Week four is when the pandemic started to hit a little closer to home.
As I mentioned in my Spring Photos with the Olympus TG-5 post, one of the corner grocery stores we relied on temporarily closed.
Someone I’ve known for 30+ years who works in the medical field was showing mild COVID-19-like symptoms after someone where she works tested positive. Luckily, her test results came up negative.
Overall, I’m still thankful that our immediate situation is still going well. I have bouts of guilt about more or less enjoying our isolation, but I have to keep in mind that the isolation itself is the important thing. If Holly and I happen to be enjoying the time together, well, that shouldn’t be anything to feel bad about. Anyone who can should make the best of the situation for the sake of their mental health which will make them better prepared if or when things get more difficult.
Other than the news related above, it was a mostly quiet week.
We did go out for a walk around the neighborhood one night after we got done working.
We continued taking advantage of some of the take-out and delivery options we’re lucky to have.
As I’ve mentioned before, still being able to take walks and able to get food from some of our favorite restaurants are a couple of things that help give all this some sense of normalcy. We do like our apartment and have been enjoying this quiet time inside, but certainly the idea of having an apartment in the city was fashioned around the idea of spending plenty of time outside the apartment.
So we break things up with our walks and our take-out.
However, I’m certainly not complaining about all the home cooking (and drinking) we’ve been doing.
Both the Rite of Spring amaro and my invented recipe amaro were ready to try this week.
The Rite of Spring amaro has a nice flavor with a good balance of citrus, bitter, and herbs, but I find it a bit too boozy. The recipe calls for using high-proof vodka, but after the first couple amari I tried turned out too strong, I started using a mix of high-proof and regular vodka.
My recipe turned out too boozy and too bitter, but it was my first time trying my own recipe so I am not discouraged. The overall flavor was pretty good so I’ll probably try the same ingredients with some adjustments.
For both the Rite of Spring amaro and my amaro, I went with two parts high-proof and one part regular vodka.
I can keep adjusting that ratio, but I’m concerned it will start having a negative effect on the extraction of flavors. Perhaps I can adjust for that by going a little heavier on the ingredients and/or letting it sit for longer.
I took more macro photos and started going through the ones I took a week or so ago. I hope to post those sometime this week. Other than those and the usual food photos, I also took a picture of the shadow of my wine glass in an attempt to find more things around the apartment to take pictures of.
I did resume drawing. I feel rather rusty and a bit disappointed about how my work is turning out so I’m not inclined to share anything. But that’s on me since I’ve been remiss about my drawing practice.
Somewhat surprisingly, I haven’t been watching any more movies than usual. Work has been busy and stressful and the general world situation is stressful so I’ve been pretty exhausted most nights, so much so that even staying awake for a movie is difficult. We have been watching the new season of The Clone Wars and working our way through the old seasons. At least I have the energy for a couple of 22-minute episodes.
That said, last weekend, Holly and I watched Knives Out which was as delightful and entertaining as I heard it would be.
I also watched a couple of movies on my own: Eyes of Laura Mars and Dead Reckoning.
Eyes of Laura Mars was pretty bad but interesting for its general 1970s vibe and look. It’s available through the Criterion Channel and something about it in their promotional materials intrigued me.
Dead Reckoning was a solid if not exceptional film noir with Humphrey Bogart and Lizbeth Scott. It’s also available from the Criterion Channel as part of their Columbia Noir series.
Being at home all the time still hasn’t presented any problems other than the occasional restlessness which is more or less tamed by going on occasional walks and getting take-out.
Although the number of cases and deaths are awful, I did read that the outbreak is started to level off in the United States. I also saw some speculation that new cases will peak in Pennsylvania this week. So the end is not yet in sight but perhaps the middle is.
By Friday, April 10, there were 459,165 cases in the United States compared to 239,279 the week before. The number of deaths rose from 5,443 to 16,570.
In Pennsylvania, the number of cases rose from 62,115 to 113,019 and deaths from 102 to 416.
I started looking at the City of Philadelphia’s numbers as well which now stand at 5,793 cases and 137 deaths.
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