How is your lockdown?

[caesar novus]

We are back under lockdown, mainly due to one obscure tiny subculture here that doesn't follow precautions and creates almost 40% of new cases. When they were cited for violations, the ACLU sued for disproportionate enforcement. Not needed, because the citations absurdly allow a jury trial, so will be dropped as a practical matter. When state health dept tries to give pre-emptive assistance, the too comfortable bureaucracy can only organize 5 ready contact tracers for the whole state.

Anyway, what about hunting and gathering under this regime? I just tried one grocery run after senior hours, and it was still a zoo with emptying shelves. I think seniors here are not online or aware of the very civilized senior hour experience with no crowds and mostly full shelves. The non-Costco warehouse club I use would probably discontinue it, but once an entitlement is granted it becomes awkward to withdraw. BTW their premier membership has been a godsend, with free air shipping of everything from heavy home gyms to crates of industrial toilet paper. Industrial TP has almost always been in stock, since few office workers to use it.

What I want to stockpile for every main meal of the day is my invention of pesto jalapeno toasted sandwich made with naan bread. It is so decadently satisfying with the fiery peppers modulated by a coating of luxurious pesto, wrapped in crispy thick naan. You need a long slot toaster for the naan, such as from Amazon; at dark setting it will puff up even frozen naan. My warehouse store sells jumbo packs of these, affordable pesto, and sliced pickled jalapeno. If you make your own pesto, substitute another nut for the ridiculously pricey pine nuts. Coat one side of toasted naan thinly with pesto, carpet one half with jalapeno, and fold over. You can support the whole thing with a fork thru the rounded ends at an angle which pins it together and supports it horizontally, like a pizza slice on a stick.

That dish is easily eaten in front of a TV, as long as excess oily pesto isn't squeezing out. Nice to accompany it with some of the better sitcom reruns like The Office and 2.5 Men. Due to construction noise I have been displaying captions, and found stealth jokes there that I missed earlier. There is a new comedy called "Corporate" that tries to carry on office satire, but it  is very hit and miss.  I suppose humble pursuits like this could be my life story for a while.

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by caesar novus

[guy]

Honestly, for me, this has been the least productive five months of my life.

I was supposed to be in Italy this fall, visiting  relatives and "working" on the farm. Obviously, it's not gonna happen.

Oh, well, I must be grateful that I'm still alive to witness this insanity unfold.

I hope everyone is maintaining their health and spirits during these challenging times.

 

guy also known as gaius

[caesar novus]

Ideas for activities:

1) Get some teflon for your resp. system in the form of pneumococcal shots. Covid supposedly kills mainly thru pneumonia as does a lot of other conditions, so it is my uninformed reasoning to splurge on the very expensive pair of shots prevnar13 and ppsv23. Insurance only covers it once for oldsters. I got the first which targets the 13 most common pneus, and it seemed to transform my resp system from frail to semi bullet proof. I am too familiar with pneu choking breathing capacity to thimble size, but cannot find anyone willing to poke me with the 23 followup.

2) Local library expanded digital offerings. They hate physical books, and won't even check mine back in until after 2 week sitting in a return bin. But newly offer for instance Kanopy streaming videos which offer Great Courses in rotation. I want to see their lecture series of life of the Roman commoners, if it isn't too much of a Marxist victimology fest. Also they offer ancestory.com for a while. I had 650 years of family tree done by a relative, and am plowing thru a digital confirmation effort. More than just a chain of parentage, you can view various records with revealing sidelights.

3) Try to not let a day go by without knocking out some unpleasant chore normally put off.

Edited August 13, 2020 by caesar novus

[caesar novus]

We are reverting back to lockdown with dire penalties for not wearing masks. I made a rare stroll outside for a swim and increasingly gasped for air in the overheated effort. At the shore there were 3 police overlooking pretty much only me and I nearly fell down and passed out before daring to unmask. Same routine on return.

Reminds me of another case of gov't zeal for safety. Large parts of the Fukushima mandatory evacuation was not justifiable based on radiation science, and some large number of elderly died from the disruption. Wiki: "Many deaths are attributed to the evacuation and subsequent long-term displacement caused by mass evacuation that was not neccesary for the most part", "The victims include hospital inpatients and elderly people at nursing facilities who died from causes such as hypothermia, deterioration of underlying medical problems, and dehydration.".

Back to a closer example was yesterday's Autopsy tv show with a cautionary tale of Marlon Brando dying from self sequestering himself in a house with hidden black mold. LA media watched outside that same house where his son had killed his daughter's boyfriend. That daughter later killed herself in Tahiti, where the police wanted to grill Marlon if he ever returned to his getaway house (island) there. So superstar Marlon died in agony from a known lung-attacking mold condition at home, maybe due to not getting out for enough swims?

[caesar novus]

On 8/9/2020 at 5:51 PM, caesar novus said:

some of the better sitcom reruns like The Office and 2.5 Men. Due to construction noise I have been displaying captions, and found stealth jokes there that I missed earlier. There is a new comedy called "Corporate" that tries to carry on office satire, but it  is very hit and miss.  I suppose humble pursuits like this could be my life story for a while.

 I think "Corporate" just had their season finale, but about half of their shows really hit the mark with rare insights of looney aspects of being a white collar drone, so seek reruns. This is on Comedy Central channel which just now did the most shameful censoring of their "The Office" reruns. They had been butchering it a bit to allow longer commercials, but now brought cancel culture to bear in bleeping out words like "gay". In the closed captions it shows up as asterisks half the time, along with some other mildly non PC words. I noticed the Paramount Network will resume putting out a couple "The Office" reruns out per week - I hope uncut.

We are back in hardcore shutdown with outrageous crimes in my neighborhood due to released prisoners, and mismanaged situations and catch 22s everywhere you look for law abiders, but it is just too tedious to recount. Been watching some Mary Beard about Romans on Youtube. She can be a loose cannon, so best to look for the more focused BBC produced ones.

Edited August 30, 2020 by caesar novus

[caesar novus]

On 8/11/2020 at 11:08 AM, caesar novus said:

Also they offer ancestory.com for a while. I had 650 years of family tree done by a relative, and am plowing thru a digital confirmation effort. More than just a chain of parentage, you can view various records with revealing sidelights.

Oh, I spelled it wrong; just drop my O and see if your library offers access. I saw a notice Ancestry is shutting down free US access nationwide by new years, so you may just have time to line up local library access and ram a few family names thru the system. I used free win app "my family tree"" to put results in standard .ged format for storage and display.

I found a hundred in my direct parenting line (not counting siblings/cousins) over 671 years. The tool is hit and miss in finding info even when it is there - just keep at it from different angles. Rely on maiden names at least for first attempts. Wow, I see lifespans often around 90 even hundreds of years ago, and late starting families around 40 yrs back then. The shorter lifespan theory must be warped by child mortality (and birthing mothers).

Edited December 23, 2021 by caesar novus