I’ve gotten super behind on these. So here’s Sunday, April 12 through Friday, April 17, 2020. This post includes a detailed description of the decontamination procedure I use when I get takeout, if you’re at all interested in that.
Sunday, April 12 (Day 30)
I spent a lot of this day in bed. I made myself a huge plate of leftovers (mini meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and beef fajitas) and ate as much as I could while I goofed off on my laptop. I think we ate leftovers for dinner too, but I’m not sure.
Monday, April 13 (Day 31)
I didn’t take any pictures on this day, so I’m not sure if I did anything memorable (though I guess not, since I…don’t remember). I know I worked a full day, and according to the fridge calendar we had chicken stir fry for dinner, but I have no way to verify. I think I probably had lunch in bed with my laptop, because that’s become my standard way to reboot my brain for the rest of the workday.
Tuesday, April 14 (Day 32)
I took a single picture at lunchtime of my bed/laptop tray setup. Looks like my lunch included Cheetos. For dinner, we ordered Jimmy John’s.
Wednesday, April 15 (Day 33)
I started putting frozen blueberries in my morning yogurt. Greek yogurt sometimes isn’t super palatable, so this helped a lot. That evening I updated the refrigerator calendar and took a picture of it. We had teriyaki pork roast, mashed potatoes, and mixed veggies for dinner. We also received our “stimulus” money via direct deposit (I really think calling it “stimulus” is ridiculous), and we made our grocery list and submitted an order online for pickup on Saturday (today).
Thursday, April 16 (Day 34)
Once again worked a full day and spent my lunch period in bed with my writing laptop. I don’t think any writing actually happened this week though. After work my team had a “virtual happy hour” in which we got on Zoom video chat and just hung out until almost 7pm. It was a lot of fun. I decided pretty early in that I would just cook dinner during the call, so I did that, and my team got to see me make mini meatloaves, rice, and peas. I changed the name of my chat window to “Heather’s Cooking Show” :D After the meatloaves were in the oven, I had about 20 minutes to wait until starting the peas, so I took the laptop out to the patio and lay down on the sectional. We finished the chat just before the timer went off for the meatloaves and peas.
While I was waiting for Sean to get out of the shower for dinner, I mixed up some chocolate chip cookie dough and put it in the fridge. Then we sat down to eat. We watched some Haikyuu!! that evening I think, and an episode of NCIS.
Friday, April 17 (Day 35)
I didn’t really take a lunch break on this day. There were a lot of meetings and I was on a roll with compiling some documents. After dinner I baked all the cookies from the dough I made the day before. Then I told Sean I really wasn’t feeling making dinner, because all we have left meat-wise is chicken and pre-seasoned turkey strips, and we don’t have any vegetables except edamame, and we had just had rice the night before, and I didn’t feel like doing anything with potatoes. So we ordered Shane’s and I went and picked it up. They have the curbside pickup process down pretty well now. While I was waiting a guy pulled in, walked toward the door, stopped when he saw the table saying not to come in but to order by phone and wait in his vehicle, got out his phone, got back in his car, but then drove away. I guess the situation was Not Acceptable.
When I got home I did the now-standard decon procedure, which is:
- Remove shoes at door
- Set containers down on kitchen counter
- Go to the bathroom to clean up
- Remove mask (I wore a medical mask my mom sent me)
- Remove all clothes and put in dirty laundry hamper
- Wash hands
- Turn on bathtub faucet
- Climb into bathtub with glasses and rings on
- Soap up hands, remove glasses, and wash glasses for 20 seconds on each part (lenses, frame, nose pads)
- Wash hands and rings
- Wash face
- Put glasses back on and scour arms
- Wash any other skin that was exposed to outside air
- Get out, dry off, dry glasses, and put on all-new clothes
- Return to kitchen and set out plates to hold food
- Dump food from takeout containers onto plates without letting packaging touch the plates
- Discard takeout packaging, including all included napkins, silverware, straws, seasoning packets, etc.
- Wash hands for 20 seconds
- Get out a clean reusable cup and remove its cap
- Dump takeout drink into reusable cup; discard takeout cup
- Wash hands for 20 seconds
- Spray down the takeout gallon of tea with Formula 409 and scrub it off, then scour it briefly in the sink
- Spray down countertop where all the takeout containers were with Formula 409 and scrub it off
- Wash hands for 20 seconds a final time just to be sure
Easy peasy, lol. Delivery is better because I don’t have to decon myself too (other than all the hand-washing), but it’s still a hassle. Whenever I think about getting restaurant food I have to decide if it’s worth it. (In this case, it definitely was.)
We watched an episode of NCIS while we ate. Unfortunately it was about sexual assault, and even though they didn’t show anything (thank goodness) I still had to see survivors in pain and other people reacting, so it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable experience. After that I put on some Haikyuu!! and then switched to Thor: Ragnarok, and that helped. I watched part of the movie in Japanese and then switched to English; it’s so good and funny either way. I’m always impressed that this movie has so many horrible things in it and yet is so fun to watch. Storytelling done well!
And that’s been this week. Note that I didn’t go on any walks. I’m concerned about the lack of exercise in my life right now, but I’m also concerned about the danger of going outside when people simply are not taking this pandemic seriously. I have some workout videos on DVD, and work has provided free access to some online workouts, and I also have Cheryl and Reid’s treadmill, so I think I will just have to bite the bullet and start doing an indoor workout routine.