Greetings from Ground Zero - March 18

Rock star chard that overwintered and is bring it in the garden

Greetings from Ground Zero – March 18, 2020

Yeah, so no.  I’m not writing about what I thought I would want to write about tonight.  There’s so much to chronicle it’s an avalanche or firehose or whatever metaphor makes sense.  Who can tell anymore?

But let’s go with the last thing that struck me on this day that Italy lost almost 500 people, the US Senate decided to get off their collective ass and actually do something, and here in King County today brought 175 new confirmed cases and a total death toll off 66.

I made dinner – by the way, ironically and perhaps temporarily, we are eating ridiculously well – and as I managed to mate a storage container with its lid, I tossed it into the chaotic drawer where these things live and I thought, “huh.  Who gives a shit about this anymore?”  The days of feeling shame/frustration over the state of my Tupperware drawer are a thing of the past.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am finding this happening multiple times a day.  Like – that thing that seemed really important 2 weeks ago?  Not so much.  Not at all actually.  Full disclosure:  this seems to apply to daily bathing.  I did shower AND wash my hair today and I felt very accomplished as I climbed back into my dress jammies and got on my conference call.

As of tonight, my daughter and I have switched roles and she is coaching me.  I went to our local grocery store first thing Tuesday AM and was careful only to buy 1 or 2 of anything that seemed in short supply, but my daughter reiterated the awesomeness that is Bakers Authority and tonight I ordered 100 lbs of flour and a brick of yeast.  Back in the day, this family made loaves of bread that our neighbors practically fought over, so bread we can do.  And share.

 

Tonight's dinner of smoked salmon with bought and grown veggie
 plus pasta for those who can tolerate it.

That’s where I am now.  I want to make sure my friends are OK.  My usual recipe makes 3 loaves – so I could just do that, keep 1, give 2 to my pals every day, every other day, and folks will have half a loaf of bread every day.  It’s not great, but it’s something.  And I can double it and more people will have a loaf every other day.  We need to think of ways to take of each other

I have a greenhouse.  So, that’s my next strategic planning exercise.  We can do A LOT in the greenhouse.  When I was rocking it, I had hundreds of plant starts in there.  We can do this again and share out so that all the friends have starts to pot up and turn into food over the summer.

We can do this.  We can. If anyone is reading this, please send me your ideas. 

Be well.