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Quarantimes Adaptations
May. 27th, 2020 10:47 pmThings I Have Managed To (Sort Of) Do Despite The Lockdown: A Post
Go To The Dentist: The dentist's office has opened back up, and it was time for me to get my teeth cleaned. They're enforcing social distancing, so I had to wear a mask and call them from my car, then wait until they said it was okay to come into the building. Extra masks on the techs, and no ultrasonic waterpik, just old-fashioned metal hooks. Hand sanitizer all over the place. All in all, not too onerous, and also I think is about as safe as you can make a healthcare visit. They also moved into a new (unflooded) building, which is much nicer and only a smidge less convenient to get to. (Though I though the old place was kinda cozy, in that old-house-converted-to-business way.) Also, mid-afternoon appointments are much easier to manage when working from home.
Get A Haircut: My barber has NOT opened back up, but I was more than a month overdue and I couldn't stand it anymore, so weekend before last I got Jerry to cut my hair. We have clippers, and mostly I just wanted the back and sides back to a reasonable length. He did a really good job ("exceedingly adequate," he insists), and shortened the top up, too. I also gave my beard a good trimming, and I felt about a million times better.
Play Games With Friends: Online boardgaming is working out pretty well. I played some Dominion with Matthew and Floyd a couple weeks ago, and we've got more planned for this Friday. Played Puerto Rico with Joe and Bill tonight. The Monday night D&D game is going well, using Zoom instead of Discord for video. I haven't gotten enough prep together to actually run Star Wars yet, but I've made progress, and have reclaimed enough brain to at least think about it.
See A Movie With Friends: Before lockdown started, Alice pointed our "weird movie club" at Extra Ordinary, an Irish horror comedy about ghosts, and we were all planning to go see it in the theater. Not happening, obvs, but it's now available streaming. Rather than trying to literally watch it together, this weekend we all rented it and watched it at home, and on Monday (Memorial Day), we had a Zoom call to discuss it and socialize. Again, not as nice as actually going together in person, but I think we had at least as much conversation about it as we would have had standing outside the movie theater afterwards.
Patronize Restaurants: We've decided to get takeout at least once a week to help out all the local restaurants that we would like to survive. Pho 88 is in fact still open; we weren't sure because the first couple times we tried it wasn't, but I think it's just that there's only one guy working, so if he takes a day off, they're closed. We also got Mexican from Lucero's Tavern one night. Picked up the order about 10 minutes before closing, and when I paid, the cashier accidentally entered in a $100 tip and couldn't figure out how to undo it! She called over the other guy working, who couldn't figure it out either, so he said "Um, can I just give you $100 cash?" and, amused, I allowed as how that would be fine.
Read A Book: I got a copy of All Systems Red (the first Murderbot book) for my birthday, read it in a day, and enjoyed it very much. Worth mentioning because I've got other books that I'm having trouble finishing because pandemic stress makes it hard to focus. This one was just a novella. I think I'll have to get the others.
Not Fall Down Completely On Blogging: Look! A post!
As part of our annual reviews, my boss asked us to talk about how we were being affected by the whole pandemic situation, and my assessment was that overall, I am doing okay-not-great. Honestly, it's been a rough year (I had totally forgotten about how worn down I got at the end of last year), with a lot of course changes and unexpected turbulence to deal with. I rated my performance as pretty darn good, considering -- it's just that this year, there is a LOT of considering.
Go To The Dentist: The dentist's office has opened back up, and it was time for me to get my teeth cleaned. They're enforcing social distancing, so I had to wear a mask and call them from my car, then wait until they said it was okay to come into the building. Extra masks on the techs, and no ultrasonic waterpik, just old-fashioned metal hooks. Hand sanitizer all over the place. All in all, not too onerous, and also I think is about as safe as you can make a healthcare visit. They also moved into a new (unflooded) building, which is much nicer and only a smidge less convenient to get to. (Though I though the old place was kinda cozy, in that old-house-converted-to-business way.) Also, mid-afternoon appointments are much easier to manage when working from home.
Get A Haircut: My barber has NOT opened back up, but I was more than a month overdue and I couldn't stand it anymore, so weekend before last I got Jerry to cut my hair. We have clippers, and mostly I just wanted the back and sides back to a reasonable length. He did a really good job ("exceedingly adequate," he insists), and shortened the top up, too. I also gave my beard a good trimming, and I felt about a million times better.
Play Games With Friends: Online boardgaming is working out pretty well. I played some Dominion with Matthew and Floyd a couple weeks ago, and we've got more planned for this Friday. Played Puerto Rico with Joe and Bill tonight. The Monday night D&D game is going well, using Zoom instead of Discord for video. I haven't gotten enough prep together to actually run Star Wars yet, but I've made progress, and have reclaimed enough brain to at least think about it.
See A Movie With Friends: Before lockdown started, Alice pointed our "weird movie club" at Extra Ordinary, an Irish horror comedy about ghosts, and we were all planning to go see it in the theater. Not happening, obvs, but it's now available streaming. Rather than trying to literally watch it together, this weekend we all rented it and watched it at home, and on Monday (Memorial Day), we had a Zoom call to discuss it and socialize. Again, not as nice as actually going together in person, but I think we had at least as much conversation about it as we would have had standing outside the movie theater afterwards.
Patronize Restaurants: We've decided to get takeout at least once a week to help out all the local restaurants that we would like to survive. Pho 88 is in fact still open; we weren't sure because the first couple times we tried it wasn't, but I think it's just that there's only one guy working, so if he takes a day off, they're closed. We also got Mexican from Lucero's Tavern one night. Picked up the order about 10 minutes before closing, and when I paid, the cashier accidentally entered in a $100 tip and couldn't figure out how to undo it! She called over the other guy working, who couldn't figure it out either, so he said "Um, can I just give you $100 cash?" and, amused, I allowed as how that would be fine.
Read A Book: I got a copy of All Systems Red (the first Murderbot book) for my birthday, read it in a day, and enjoyed it very much. Worth mentioning because I've got other books that I'm having trouble finishing because pandemic stress makes it hard to focus. This one was just a novella. I think I'll have to get the others.
Not Fall Down Completely On Blogging: Look! A post!
As part of our annual reviews, my boss asked us to talk about how we were being affected by the whole pandemic situation, and my assessment was that overall, I am doing okay-not-great. Honestly, it's been a rough year (I had totally forgotten about how worn down I got at the end of last year), with a lot of course changes and unexpected turbulence to deal with. I rated my performance as pretty darn good, considering -- it's just that this year, there is a LOT of considering.
