My big announcement for this, day 14 of quarantine, is that I've stopped reading Twitter. I will of course tweet the link to this newsletter when I publish it, but as of right now I haven't looked at Twitter in about 12 hours. Perhaps related: the tight uncomfortable feeling in my chest that was scaring the bejesus out of me is pretty much gone. Maybe there's a correlation? Wow I'm smart!!
My big little dog has been itching two very specific places on his body for about a week now, and despite bathing him with prescription shampoo and giving him tiny-boy doses of Benadryl and applying hotspot spray with a paper towel because the spray bottle scares him (...why are dogs), he remained itchy.
In the last week or so, our vet started offering telemedicine for minor issues and I decided to give it a spin yesterday. It ended up being really easy, though I am not sure how much my dog enjoyed having his bits and pieces displayed to a man on a webcam. Some people do this for a living, dog!
The vet gave us a prescription, so I paid over the phone and was instructed to drive to the office, park, and call to let them know I was outside. A vet tech in a gown, mask, glove, and cap emerged and handed me a bag with the pills and the instructions. It is a weird world we live in now but I am also amazed at how quickly these adjustments have been made.
Before I went off Twitter (I mean, we'll see how long this lasts) I noticed that the Great Bread Backlash had begun. The answer to "why are so many of you making bread" seems fairly straightforward to me: first of all, I do it anyway. Second of all, buying yeast and flour makes more sense in these strange times than buying a bunch of bread that will go stale, get moldy, or take up too much room in my freezer. Third of all, IT'S FUCKING BREAD do you need a reason???
But I think the real reason a lot of people have turned to breadmaking – if I may focus on myself and extrapolate it to a larger trend, JSYK I'm available for freelance if you are The New York Times or something – is simply being plagued by a bizarre and mostly useless sense of urgency. I'm not an "essential worker" as defined by our current level of dystopia and staying home is more or less my duty to my fellow humans at this point. I might as well make bread.
If you would also like to make bread now or when things are better, this one is pretty easy.