I learned that I can fart loud enough during a Teams meeting that my laptop needed to remind me that my microphone was muted. Fortunately.
I learned that I can, in fact, prepare breakfast on weekend mornings. Apparently Cracker Barrel and Bob Evans had convinced me otherwise…
I’ve learned that I am much more of an extrovert than I though, or at least, a person-who-likes-to-be-around-people. I have dreams about being in cities and in crowds, and it is weirdly comforting. I had a dream about a freaking work potluck. Half the people, including me, didn’t bring anything because we thought it was supposed to be a virtual potluck, and somebody brought a weird turkey-and-cucumber soup, only the soup part got consumed very quickly, so we all sat around the faculty lounge eating wet turkey and cucumbers off of paper plates and making awkward jokes about social distancing, and it felt like the best party EVER.
Oh, my hoarding gene has been activated. Hard. I’ll probably start a thread about it.
I want to see cans, jars, bottles, and canisters all marching neatly on shelves. Expiration dates will be written on each item, with a great big Magic Marker.
I fantasize about a spreadsheet, showing every item, and where it is located.
I told my kids a long time ago, if ever a disaster struck, I’d expect both of them to load their families up in the car (don’t forget your pillows, Grandma doesn’t have enough pillows) and head to AZ. Beckdawrek has got her kids all trained to do that, and I salute her!
I’ve watched nearly every episode of the Hoarder shows, on both A&E and DLIF (Discovery Health). I focus on the back story, on the circumstances which triggered the hoarding behavior. Each individual has a reason, but ultimately, they all boil down to a need the person has to feel SAFE.
And that is essentially what will drive me to my hoard.
~VOW
I always figured I could organize my life if only I had enough time.
I have learned that having enough time wasn’t the problem.
Yes, I stole this joke.
I’m regarded by some as being aloof, or even stuck-up*. Thanks to social distancing, we all are. Gotta love “mainstreaming”.
- I’m not, but to super-perky type-A types that never seem to STFU, I am. Whaddya’ gonna do?
As suspected, my wife is going stir-crazy and I don’t even notice that we’ve self-isolated. She is a totally different person…puttering around aimlessly all the time, talking about weird things she never used to talk about, forbidding anyone at all (other than me) to come into the house or approach her, rinsing all our groceries and packages with alcohol wipes, etc.
I’m not saying that some of these steps aren’t appropriate for a quarantine period, but she’s become sort of a “true believer” in the extent to which she’ll go. (And please, please, please, stop going on about our kids and grandchildren.)
She has also watched every minute of every press conference held by Gov. Cuomo. We live in NC.
NM 502 error
Oh, ~VOW, I learned from this experience that an empty nest wasn’t too bad, afterall. Go figure!
I’ve learned how far I can push the other adults before they explode.
I’ve learned that Hamza, the poor penniless boyfriend isn’t after the lil’wrekker for her wealth (my bank acct.), cause she has none.
He must love her bunches cause she treats him like a bug some days, and we tease him mercilessly. He’s learning to shoot some snark back.
I’ve learned that a certain 3yo can screech so loud that leaves fall off trees.
I’ve learned (remembered) little boys are never finished eating.
I’ve learned the DIL never runs outta casserole recipes. I was gonna sneak down to her house and steal her recipe cards and burn them. Mid-daughter said she’d just make them up and it would be worse.
I learned Mr.Wrekker is a good Pop-pop. As his kids always were, the grandwreks are crazy about him.
I learned it don’t matter how big, adoring and sparkly Chihuahuas eyes are they still look like aliens. You can’t give them a belly rub, there’s not enough surface area before you touch a part you don’t want to touch :eek:
Weird animals.
Pillows are problem here as well. My sofa pillows have migrated upstairs.
I learned I like Everything Bagels. The first week of panic buying, when I went to the grocery store, the bread aisle was down to literally just Everything Bagels and English muffins, so I bought what I could. Then, hell, it turns out I like the bagels more than the ones I usually buy, so now I’m buying them on purpose.
But they’re not so great with peanut butter, so there’s that.
Apparently, I’m incapable of learning.
Apparently that psychic I saw was wrong and I won’t die if I don’t eat at arbys twice a week.
I learned that I could get a lot more done if I didn’t watch so much tennis on TV. I had no idea how much time I spent watching tennis on TV.
Also, that thing going around about how someone thought she’d clean her house more thoroughly if she had more time and during the quarantine learned that lack of time was not the reason? Bingo.
I learned that I’m a big dumb idiot. All this time I thought I knew what Scotch was and why I liked it better than other whiskys (and certainly better than whiskeys). It’s the peat! Which is, I dunno, like moss? And they burn it to dry the barley and that gives it that smoky, earthy richness that other fuels used in other countries don’t impart. Right?
Welp. I’ve wanted to go to Scotland and tour some distilleries, but with travel on hold indefinitely I decided to order a bunch of different Scotches and have a little taste-test at home. I made sure to get a nice variety from different regions. I had a bottle of the Glenlivet 12-year already (Speyside), and I bought a bottle of the Macallan 12-year (another Speyside, twice the price of the Glenlivet but what I’ve long considered my favorite), a bottle of Highland Park 12-year (from Orkney, officially part of the Highlands but unofficially designated as one of the islands), Glenmorangie 10-year (north Highlands), and Laphroaig (Islay). I’d had them all before, but never side-by-side.
I drank while Googling. And I learned that, actually, since the 1960s, most Scotches have been made without peat, including some of my favorites. It’s surprisingly hard to get a straight answer on this, but it appears that, out of my current collection, only the Highland Park and Laphroaig are peated! I cannot for the life of me find a source on the fuel the other distilleries use, although it appears most of them don’t dry their own barley. (Highland Park does and they’re very proud of it.)
Oh, and peat isn’t the pond scum I was picturing; it’s basically dirt. A specific type of dirt–vegetable matter decayed over thousands of years compressed into sod that can be cut into bricks and burned like coal. But yeah. I’m an id10t. I wondered, do I even legitimately prefer Scotch, or have I just convinced myself I do?
I decided to pick up a bottle of Irish whiskey to see how it stacked up. I’ve had several over the years, though again, never side-by-side for a proper comparison. I got Jameson because it was what they had at the store, knowing that might not be a fair fight against all these whiskys that have had a decade or more to mellow (I believe Jameson is only aged 4 years.) I sipped the Jameson in turn with my unpeated Scotches and tasted… something different. It was sharper, of course, as one might expect a cheaper liquor to be, but beyond that there was a…sweetness? Back to the internet. Irish whiskey is triple-distilled while Scotch is generally only distilled twice, but that probably wasn’t it. Jameson and other Irish whiskeys traditionally dried their barley over coal but now use natural gas, which is probably what those cagey mainland Scotch distilleries use. Here’s something, though: Jameson (and probably other Irish distilleries) uses a mix of malted and green barley, as well as some other unspecified grains that might be corn, wheat, and/or rye. Scotch uses only malted barley. The hint of sweetness in Jameson is rather reminiscent of Bourbon, which of course is also made from corn.
So it turns out my love of peat is perhaps really a love of pure malted barley. Though I do enjoy the two peaty bottles I have, I also like the unpeated Scotches, with all their subtle flavors. Ignorance (and sobriety) fought!
That four year old Halloween candy tastes pretty good, (Easter, too!) and that I and the family will eat it in a pinch. I found a bag of it in a closet, and when I announced what it was, everybody begin gathering around for a little sugar joy. Laffy Taffy lends itself to aging. Tootsie rolls, bubble gum, and milk duds…well, they are not at their best…and anything with chocolate becomes spotted with white stuff, and it is a bit off putting, though it was eaten, anyway. And stuff containing nuts taste like styro foam of the cheapest kind. Marshmallow Peeps are scary to your teeth, bc if you leave package open, they have hardened, becoming like Concrete Peeps. You can put them in your tea to sweeten it. But much of it was fine.
I have avoided buying candy, mostly bc, at the store, so much of it has been picked over by others and so,my favorite kinds are not there. The old candy felt like a bonanza, as if we were truly in a movie about an apocalypse, and some great key to survival had been discovered.
I learned why Mr.Wrekker hunts and fishes so much. It’s because he hasn’t anything better to do, most days.
I think he needs a hobby. Wonder if I can convince him to learn how to make friendship bracelets.
I found a gallon Ziploc bag of embroidery thread. We’re all weaving bracelets around here.
I’ve learned I can still beat my kids at Scrabble. We’ve had 2 tourneys. I’ve won both. Rank amateurs around here. (Tho’ DIL has run a close 2nd.)
And neglected in my earlier post: My Siamese cats are jerks. I kinda knew it. But other people complaining about them has really made me think I shoulda taught them social skills.
I still lurves my baby kitties, anyway. It’s not their fault they’re hateful.
Drinking is so much more fun than reading about it.
I’ve learned that, apparently, I’ve been in training for this pandemic for years now. My routine has barely needed to change at all aside from more handwashing, sewing a few masks to wear when I go out and using disinfectant wipes when I come back home to clean the bugs off as I get back into the house.
I have learned, though, that of all the social things I normally do without I do miss passing a joint or pipe around the circle and I definitely miss hello and goodbye hugs.
I have learned that my daughter’s partner and I work really well together and can get some astonishing amounts of building and heavy work done between the two of us, all with minimal fuss, negotiation and stress. This is freaking awesome because we both aspire to become gentleperson farmers in due course and as I’m not getting any younger it’s nice to have a strong young man around to take care of the really heavy duty stuff. A tractor would also be nice but can’t have everything in suburbia, right? 
Um, Beck, about the Siamese…they’re CATS. That behavior is called CATITUDE.
~VOW
I really don’t like working from home. I want to have the distance of commuting to the office (15 minutes), and there I focus on work. When I’m done with work, I come home. If I have to do something at home, it’s focused like a concall for a specific reason, or to finish one thing, and it is NOT to just do everything that comes up during the day.
I was completely miserable the first 5 or 6 weekends at home. I have work stuff that MUST BE DONE. If I go to the office, then I can focus for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 hours and finish that shit on a saturday. And it’s done, and I can relax for 36 hours or so. If I try to do it at home, it ruins the whole weekend as I procrastinate or get side tracked and whatever priority doesn’t actually get finished.
Now I just go into the completely empty office on a Saturday, and get my shit done. I’ll keep doing that until an email drone tells me otherwise.
I’ve been watching an inordinate amount of whiskey reviews and trying different rye, bourbon and single malts. And I’m prolly drinking more distilled booze than is healthy.
Thought I could brew beer during the work from home day. It’s been much more difficult than I imagined. Need to block out time in the schedule (owned by others) that aligns to beer brewing. Not impossible but more difficult than I imagined and becomes more like work than a hobby. I typically work at least a 60 hour week, but my time is my time, and covid is fucking with that plan. I don’t like it.