KJ

The last time we went shopping (right now it seems that Friday late morning is our best time to get to the store), we weren't able to find panko, which are our breadcrumbs of choice, and all the bread we have in the house is whole wheat. So when we decided to make fried chicken cutlets for dinner tonight, T made some breadcrumbs out of whole wheat sandwich bread.

They definitely looked a bit darker than usual, both before and after frying, but they were good, even if they tasted a bit different than usual in a way I found difficult to define. Not like whole wheat bread, exactly. A little heavier? A little nuttier? I think I would still rather than panko, but it was certainly worth trying.

Any other stories about getting creative with food lately?

I moved the laptop all the way from my desk to the Poang chair in my bedroom area. (Since I live in a loft, my home doesn't really have rooms as such except for the two bathrooms; downstairs is a living room area and eat-in kitchen, while the upstairs has our bed and dressers in one area and our desks in another. So it's roughly like a bedroom and an office). I read in this spot pretty often, but I've rarely tried to type here, so we'll see how it works out. I think it would be better if I had one of those lap desk things. Maybe I should invest in one.

So, Week 3. Which was originally supposed to be the final week, but I don't think anyone truly believed it would be over so quickly. One interesting thing about moving to shelter in place is that I feel like time is moving faster. I no longer have the sense that every day is an hour and every week is a month. I suspect a part of me spent the first two weeks of March waiting for the other shoe to drop; now that it's fallen, and I have a better idea of what life is going to be like under these circumstances, I can settle in a bit and get on with the new routine.

We had our first virtual Thursday Night Dinner this week, which was fun. I appreciated the chance to talk to people that I'm used to seeing almost every week, and a few who aren't able to come regularly when we meet in person. I'm hoping we can get back into doing it on a regular basis, even if it's not weekly. I also briefly joined in a Zoom call with my dad and his sister, which might be the first time I'd seen my aunt face-to-face, even virtually, since my wedding over 15 years ago. So it's nice to be making connections with people, even though the circumstances are not what anyone would prefer. I'm more of an introvert than an extrovert, but I'm still missing real-life socialization, and I'm sure I'll be really eager for more of it once all this is over.

It turns out that when the desk where I do my writing is also the desk where I do my dayjob six hours every weekday, it's much harder to convince myself that writing, even something fun like a DW post or some meta, is something I want to do. At the very least, I want to take a substantial break in between, and at least for the moment what I end up doing in that break is playing Horizon Zero Dawn.

I've been meaning to play HZD for awhile now, thanks to strong recs from many friends and also T, who played it twice when it first came out. Turns out that it's a perfect shelter-in-place activity. I won't say much in detail for now, just that the gameplay is pretty fun, the story is engaging, and Aloy -- played by the wonderful Ashly Burch -- is an excellent character whom I love. I look forward to uncovering the remaining mysteries of the apocalypse.

As for everything else, I'm getting by. T and I remain healthy so far as we know. All the data suggest that shelter-in-place is working in California; although it's too early to make any sweeping statements, the hope that there's a point to this exercise makes me feel better about doing it. Working at home is going well enough, although it's confirmed my sense that I'd really rather be in the office, despite the convenience of no commute and easy access to my kitty. Tori has attended several meetings now, including one where I was teaching some of my colleagues how to do a mail merge, and I decided that they didn't need to look at me while I was juggling MS Office programs. So I titled my camera toward the perch by my desk where she hangs out, and she got to be the star of the show. My socialization so far has mostly been with work colleagues, but my regular Sunday TV nights have resumed, with our second one next week. My first D&D session is tomorrow, too! We've made like four trips to some grocery store or another in the last week, which I know is too much. I guess it take time to figure out how much food is enough when you eat literally every meal at home.

I hope you are all staying safe and as well as can be expected. Virtual hugs to everyone who would like them!