It feels like I’ve spent the past year waiting. I’ve waited in the car countless times while one of my cats is at the vet.
I’ve waited for packages to be delivered and food and grocery deliveries.
I’ve waited for the doctor to call with test results, hoping for good news and fearing the worst.
I’ve waited to go urgent care after I fell down the stairs because I wasn’t sure if I could even be seen.
I waited for the election results to be called and then again for the inauguration.
Now I’m waiting for warmer weather and my turn to get the vaccine so I can stop waiting to see family and friends.
I’m waiting for this f#cking pandemic to end, for the freedom to start living a more normal life.
And right now, on a Tuesday morning before work, I’m waiting for the weekend.
What are you waiting for?
***
Making this photo was a lot of fun. It took me back to my theatre days – sourcing props and costumes, doing hair and make-up, building a set and working with lighting. Except this story is captured in a fraction of second (one-sixth of second to be precise) instead of in five acts.
Since it took so long to get everything set up, I thought I’d have some fun with the set before tearing it all down. I think the photograph with the wine and my phone is a more accurate representation of my last year. 🙂
This is the meme from @attorneyproblems that inspired the photograph.
Happy Quarannviersary! One year ago today, the managing partner of my office gathered everyone in a conference room and told us that we would be working from home for the next two weeks while we ride out the pandemic. ha ha ha ha TWO WEEKS! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Two weeks turned into two months and two months has dragged on to a year. Over the past year people have been singing the praises of our doctors and nurses working tirelessly to save lives and the essential workers like the grocery store employees who risk their lives everyday so that idiots without masks can grocery shop. They ARE America’s heroes. They deserve all the praise and hazard pay.
But on this anniversary that I never want to celebrate again, I’d like to honor the true hero in my life – my couch. I’ve spent a year on my couch. It has been my office, a restaurant, a movie theatre, my best friend. I drink my morning coffee on it while I read all of the emails I will eventually fail to respond to. I’m on the couch when I reluctantly log on to work and I’ll stay there until my laptop threatens to shut down because the battery’s drained. I eat my lunch and take my lunch time nap on it every day. In the evenings, I sit on the left side to eat dinner and watch TV. I sit on the right side to drink wine and scroll through social media and text with friends or read a book.
I’m especially attached to it on the weekends. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, I like cry from frustration/boredom/loneliness and then take a long afternoon nap just to pass the time. Which side I cry/sleep on depends on where the cats are. I do my best to contort my body around them so they can sleep in peace.
My abused and suffering couch is wine-stained, coffee-stained, tear-stained, chocolate stained (and yes, it’s chocolate – I sat on a rogue chocolate chip), shredded by a kitten who doesn’t give two fluffs that I don’t want her to scratch it, and sagging from having to support my ever increasing pandemic weight gain.
I haven’t decided what I’ll do with it after the panny ends. I probably should put it out of its misery and send it off to couch heaven, but I’m not sure I’m that selfless. Do I really want to have to get to know another couch while I reacquaint myself with my friends, family and co-workers?
Week 10 of quarantine took me high with excitement that Illinois is finally going to slowly reopen and a cooking class taught by one my Italian colleagues and then brought me low again with news that Chicago is going to open even slower than the rest of Illinois and a narrowly averted disaster with my AC.
In a fit of optimism, I booked a facial for early June and had my AC serviced. My facial appointment has been cancelled for the third time as Mayor Lightfoot is holding Chicago back from reopening with the rest of Illinois. And my AC unit? Well, the coils froze when somehow the compressor was left running but the blower was not. There was ICE on the OUTSIDE of the unit in the mechanical closet. I spent 36 hours mopping up the melting ice so that it wouldn’t leak through the floor into the unit below me. It sounded like an avalanche was happening when the ice would break apart and fall.
The bright spot of my week was the cooking class with my colleague, Mario. My firm has put together several of these Zoom cooking classes to keep us occupied and entertained during the quarantine. To my surprise, many of the attorneys are worse in the kitchen than I am. One didn’t know the difference between an egg yolk and an egg white. Another needed instructions on how to chop cheese because they didn’t own a grater. It was all very entertaining to me!
As promised, below are the recipes we made. I had a hard time following instructions so mine didn’t turn out quite right, but it was still delicious!
Bucatini Cacio e Pepe (Cheese and Pepper) – 14 oz. of Bucatini or spaghetti (Mario recommended the following brands (he’s Italian so he would know!): Molisana, Barilla or Garofalo – 9 oz. of Pecorino Romano cheese (buy the pre-grated kind unless you like grating cheese) – about 1 tsp (give or take) ground black pepper
Boil water for the pasta. Cook pasta for half the cooking time (it will be finished in pan). Just before draining the pasta, toast the ground pepper over medium heat in a skillet. Drain the pasta in such a way that you keep the pasta water.
Put about 1 cup of the pasta water (I used one ladle scoop) into a bowl and dump the grated cheese into it and stir until melted. Add pasta water as needed, but you don’t want it runny. Once the cheese is melted, put the pasta in the skillet with the toasted pepper and add the cheese sauce. Stir until pasta is finished cooking. You can add pasta water as needed.
Crostata – 2 egg yolks – 17.6 oz of all-purpose flour – 7 oz. of powdered sugar – 9 oz. of unsalted butter – grated peel of half a lemon – jar of favorite marmalade or jar of Nutella – 2 oz. cacao butter (only if you’re going to use Nutella)
If you’re going to make crostata, make the dough before starting the pasta. It will need to chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
Combine the butter and flour in a food processor. (No one on our call had a food processor so we all used blenders. Hilarious and not ideal, but it does eventually work). Transfer the combined butter and flour to a bowl and mix in the powdered sugar. Once mixed, make a canyon (as Mario calls it) and add two egg yolks (that’s the yellow part) and lemon zest. Mix with your hands until the dough is fairly firm and can be rolled into a ball (I had to add a bit more flour, but I also accidentally used an egg white). Cover in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 30ish minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350. Once the dough is chilled, take it out of the fridge and roll it out to the size of your cake pan. (If you want to be fancy, save some of the dough to make stripes on top of the crostata). I don’t have a rolling pin so just put the dough in my cake pan and kneaded it until it was spread evenly. I think maybe the sides are supposed to be a bit higher to hold the toping, but that wasn’t super clear and I’d had half a bottle of wine by this point. If you’re using marmalade, you can dump the marmalade on top of the dough, keeping it away from the edges.
If you’re using Nutella, combine the cacao butter and Nutella together. I used 2 oz of melted butter because I couldn’t find cacao butter in the grocery store. If you’re using cacao butter, you may need to melt it as well. I don’t know what the consistency is but it needs to be able to blend with the Nutella. I used 4 big spoonfuls of Nutella. Once the butter and Nutella are combined, put it onto of the dough in the pan.
If you saved some dough to make stripes on top of the crostata, roll it out and cut into strips and place on top of the crostata. Bake for 20ish minutes.
Mario recommended pairing a light sparkling wine or a young and fruity red wine with the pasta dish. Because I can’t follow instructions, I drank a heavy, spicy red with mine – it was fine. 🙂
Warning: I’m quite hammered writing this post and my firm is to blame (in a good way). We had a Zoom cooking class taught by one of our Italian attorneys. I’ll tell you all about it next week (and share the recipes!), but lemme tell you – it was so fun!
Last week was week nine of the quarantine. Between work and the rainy weather, I didn’t get out much to take pictures. (The pics below were taken with my iPhone for documentary purposes.)
I’ve been ordering my groceries online and having them delivered so I really haven’t left my condo much in the last few weeks aside from my daily walks around the block. I did make a trek to Walgreen’s last weekend just to check out the current TP/disinfectant/hand soap situation. In some weird way it’s become my way of gauging how freaked out I should be and based on the shelves in my local Walgreen’s everyone in Chicago is gonna get Covid-19.
Still no toilet paper on the shelves.I can’t disinfect my home, but I can still unclog a drain!Now there’s a running Swiffer products??A few hand soaps
I’m back to using bar soap to wash my hands since the only hand soap left on the shelves is clearly the kind that nobody wants. It’s scented and irritates the skin. Also, please leave any good lotion recommendations in the comments, my hands are developing rashes from the constant hand washing.
How are the shelves looking in your areas? Do you have toilet paper, cleaning supplies and hand soap?
Last week was week 8 of working from home/quarantine. As the quarantine drags on and the weather in Chicago gets marginally better, it’s getting harder to social distance from people. More and more people are out and about. The sidewalks, while not exactly crowded, are definitely busier and there are more cars on the roads. I’m still walking in the alleys and trying to get my daily walks in in the early mornings and late evenings.
On the weekends, when I have the time to venture a little further from home, I’ve started exploring the cemeteries. It’s a lot easier to social distance there than on the city streets.
On Saturday I packed up my camera, a water bottle and some snacks and walked the 2 miles to Graceland Cemetery. The walk was much quicker than I expected and the cemetery was a lot smaller than I imagined. As it turns out, and unsurprisingly, I wasn’t where I thought I was. I had ended up at St. Bonfice Catholic Cemetery. Chicago has A LOT of cemeteries smack dab in the middle of the city!
Still, it was peaceful and I could walk around without my face mask on. I was really drawn to the trees in the cemetery. The tree in the photograph below is perfectly shaped – almost as if it had been created by painter.
1/640 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400
I liked the shape of the tree below as well, with it’s gnarly and twisted branches.
1/640 sec at f/9.0, ISO 400
I was disappointed to find that I over exposed both images when I downloaded them. I shoot in manual mode and it was a very bright day so I’m guessing I either couldn’t see the light meter or I misread it when I took these pictures. Either way, I clearly wasn’t abiding by the sunny 16 rule.
Anyone else find some interesting places to explore?
I love watching squirrels – they have such curious and playful personalities. I saw this little guy on one of my brief walks around the block. He saw me coming and scurried up the tree and then peeked around to see what I was up to. When I look at the picture I imagine that he’s beckoning me over to have a secret conversation.
Week 7 was uneventful and the whole shelter-in-place situation feels normal now. Saturday night I got together with some neighbors in our building’s parking lot for a happy hour. We all sat 6+ feet apart and chatted for a couple of hours. It was good for my soul.
Week 6 was a vast improvement over weeks 4 and 5 despite learning that our shelter-in-place order is being extended to May 30.
I had high hopes that I’d be sharing photos from my friend’s 40th birthday (virtual) celebration this week, but I didn’t format my SD card properly so I was only able to take a few pictures. Instead, I’ll share some pictures I took on my walks around the neighborhood this week.
There’s a house a few blocks from me that has a front yard full of junk. A few of the statues stood out to me as I peeked through the fence.
Lion and headless angel.Raccoon in a flower pot.Love is not cancelled.Mayor Lightfoot’s “Stay Home” face.Statue of Liberty Wearing a Mask
Week 5 at home wasn’t much better than the week before. I took a tumble down the stairs thanks to the face mask we’re supposed to be wearing when we’re out in public. The mask obstructs my vision when I look down so I missed a step. So now I have a new rule – no face masks on the stairs!
I spent about 36 hours hemming and hawing about whether or not I should try and see a doctor. I consulted WebMD, a couple of friends and the woman who delivered my groceries before I decided I needed the peace of mind that only seeing a doctor could bring.
I had to call a couple of urgent care facilities before I found one that would see me. I felt a bit apprehensive about calling a Lyft to take me to the urgent care facility. What if they thought I was sick and refused to take me? What if they were sick and got me sick? I’m not proud of it, but I admit to exaggerating my limp so they knew I was going to urgent care due to an injury and not because I have covid-19.
Upon arriving, I was surprised to see the waiting room empty. A woman greeted me from 6 feet away by asking me a battery of questions – do I have a cough? Have I been sneezing? Do I have a fever? Have I traveled in the last 14 days? Satisfied that I appeared to be safe enough, she proceeded to register me and informed me that I had to wear my face mask at all times.
I was then escorted to an exam room and told to keep my phone handy. They were going to call me and walk through my history, complaints and the “do you have covid-19” questions again before a human would come in to take my temperature and examine my ankle.
I had some x-rays taken and I’m happy to report that I didn’t break anything. The doc diagnosed a nasty sprain and sent me home in a brace. I’m currently rocking a pretty impressive cankle!
Stay safe and don’t wear your face mask on the stairs.
Last week was week 4 of staying home and it sucked.
A friend texted me one evening last week. She was upset because she’d learned that day that her firm was reducing her pay by 20% AND reducing her hours to 4 days a week. The very next morning, my firm announced that we were all taking a 15% pay cut. Since then, I’ve had friends texting daily lamenting pay cuts, lost hours and reduced benefits.
Both of my cats got sick which necessitated two separate visits to the vet. Under normal circumstances vet visits are unnerving for me. In this environment, it’s nearly panic inducing. I still haven’t been able to find disinfectant (wipes or otherwise), rubbing alcohol, or hand sanitizer so I can’t wipe down the rented car or sanitize my hands. No one is allowed inside the clinic so someone meets you at the door to pick up your pet. It hurt my heart to watch them walk away with them. I sat in the car and listened to the exam and talked to the the doc on the phone. They took payment over the phone and then met me at the door to return my cat. A weird experience compounded by the fact that all of the other people sitting the in full parking lot were doing the same thing.
A friend lost a family member to COVID last week, but he can’t mourn with those left behind. He mourns in isolation and my heart aches for him.
On the petty side, the face masks are causing acne around my mouth. I’m gaining weight and my hair is ragged. And now EVERYBODY wants to have video calls. I’m having a hard enough time facing myself in the mirror, I don’t really want to be seen by others.
I’m telling myself every day “Everything thing will be okay.”
Foster Beach. FYI – this was taken several weeks ago before all this coronavirus chaos hit.
The weather in Chicago has been exceedingly dreary. Chilly, rainy, sometimes snowy, and cloudy. So when we had a beautiful, sunny, warm day on Wednesday everyone went out. During a quarantine. Where did they go, you ask? The lakefront. (For the record, I did not go outside. I have been stuck for 12 hours a day in front of my computer working).
Mama Lightfoot was not having it. She shut down the lakefront and the parks the day after since we can’t be trusted to practice social distancing on our own. She grounded us.
For those of us in Chicago, we’re finishing our second week of quarantine though the statewide shelter-in-place order didn’t go into effect until last week. Nerves are starting fray. Yesterday one the kids below me was having a meltdown and I could hear his dad yelling and cursing at him.
I suspect I’m faring better than most because (a) I live alone so there’s no getting on my nerves and (b) I’m keeping myself entertained. Here’s a brief list of what I’ve been watching for the past couple of weeks.
Schitts Creek on Netflix. It’s hilarious and I love all of the characters. (But, if I HAD to pick a favorite, it would be David.)
Eugene and Berenice – Pioneers of Urban Photography. A documentary about Eugene Atget and Berenice Abbott. I will have probably seen all of the photography documentaries by the end of this.
The video of the guy who had his own cocktail party in the bathroom. It’s cute and clever and I can’t stop watching it.
Chin chin!
This hilarious video that my friend Anthony sends me every couple of days. Because you never want to forget this….
Let’s goooooooo!
You’re welcome.
What are you doing to stay sane through all of this?
