when we up in the club, all eyes on us

Last night was a trainwreck - I should have gone to bed hours before I did, but instead I curled up on my chaise and doomscrolled and read every bit of the internet. The result was that I didn't go to bed until almost three, which is completely absurd. And so even though I slept until a little after nine, it really wasn't quite enough.

However, I successfully rescued the day - when I got up, I made coffee, did some laundry, and ran to the grocery store to stock up on produce. This was key towards ensuring that I don't need to leave the house next week if I don't feel like it (I mean, I want to take some walks...but I'm not sure I want to be forced to interact with humans). When I got home, I put my groceries away, quickly cleaned myself up, and then came downstairs just in time to welcome Katie to my lovely backyard oasis.

Since the weather is getting colder and covid is spiking enough to keep us from seeing each other inside, our evening activities are pretty curtailed. But it was sixty today, which was still perfect for sitting in my backyard. We started off sitting on the ground in a patch of sun, but we eventually relocated to the couches as the sunshine moved, and it was a pretty perfect couple of hours. I also inducted Katie into the poke club (the place I order poke from is actually called PokéClub) - we ordered poke bowls for lunch, and they were just as delicious as always.

Katie eventually left, and then I tried a new recipe for pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (see my other blog). I subbed gluten free flour for regular flour without changing anything else, and they turned out perfectly - really tasty cupcakes, totally delicious frosting, and easy to make. They came out of the oven right before I had a friendship renewal call with Joann and Jen, so I ate my first one while I said hi to Joann, and then frosted the rest of them later in the call.

Unfortunately, 2020 is the gift that keeps on giving, and none of us had any particularly good news to share (although Joann got promoted, which is great, but I already knew that). But it was good to catch up, as per usual, and hopefully Joann and I (and Jen, if she feels so inclined, despite being married) get to spinster honeymoon again together somewhere in the world someday. They were all supposed to come to Colorado in May, but that airbnb got canceled long ago and it feels impossible to imagine how the year might have gone if coronavirus hadn't happened. But someday we shall see each other again! And until then, we can just snack in each other's faces on videoconferences.

sssanyway. After we hung up, Katie showed up again - this time with her children so that they would have somewhere to trick or treat. She had actually brought me candy earlier to give them tonight since I hadn't planned on trick or treaters, so this took literally zero effort on my part (other than opening the door). The girls were dressed as ninjas, which was a good way to incorporate masks, and it was fun to see them for a few minutes. I also gave them cupcakes, which I think went over well.

Then I messed around on my other blog for a couple of hours, documenting the eggplant parmigiana that I made the other night + putting up the cupcakes. Then I ate chili, doomscrolled a bit, and basically got nothing else accomplished. And now I'm determined to be in bed before midnight, so it's time to sign off - goodnight!

the rumpus and ruckus are comfortable now

Day fifty-something. Today was more onerous than usual because I had a meeting straight from 9am to 2pm, which made nutrition and waste elimination difficult (editor's note: I sound like I'm on a fucking mission to Mars, not a five hour conference call). But I meditated/journaled this morning, and I also had some peanut butter toast and a whole lot of coffee to kick things off. And I had leftover potatoes/chard (the last of the batch) with some freshly poached eggs for a belated lunch, so I'll take it. And I spent one of our fifteen-minute breaks taking a walk around a couple of blocks, so it most certainly could have been worse.

After that meeting, I took a brief break (for the aforementioned eggs), then worked until five. I had intended to work tonight, but it didn't quite happen; instead, I took care of a bunch of personal stuff, ate Thai takeout (#worthit), watered my lawn, drank some wine, wrote on my other blog, and played some Animal Crossing. Sometime in there Chandlord called me via Duo (one of Google's many chat/video apps), and I was so surprised to hear a ringtone I'd never heard before that I actually picked up my phone and answered it. So we talked for over an hour, and it was a delight to see her face even if the purpose of seeing her face was to welcome her into the deep pit of despair that most of the rest of us have been in for awhile.

We finally hung up a bit before eleven my time, and now that I've prepped tomorrow's coffee and finished this post, it's time for bed. And btw, the buried lede about my 'other blog' is not the same as this one - I restarted the blog on my writing website to post recipes that I've been posting to Instagram. Fun times in quarantine, amirite? Goodnight!