Love in the Time of COVID

March 16, 2020 (Year Zero in the Time of the Virus) Captain’s Log Day Three: The work/no-school week is upon us. The Co-captain and I dove head first into this brave new world of “Zoom” and “Google Hangouts.” Pro tip: you only really need to be dressed from mid-torso up. Maybe I’ll try some formal pajamas (shirt and tie with pajama pants). Or for the ladies, BizCasLeisure (a nice blouse paired with yoga pants). If this is our new normal, we might as well embrace it. On the food front, we yearn for simpler times with chicken f ajitas prepped by the 13yo. Fajitas - the most Americanized of “Mexican” cuisine. The dream of the 90s, when fajitas were the exotic new thing on the menu at Applebee’s. “Well look at that, they bring your dinner out on sizzling platter and warn you not to touch it.” And yet we’d still rather build a wall to keep people out than invest in real infrastructure, or god forbid, public health. The tiny house wolf seems pleased to have us home. But the...

March 15th, 2020 Captain’s Log Day 2: Today, I made a second attempt at cassoulet utilizing a hybrid process. It started with the instant pot and then transitioned to the slow braise in the oven. We also made sourdough. *Pro tip: a slow cooker insert is oven safe and makes for a great Dutch oven. The damp weather outdoors spurred a day of moping (the 13yo), imagining impossible outdoor projects (the 11yo), and other indoor activities. The tiny house wolf remains angered by squirrels and the  fact that the plague has not stopped delivery people. Spirits remain high. We remain strangely optimistic as we stare down the work week and prepare for many video conferences and more emails than normal. And we are pleased with these free music production apps. It’s as if Flight of the Conchords pulled a Simpsons when they lamented “no one listens, no one sympathizes, you just stay home and play synthesizers.” And that stuff about GenX being the only ones taking this $hit...

March 14, 2020 (Year Zero in the Time of the Virus) Captain’s Log Day 1: we rode bikes and sheered the tiny house wolf. (We saved the wool for the eventual winter). Meals consisted of salads (savoring the fresh vegetables while they last) and breakfast pie (the French call it quiche, but they’re already on total lockdown). Now we watch the Ferris Bueller (he’s kind of a selfish ass) and the Frozen II. In the days before the plague, we called this “Netflix and chill.”