker, about which I’ll reflect later. I kinda wanted to hate it, but I don’t. It’s a very, very, very well-made movie and I doubt I’ll ever watch it again.
Not too much interaction today but it was good. I texted Crush Girl to ask if she was having a better day, which led to some conversation about our governor’s overly hasty re-opening of some businesses in the state. Neither of us is very comfortable with it.
I texted Sylvia to tell her to let me know if she needed more yeast or flour. That led to some conversation about Taco Bell, including a selfie from her in the drive-through. Then Susannah texted me to ask if I’d gotten her submission for the Hawaii Stories project. All good interactions with people who make my life better.
Joker was a downer. I’m trying to fight off some yuckiness before turning in. Writing this stuff down helped some; I’ll probably drift off while listening to a podcast, my comfort listening when I lay me down to sleep.
I’m going to try to make waffles sometime tomorrow.
Non-sequitur memory that just popped into my head: when I lived in an off-campus Christian dorm while still studying at UH Manoa (before my transfer to UH Hilo), I took up pie-baking as a hobby. My close friends know apple pie is probably my favorite dessert (Dutch apple from Anna Millers when I can get it; ala mode of course), and dorm living gave me a chance to really explore cooking, something I’d done a lot at home but not very adventurously. So yeah, apple pie. Our campus ministry director took an interest in my efforts and even gave me a pastry cutter as a gift when I couldn’t attend an appreciation lunch of some sort.
I was determined that the crust was the most critical element. You can luck into a good filling just by tossing the requisite ingredents into a pie tin. So it took a lot of practice, and I got to where my pies were pretty decent. Certainly not up to Anna Miller standards, but good enough to share un-selfconsciously.
That’s what I did. I’d eat a few slices myself, share a few with whoever was around when I was done baking, and leave one or two for the girls in the dorm. Slick, huh? The dining area had a row of refrigerators, and each of us was assigned one shelf in one fridge. We all knew whose shelves were whose because our names were on the fridge doors. I’d decide whom to leave some pie for, put it on a small dish with plastic wrap over it, then just leave it on someone’s shelf to be discovered later.
I was then and I still am a shameless flirt.
I’m down to exchange non-sequitur memories with you if you’ve got ’em. Reach out and connect, especially if you’re having difficulty connecting. I won’t do Zoom meetings or voice calls, but we can trade texts or DMs or IMs if you’re down for that.