On Monday, Kay posted some Entertainment! for us and while I know this site is about writing, I’ve been working at home and going a little loco. So I’m going to add to the entertainment. Here is a column from the LA Times written by a high school pal-o-mine, Mary McNamara, about how the line between work and family is changing in these strange times we’re living in.
My kids are older, but my husband and I share our home office and we’ve had to adjust times for online meetings so we’re not both talking at the same time in different meetings. He’s a college professor so I can pop into his meetings with students, and so can the kids and the dog (the students love when the big ol’ golden retriever jumps into the frame). However, I work for the government (local school system, actually) and it’s not as fun in my meetings. Although, my husband used to work at the same place so he did pop into my frame before the meeting started this morning to say hi to some of his old colleagues. When I’m on with someone from FEMA, I don’t think they’d appreciate it all that much.
This is my portion of the home office. Note all the computers and monitors. One set is my regular home office set up. One is my new work-from-home with my work laptop and a scrounged monitor from our stash, and one is my mini that is currently used for Zoom yoga from my local studio (that I take to the basement which is the only place in the house with enough floor space). This is an after work photo so it shows the large orange cup I use during the day for water (filled twice) and the wine glass added after work.
Kay also posted John Krasinski’s Some Good News Hamilton segment, which was awesome, but the next one in the series knocked it out of the park (pun intended).
Enjoy this break from the regularly scheduled programming. Hopefully, we’ll all be back to our regular lives soon.
And now I’m going to rant on a few of the things that this crazy time has robbed me of. My sister, my cousins, and I have been section hiking the Appalachian Trail for years. All of a sudden, everyone is stir crazy and hiking the AT which caused the AT to post this. So we’re robbed of this. I’ve been baking the bread we eat in our home for years. Now I can’t find good flour because everyone who hasn’t baked bread in years is suddenly doing it. Oh, to find some good King Arthur or Ceresota somewhere (I don’t use bread flour). I’m not exactly robbed of this just yet, although I’ve only found bleached flour (rises differently than unbleached). Thankfully I have plenty of yeast for my yeast bread and I have sourdough starter for my sourdough bread. There’s more, but I’ll stop there. As proof, here’s today’s sourdough bread.
How is everyone out there coping? What are you doing for your good news break from all the bad?
Eight Ladies Writing 
I had a similar experience to yours when they closed Charleston Falls Preserve, where I hike and photograph wildflowers. It wasn’t just the uptick in visitors but because visitors would meet at the Preserve, get out of their cars and immediately hug each other.
Silly humans.
Fortunately, I’ve been able to locate a couple of places slightly further from home that are rich with ephemerals.
As far as your flour issue, I haven’t attempted to buy GF flour yet but I did try to order baking powder this week and my local grocer was sold out.
I hope people are truly learning to bake and that all those supplies aren’t just sitting around, a failed experiment.
I’ll need to hit a grocery store sometime soon. And I’ll definitely plan to go the moment they open to have the best stock so hopefully I can get good flour. We can’t get grocery delivery out here in the boonies where we live but I have been getting Imperfect Produce deliveries since it became available in my area. That, too, has been hijacked by COVID panic. I used to be able to get all kinds of fresh fruits and veggies that way and now, most of it is sold out. Another COVID robbery of something I’ve been doing for ages.
Stay safe and healthy.
I went to the grocery story yesterday. They still didn’t have everything I needed (baking powder, really?), but the shelves did seem to be a little less bare. The meat department seems to have recovered and the fruit/veg aisle had everything, although people keep TOUCHING THINGS. Seriously, who needs to touch every single bunch of celery.
I went last Saturday and they didn’t have good flour, but had everything else I needed – had to go to two different grocery stores to get it. I’m going to try an online Walmart order. I did that last week and had to get up at 1 a.m. to be able to schedule the delivery. Hopefully, they’ve extended the pick up window so I don’t have to do that. Swiffer wet jet refills are also scarce. Did people not clean their homes before and now suddenly they are???
Crazy times we’re living in.
If you don’t have baking powder: To get 1 teaspoon of baking powder, mix together 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon of cornstarch.
Thanks, Michille, that’s good to know.
That SGN clip with the Covid team going to Fenway was utterly fantastic. That segment really did knock it out of the park!
And about that flour: of course, your area might vary. But where I am, the stores are restocked constantly, so hypothetically, at least, you can get whatever they have at any time. Besides the usual cleaning supplies and TP, what were they out of when I went at 7am? Canned tomatoes. Go figure.
I got canned tomatoes this morning at 6 a.m. at our Giant. No good flour. No Bisquick. Plenty of frozen bricks of spinach, which is awesome because I put that in so many dishes to disguise vegetables. I started doing it when the kids were little and it stuck. Lasagne, beefy mac, Monterey spaghetti bake, pesto, spaghetti sauce. They never figured it out and now it’s a habit.