Week 4/5 update

Masha’s great-uncle passed from likely covid yesterday. He was 90 and never made it to the hospital. Died of heart failure in his own home, surrounded by his family, at least. I hope none of them have it. My strongest memory of him is the way he weeped when he said goodbye to his baby brother at Masha’s grandfather’s funeral a little more than a year ago. Nothing was more important to him than his family, and they revered him. Now he won’t get a funeral of his own.

Last week we started to feel the strain. The novelty of cooking and family time was wearing off. I don’t think we were getting on each other’s nerves more or anything — overall, I think we’re doing very well — but I started to feel more of a long-term type of fatigue. By the end of the week it was getting better as all of this started to feel more normalized.

But now we are starting to see practical problems showing up. There have been stories in the news about the vulnerability of supply chains. I haven’t been able to check out with Fresh Direct in over a week of trying. My first order with Mercato went okay, but my second that was supposed to arrive today with 43 items, most of which was fresh produce, showed up as a single thing of olives. Yes, we literally got one item out of 43. I’m not feeling too optimistic about our Wednesday order.