So we continue to plow onward, as our circle gets ever tighter.  Suggestions for New Yorkers, particularly traveling elsewhere, get more and more prescriptive – self-quarantine for two weeks, for example.  Rhode Island apparently is stopping NY plates at the border – first to turn them around, but now I think just to warn them.  Our governor is pissed.

I just went out for my daily errand run and they’re now having people stand outside the grocery in line to keep the numbers inside low – someone comes out, an outside line person gets to go in.  Not a big deal, didn’t take that long, but the weather was nasty and I wasn’t dressed for it and this should have been a quick in-and-out trip to pick up limes and cilantro (Thai Beef Salad tonight, I think. I’m not the cook.)  I should have picked up some cookies or something, too – my pantry staple cookie substitute, graham crackers, somehow got all et up yesterday.

Speaking of which, my buddy Chris, who used to be my Weight Watchers facilitator (and a great one, until she left that job), hosted a Zoom meeting for her FB group, “Chris’s Healthy Friends”, to kind of have an informal meeting of how we are doing and how are we managing not to eat entire boxes of graham crackers and so on.  That was fun, and I think she’s going to keep doing that every week if she can.

I earned some Smugpoints™ elsewhen in the week, too, particularly on Thursday, when I applied for a bunch of jobs and then signed up and got started on that certification program.  Long powerwalk too (although I picked up what would have otherwise been a perfectly sensible lunch and had them add a piece of pie).  Look, as I said during Chris’s meeting, somehow focusing on your eating habits just doesn’t seem like the biggest issue right now, even though the healthier you act and feel, the more you can help with the big problems.   And I get that.

I also started some of that online volunteering.  A bit of proofing for Project Gutenberg, mostly.  Trying to get set up to create audios of books, etc. for Librivox, but that turns out to be more complicated than I thought.  The Smithsonian stuff is hard (mostly transcribing handwriting) so I’ll do that only when I’m feeling ultra-powerful.  Still eager to see what New York Cares comes up with for us over-50 folks, but not holding my breath.

And I continue to knit, as always.  My output (I knit for Hugs USA) was way down last year, because I used to get a lot done on teleconferences and I never had any, but now I’m home and can do a lot during the news and during online training videos and zoom chats.  I’ve knocked off a scarf and a pair of mittens, have another of both going and will probably start a hat after the mittens are done.  All patterns I know and love, this isn’t for mind-stretching or learning.  The knitting I’m doing for that is various patterns of coffee mug cozies – that’s fun too.

Media consumption: we finished Handmaid’s Tale and are all caught up on Will & Grace.  Currently doing a documentary miniseries, The Family on Netflix and will probably then roll into (finally!) The Feud: Bette and Joan.  Also have started the new One Day at a Time, which looks great.  We watched the movie Just Mercy last night, which was very good.

Continuing with the Last Herald Mage books.  It’s been a long time – I didn’t remember a thing about the 2nd book, and liked it an awful lot.  Also reading a (straight) skating romance by my friend Stephanie Gillett called On Edge.  Oh, and if you like gay historic romance, I just found KJ Charles.   (She’s a lady.  All of those gay romance authors are.  It’s so weird.)  I read Wanted: a Gentleman and Unfit to Print and they are both witty and entertaining and sweet.  Her Magpie Lord is free right now on Kindle, I got that for next.

This post is part of a larger project, #MOC19. Read more about the Mass Observation COVID-19 project here.