I slept quite well Friday night into Saturday. Yeah, I went to bed close to 4:30, but I got six and a half hours with one interruption midway. Then later in the day a good one-hour nap. I’ll take it.
I think breakfast was clementines and dried apricots, plus the last of the leftover chicken from Chicken & Brisket.
I can’t remember exactly when I watched the first four episodes of Ted Lasso again; was it Friday night or Saturday day? Details are a haze of emotions. I know I was feeling terrible, about that stuff I wrote the other night, the I-spent-a-year-locked-in-my-house-and-this-is-what-I-have-to-show-for-it feeling. Fifteen minutes into the first episode and I was feeling a lot better.
Whenever it was, it continued Saturday late afternoon.
I had a bunch of empty bottles and cans, so I drove to the strip mall for boba (pineapple black tea with mini boba, 50% sweetness) and drank in my car as I watched a couple more episodes. And since I was down there anyway, I got some takeout from McD’s. It was meant just to be a snack, but it turns out a couple bacon McDoubles is pretty darn filling. In my car. With Ted Lasso.
I took four large plastic takeout bags full of bottles and cans to the bus stop. I tied them to the trash bin, saying a little prayer for whoever claimed them.
Came home, napped a little, vegged a little, and blanched two heads of broccoli (one large and one small). Delicious. Chased the broccoli with a reasonable portion of angelhair pasta, with olive oil, butter, lime juice, and capers. ‘Twas yummy.
I watched more Ted Lasso and finally crashed at around 6:00 Sunday morning. Yow.
It appears I didn’t do any texting Saturday. Weird. I didn’t even notice.
It’s nearly 10:00 in the evening Monday as I write this and I think I’m going to go write into my Sunday recap.
Leave a comment if you need someone to connect with. The end is in sight, but it’s still a ways off. You don’t want to go through it without someone.
Friday was quite a bit like Tuesday and Wednesday, except I got up earlier on even less sleep. I really abuse myself Fridays because I figure I’ll just recover on weekends. It’s not a good way to live.
Amazon has been great to me all year. So great that I gave my letter carrier a nice gift card near the end of summer to say thanks. But something I ordered kind of disappeared off the tracker last month, and when it was more than a week late I asked for a refund. Then of course it showed up a few days after that. I had to ship it back, via UPS.
The nearest UPS store is on Bishop Street downtown, and it opened at 7:30. I’m feeling good about the world being a bit safer these days, but not so much safer I’m eager to roam around downtown with its throngs. 7:30 it was, then. Parked at the post office, shipped the dang box, grabbed a doughnut at Mr. Donut, then a macadamia nut latte at Kai Coffee, and enjoyed both on the trunk of my car.
There are a lot of things to miss about working downtown, and the coffee selection is near the top of the list. They’ve temporarily closed the Starbucks a few doors down from the UPS store. I didn’t check on the other Starbucks a few doors down (one block, actually) on the same street, but I imagine that one’s still going. The one on Alakea is closed and moved out, but it looks like they opened one in the Central Pacific Bank where I hear they’ve also opened a bar.
I hit the Taco Bell drive-through on my way home because what kind of breakfast is a doughnut? You need beans, meat, and eggs in a tortilla and a large Diet Pepsi with extra ice to really make it a breakfast.
Work was mostly on that late proposal for the athletics department. I had to ask a coworker how to do this Photoshop thing everyone else I work with knows how to do but which I’ve never asked to learn, so I spent a little bit of time practicing that. Gave me a good chance to email my coworker on Kauai, with whom I get along very well.
Did the after-work crash, but this time when I woke up I didn’t do work. It was Friday! I phone-vegged a little, listened to podcasts, which I’d fallen behind on this week, and ate leftover fried chicken for dinner. Man, that’s good chicken.
The new Kings of Leon album dropped Friday, so I listened to it all day. There’s nothing especially grabby on the album, not like on their other albums, but it’s still a really good listen, especially as background when one is working or writing.
I know I did a little bit of writing Friday night, but I don’t remember anything else. Except that I didn’t get to bed until about 4:30 in the morning. I don’t even know where the time went. I was quite annoyed with myself.
I texted Jennifer for a little while about alcohol and vaccinations. Sharon and I texted a little during the day about work stuff, but it started with my asking her if she’d heard the new Kings of Leon album yet. When we first became friends at work and mutually followed each other on social media, I saw she had a photo at the Kings of Leon concert a few years earlier, which I also attended. It was when I worked at the engineering firm, making enough bank to go to as many shows as I wanted, pretty much.
I don’t think Crush Girl had a very good Friday. I tried to be pleasant texting company, but I don’t think I was very successful. It’s too bad. I’m writing this Sunday night and I pretty much left her alone all weekend; I had a feeling she needed some her-time and thought I’d be there if she needed me. She didn’t! She seldom reaches out during a weekend, which I totally get.
I was feeling super blah Friday night, surely a product of serious sleep deprivation, but also some of the stuff I wrote Saturday night when I journaled about Thursday. When I finally did lay me down to sleep, I dropped right off and slept the sleep of a thousand hibernating bears.
Resolutions, next post. Oh and also I plan to rant a little about the meaning and purpose of laws, and why I dislike them both.
Leave a comment if you need a someone. To reach out to when the pandemic gets disjointy. I’ll send you some contact info.
Now it’s Saturday night and I’m writing about Thursday. If you read the Wednesday recap, you can probably skip this one because the two days were pretty close to identical.
Work Thursday was a lot like Wednesday, except focused more on a late proposal that had been in the works for a week or more before coming my way for formatting. I was told specifically it had been across several people’s desks and therefore didn’t need editing, but it needed editing.
I did the post-work crash, then got up and worked on the proposal. It had a weird little twist I wasn’t used to, and since I wasn’t in on the conversations while the proposal was developing, I had to guess about what I was being asked to produce. I found out Friday I guessed wrong. But I think the work I did was still pretty good. And it took a bit more time than anyone expected because I was guessing.
Yeah, I know. Not much to write home about going on here. Wake, work, crash, wake, work, crash. Meals crammed somewhere between.
Breakfast was a bowl of lomi salmon. Conclusion: 24 ounces of wild Atlantic salmon is too much for one person if lomi salmon is the idea. It was still good, though.
I really wanted to get a sandwich for lunch, but Thursday is meeting day, and the sandwich shop closes in the early afternoon. So I took a very late lunch, ordering fried chicken and a brisket bowl from this spot in Kalihi called Chicken & Brisket. The brisket bowl was the real meal; I bought the chicken to snack on over the next few days. It was good but I’m coming around to not really caring for brisket or short ribs.
The fried chicken was excellent. Super crispy and flavorful. It was pretty dry on the inside but it tasted really good.
I submitted the proposal at about 11:30 and thought it was time for dinner even though I wasn’t really hungry. Sooooooo I drove to the McD’s, ordered the spicy crispy chicken sandwich and some fries, and ate it on the hood of my car just because I wanted some fresh air and to get away from the house. It was psychic refreshment but certainly not good for my body.
You know how out of it I was Thursday? When I opened the Spelling Bee late Thursday night to get started on the Friday Spelling Bee, I clicked the “yesterday” button to see what words I missed on the Thursday puzzle and realized I never did the Thursday puzzle! That’s the first one I missed since like October! I was kind of furious with myself.
So if you’re keeping score at home, you’re probably coming up with some thoughts I’m keenly aware of myself. My mental health hasn’t been good these past couple of weeks, in some ways familiar (trouble with sleep) and some not (a little bit of anxiety). I’m restless to the point of pacing some days, stir-crazy enough to drive to McD’s and eat food I don’t really want. I’m experiencing some weirdness in my stomach that might be physical and might be mental. I haven’t been to the beach in nearly three weeks and I’m not doing any walking with my bad knee.
You know that Sunday night feeling, the one that’s kind of an urgency mixed with regret about the dying of the weekend and not enough stuff to show for it? I think I’m feeling that about the lockdown. I’m getting my first shot Monday, and soon after that I’ll probably return to the office, one day per week to start but maybe as many as three days before much longer.
March 19 marks one year since I was sent home to ride this thing out, and although I made some pretty good use of my time, I have a couple of unfinished projects I know I will never finish if I don’t work them into my life the way they were for the first half year of this thing. Actually eight months. NaNoWriMo threw me off my game.
When I get back to the office, I will not have completed my house decluttering, and this annoys me. It actually stresses me out, tying my guts into knots at times, and this is sending me into escapist behavior. I’m spending ridiculous amounts of time just zoning out in my bed or staring dumbly at my phone.
A couple of things are keeping me from actually teetering on the brink. I’m feeling good about my parents getting those shots in their arms, and my coworkers and friends and other people I love are getting them. I’ve spent so much less money this year that I’ve paid down a lot of debt. I’m still in the hole for a few things, but the hole is a reasonable depth, and with a few things I have coming my way soon, I’ll be in really good shape by the end of next month.
I’ve also boosted my contribution to my retirement. Not as much as I should, but nearly as much as I should. And it looks like I have a little bit of wiggle room for some monthly charitable giving, which I’ve been terrible with since leaving the engineering firm. I’d like to give it to the church, but right now my heart is tugging me toward the Hawaii Innocence Project. Anyway this is still early in the thinking stages, but it feels good to be thinking about it.
Thinking about where my living space was a year ago and where it is now is extremely heartening. I forget that as shameful as it is now, it was beyond caricature in the years leading up to the lockdown.
Chances are, on a worldly level, I’m going to come out of this better than I was, except for physically. I’ve put on weight like crazy, especially since November. Minus that, though, and I should feel good about not merely surviving but in some ways correcting.
My relationships have all suffered, but I imagine this is true for most of us who kept to ourselves for a whole year. Except for the thing with Ali, I think I’m still on pretty good terms with everyone. When the world is a safer place, I’m going to be a social fricking butterfly, I tell you. At least for a week!
Writing all this out actually helped. Everything on the table looks a lot more positive than negative, and I don’t think I’m rose-coloring much. I am not in the clear. Taking inventory, however, is a good step.
Speaking of Ali, she responded to my “hey” nearly two weeks after I sent it. She asked what was up. I said I was going to ask if we’re cool, but that I think I pretty much got my answer. She didn’t respond. Yeah.
Crush Girl and I texted a bunch throughout the day too. I think she’s stressed about work and I’m hoping I’m a little bit of a pleasant distraction.
Reid texted to see if I could talk on the phone. I said okay. We talked about one of his son’s assignments. Parents worry too much about their children’s homework. It’s another of many reasons I’m so anti-homework.
I’m probably not your best option for finding some human connection in these almost-a-year pandemic days, but I’m here. Smash the comment button if you need a little of this in your day.
Okay. Writing about Wednesday on Saturday night. I’m falling further behind.
Started with a lot of emailing. We recently had some strategic planning consulting, and now we’re on the actual planning phase. Out leadership split the planning into five categories, assigned themselves to the categories they were into, and asked people to volunteer for the categories they were into.
So I emailed two of the leaders saying I was interesting in helping out in whatever way I could. I posted one story to the website then prepped another.
Okay pay attention (or don’t since I’m going to write the same thing about Thursday and maybe Friday). I’ve settled into a bad pattern of behavior here. Right after work I conked out, got up around nine, fixed dinner, and got back to work. I’ve been working so much better late at night lately that when it gets to that time of evening, I’m automatically thinking about what I can get done before bed.
It’s not good for me, although I think the work has been better than usual. My focus late at night is especially good. But then when I finally call it a night, I’ve got the munchies like crazy no matter what (or how much) I had for dinner.
And of course I can’t just go to bed after I spend a few hours working, despite being horribly tired and bleary-eyed. I’ve been crashing later and later.
All this means I have nothing interesting to say about Wednesday, and I probably won’t have anything interesting to say about Thursday either. Because most of my waking hours are spent working or vegging.
Wednesday’s breakfast was more of the lomi salmon. Still quite good. I skipped lunch, but I took a dinner break to pick up a UPS delivery I missed. UPS doesn’t make you drive to Lagoon Drive anymore, something I was unaware of. There’s a neighborhood access point, a small mom-and-pops grocery on Liliha Street I’ve patronized before.
I stopped at my favorite boba spot, which moved to Liliha Street from Kapiolani Boulevard a few months before the lockdown, picked up my package, and since it was right there, ordered a chili plate from the original L&L, which is right next door.
I’m pretty sure my late-night snack was a couple of quesadillas but I wouldn’t swear to it.
Texted a few follow-ups for people who hadn’t yet told me what they’re reading. The writing partner texted me a photo of a sign with unnecessary quotation marks. Crush Girl and I texted through the work day about a lot of stuff. Vaccinations, books, boba, and places to get lunch. She was good company.
If you’re reading this you’re still alive. Thank God. Half a million Americans and 44,000 Hawaii residents haven’t made it this far because of this stupid virus. Hopefully you’re surviving emotionally too. And if you’re not, smash that comment button and let me know if you’d like to connect.
“I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend.”
Slept okay Monday night. Got like four hours uninterrupted then another hour. Got off to a slow start at work but found a groove in the late morning. Again took my lunch nap earlier than usual because of the jackhammerers. This delayed my working breakfast until like 1:30, when I had a rather large serving of lomi salmon. I’m pleased with it, but wish the recipe I followed didn’t call for a 24 ounce salmon filet. It was pricey, for one thing. And it’s way too much food for me.
After work I took a really hard nap. Woke up a little groggy but quite refreshed, so I kind of got back to work. Wanted to finish this thing someone asked for.
My late lunch was a couple of hot dogs with mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut. My late dinner, eaten as I wrote my lockdown recap, was sort of a little of this and a little of that, separated by long breaks. My appetite was kind of crazy for some reason. Started with some cold somen with Pietro’s miso dressing. I made a couple of pork carnitas tacos. Ate some dried apricots. Zapped a couple of lazy quesadillas. Yeah, it was insane.
I don’t really know where the day went, but that was about it. I guess working, napping, working, and eating everything in sight will pass the time.
Crush Girl and I texted all day about food, working from home, and more food. It was a food kind of day. Sharon texted to ask if I’ve heard of this Elisa Lam true crime thing and I hadn’t. I went through a couple of true crime phases, one in the early nineties when I read a lot of serial killer books as research for a novel I still plan to write. Again in the early 2000s when I got hooked on some Dateline things, plus Reid got me into the Paradise Lost documentaries.
I decided one night while trying to listen to the Serial podcast’s first season that I was done with the genre. I didn’t see any real meaning in it, and I think losing myself in that kind of negativity isn’t good for me. Which I shared with Sharon. Sylvia and I office-Skyped about getting vaccinated — we both have appointments now. Heard back from a few more people about what they’re reading.
Get thee to a nunnery. And hit the comments if you need someone to connect with. Pandemic sucks. Pandemic without any human connection sucks worse.
Hey, I’m writing about Monday and it’s only 11:44 p.m. Tuesday. Progress.
I stayed up much too late Sunday night, as I always do, getting to sleep around 3:00. This is getting suicidal.
This week’s meeting schedule is back to my usual two: just the one-on-one with my supervisor and the department Zoom. This is a welcome bit of info, since meetings really throw off my workflow.
I’m standing by for responses from a few people on whom I’m writing stories, so I sent a few follow-up emails, then asked the DO for advice. His response was something I never thought of, and it makes total sense: these stories probably mean a lot more to us than they do to the people I’m interviewing, so don’t freak out. They’ll respond when they’re ready.
Hm. That seems so obvious. And it freed me from locking in on stuff at the top of my list and I got into the stuff further down.
So I did background on a couple of things, sent and received a few work-related but not really work emails, and even reached out to a coworker, encouraging her to apply for one of our in-house positions.
The next-door neighbor is having some major work done on her house and all day Monday I had to deal with the sound of a jackhammer — yes, a jackhammer — pretty much right outside my bathroom window. The noise isn’t too bad at my desk, where I can just play music at a normal level through my Bluetooth speaker and be pretty unaware. I thought I’d have to resort to my noise-canceling headphones, but now.
In my bedroom, though, it’s insane. So I took my lunch nap a little earlier than usual, grabbing it when the jackhammerers took their lunch break.
After work, I took a long, hard nap, forcing myself up around 9:00 to deal with this slab of salmon I cured in my fridge for nearly two days. Lomi salmon, baby! My first try. I’m trying to up my potluck game, so I’ve been brainstorming things that transport well, don’t have to be prepared the night before, and are popular. Lomi salmon seemed like a less-labor-intensive and more popular item than the thing I have the most confidence in, my tabouli.
I was wrong about the labor intensivity. It’s about the same. However, you can make it a couple of nights ahead (I’m guessing) rather than exactly the night before.
I don’t know. I think it came out pretty good, admitting I didn’t really know what i was doing. Definitely worth repeating to see if I get better at it, but I also think I need to sample it at more places than the ones I frequent.
I watched the next half hour of Much Ado About Nothing. It’s a bit melodramatic, and so far not very feminist for Shakespeare. A lot depends on these last 20 minutes. Still, quite entertaining, if heavy-handed in its direction. Michael Keaton is hilarious.
Oops. Now it’s 2:06. I thought I finished this and hit the publish button, but it appears I got distracted.
Breakfast was Taco Bell! Yummy. Lunch was a couple of hot dogs with ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut. I was biting into one when they said on the news that Love’s Bakery is closing. A Hawaii institution for nearly 170 years. I don’t buy grocery store bread anymore, except hot dog buns, and Love’s makes the best ones. They cost like three times more than the cheap ones but whatever. Dang.
Dinner was some of the lomi salmon, but several bites of the pork carnitas, cold and right out of the plastic container. I’m a savage. I also had a late snack of tortilla chips and fresh salsa. Remember in the early days of the lockdown when I was eating chips and salsa every freaking day? Now I remember why. Good food for the soul.
I texted a bunch of people to ask what they’re reading. Still waiting on some responses so I’ll share later. It led to some nice conversations. Crush Girl and I texted through the day, getting each other through our respective work days.
Boy am I tired.
Okie dokie. Just leave a comment if you want someone to connect with during these crappy crappy crappy crappy crappy crappy pandemic days. Don’t be untethered.
Saturday night I actually got about six and a half hours of good sleep. This is probably the night I need it most, so this was really good.
I lounged a bit in bed and slept another half hour or so. Seven hours of sleep? I’ll take that.
Most of the day was just busy work and vegging. Read the news, goofed around on my phone, listened to music and podcasts, did a teensy bit of housekeeping. I had carnitas tacos for breakfast-slash-lunch. They were pretty good.
I had to go to the office to do some of the stuff that’s too difficult from home. Mostly I was super worried that I accidentally overwrote the original InDesign file I modified for this other newsletter. After being so grateful it was there, easy to find, and easy to modify thanks to my coworker’s dilligent effort and foresight, it would have been soooooooooo stupid for me to then do a stupid regular save (instead of a save as) with the modified work.
Buuuuut thank goodness I wasn’t THAT stupid.
While at the office I grabbed dinner from this new Korean street food place across the street. Fried wings. Delicious! Glass noodles wrapped in nori, battered, and fried. Delicious! Crispy potstickers. Delicious! It was a lot of fried food — oh, and the wings came with crinkle-cut fries (delicious!) — and probably too much for one meal, but I didn’t let that stop me. Also left my boss’s birthday gift on her desk.
Got home late in the evening and unwound. Wrote. Read. Did the Monday crossword in 4:02. Argh! I reeeeally wanted to break four minutes but I got slowed down with a typo near the very end.
I was up so late I got the munchies, hours after I should have turned in. So I just miked a couple of hot dogs and ate them with ketchup and mustard — no sauerkraut since I was trying to just take the edge off. The doggies did the job and I went to bed faaaaaaaaar to late for a responsible working professional.
JB texted to talk a little about George Orwell. Jennifer sent me photos of her new home decor. Star Wars stuff. No Precious Moments on the etagere or tole painting over the doorways for my friend! Crush Girl and I chatted a bit about this Filipino Oregonian wine and the Golden Globes awards.
Leave a comment. If you need. Someone to connect with. In these fricking terrible pandemic days. It’s MARCH AGAIN people! Holy crap.
I didn’t get much sleep Friday night. Got up at six-thirty to hit the supermarket. It opens at five, but I know from experience now that I don’t have to be there right at opening to avoid people. I had until about seven before things got hairy.
Loaded up on Diet Pepsi, my main objective, but also grabbed some broccoli, green onions, hot dogs, buns, sauerkraut, and a few pantry staples.
It was a dismal, rainy morning and I enjoyed the feeling of the cold rain on my face, so I drove around Kalihi for a while. I’ve been deep-diving into the discography of Free (you know, the band who sang “All Right Now,” and whose members founded Bad Company) and the second album was a nice listen as I navigated the mean streets of Kapalama.
Swung through the BK drive-through for breakfast, then back home to devour it. Normal Saturday morning online stuff: the news, the Spelling Bee, some phone-vegging. Then back to bed for a little while.
Ran to the wine merchant to grab my supervisor’s birthday gift. There’s this local master sommelier who put together an Oregon pinot noir called Fil. I’m guessing he’s Filipino by his name, so it’s a cool name for his wine, athough I’m thinking Filipinot Noir would have been cleverer.
Most wine drinkers wouldn’t consider it a pricey bottle, but I usually keep it under twenty bucks when I’m drinking by myself, and this bottle was twice that. When the clerk greeted me, I said I was there for the Fil, and she asked how many bottles I wanted.
I was just going to be the one, but since she asked I figured I’d get one for me too. Yikes!
The bottles sell out quickly. They got a case or two Friday and by Saturday there were just a few left. I figured I’d hang onto my bottle until my first get-together with friends, post-vaccinations. Can’t make promises, though. That’s a good-looking bottle.
Got home and took another short nap, then put the rent into an envelope and my water jugs into the car. Drove to Mapunapuna for water, then the aiport post office for the rent. Aaaaand since I was in the area, hit the Dunkin’ drive-through, which I have never done before.
When I was in Boston for the work trip, of course I had a cup of Dunkin’ coffee one day and boy is it overrated. I didn’t even finish the cup — tossed it about midway through. But I was craving something sweet, so I ordered an iced vanilla latte, and it was pretty dang good. Verrrry sweet, though.
Spent the evening writing and phone-vegging. Did the Saturday crossword a little late, and the groove was good so I did the Sunday puzzle as well. Sunday was more of a challenge than usual, but I got a clean solve, which closed me out for February with all 28 puzzles finished. That’s my first calendar month with all legal solves.
Crush Girl texted me a photo of some cookies she made, which was sweet. They looked pretty good. Jennifer texted me some home decorating updates (she looked into the fun house mirror!). I texted my boss a happy birthday message. The other Jennifer spent a little bit of time in the hospital with an IV in her arm. I don’t think she was there overnight, but I checked on her and we chatted a bit. Later I texted Ryan to tell him about this podcast hosting service I’d heard about.
Someone took me up on my offer to send a Clubhouse invite, and the invite gets sent in text messages, so I also texted someone I’ve only been casually acquainted with online for several years. She was unfamiliar with Google Voice, so I sent her some info that way too. Lets you use a different number for apps that require a working phone number.
‘Sabout it.
Leave a comment if you need someone to connect with. I’ll send you info. Don’t need to be coy, Roy.
It’s a few minutes past midnight Sunday evening as I write about Friday. Guess this wasn’t the weekend to get caught up.
Thursday night my sleep was somewhere between not good and not bad. I got started at work by going through the week’s emails. I was pretty sure with all the weirdness (a day and a half of vacation, doing a lot of work on my personal time, some of it very late at night, some of it at my parents’ dining room table), I was missing something.
I keep a running to-do list in Word. It’s usually a physical list in a notebook I keep on my desk, but that system just doesn’t work for me working from home. So an ever-modified Word doc is keeping me going, but sometimes I make a mental note to put something in the doc and then forget to do it.
I ate the rest of that yummy shoyu ahi poke for breakfast, with leftover quinoa.
Sent some follow-up emails to people I’m waiting to hear from. Then got to work on the thing that did escape my attention, something I promised to have ready Friday.
I shan’t bore gentle readers with details, but the task was simple: modify a page we published in our print magazine three years ago for the newsletter of a UH Manoa college. Most of the copy and formatting would remain; I just had to swap out one photo, edit a headline, change contact info at the bottom, and reword some of the footer language.
Our graphics person, who puts the print magazine together, is super, super good about labeling files, so finding the original InDesign files from three years ago was a piece of cake. She’s on a short leave of absence as she tries to finish her dissertation.
InDesign is such a good application that changes like this are a breeze when you know what you’re doing and when the person who creates the document does things cleanly. It’s probably unnecessary to admit here that I’m not one of these people. I’m terrible about naming files and I do things in desktop publishing apps (Illustrator and Photoshop, too) I know are bad practice, but the stuff I create doesn’t require anyone else to work with the files. That’s my excuse at this place of employment, anyway. If you’ve worked with InDesign, Photoshop, or Illustrator, I’ll just say that I pretty much never bother to name my layers. You’re shrieking; I can hear it.
Despite the easy task, the major curveball here is that my work laptop, my home wifi, and the company’s virtual desktop combine to make work in InDesign and Photoshop incredibly, painfully slow. Like double-click a file icon and wait three to five minutes for it to open. Like six minutes for a save-as. It’s insane! I’m not even exaggerating.
Oh dang. I said I wouldn’t bore the gentle readers with details. Email me or text me if you really want the details, because if you’re into this kind of thing, they’re actually kind of interesting. It’s stuff related to the slowness and unreliability of my network connection and the document always losing its links!
What it comes down to is what would have taken fifteen to twenty minutes at my desk in the office took about six hours working from home. Longer, really, but I’m taking a couple of hours off the time because I caused my own problem by doing something idiotic.
Anyway it came out pretty sharp and everyone’s happy with the product. I emailed it to the recipients at about 9:30 in the evening; it came back with one change request at about 11:30. I made the change and sent the new draft at about 12:30 Friday night.
Happy weekend!
During one of the evening’s agonizingly slow tasks, I threw some pork into the Instant Pot and made carnitas again. For tacos. But I ate a bowl of it with leftover quinoa instead, and midway through the bowl it got gross. The quinoa was borderline when I spooned it into my bowl. And then before I was finished eating it was like I could taste it turning bad as it happened. I threw it out and ate a few more bites of pork right out of the pot.
I really needed to do a supermarket run, but I was just too tired. I was far too tired to consume any entertainment media, so of course this means I went to bed at a decent hour, right? Yeah, no.
Friday I texted my former coworker Laura with some info in our staff newsletter. She’d seen the movie I reviewed and wanted to see what I wrote. Gwen texted to continue our conversation about vaccinations. Sylvia texted me a photo of this puppy in distress she and a neighbor helped. Sharon and I texted for a while, speculating about which of our coworkers would be a good fit for a recently open in-house posting. I texted the DO to let her know I’d sent the draft of that InDesign PDF. Crush Girl and I texted a lot through the day, keeping each other company as we each did our work. It was nice.
I wrote this in forty minutes. Not bad.
Crush that comments button if you want someone to pandemic-connect with. Don’t isolate in utter isolation. It’s not good!
I keep thinking I’m going to get caught up on these but then before I know it, it’s past twelve Saturday night and I’m trying to write about a Thursday I barely remember.
I should have slept well and maybe I did, but I honestly don’t remember. I got up earlier than I wanted and hit Tamashiro Market shortly after it opened. The supermarket at the stripmall didn’t have a couple of things I wanted Wednesday night and one of the island’s most popular fish markets is in my hood. Don’t ask me why I go there like once every two or three years. I need to make it part of my regular routine, especially since I’m trying to up my fish intake.
So, you know. I hit the Taco Bell drive-though for breakfast on the way back.
Since work is usually the first thing I do, I have to check the work emails to jolt the memory. Looks like I started with some edits to that proposal I worked on during my days off. I followed that with a tricky check request in our online invoicing system. That was actually kind of fun.
We had training via Zoom early in the lockdown on our new system, and I sat in on it even though I didn’t understand what it was about. I’m a writer, not a manager, so I don’t have to deal with budgeting and check requests. However, since I did go to the training and nobody else in my department did, the next time we had an invoice to pay (my department is communications and marketing, so we do have some major expenses), my supervisor asked if I would handle it.
The first one was super difficult. The terminology was all new, so I didn’t even know what a lot of the vocab meant. Happily, whoever put the tutorial together did a pretty good job, so although it took a while, I got it right (with some help from our really good fiscal team), and now I’m the guy who does this for our department. I rather enjoy it.
Then it was our weekly department Zoom meeting, and then I sat in on our monthly meeting for development officers. I was recently invited to join these, and while my job is nothing like their jobs, I work closely enough with them that it helps me with my work when I understand them a little better. This one was kind of fun.
My late lunch was leftover supergreens and a few bites of leftover entrees from Panda takeout, eaten cold right out of the Ziploc cannisters. Because of that late snack, there wasn’t a lot left, so I added some clementines and dried apricots. Not a bad way to start work.
After work, of course I took a nap. Dragged myself up and cubed a two-pound ahi filet for poke. I have made ahi poke before (a very long time ago) and don’t honestly know what I’m doing with the selection of fish. The market has it price by grade: good grade, high grade, and something like premium grade. There might have been a fourth grade.
The price differences are huge. I reasoned that since I’m eating it raw, but not as sashimi, I should get the high grade, which is sixteen bucks a pound! I hacked off a thin slice and slid it onto my tongue and knew immediately I’d bought too good a fish. It was so delicate and so delicious I could have eaten the whole filet like that, without shoyu or wasabi. Oh. My. Goodness. If I’d had some ponzu ingredients I’d have just done that.
I got the whole thing cubed (it took a while; I’m decent with a chef’s knife but fish is a new thing for me), popping cubes into my mouth as I went along. I scraped the skin and had what amounted to an ahi tartare, which I sprinkled some shoyu on and that was great too.
Added shoyu, wasabi oil, sliced onions, and sesame oil. Ate half of it with some fresh quinoa and put the other half in the fridge.
I think I overprepared it. Just the fish and onions and a little bit of wasabi oil would probably have been fine. Or just the fish, onions, and shoyu. Good lesson for next time.
Crush Girl and I texted pretty much all day. That was great. She actually reached out first to ask how it’s going. That was great. While I’m still interested in getting to know her away from the one context in which we’re acquainted, I’m no longer mooning over her as I was a year ago. Still, it’s nice to get some of her attention.
Gwen texted me to talk about her dad getting his shot.
I think that was it. It’s late and I’m going to bed. Hopefully.
Leave a comment if you want someone to connect with. I’ll send you some contact info.
