Back into It in Trichotomy

Visits

It’s been 2 months since we have been fully vaccinated, and we have been taking advantage of our regained freedom.

The first in-person social visit was upstate to my in-laws. We stayed with them for a week, which coincided with my father-in-law’s birthday. It was nice to see them, though I wonder towards the end whether we were overstaying our welcome. We went to a zoo one morning and a park one afternoon, but I think that was the extent of our outdoors activity. We mostly hung out. It was a pretty laid-back visit. The zoo was Animal Adventure Park, which was nearby, in the middle of farmlands. It was a very well-run zoo. We were there Tuesday morning, so not a lot of people were there. There was a lot of guest interaction - you can feed most of the animals, so they expect guests to have food and like to engage with us. The have a range of animals, none of which were endangered, about half are domesticated. We liked the giraffes; they built viewing platforms where you can interact with them.

On the way back, we stayed overnight at Flautist #1’s home in Warwick. It was nice to see her, but her husband is going through dementia, and it’s said to see him struggle to find words. He is still there, but just finds it difficult to express himself. He remembers I have brothers, I play piano, and remembers what La Professeure does, so it wasn’t all bad, but it was sad to see his frustration. Other than that, they are coping well with the lock downs.

Then the next weekend, Wise Young Friend and family came to visit. Little Boo-boo is heading to high school, and is able to hold adult conversations in politics and culture, now. So it’s like he suddenly became an adult. I think he really grew up during the 1 ½ years. Schnookie also grew up a lot, and it’s like we’re not talking to children anymore. We just ordered in something (I think pizza?) for them, since they are pretty much family - we didn’t even properly clean the house. LBB had a virtual recital the next week, so I accompanied him on the piece, which WYF recorded, and he would submit it to be used in the recital. So, unexpected performance for me!

Next weekend we met up with La Professeure’s best friend from college and his family at a Chinese restaurant. The children are growing up but they engage with us less now - it’s like we’re the un-cool aunt and uncle. But it was nice to catch up with them, and to try to get La Professeure to eat “real” chinese food.

The same weekend, ENT doctor and family came over to visit. We cleaned the house properly this time. I cooked the pan-seared tuna and fresco con leche for them. They have two children (one at 2 and one at 1). The older one is at a phase where he tries to get into everything and figure out how it works, and start to have language abilities, so he was very cute and fun - but it was exhausting to try to keep up with him.

La Professeure’s college roommate and husband came to visit the next weekend. We had hibachi dinner at a restaurant, and then came back to the house to have dessert (some cream puff the La Professeure bought - better than the crepe Suzette I was going to make). We ended up hanging out for 5 hours; we don’t normally keep in touch during the pandemic, so there was a lot of pandemic stories to exchange.

The next weekend was father’s day, and it was the first weekend when we had no social commitments (except we Zoomed La professeur’s family for Father’s day, and we were supposed to have a Zoom meeting with my cousins). It was just as well, I developed a cold that week had to take the whole week off. (It was great to be able to watch Euro 2020 though).

Then the next weekend (this one) I’ve recovered 90%, we went to La Professeure’s Animal behaviour co-worker to visit. He’s been through a rough time, starting with a divorce before the pandemic and then a relationship that ended when she suddenly decided that he was treating her poorly. It was good to see him and have the “impossible burger”, and his big Lab, and watch In and of Itself.

Many of these visits were just catching up, and I’d expect there will be more of them in the near future to make up for lost time.

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Sickness in the time of Covid

I’d mentioned that I was out for almost a week from a cold. There was one day here where the weather turned down to the 60s (15-20 C) while the days before and after it were in the 80s (25-30 C) and I didn’t react quick enough.

It turns out that catching a cold in the time of Covid is stressful, especially with the Delta variant spreading now. I wasn’t very concerned, as my symptoms were consistent with a regular cold, happened after that one cold day, and I had gone through these colds before. But La Professeure was anxious for a week.

I was actually more worried that I had Strep throat than Covid - I was vaccinated against Covid, but not Strep.

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More food

With vaccination comes the ability to eat out at restaurants, which we have done a few times, mostly after dance lessons (which we also resumed in the studio). But I kept up the habit of cooking:

Angel Hair Carbonara

We used an induction cooktop for fondue for La Professeure’s birthday. But next weekend we’ll go to the fondue restaurant.

Soy sauce glazed salmon and garlic spinach

Grilled Ribeye. It was a dish I already knew how to make when I was in San Francisco.

Broccoli onion omelette and “Ham” (it was actually spam). Also knew how to make this when I was a bachelor.

Crepe Suzette (the lighter was out of fluid, so I didn’t get to set it on fire. I was tipsy afterwards - the Triple Sec was strong if it was not burnt off.)

It’ll be more of a challenge when the novelty wears off and I get more lazy, but I hope to make it last.

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