“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 721 (Monday) – cabinet chaos

The Aldi shopping trip of Sunday and the overcrowded state of the pantry has opened the way for a new entertainment. This is day two of  the latest installment of “how am I going to fit this in here?” while staring at the cabinet with both doors flung open, and then attempting to rearrange the contents. The practical problem with the cabinets, and most of the kitchen, is that they seem to have been designed by someone who never cooked or grocery shopped.

I understand the space saving ideal of the microwave mounted over the stove, but this common kitchen design is terrifying when trying to remove a bowl of hot soup from it. One slip, and it’s a face full of scalding soup. It hasn't happened yet, but the potential is there. The microwave juts out a couple inches from the depth of the cabinets, so the cabinet door opens into the edge of the microwave. 

The shelving is set at exactly the same height in all the cabinets, without regard for the height of boxes or bottles. When the box of cereal or crackers or the bottle of olive oil doesn’t fit on one cabinet, it doesn’t fit into any of them.

Cabinet chaos.

The olive oil issue was solved with the purchase of a shelving unit on wheels that fits between the cabinet and the home office. The too tall box of chocolate crisped rice, bought months ago for a recipe that still hasn’t been made, was tucked sideways into a lower cabinet that holds a blender, serving platters, other boxes that don't fit elsewhere, and four packages of rye flour that were bought online in the excitement of the Finnish cookbook. When the flour arrived, the urge to bake unfamiliar things had passed. 

The latest kitchen battle involves a box of woven wheat crackers and a bag of chips acquired in the unscripted Aldi shopping trip on Sunday. There is no room for either of them anywhere, so the crackers are currently wedged between the toaster oven and the knife block. The chips are laying atop the toaster oven with a container of figs, a gift box of assorted tea, the butter dish, and a squash and some potatoes, all of which must be removed each time the toaster oven is used. One solution is to eat the chips and the crackers, but there is effort to be sensible. Sometimes, anyway.

The chaos of the cabinets resembles the frenzy in the freezer, and all of it is in the realm of first world problems. It is a wonderful day when these are the biggest problems that need to be dealt with. The best part is that the doors can be closed and he issues ignored. Temporarily, anyway. 

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 720 (Sunday) – curds and drawers

The physical effects of dealing with the recent wild mood swings from Mother Nature and Old Man winter were felt today. After the shoveling of Friday and Saturday, today, every movement involving my arms, legs, shoulders, and back from neck to butt was noticed. The back is the worst. Dance hurt. Every hip slide, lift, and drop, every veil toss, every undulation was felt acutely. Oy. 

Cheese curds.

After dance, there was a meetup with Mom at Kohl’s. Part of the visit was torturing ourselves with shopping for underthings, or as the stores like to call it, “Intimates.” It wouldn’t be so difficult if sizing was consistent from brand to brand or even with styles from the same brand, but nope. Every bra in my possession is labeled with the exact same size, and some are too large, some are too tight, and one, yes, ONE, actually fits without shifting around or digging in.

There seems to be some rule that as soon as I find that one bra in a million that miraculously fits correctly and isn’t annoying, it will immediately be discontinued and never produced again. Ever. All existing unpurchased stock will vanish in a lingerie rapture, and I will be treating my one precious garment with a level of care equal to a sacred and holy relic, knowing it could be ages before another is  found that fits as well, even from the same company. I won’t even get started on the rest of the ladies’ underthings.

Then there is the cost of bras, which can be around $45-$50. For one bra. These are the regular ones, not even the fancy Victoria’s Secret or designer ones. So, folks, if you happen to be getting frolicky with a lingerie-wearer and maybe the skin on your hands is rough and scratchy and snags smooth fabrics and the wearer gets a little testy, that is why. The stuff costs a fortune, it’s a miracle if any can be found that actually fit right, and it’s impossible to “just go buy another one” because they change the styles constantly and that favorite style went extinct before it arrived home.

It had been many hours including nearly two hours of dancing and another two hours of shopping since breakfast. Mom had a big breakfast and wasn’t hungry, so I wasn’t going to drag her to lunch. But instead of heading straight home, I stopped at Aldi “for a couple things” because it was nearby. Ha! That was an expensive reminder about that “never go food shopping while hungry” rule.

The objective was mushrooms and broccoli, and the mission could have been completed in five minutes if I had just stopped after that first row. But no, I kept going for another 30 minutes, and by the time I was done, the cart held 38 items ranging from a packet of brown gravy mix for $0.30 to the big-ticket item of cheese curds, for $4.29. No, I don’t think I’ve ever had cheese curds, nor do I know what to do with them, but I’m willing to explore. The big fascination is the note in the warming instructions that said they “should be squeaky when warmed correctly."

Lobster ravioli with
veggie cream pesto sauce.

The same time dinner was started, a pot of soup was begun with the common ingredients of baby leaf spinach, broccoli, mushrooms, onion, garlic, white wine, and pesto from a jar. The supper sauté pan also got half-and-half and parmesan cheese before topping half of the just bought Aldi lobster ravioli ($3.89) and Kalamata olives. 

The soup kettle also got a box of vegetable broth, a can of diced tomatoes, and a dollop of pesto. After dinner was eaten and a lunch container set up with ravioli and sauce, the remainder of the pasta sauce was tossed into the soup kettle. The food plan is on track for the week.

Dishes were done, then laundry. There was a shortage of clean drawers in the dresser drawer and action was required. The drawers are now restocked for the week, and at least that won’t keep me awake all night. Wondering about cheese curds might, however.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 719 (Saturday) – hard labor

Driveway snow field.

Last night, while I shoveled the short driveway and my car that was parked in it, the neighbor’s plow guy arrived to plow her side of the shared long drive. He told me several years ago that if my car wasn’t parked in that driveway, it was easier for him to plow, and he would also clear my spot, so when thinking ahead, I try to have the car not parked on that side. 

While I shoveled at one side of my house, he plowed at the other side. When I was done the short driveway and the plow was gone, I saw that with the precision of a surgeon, he managed to avoid plowing even one inch of my side of the driveway. 

Important lessons were learned from the last snowstorm after failing to shovel the short driveway and it was a mess for over a week. The long driveway leads to the kitchen door, which is my preferred ingress/egress point, and it seemed wise to not repeat the mistake and take care of it this morning.

After the hard labor.

After a decent night's sleep, a cinnamon bun, and lots of coffee, the rearrangement project commenced. The snow was still mostly light and dry and sparkling in the sunshine on top, but was getting heavier and wetter in contact with the asphalt. It was steady work, and included a repeat of the classic pushing, scraping, and tossing maneuvers. The core was engaged, and so were the legs. A couple times, a light wind came along just as the snow left the shovel during the toss over the picket fence and there was a light face wash. It was invigorating. The end result was not perfect. There is still a narrow snow ledge on the property line, but I could do only so much. At least now there are two ways to safely exit the house.

The sunshine and fresh snow made for a perfect day for snowshoeing, and the dryness of the snow was perfect for rug cleaning, but there was no energy left for either of these after more than an hour of steady labor in the driveway. Trudging through woods or moving the kitchen table to drag the kitchen rug outside were ruled out. 

Life is all about choices, and in the maturity of middle age, I have chosen to accept that I don’t need to do everything in one day, and it doesn't always have to be perfect. Fear of missing out was kicked to the curb years ago, and it was liberating. I also didn’t want to be completely hobbled for dance class on Sunday.

The rewards for the labor were hot soup and binging Succession on HBOMax. There was baked macaroni made with five, maybe six types of cheese – all the random remnants from the deli drawer. There was hot cocoa. It was a great day of toil followed by rest and relaxation. The quads and hamstrings feel kind of smoked, and my arms are twitching, but it's all good. If it snowed every day in the winter I would be in amazing shape.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 718 (Friday) – prickly day

Itchy Icelandic sweater.

We were promised snow and we received snow in abundance. In recognition of the storm, the wool sweater from the Icelandic Hand Knitting Association was chosen for the day’s attire. I like how it looks, but it's a bit too large, which I cared about less when I first got it and had a pair of pants that went perfectly with it. It's also a very itchy, prickly wool, even with a turtleneck underneath. It's one of only two souvenirs from a trip to Reykjavik taken many lifetimes ago, the other being a suede bag with runes, not because I knew anything about runes at the time, but because I thought they were cool and interesting. 

At 6:15am, it was snowing steadily and the front steps were cleared for Winston to visit the yard. This was done while in bathrobe and pajamas. It’s amazing how fast I can move while inappropriately attired in a snowstorm. There was more to clear from the steps at 8:15 and several more times throughout the day, but at least I was wearing the sweater, pants, boots, coat, and gloves then. 

While I stood in the doorway waiting to let Winston back inside, a car leaving the driveway across the street backed up at ramming speed, straight into the snowbank in front of my yard. If not for the snowbank, it might have been my fence. Or maybe it happened because of the three-foot wide snowbank left by the plows.

At 2:00 the headache inducing workday inspired a trip to the fresh air for the initiation of the larger snow rearranging endeavor. One gate, a narrow path between the car and the fence, and one side of the car and a strip of the roof were cleared before retreating. It was still steadily snowing, so it was just phase one of the mission.

Winston on his snow path.

The fresh air felt good, but my legs were tingling and my fingers were cold. These were both the result of unfortunate miscalculations. The cold and tingly legs were because I neglected to put long johns under my pants and then neglected to put on snow pants over them. The cold fingers were due to the misguided assumption that Burton snowboard gloves would actually be warm. 

Too much of the annoying afternoon was spent consolidating info from three separate Word documents into an Excel worksheet for purposes of understanding the project information in order to write copy to  deliver to the designer in an organized manner. Unfortunately, project information is often delivered in bits of disjointed and inconsistent narrative via multiple email messages or Word documents or both. One spreadsheet would usually allow for organization and easy updating. A colleague mentioned that “Department X doesn’t do spreadsheets.” C’mon, it’s 2022, spreadsheets have been around for decades, and the bank has free classes on the program. Being forced to cobble together info from multiple sources is how errors happen.

This specific project would already have copy written and been

delivered to the designer by now if it hadn’t required so much time to request, wait for, and organize all the various bits of information. As it is, there are still a few key elements missing, and when I finally gave up in frustration at 5:00, I had only 26 lines of info where there should have been 27. Looks like Monday’s attire should include a Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe in recognition of playing detective to figure out what is missing.

The day’s aggravation wasn’t all bad. At 5:00, armed with a lightweight plastic snow shovel, it was used as fuel for pushing snow from around the car, scraping it off the top and from underneath, slicing it off the plowed snow banks, and then tossing it over the four-foot picket fence into the front yard. That helped a bit. The wine afterward is helping even more. Thank goodness for wine.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 717 (Thursday) – snow prep

Thankful for Thursday, because it was book club night with hanging out with some people, chatting about a book, and eating stuff. Before the meeting there were visits to the bank to deposit a check that came in today’s mail (thanks Rakuten!) and the bookstore to buy the book for March and order two other books. The beauty of book club is not having to figure out what to read next.

Book club had a bigger group than last month, which meant a larger table and trouble hearing people talking at the far end. We were also under a Bose ceiling speaker, which added another degree of musical difficulty, but that is all part of a book club that meets in a restaurant/bar. (Note to self – next time snag a seat in the middle of a long table.)

This month’s book was “The House in the Cerulean Sea,” which I finished two weeks ago and basically forgot about once I moved on to another book in process, “Deep River.” No matter, it is still fun, and I remembered enough to participate.

Prepared.

After book club there was a visit to Market Basket for some "More for Your [My] Dollar" pre-snow shopping. The store wasn’t as crowded as expected, but oddly, there were still no carts inside the store. I boldly set forth with the “I’ll get what I can carry” shopping methodology which yielded in-store bakery iced cinnamon buns, granola bars, ramen bricks (insurance policy), hot salsa (first time “hot” has ever been seen), queso, two caramel filled chocolate bars, and hot cocoa mix, (seasonal addiction). The absence of a cart or basket resulted in a few forgotten items, but contained the cost to $12.

The highlight of the trip was the tiny tot first seen in the parking lot. She wore a pink parka, leggings, and boots, and pushed a tiny pink plastic shopping cart across the lot and into the store. In the store, she wrangled a large box of cereal onto the shelf underneath the basket when it was too large to fit into the cart's basket. As she and her mom came down an aisle, another shopper was heard saying “ohhhhh, did you see her little cart?” While exiting the store behind them, I saw she had a doll in the seat of the cart, a play can of vegetables, and a cannister of real oat meal. So cute. Her mom had the regular sized cart and the rest of the groceries.

The freezer is stocked with containers of random soups and bread. The ramen rack is full. There are eggs, cheese, coffee and creamer. The hot cocoa mix is plentiful. Realistically, though, it will probably be iced cinnamon rolls that provide sustenance for the snowstorm remote workday and weekend. It is good to feel prepared.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 716 (Wednesday) – wacky wednesday

It was a wacky Wednesday. There was a high temperature of 67 degrees, which several sources declare broke a record for the date. According to the U.S. Climate Data website and other sources, the average high for February is 37 and the average low is 17. One chart showed that there have been five days this month at 50 degrees or higher. 

To participate in the weather, there was a walk to City Hall to pay the water bill, and then two colleagues and I, dressed in our accidentally matching black ankle pants and booties, continued for a walk through Lucy Larcom Park and around the block and back to the office. Back at my desk, my sinuses became stuffy and I had a throbbing headache that affected the front of my face like my spring allergy symptoms.

By 7:30 it was back to a more normal-ish temperature of 39 degrees and falling with a winter storm warning posted. Depending upon the source, there could be as much as 6 to 11 inches of snow beginning overnight Thursday and into Friday. Gotta love Mother Nature's mood swings. What climate change? <cough>

My Winston!

After work, traffic, which had been non-existent to slightly annoying for several months, was suddenly back to the pre-pandemic infuriating level and it took 20 minutes to travel two miles. If people would stop rolling through yellow and red lights and blocking intersections, the situation probably wouldn’t be as awful. The hell ride home reignited my hatred for driving, other drivers, having to go into the office to do the same work that can be done from home, and life in general. I just wanted to get home, eat, watch TV, and sit with Winston.

Unfortunately, xFinity cable chose tonight to deliver a fresh, new form of punishment. The general low-level technical torture, delivered in doses of increasing frequency and now a near-weekly event, is a black screen when turning things on. Pressing the volume button on the remote delivers the volume bar on the left of the screen, which a tech told me a couple years ago is how to check for a cable signal. But there is no guide, no shows, just darkness as if it wasn’t even turned on. 

The usual workaround for this situation is to unplug things and start from scratch, which was done either Monday or Tuesday. It’s hard to know the exact night because life is mostly a blur, sort of like a watercolor painting that someone spilled something on, but not with a pretty or artistic result, just a mess.

Tonight, the TV displayed the channel guide, but no channels. Any channel chosen would freeze with three dots blinking, and then display the message “This channel is temporarily unavailable.” All of them. For about two hours. The app was consulted and a system refresh performed. There were still no channels after the refresh, but the streaming apps are fine, so there were the latest episodes of Pam and Tommy on hulu and Wallander on Netflix with Winston at my side. Thank goodness for small favors. 

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 715 (Tuesday) – Vegas wedding

On this date on 2009, I was in Las Vegas. It was my third trip to Vegas, and the second trip to attend a wedding. It was a last-minute thing when the guy I was living with decided he wanted to attend his friend’s nuptials. We booked a flight and a room and off we went. Such a carefree time. Dang, I miss that lifestyle.

We flew in from Tennessee for a few days and met up with his twin brother and one of their longtime friends who was living there. Tourist things were done – sightseeing, shopping, riding the monorail from the older end of the strip to the newer, flashier end. I vaguely recall visiting a nearby In-and-Out Burger.

Vegas bridal couple.

The wedding was rockabilly themed and held in the penthouse at the Sahara Hotel. The story was that the Beatles had stayed in the Penthouse in 1964 when they played Vegas. The room had large windows and an outdoor deck. 

The bride was stunning in a shite satin fitted dress with long gloves, and many guests were dressed for the theme. 

Despite having brought a dress to wear at the wedding, I bought a different one at the Bettie Page store in Miracle Mile Shops to wear instead. How could I not? It was a great dress, black and cream, purchased in about 10 minutes as we rushed to or from a comedy show or dinner or something. It was worn only twice, both times to weddings, and sadly, now it is too small. There are no photos of me from that trip, at least not in my possession, which happens a lot. It's possible other people at the wedding are looking at me in their photos wondering who the heck I am.

Each time I’ve been to Vegas, I wanted to go back, mostly to revisit The Strip and take a million more photos. So far this hasn’t happened. Someday.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 714 (Monday) – leisure life

It was a holiday day off, and another day of leisure. Sadly, the run of leisure ends with the return to work Tuesday morning. Why could I not have been born wealthy instead of snarky? I’m confident I could really embrace the whole leisure-class lifestyle. There is chatter that money doesn’t buy happiness, but it would be great to test that out for myself. In the name of science, of course, documented with copious notes and spreadsheets.

 Of course, it’s already been clearly established that my idea of leisure is mostly sitting around the house streaming shows, reading, and making soup, but it would be amazing to do these things in a luxurious setting instead of in a modest house that lacks counter space for even the most basic kitchen appliances.

Online dance classes are fun.

Today’s leisure day activities included solving the Wordle puzzle, and the related brain teaser Quordle, which has four Wordle boards to be solved in nine guesses. It's awesome. There was an online dance class through Mirthy, taught by a long-time performer and instructor from the UK, which was a fun hour of shimmies and veil work. 

There was progress with searching newspapers for family news stories on the final day of free access. The magic key was searching family addresses instead of people’s names. With some common names in the family, the address was more efficient in finding stories about the right person and saved the need to search each family name one by one. 

Today’s search yielded ambulance calls, more hospital notices, classified ads for rooms and a garage for rent, and pups for sale. There was also the story about the time Dad was at work, the place blew up, and he was burned on the back of his arms and his back. Subsequent articles revealed the cause to be a loose bolt in a machine. The burn photos lived in an envelope in the family album while I was growing up. Crazy stuff. I remember him saying he had no idea how he got out of the building.

There were also the mundane life maintenance tasks of laundry and bagging the trash for pickup on Tuesday. Around noon, poop was harvested from the front yard in the sunny and warm weather, which was in the high 40s. That’s when there were some pangs of regret for not having checked the weather forecast and made a plan to hike somewhere. But once I was back in the newspapers, all was good again.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 713 (Sunday)– early social

Zills!

Sunday means dance day and this is a good thing. There is the leisurely drive westward down a winding country road with fields and rivers and the adventure of a speed limit that drops from 40 mph to 25 mph when crossing a town line. Sometimes police cruisers are tucked into side streets and parking lots, seemingly waiting for a speeding passerby. At the end of the ride is dance class in a beautiful second-floor space with wood plank floors and natural light. 

We walk with hip lifts in a line while playing zills. We stretch, drill basic technique, and practice choreography with and without zills, and for a bit more than an hour the world beyond the spacious studio doesn’t exist. We interact in beats and steps and zills and combinations, and it is good. After class, it is brief chitchat before we scatter to our separate outside worlds.

After that, the day was blissfully free of obligations. There was the return trip along the winding country road back home to Winston. The little guy seems to sleep more and more, but he is always lively with a greeting when I arrive home. 

Newspapers-dot-com was consulted for additional articles about family members. Old newspapers are terrific for details and stories and were the social media of the time. Wedding announcements included detailed descriptions of the bride and bridesmaid dresses and bouquets. “News” items included who just returned from vacation and where they had been, and who was convalescing in the hospital and who had just gone home from there.

Family two-fer in the news.

My paternal grandmother made numerous appearances in the paper for her roles with various organizations, and the writeup about her funeral in 1965 noted that “Members of the Ladies of St. Anne of St. Joseph’s Church, the Ladies of Fatima, St. Jean-Baptist Society, and St Camillus Guild of this city and the Eagles Auxiliary of Leominster attended the mass.”  

In 1952, there was family double header in the newspaper. The same paternal grandmother was in the paper for receiving a “rose bowl” as the youngest mother at the mother-daughter party held by the auxiliary to Fraternite court, Catholic order of Foresters. In the very next column, Mom’s cousin is in a story titled “2 Youths Hurt in Car Crash,” about their crash into a parked car. The small-town daily newspaper of the 1950s looks a lot the Facebook feed of 2022.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 713 (Saturday) – newspaper rabbit hole

Some of the byline archive.

It was another spent day in the house like a recluse, partly by accident. Someone in an ancestry group on Facebook posted that Newspapers-dot-com is having a free access weekend, which resulted in me tumbling down the newspaper lined rabbit hole. 

My Ancestry account has an add-on subscription to Newspapers-dot-com, but it isn’t the super-duper VIP all-access backstage pass and it doesn’t usually include all papers, particularly those I wrote work news releases and freelance articles for in Tennessee. Discovering there is temporary free access the papers I’m usually shut out of was all that was needed to blow up the day. i could finally get digital copies of the freelance articles for my writing samples file.

It started innocently with skimming stories and printing to PDFs to save them to the computer. There was great progress and satisfaction. Saving to the computer means if I need writing samples and/or discontinue the Ancestry account, I will still have the articles in my possession. Every time news articles were previously saved in Ancestry, they saved as the publication name and the date, with no easy way to tell what the story is about.

After an hour of file-saving labor, I checked one of the folders that stories were being saved to. There was a sinking feeling at the discovery the files default to “MS-DOS Application” files that can’t be opened on my computer.

There was some loud and colorful cussing. Then I took a deep breath and went back through all the articles to resave them as proper PDFs. The magic trick is using the “Save as PDF” command and not the “Print to PDF” command (which is the command used at work every day). There are several more clicks in this process, and it took about 1.5 hours to go back through the Newspaper site and “Save to PDF” all the files that had already been printed to PDF. 

Seafood supper.

The roll of progress continued until suddenly I realized it had been four solid hours of skimming and saving news articles and food was needed. A seafood delivery was arranged for supper. After I poured the supper wine, I couldn't remember if Winston had been fed or not. Some was put in his bowl in case I forgot, so he got (possibly) more food, meaning he either got half his usual food, or he got an extra 50% of his food. Then it was back into the trenches.

The biggest surprise of the project was actually reading a front-page story about my great-grandfather that appeared on the front page of Fitchburg Sentinel on July 22, 1943. It was titled, “Single Casualty During Blackout Here.” He was a watchman at a paper mill and fell during a blackout on his shift. The story noted he hit his skull but the next morning was in good condition with only scalp wounds.

When I quickly read the blackout story a year ago, I ignored the other stories on the page, and also assumed the blackout was a power failure like we have now. The first two pages of the paper are filled with stories about Sicilian Conquest, Allied Conquests, and a lengthy listing about local soldiers in the “Service Men’s News” column. Today, after reading the full article, I learned it was a citywide blackout as part of the war efforts, and was timed and monitored for compliance by civil defense and local police.

During the blackout, which lasted about 1.5 hours, civilians cleared the streets, traffic was stopped, and two separate flights of Army bombers flew in from the coast. The article noted that there were complaints about the length of the blackout, but “strict obedience to the rules was practiced.”

And now it’s back into the news archives, where I’ll probably spend all night reading old newspapers as I try to sort out the articles about my great-grandfather who has the same name as far too many other local men. Luckily, a lot of the new stories also provide the person’s address, which I have a list of from census records and city directories, because the name John Maki seems to be the Finnish equivalent of John Smith.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 713 (Friday) – play date

Day off from work! And it was more of the same of most days off from work. 

There was coffee, too much reading of Facebook and news, a review of Finnish lessons, and a feeble attempt to make plans. “Feeble attempt” in this case means I thought about calling Mom to see if she was free to do something, but it seemed better to have an activity suggestion in  mind before calling. The usual response to the question “Are you busy today?” is “What did you have in mind?” It seemed wise to have an idea to suggest before it turned into a lengthy back and forth of “I don't know, what do you want to do?”

Day-off playdate.

While thinking of an activity, it led to tackling just one chore before calling Mom. The vacuum was hauled out and the bedroom rugs were vacuumed, along with the baseboards, walls, and all the trim and horizontal surfaces. Then the whole thing began again downstairs in the dining room and living room. It got serious. Furniture was moved. Winston ran and hid.

In between the various dust rearranging tasks, there was couch time and streaming of shows. The discovery of The Gilded Age from Julian Fellows, (who brought us Downton Abbey) on HBOMax was great until the available episodes ran out and suddenly there was empty sadness. There won't be a new episode until Monday. How quaint. The next thing I knew, it was 4:30, and certainly well past the time to make a plan for the day, which was now basically over. Instead of hanging out with Mom, the day-off playdate ended up being the vacuum cleaner. On the bright side, the rugs and floors are much tidier.

HBOMax has other fine offerings for my personal entertainment, so when The Gilded Age was exhausted, it was over to And Just Like That. This show is the follow-up to Sex and the City, which I was never totally into and found only moderately amusing, but it’s less awful than some of the other stuff I’ve watched.

There was an inkling of an idea to have supper delivered. The first choice was a highly recommended seafood restaurant across town, but the website address leads to their Facebook page which doesn’t have a menu or ordering instructions, but does have a website address that leads back to the Facebook page. After a couple go-rounds with that I was dizzy and annoyed.

Supper is served.

The former favorite delivery place was visited online, but after the two recent food fails it was reconsidered. After the second disappointment, it was decided they would get one more chance, so I’m probably just delaying the inevitable, but for now, they still have an opportunity for redemption.

After a half hour of menu trolling, the delivery idea was dismissed in favor of the Aldi pepperoni pizza in the freezer. While it baked in the oven, I vacuumed the kitchen and office rugs and poured a glass of wine. Maybe tomorrow I’ll leave the house. Or continue with the sporadic spurts of cleaning. It’s nice to have options. 

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 713 (Thursday) – brain education

The day had an early start, with a webinar through Mirthy. I never heard of Mirthy, a UK-based site, until it magically appeared in my realm of awareness a week or two ago. The webinar was taught by Chris Green, “The History Chap,” a British historian, and was titled “1066: England’s Real Game of Thrones.” It was about the relationships and intrigue leading up to the infamous Battle of Hastings and was interesting, but unfortunately, my attention was scattered. The webinar was at 6:30. In the morning. I have Greenwich Mean time to thank for the ungodly hour, but it was a nice side to the usual stream of morning coffee. 

1066! Hastings!

When I willingly signed up for a webinar at 6:30 on a Thursday morning, it was because Thursday is usually a remote work day for me. Remote days mean throwing on cords and a pullover and sitting around for an hour drinking coffee until it’s time to log in to the computer for work. There is plenty of time for a one-hour lecture. This particular topic was covered my freshman year of college in a Medieval European History class. 

Once, as an adult in a new town getting a new landline phone number, the phone company rep reeled off a couple available numbers and I shrieked,"1066 - Battle of Hastings! I want that one." She seemed confused by my enthusiasm. It wasn't that I love the Battle of Hastings, it was because I knew I'd remember the new number. It's one of those random things that stuck in my head. It is also possibly the only battle that took place anywhere, ever, for which I actually know the year.

Unfortunately, there was a change to the day’s work venue when a head shot photo session was scheduled in my office area for today (by me). The scheduling was based on the availability of a couple bankers for whom photos are urgently needed, and it shifted things to an in-office day for me. That, in turn, required dressing for the office, applying makeup, and all the predeparture activities of packing lunch and preparing the dog, and full attention was not paid to the lecture I signed up for. Thank goodness it was recorded and I can access it for another week. Or not. It’s not like I’ll be tested on the material.

At the office, the morning was occupied by the photo shoot and the stream of short-term guests arriving every fifteen minutes over the span of a couple hours. The afternoon saw only two of us in the cavernous space that is the marketing side of the fourth floor, in a quiet that hung somewhere between peaceful and unnerving, but also allowed for maximum productivity. Or maybe it was knowing I have Friday off and Monday is a holiday, and I was trying to get a million things finished that afforded the productivity. Whichever. Things got done.

After three voluntary, recreational webinars in one week, I'm on a roll. It kicked off with zills, rolled in to 1066, and there was also one on "A History of Women in Men's Clothes" which was a lot less about fashion, like I had assumed, and was instead about LGBT issues throughout history.

I’ll probably be signing up for a thousand more free webinars in this self-directed, educational adventure. The price is right (free!) and the topics are fun (to me, anyway). With the holiday on Monday, I have a glorious stretch of four days available to educate my brains out.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 712 (Wednesday)– valued time

Today’s schedule had the unusual interruption of a follow-up visit at the dental surgeon. This was the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the molar broken on popcorn in February 2020. The appointment was scheduled months ago with the latest appointment of the day requested to minimize time missed from work. That magical time was declared to be 4:15.

Fully aware it's a new benefits year, deductibles started all over again, and unsure of what was happening at the visit, about three weeks ago, I called the office to ask if there would be an insurance estimate. I needed to know to what extent the monthly budget might be blown. The person on the line said it was “just a follow up, and an x-ray and no insurance estimate is needed.”

A week before the appointment, and again two days before, there was an email reminder about the appointment with the cheery statement “We appreciate your time and look forward to seeing you then!” Both days, there were also text message reminders that said “All patients arrive 30 minutes prior.” Apparently, they appreciate my time so much they are demanding an extra 30 minutes of it. The website was consulted and no mention of arriving 30 minutes early was found. 

Upon arrival at the office, the receptionist asked if I had an estimate for the CT scan. What CT scan? And no, there was no insurance estimate received, which is exactly why I called weeks ago. In the end, there was no CT scan, and as of now, there will be no dental implant, because really, why bother? 

No dental professional has yet provided a compelling reason for the implant to de done. It’s been a lot of “with time, this or that might happen.” How much time – one year? five? twenty? There are no clear answers, because everyone is different, but it seems like it could be closer to 20 years than one, so I’m saving the money and rolling the dice. Enough money has already been spent on tooth #31 thank you very much stupid popcorn.

Back outside in the parking lot, a classic hospital wheel chair with “LGH” stenciled on the back of the seat sat amongst the motor vehicles. I wonder how often this happens. If picking up someone being released from the hospital, why not pull the car up to the door? Why push a wheelchair all the way to the middle of a large parking lot? Or did the wheelchair occupant roll themself out to the car in the lot? There are so many questions. 

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 711 (Tuesday) – please wait

On Monday, I noticed the moon was nearly full and I was feeling testy. That may be why I wasn’t even surprised by the whackadoodle nature of the day today. It was a remote work day, and the work system was, as X2 used to say, “moving as slow as pond scum.” It was maddening, especially as this has been the story my last few remote days. In the office-office, it's also frustrating, just a different flavor. 

There was swearing. Waiting. Pacing. Heavy sighing. The personal side of the system was checked, and everything was normal. As testy as I felt on Monday, it paled compared to the testiness felt in dealing with a slow system today. 

Please wait.

In desperation, programs were shut down and the computer restarted. Everything on the work system still took forever. After a couple hours of aggravation, there was a thought. Maybe it’s a diabolical corporate plot to make the home office so annoying that we would all want to come into the office every day. The very same computer that is as slow as a glacier has the same usual fast speed when it’s toggled over to the personal side, so what else could it be?

After work there was supper and Facebook and back-to-back episodes of Castle on Lifetime. While checking the usual nine billion email messages, I saw the reminder about the zills class I signed up for that was happening on Zoom at 7:00. It was 6:50, and I leapt into action. There was a half-jaunty half-jog upstairs to grab the zills from the dance bag. There was a quick trip to the potty, and  then I was back at the computer logging into the Zoom meeting, exhausted from all the recent exertion. It was feeling more like nap time than Zoom class time.

Ready to zill!

And there I sat, waiting, zills ready, while a small circle spun near a message telling me to wait for the host to start the meeting. And I waited. After the system annoyances of the morning, it wasn’t even surprising. I tested the audio. After seven minutes the email was rechecked to verify the event. That’s when I saw it. The class is at 7:00 Central Time, and I’m in Eastern Time. Duh. Better too early than late.

Zoom wanted an update, so I let it roll. There was plenty of time for it. At 8:00 ET/7:00 CT it was time to try it again. It felt like a miracle that I hadn't forgotten and wandered off to do something else like wash the bathroom floor or the dishes or the laundry or something. A lot can happen in an hour and I'm easily distracted, so that was a victory. 

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 710 (Monday) – Valentine’s Day

So pretty!

Valentine’s Day (aka "Singles Awareness Day") is generally one of my least favorite days of the year. It can be hard being so conspicuously single, but this year it wasn't so bad. Two years ago, I had taken the day off from work to avoid all signs of hearts and flowers, then ended up spending part of the day at the dentist after breaking a molar while eating popcorn the night before. That was probably the ickiest Valentine's Day in a while

When it falls on a weekend, it's easy to hide at home and avoid it all, but work days can be different. Today, it was just another normal and quiet day in our normally quiet office and it was great.

The whole hearts and flowers business of the day was cushioned by thoughtful gifts received in advance of the day. There was a box of beautiful hand-crafted candies from a thoughtful friend. They are beautifully arranged and too pretty to eat. On Sunday, my sister gave me a home-baked, heart-shaped brownie. 

On Friday, the mailbox held a surprise in the form of a card. The neat and unfamiliar printing was addressed to me and the return address was “Master Winston” at our address. The postmark on the envelope is Boston. Very mysterious. It would seem Winston is clever, possibly has a secret talent of penmanship, and has well-placed human help.

Now the mystery is what Winston really does when I’m out of the house. I always assumed he sleeps like he does when I’m home, but it's possible there are more interesting things going on in his world that make him tired and he has to rest when I’m around. There may be a rich, colorful, and amazing secret life of Master Winston, Canine Overlord.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 709 (Sunday) – snow dust

Snow for 120 minutes.

The sky spit snow all day. For roughly 12 hours, my phone showed “snow for 120 minutes.” Fortunately, it didn’t accumulate on the roads, but the car is crusted in salt from the recent treatments. About an inch of snow was cleaned off the car at 9:00 this morning, but after that it stayed cleared off. 

The backroads drive to dance class was a pretty winter scene with the light coating of snow on the trees along the route, but there was no way to grab a photo. The road isn’t wide enough to pull over in the places where the trees were pretty, and I was running a bit late due to delays in starting the pre-departure checklist. First, Winston wouldn't go out. Then I almost forgot to put his diaper pants on him, which, based on the wetness level of them when I got home, would have been a disastrous oversight. 

After dance, there was a quick stop at Market Basket to pick up ice cream to take to my sister’s. The parking lot was full, but it was still a remarkably quick trip in and out. At my sister’s we had lunch and cake with Dad to celebrate his birthday, and the Maine Blueberry ice cream that was grabbed in a hurry was a hit. It’s hard to believe the guy who said he was 39 for decades now actually admits to the real number. And once again, we forgot to take pictures. Duh. For years, we were notorious for taking a million pictures at every gathering. Now we keep forgetting, and we will probably regret this.

Stuff where it doesn't belong.

Meanwhile, back at The BungaLowell ... the housekeeper needs to be fired. The dining room table is covered in stuff. The kitchen table is covered in stuff. Clearly, not enough wine is being consumed because the wine rack and its contents are coated in a light layer of dust. There are random Christmas decorations in the living room and dining room, and Christmas gifts on top of the living room bookcase waiting to be put away. Worse, the lady of the house/housekeeper doesn’t seem to care. 

Fortunately, the Canine Overlord has no idea about any of this, so there is no judgment. The solution, of course, is to invite company over, because that is the always the most effective trigger for housecleaning.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 708 (Saturday) – gate cap

It was in the high 50s today. In February. In New England. But the forecast for tomorrow is back to normal and in the 20s again. Mother Nature is keeping it interesting.

The coveted fence post cap.

Most of the afternoon was occupied by a visit to Lowe’s. I expected it to be busy due to the nice weather, but it wasn't bad at all. 

The objective was replacements for the missing gate cap and the fence post cap that was violently removed from the post by the neighbor’s recycle barrel as it was lifted by the machine arms to be emptied into the truck. The post cap was located on line, where it even indicated the aisle and bin number in the store, and took just a few minutes to locate and have in hand. That was a quick and easy $10 solution to one problem.

The elusive 3" x 5" cap.

The cap for the gate was less easy. That’s the piece that blew off in the big wind months ago. Unfortunately, that part doesn’t seem to exist as a single item, and the only solution appears to be buying a $180 gate kit in order to get the one 3” by 5” cap part number EPN-2044 that probably costs 99-cents. The associate at Lowe’s offered the additional helpful suggestion that I could make a fence post cover. Seriously? Out of what, exactly? Like, in my basement vinyl fence parts factory? Crazy.  

From Lowe’s, it was a trip to the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store, because I was already out of the house, so why not, right? It was 50% off blue tags and 99-cent red tag day, so those were the focus. The $15 final haul was a long skirt and some fancy-ish red pants with a black lace overlay, perfect for an as-yet unplanned vacation, a cropped sweater for dance class, and a blue and green plaid shirt that is softer, dressier, and less lumberjack looking than the rest of the plaid collection. And "dressier" here is a relative term. It's  dressy for plaid flannel, as in, more tailored and drapey and possibly suitable for the office.

Once back at home, I wrote to the fine folks at Freedom Products about the Lennox Dog Ear fence gate cap part number EPN-2044. Again. This was already done months ago with no response, but hopefully, the second attempt will bear fruit, or specifically, a gate cap. Or at least a clue how to get a gate cap.

Maybe the newest plaid shirt will help me figure out how to MacGuyver a fence gate cap out of materials at hand. There are three bags full of plastic shopping bags in the closet. Maybe they can be used to fuse a material that will serve as a gate cap. If I can make enough of them, I could sell them to all the other people who likely are missing caps. I couldn’t possibly be the only one. Or more likely, the way things sometimes go, I probably am the only person in the world of vinyl fencing who had a gate cap blow off and disappear. Like I joked at Lowe’s, vinyl is final, until the wind blows or the trash truck comes. Nobody even chuckled. Looks like I need to brush up on my stand-up routine. 

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 707 (Friday) – soup stress

There are Facebook groups for practically every interest. Old stuff. New stuff. Ancestry-dot-com Users. High school classes and reunion groups. There are groups where residents of particular cities and towns argue about the best donuts and complain about their municipal leaders and potholes, and the posts and comments can be either entertaining or exhausting to scroll through.

Soup!

One of the more recent Facebook groups I’ve joined is called “Soup Lovers.” It seemed innocent enough. Many people love soup. It’s one of the most popular comfort foods. And people who don’t like soup wouldn’t likely be in the group. People post photos of soup, ask questions about soup or specific ingredients, there is a section for recipes. What could go wrong? 

It turns out that even a group called “Soup Lovers” is not free from conflict. There are some very strong opinions that cannot be contained. The past week has seen some heated discussions, sanctimonious comments, and condescending lectures. About soup.

The most current batch of trigger words includes “ramen,” “chili,” and “canned.” Mention the use of canned broth or vegetables and expect a dissertation from someone who doesn’t believe in shortcuts, uses only homemade broth, and insists on chopping the freshest vegetables to precise dimensions. The worst sin in a can seems to be any “Cream of” soup, which leads to a 27-ingredient set of directions that takes about a million hours to make fresh cream of something soup. Clearly, this is perfect for any professional chef or homemaker, and people who are pressed for time or ingredients and sink to the convenience of canned cream soup clearly do not deserve any soup.

Posts about chili inspire passionate arguments. One debate is whether chili is or isn’t soup. Lord help the person who mentions adding beans to chili. That inevitably opens the door to lectures from people who claim it’s not true chili if it has beans, and will write at length about the history of chili and how their way is the one and only true, authentic style of chili and everyone else is just wrong.

Ramen soup!

Mention of ramen invites a tsunami of lectures about sodium intake and the deadliness of ramen. The critic will deliver a lecture along the lines of “You shouldn’t eat ramen, it’s not healthy. There is too much sodium. You idiot, have you ever bothered to read the ingredients? Your last bowl might be the last thing you ever eat if you don’t watch it.” This is done without differentiating between dry ramen bricks and fresh noodles from a market. According to some of the commenters, it’s all poison, and all the ramen eaters are just tempting fate and deserve what they get. 

The soup group has been an eye opener. Who knew something as seemingly innocuous as soup could cause so much stress?

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 706 (Thursday) – no callback

Our work phone system is set up to send an email with a sound file when a message is left on the office line. It is easy to click on the sound file in the email and hear the message. Sometimes the message is from a fellow banker or a vendor partner with whom we’re working on a project, but more often than not, and especially at the end of a month or quarter, it’s a salesperson cold calling. 

Twice this week, on days when I was working remotely, calls came in. Had I been at the office, I would have just reached over, grabbed the receiver, and answered the call without checking the caller ID on the display screen. Instead, because I was remote, an email arrived with a voicemail from the office line. 

In both cases, the message begins with a very casual and breezy, “Hey! It’s Nick! I’m following up on the email I sent you earlier this week.” Then there was some mostly unintelligible rambling and something to do with one of the marketing world’s current favorite buzzwords, “content,” and the cheery closing of, “so shoot me a text or an email, or call.”

In neither voice message did Nick provide a phone number or an email address, making it impossible to follow up even if I wanted to, which, to be honest, I don’t. Maybe he assumes there is caller ID on the number he called, or he thinks I'm psychic. Maybe he thinks he’s calling a cell number and not a land line. I don't remember any emails from anyone named Nick, but that doesn't mean it didn't come in and was deleted.

Sweet creamy salty crunchy.

So, dear Nick … Thank you for reaching out for whatever it was, but I won’t be “shooting you a text” from the office landline you called. And I also won’t be calling or emailing, because, well, twice you didn’t leave any info to facilitate that process. Leaving no return call info is almost as bad as the other voice mail crime of speaking at a reasonable pace through the entire message, then reeling off the callback number so fast there isn't a chance of getting it.

In the realm of things were much easier to comprehend, tonight’s supper was a delight. It was caramel swirl ice cream topped with potato chips. Sweet and creamy plus salty and crunchy is a great combination. Decadent. Delicious. And far less annoying than vague and mumbled voice mails with no callback info.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 705 (Wednesday) – on location

Another Wednesday, another photo shoot, and it was good. Even with shooting in four or five different spots in the business, we were in and out of the location in not a lot of time. Kevin, our photographer, sets his portable lighting up in mere minutes, and today he was officially dubbed “the rapid deploy photographer.” Despite the efficiency, it never feels rushed.

Looking up.

While the photographer does his thing, I am usually nearby and looking at things other than the photo subject. They don't need me staring at them during the entire process. At one shoot last week my eye was caught by a big bin of metal shavings, at another, it was bolts in a piece of metal. Today, in a former warehouse space that is now a retail shoe store, I was gazing up at the very high corrugated metal ceiling from which a metal grid was suspended. There are cool things to be seen everywhere.

Back at the office, there were links to photo proof galleries to be sent to a dozen bankers from a head shot session on Monday. There were links from today's shoot forwarded to our designer. 

There are more location photo shoots scheduled for Friday and more head shots happening next week. For the past month, it’s felt more like I work in the photography industry than banking and it’s been a nice, although hectic, change of pace.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 704 (Tuesday) – a lady

There are times I’m glad I live alone. Many times. It can get lonely, but there is still a lot to be said for having no human housemates. I certainly don’t miss the way a former housemate would open all the kitchen cabinet doors while looking for something, leave them all open, and leave the house. The first time it happened, I arrived home and thought someone had broken in and we’d been ransacked. I love that I can eat what, when, and how I want, free of criticism that potato chips aren't a proper supper or whining that "we had that yesterday."

Lately, as the manners and decorum Mummu tried so hard to teach me continue to decline due to all the extra solitude of the past two years, the times of gratitude for solo living are more frequent. She was famous for delivering life lessons that began with, “A lady always …” or “A lady never …” which covered all aspects of life.  

For example, and in case you need to know what it was like being an impressionable kid a million years ago, a lady never chews with her mouth open, never talks with food in her mouth, never sits with her knees open, is never too loud, never makes the first move in a romance, et cetera.

Also, a lady always says “please” and “thank you,” always has clean fingernails, doesn't exhibit too much cleavage, always waits for the male to make the first move, and always serves the husband and the children first before eating her own meal.

Syrup puddle.

This morning had a solo-dining breakfast moment that would likely have made Mummu gasp and possibly faint. It started innocently enough. A puddle of 100% dark maple syrup was poured onto a plate. Two waffles were toasted and buttered and stacked neatly in the syrup puddle. More syrup was poured over the top waffle. 

Luckily, with no husband, children, or housemates, and all the waffles and syrup are mine. After the waffles were consumed using a highly specialized and sophisticated technique that requires using the fork to drive bits of waffle all around the plate for maximum syrup load, there was still a sizeable puddle on the plate. Because I live alone, hate waste, and can occasionally be impossibly immature, I stood over the sink and drank the puddle of warm syrup off the plate. It was like having some sort of maple shooter. 

Then I apologized to Mummu for the very unladylike and appalling behavior as I’m 100% sure that, whatever the circumstances, drinking syrup off a plate would definitely be on the “a lady never” list. In my defense, it was delicious.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 703 (Monday) - trash and control

Frozen to the driveway.

The trash bins didn’t make it to the curb this morning and it wasn’t just because the shoveled path was narrow. I was willing to go rugged and scale the snow bank or take it on one wheel if needed, but there wasn’t the chance for such feats of skill. Both bins were solidly stuck in ice at the end of the driveway and wouldn’t budge. 

The trash bins can probably ride it out until spring without much trouble. There is barely a half bag of trash each week, and rolling it to the curb in a bin is a more of a formality. The recycling can hold out for about six weeks before that bin is full. 

The walk from the garage wasn’t bad this morning, but at 5:00, the walk back required focus. Twice, I slid on the slick bricks. It could have been worse, but I know from experience which sections of the sidewalk near the bank are some sort of stone that is slippery when wet.

The office was quiet, and the day was as productive as it could be, which isn’t really saying a lot. Most of my projects are held up waiting for critical information, design work, or some level of approval before they can move on to the next step. If history is any indication, the info for all of them will arrive at the same time and I’ll be tap dancing trying to juggle it all at once. Until then, there is a to-do list filled with items noted with “F/U” which is technically for “follow up,” but might also be something else depending upon how long it’s been lingering on the list with no response to emails. I'm not saying I have control issues, but life and work feel a lot easier when I have it. 

Chicken, rice, and stuff.

Supper, as so often happens, was the most satisfying part of the day. Some of the roasted chicken and rice from Sunday was tossed in a skillet with sauteed green pepper, onion, mushroom, garlic, half a jar of salsa, a glob of queso, some corn chips, and in just a few minutes, dinner was served. 

Buying that whole roasted chicken and then deliberately cooking too much rice on Sunday paid off on Monday, and Tuesday’s food should also be a breeze. Definitely easier than dealing with the bins frozen to the ground. It's all about focusing on what I can control.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 702 (Sunday) - thrills and zills

The snow and ice storm was on Friday, and the frozen mess was finally fully cleared from the car today. It required three thrilling excavation sessions. After Saturday’s unsuccessful efforts, there was 15 minutes of scraping and bashing snow on the roof this morning. The driver’s door was opened and I perched on the narrow ledge, clinging to the handle inside over the door opening with my left hand and hammering the ice on the roof with the scraper held in my right hand. This acrobatic feat was repeated from the back door, which was even trickier, due to the limited space. There seemed to be a legitimate risk of my foot slipping and me smashing my chin on the roof. Luckily, this did not happen.

After all the effort across two days, the only parts of the roof that were cleared of potential flying ice slabs were the painted parts above the windshield and over the rear cargo access. The two removable panels that make up most of the roof were not giving up the two-inch-thick concrete ice. The back roads route to dance class, with stretches at 25 miles per hour, felt like a very a good thing this morning.

Not so great zills.

Class was great and thank goodness that muscle memory is a real thing. Even still, it’s going to take some work to shake off the rust from both the dancing and the finger zills. Even when the zill skills are rust-free, I don’t especially love the sound of any of the four pairs that live in my dance bag. The pair I like the sound of best is large and heavy, and they flop around on my fingers. 

Unfortunately, it’s not like we belly dancers can just pop over to the local Zills are Us store and test out various finger cymbals materials, weights, and sizes. And there are lots. The Saroyen Cymbals website lists roughly 50 different pairs of zills, with sound samples. It’s overwhelming, and as a result, shopping has been started and stopped at least a half dozen times over the course of several years.

After class, it was a quick change from yoga pants and dance top into jeans and a sweater for the rest of the day. The car had been parked in the sun for an hour and a half, which made the next attempt at clearing the roof finally successful. It did, of course, require a repeat of the gymnastics feats and ice bashing, and the arms are feeling the effects of the dancing and the ice hammering.

Chicken, rice, and stuff.

There were trips to Big Lots and Market Basket, followed by quality time in the kitchen with a roasted chicken, rice, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, cream of mushroom soup, and grated cheddar. There was enough for supper, plus one portion packaged for a lunch this week, and a dish in the freezer for the future, which now seems like should have been split into three separate containers. Live and learn. It will be a long week of the mixture when it emerges from the freezer. Maybe by then I’ll have arranged for some new zills.