Also Day 56 of our captivity: Truly enormous cookies

Kiddo made some really big lemon cookies.  Yum!

I will now believe that the moon is a large lemon cookie.

Day 56 of our Captivity: Happy Mother’s Day

We are all appreciated.

Day 54 of our captivity: Cheapskate

It’s becoming a personal challenge to see how many times I can reuse the current cheap-o “single use” cedar grilling plank.  The side you see is the more intact side.

In case you are wondering, the bay-caper-infused planked salmon was accompanied by wild fennel potato salad, prosciutto-wrapped apricots, sautéed broccoli, and artisanal olive bread.  Tomorrow is lazy dinner night.

Day 53 of our captivity: Dodging lizards

Chad and I went on a road ride over lunch today.  It was 87 out.  Instead of dodging bunnies like yesterday, we got to dodge lizards, who seem to have all come out to bask on the pavement  in the summer-like heat.

Day 52 of our captivity: Dodging bunnies

Chad had an all-day telecon today, starting at 8:30 am....East Coast time.  That’s a very painful 5:30 am here.  Ouch.  Technically, I didn’t have to get up, but the reality is that if my sleep is disturbed at that point of the morning, I am just awake.  After rolling around for a bit, I gave up and got up.

That gave me the opportunity to go mountain biking, though, figuring that the parks might not be crowded.  Riding from home, I left the house at sunrise and hit the trails at Fremont Older at 6:45 am.  

It was surprisingly busy at the entrance for that hour.  I clearly was not the only one with the “go early to avoid people” strategy.  Fortunately, once past the initial entrance trail, things were pretty empty, and I got to dodge bunnies in the early morning sunshine (bunnies hide once people start showing up, but the first few people down a given trail in the morning see many, many bunnies darting across the trail, seemingly trying to get runned over).  So I wasn’t too late, though a half hour earlier would have been even better.  I went out an obscure back gate to avoid congestion at the end of the ride, and made it home by 8:30 for breakfast.

Day 50 of our captivity: New mugs

Our big new mugs for morning coffee arrived a few days ago.  Things Could Be Worse.

Day 49 of our captivity: Very small bug

I saw Chad messing around with his lUSB microscope this afternoon and cast about the kitchen for something interesting to look at, settling on a potato that had gone green that we are waiting to sprout enough to plant.  We did get a good look at the burgeoning microsprout, which looks oddly like a molar at this point, and also discovered a very tiny dead bug that one would never have known was there.

For reference, here is the same potato in my hand.  One clearly eats these little tiny bugs *all the time* without knowing it.

Day 48 of our captivity: Anniversary

Everyone is hereby instructed to raise a toast for my parents, who as of today have been married for 50 years.  Wow!  Congratulations are in order :)

Day 47: Self-driving robot

The kid and I were amused to see a cute little food delivery robot trundling around downtown Mountain View when we were out on a bike ride this morning. While it was a pretty jolly sidewalk denizen, the label made me wish I thought it was helping people who are *actually* hungry.  In contrast, we passed a school district food handout earlier in the ride; volunteers there are set up to give food to students who normally qualify for free lunches, but during the pandemic are actually giving out food to anyone who needs it and asks.