Day 21 of our captivity: Dreaming of skiing

It is wet here today, and cold.  If everything weren’t all clouded in, we would be able to see the snow that fell on Hamilton last night.  That reminded me that I never posted any pictures from our abbreviated ski season this year.  Enjoy!

Near Downieville in Feb, there wasn’t really enough snow to ski on, so we strapped on crampons and went hiking.  I’m trying not to think about all of the March and April snow that has come in since we have been unable to travel.

Happy Peoples at Sugarbowl in February.

Day 20 of our captivity: Walk in between rain showers

The kid and I got outside for a walk and managed to dodge rain showers this afternoon.  We liked this budding purple flower, which is maybe some sort of mutant agapanthus???

Day 19 of our captivity: Paella Party

We’ve been trying to support local businesses as we can, given that they are hard hit by the current shelter order.  Tonight, I ordered takeout from Cascal, a tapas place over in downtown Mountain View.  I was amused to see that the first item on their menu was a “Paella Party”, which sounded so cheerful that I naturally had to order it.  We all enjoyed it thoroughly.

Day 18 of our captivity: Not an April Fool

We found out yesterday that school is officially online-only through the end of the school year.  Despite the date the notice was sent, it is not an April Fool’s joke.  Feh.  Kid is somewhat bummed about the end of senior year (was sort of hoping to get back for the last couple of weeks and graduation),  though is also enjoying being able to sleep in before logging in to class.

In other news, I took a 9-mile walk this morning; it is sunny and gorgeous, and the air is clear :)

Day 17 of our captivity: Grapefruits

This morning, I embarked upon a two-pronged “essential activity”, riding my bike (exercise) to get grapefruits (food) off of my friend’s front yard tree.  45 lb of grapefruit in the bike trailer, to be precise.  We will eat some of it as-is, but most will be made into lacto-fermented soda.  Yum!

(Gotta prevent scurvy whilst we shelter in place until at least until May 3, which will put us at somewhere near 50 total days.)

Day 16 of our captivity: resuscitating the vacuum cleaner

Today’s main accomplishment was replacing the vacuum cleaner’s dead rechargeable battery, since the new one finally showed up.  While I was at it, I found and installed the replacement brush bar.  I’ve had that part for a while, and you can see that its installation was long overdue.  The end of the old one was sort of mangled and melted.  Was the vacuum gummed up with my hair, or the cat fur?  I’m not saying...

Day 15 of our captivity: A new board game

I gave the kiddo the game Wingspan for Christmas, and up until now it had only been shared with friends at school.  Today we broke it out at home, thanks to the fact that Kean had had the foresight to bring it home from school on the last day before the closure.  It provided a fine way to pass part of the afternoon.

Day 14 of our captivity: Simple soup

Leftover night here tonight.  What to do, what to do?  Throw all the leftover vegetables and potatoes into the blender with some sautéed onion and chicken stock.  Top with fried bits of leftover bratwurst and a piece of focaccia.  Oddly satisfying.

Day 13 of our captivity: A visitor

A few weeks ago when rates dipped oddly low, we jumped on the opportunity to refinance our home loan.  As part of this process, an appraisal of the house was needed.  Pretty hard to do when everything was shut down a couple of days later...  Eventually, the ancillary businesses like appraisers, title companies, and notaries got clarification that they were "essential" and could still operate, but it was still pretty hard for the loan guy to find an appraiser willing to work in our area.  In the end he did, so we had the excitement today of greeting the appraiser, who was masked and gloved against what I've been calling the "plague world", and then opening doors so he could come in and take pictures of everything he needed for the appraisal without him having to actually touch anything.    All while maintaining the mandated 6-foot distance.  It took all of five minutes -- but oooh!---we had a visitor.