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.

I haven’t been to the market in weeks, but considering that it’s just downstairs and it wasn’t too crowded the last time, I think I’m about ready to put on a mask and brave it. We’re not exactly starving: we still have all the frozen meats and canned goods I stocked up on earlier, but as the fridge slowly gets more empty and delivery services become unreliable (my parents in Connecticut have been waiting for their sole order since last week) it feels like I should go load up again while I can.

Meanwhile I am presently sitting across from two kids happily dumping Goldfish in their rice bowls, half-eaten and discarded eggs, cheese, and fruit off to the side. For my part, I had to dump the salmon I had planned to cook for dinner. It was leathery.