80F - 55F : Sunny : Pollen Count - 3360
I was hoping the pollen was going to go away since pollen season was only 2 weeks last year, and it hit so hard this year, but alas, no. It is still double the "extreme" limit.
I fell asleep just after posting last night and actually stayed there until 11am. I am pleased. When I woke up I read lj and dw, and then started on my reading. Something interrupted my reading, and I don't remember what it was, either Kevin demanding something or Jack demanding something. But anyway, mostly I got through my reading. Then I took the dogs for a walk and we went out to the longer target while I listened to my book. The vet called me to see if I still intended to bring my cats in tomorrow, so now I guess I gotta do that, but hopefully I'll get tired around midnight or before and actually get some sleep tonight. I guess I can sleep after I get home, too.
I got home and worked on my dailies until there was pretty much just getting ready for bed left. Then I went to the "Virtual Revel" that my kingdom was holding instead of Coronation today. It turned out to just be the king, queen, prince, and princess reading and answering questions from the populace on facebook live (well they were on zoom, we were watching on facebook live). Then as they answered questions we answered them also in the comments of the video. Some of them were SCA related but others of them were not and still others were just bizarre (would you rather fight 100 duck sized dukes or 1 duke sized duck?). This wound up with an offer to buy a specific duke a duck onesie to wear to Castle Wars. I hope he actually does it - we do have the annual Onesie party every year at Castle Wars. Anyway, it was an alright way to pass a couple hours, and it's not like I had anything else to do, but a "revel" it was not.
The big news from that is that all events until July 1 are canceled. That means that the first event of the year should be RUM and then Pennsic. Artsy Crown is canceled, which we had been assuming would be the first event of the year and were planning already. So it would have been nice if they had told the autocrat before they told the populace, but whatever. The South Downs officers chat went crazy with people talking about this frantically, but there's nothing we can do to change it. We discussed trying to do some kind of online thing instead, but no one had any ideas.
When that was over it was time for dinner. I went out into the kitchen to gather my ingredients and discovered that corn is one of the things that were not delivered with the last grocery delivery. There were 15 things not delivered, but they never told me what those 15 things were, so we're discovering them as we start to cook, and hopefully they are skippable ingredients in whatever we are making. Corn in corn chowder is not a skippable ingredient, although I guess I could have made potato soup? That would have required finding a recipe and seeing if I had everything I needed since mostly I had potatoes and celery set aside for today's meal. Anyway, we wound up ordering bbq from Que. It was delicious. I was quite pleased with it as my first eat out in like 2 weeks other than the bagel place for breakfast.
After dinner, I found some people in the SCA Discord using voice chat. I joined in and we're talking a little bit with long periods of silence and have been for the past 3 hours. I complained that I'm running out of things I can cook that we haven't had within the past 2 weeks now that I'm cooking every day and Asa suggested trying some period recipes. The ones for peasants are really pretty simple - throw stuff together in a pot an heat, you can even use a slow cooker for most of them if you have some time. So I'm going to research that and maybe see about adding to my repertoire of cooking things that Kevin will eat with an SCA skill. Maybe it will give me something that is actually period to bring for 5th Wednesday meetings when we have a pot luck in the SCA? At any rate, I need to cook something that is not carb, meat, vegetable, sauce tossed together and heated through. We are both getting tired of this, unfortunately. No time like a pandemic to expand your skill set. It's not like I have a lot better to do than research recipes, and focusing on period stuff gives me an SCA skill and adds to my "not a stick jock" repertoire.
At some point Kevin asked me to go outside and start his car and sit in it for a few minutes because it hadn't been started in 3 weeks. Ya'll. It REEKED. It smelled like mildew or something. I know he said his car was leaking from somewhere, but this was bad! I sat out there for like a minute and noticed the check engine light was on and it didn't make as much noise as usual, so I tried backing it up. It backed up. I almost hit our retaining wall because his car is enormous and parked at an angle. Then I parked it again and came inside, and now I have a headache that I'm pretty sure was caused by being in his car. He said he suspects the check engine light is actually on because he needs an oil change not because there's something wrong with the car, so hopefully he's right, and at any rate if he needs an oil change, he can have them look at the check engine light. But we really need to get him a new car. I'm not sure how to afford that, but, ugh. If it's leaking, it's going to be an expensive fix and that car is pretty old anyway. Kevin's mom died in 2008, and he spent his inheritance on that car. I guess it's not as old as I thought. I should know how old the car is - he also bought Rogue with his inheritance, and she was a puppy, so I should know how old she is now since I'm the one who has to take her to the vet, etc.
Around 8:30, I finished off the last of my dailies and got ready for bed. Then I continued my chat with the SCA people, and working on my kumihimo project. I asked Kevin to go through his mother's cookbooks and tell me what he would like for me to cook but he countered that I should go through them and figure out what is actually within my skill set to cook and we'd go from there. I agreed that was probably sensible. While some of the limitation on what we eat is Kevin being a picky eater, a lot of it is my lack of skills. Hopefully with them being his mother's cookbooks, we can find things that satisfy both criteria, but his mother was a really good cook and I'm worried about making almost-as-good or not-quite-as-good and disappointing him.
Most of the 50% chances of rain for next week have gone away, leaving us with short showers two days (at about 30% chance) and 3 sunny days. I'm excited - maybe I can get to a park and do some photography. Surely if I'm allowed to go to a park to exercise, I'm allowed to go to one to shoot some pictures? We are under shelter in place" orders, but I think walking trails at parks are still open as long as you stay 6 feet away from each other? There might even be flowers at this time of year.
I fell asleep just after posting last night and actually stayed there until 11am. I am pleased. When I woke up I read lj and dw, and then started on my reading. Something interrupted my reading, and I don't remember what it was, either Kevin demanding something or Jack demanding something. But anyway, mostly I got through my reading. Then I took the dogs for a walk and we went out to the longer target while I listened to my book. The vet called me to see if I still intended to bring my cats in tomorrow, so now I guess I gotta do that, but hopefully I'll get tired around midnight or before and actually get some sleep tonight. I guess I can sleep after I get home, too.
I got home and worked on my dailies until there was pretty much just getting ready for bed left. Then I went to the "Virtual Revel" that my kingdom was holding instead of Coronation today. It turned out to just be the king, queen, prince, and princess reading and answering questions from the populace on facebook live (well they were on zoom, we were watching on facebook live). Then as they answered questions we answered them also in the comments of the video. Some of them were SCA related but others of them were not and still others were just bizarre (would you rather fight 100 duck sized dukes or 1 duke sized duck?). This wound up with an offer to buy a specific duke a duck onesie to wear to Castle Wars. I hope he actually does it - we do have the annual Onesie party every year at Castle Wars. Anyway, it was an alright way to pass a couple hours, and it's not like I had anything else to do, but a "revel" it was not.
The big news from that is that all events until July 1 are canceled. That means that the first event of the year should be RUM and then Pennsic. Artsy Crown is canceled, which we had been assuming would be the first event of the year and were planning already. So it would have been nice if they had told the autocrat before they told the populace, but whatever. The South Downs officers chat went crazy with people talking about this frantically, but there's nothing we can do to change it. We discussed trying to do some kind of online thing instead, but no one had any ideas.
When that was over it was time for dinner. I went out into the kitchen to gather my ingredients and discovered that corn is one of the things that were not delivered with the last grocery delivery. There were 15 things not delivered, but they never told me what those 15 things were, so we're discovering them as we start to cook, and hopefully they are skippable ingredients in whatever we are making. Corn in corn chowder is not a skippable ingredient, although I guess I could have made potato soup? That would have required finding a recipe and seeing if I had everything I needed since mostly I had potatoes and celery set aside for today's meal. Anyway, we wound up ordering bbq from Que. It was delicious. I was quite pleased with it as my first eat out in like 2 weeks other than the bagel place for breakfast.
After dinner, I found some people in the SCA Discord using voice chat. I joined in and we're talking a little bit with long periods of silence and have been for the past 3 hours. I complained that I'm running out of things I can cook that we haven't had within the past 2 weeks now that I'm cooking every day and Asa suggested trying some period recipes. The ones for peasants are really pretty simple - throw stuff together in a pot an heat, you can even use a slow cooker for most of them if you have some time. So I'm going to research that and maybe see about adding to my repertoire of cooking things that Kevin will eat with an SCA skill. Maybe it will give me something that is actually period to bring for 5th Wednesday meetings when we have a pot luck in the SCA? At any rate, I need to cook something that is not carb, meat, vegetable, sauce tossed together and heated through. We are both getting tired of this, unfortunately. No time like a pandemic to expand your skill set. It's not like I have a lot better to do than research recipes, and focusing on period stuff gives me an SCA skill and adds to my "not a stick jock" repertoire.
At some point Kevin asked me to go outside and start his car and sit in it for a few minutes because it hadn't been started in 3 weeks. Ya'll. It REEKED. It smelled like mildew or something. I know he said his car was leaking from somewhere, but this was bad! I sat out there for like a minute and noticed the check engine light was on and it didn't make as much noise as usual, so I tried backing it up. It backed up. I almost hit our retaining wall because his car is enormous and parked at an angle. Then I parked it again and came inside, and now I have a headache that I'm pretty sure was caused by being in his car. He said he suspects the check engine light is actually on because he needs an oil change not because there's something wrong with the car, so hopefully he's right, and at any rate if he needs an oil change, he can have them look at the check engine light. But we really need to get him a new car. I'm not sure how to afford that, but, ugh. If it's leaking, it's going to be an expensive fix and that car is pretty old anyway. Kevin's mom died in 2008, and he spent his inheritance on that car. I guess it's not as old as I thought. I should know how old the car is - he also bought Rogue with his inheritance, and she was a puppy, so I should know how old she is now since I'm the one who has to take her to the vet, etc.
Around 8:30, I finished off the last of my dailies and got ready for bed. Then I continued my chat with the SCA people, and working on my kumihimo project. I asked Kevin to go through his mother's cookbooks and tell me what he would like for me to cook but he countered that I should go through them and figure out what is actually within my skill set to cook and we'd go from there. I agreed that was probably sensible. While some of the limitation on what we eat is Kevin being a picky eater, a lot of it is my lack of skills. Hopefully with them being his mother's cookbooks, we can find things that satisfy both criteria, but his mother was a really good cook and I'm worried about making almost-as-good or not-quite-as-good and disappointing him.
Most of the 50% chances of rain for next week have gone away, leaving us with short showers two days (at about 30% chance) and 3 sunny days. I'm excited - maybe I can get to a park and do some photography. Surely if I'm allowed to go to a park to exercise, I'm allowed to go to one to shoot some pictures? We are under shelter in place" orders, but I think walking trails at parks are still open as long as you stay 6 feet away from each other? There might even be flowers at this time of year.
