“Remoted” – Workday 138 / Day 200 (Friday)

Day 200 of the pandemic staying mostly at home. Despite logging the count each day, it still snuck up on me. Time is marching on. And on.

It’s Friday. The day after a big, fat, glorious full moon that I witnessed only in photos taken by my friends and posted on social media. I knew it was going to be a full moon, but I was too lazy to head out of the house and up the street to the ideal point where the rising moon sits huge and heavy over the trees along Beaver Brook. It’s a precise location. A few feet off and the street dips exactly enough that the view of the rising moon is obscured by trees. From my property, surrounded by tall houses and even taller trees, the moon is visible only when it is up high and tiny. So yes, I missed the full moon, just like I missed the Neowise Comet and the Perseid meteor shower earlier this year. It's my own fault.

Apple crisp!

Autumn is in effect and it’s apple season or the end of apple season, I don’t really know, having rarely left the house. What I do know is my Misfits Market box this week had lots of apples because most of the choices available were apples. So many apples. This would be great if I actually like apples. Even as a kid, a fresh, crisp apple was a snack of last resort.

My apple disinclination mystifies me. Through Dad’s side, (the Simonds family) we have Elizabeth Simonds, the mother of John Chapman, more commonly known as Johnny Appleseed, the famed nurseryman who planted apple trees across parts of the country in advance of settlement. Because of this, I feel somehow genetically obligated to like them and also feel a smidge guilty bypassing apples in favor of anything else.

Cider, hard cider, and apples cooked into dishes or baked into pastries are a different story. My favorite high school lunch dessert was apple crisp, although it had to be first lunch apple crisp for optimal temperature, because second and third period lunch apple crisp was usually cold.

Since Wednesday when the produce box arrived, apples have overflowed the bowl on the kitchen table. All day long I was cold, despite wearing multiple layers. The two realities finally met in the partnership of a 350-degree oven and apple fruit crisp. Apples, a pear, the blueberries that have been in the freezer all summer, and some strawberries and a few cranberries, also from the freezer, were combined. The topping of oatmeal, brown sugar, and butter was spread over it. It was a delicious snack and nice way to spend the night of day 200 of being mostly at home. This weekend, it will be delicious breakfast.