Well, the coffee cake was all right. The streusel topping needs work (too crumbly) but the cake worked out perfectly. Anyway it’s cake. I don’t want to hear any complaints when there’s cake around!
Last night we watched An Inspector Calls, a 2015 movie based on an English play set in the pre-WWI era. It involves some of my favorite things, including misbehaving British aristocracy and heavy-handed plot anvils that are meant to teach us a lesson about how immoral and self-centered we are. Stars include Sophie Rundle, Miranda Richardson and that guy who plays Lupin whats-his-name in the Harry Potter movies. (Harry Potter superfans, don’t @ me.)
Today I am going to drop my dogs off at daycare and then be very jolly afterward. It’s a good day for them to go anyway, it’s pouring rain and we wouldn’t be able to squeeze in a walk or any good romps in the yard. It’s warm enough that I’m not even going to make them wear shirts. They’ll be delighted!
I know a lot of people have been plagued with odd dreams since being confined, but lately, I’ve fallen into a pattern of getting into bed and then falling into a dead sleep until the alarm goes off. This is fine with me, by the way. I don’t normally have a lot of trouble sleeping (unless there is a puppy ruining it) but I feel like I’m sleeping unusually soundly. Maybe this is a self-preservation method on the part of my own brain, who knows. Or maybe it is because I’m middle-aged and already tired by 8 pm.
It’s been interesting (and sometimes infuriating) to read some of the Hot Takes™ emerging from this crisis. I have seen a number of people land on the side of life as we know it is over, repent! and an equal number come down on the when all this is over and we’re back to normal… side. As with anything the reality will probably be somewhere in the middle.
Of course this is going to change the trajectory of our collective future, certainly many millions of individual futures. It would be nice if there were some positive outcomes: more people able to work from home if they are able to and less commuting to pollute our environment and eat up our time and increase our stress levels. More awareness of each other and the responsibility we must have for one another. More focus on the value of service work and the people who provide it. More dignity for humans, full stop.
I spent some time over the long weekend doing freelance work, all market indicators and forecasts and long-term outlooks, and it was good to be in Future World for a while. It will be May soon enough, and then June and at some point September and October and on and on. It’s honestly hard (for me anyway) to remember this, living in The Great Pause.
“Just keep swimming,” indeed, but every now and again come up for air, look around, see the horizon.