Fish Out of Water

Musings and observations about life from an East Coast native now living on the Left Coast in the California State Capitol since 2004. This fish has made her home in Madison, WI (7 years); Portland, OR (2 years); Las Vegas, NV (7 months); Middlebury, VT (3 summers); Marne-la-Vallee, a small town east of Paris, France (6 months); Middletown, CT (3 years); and Marshfield, MA, the fish's coastal hometown 40 miles south of Boston (17 years).

Name:
Location: Sacramento, California, United States

3.31.2020

The Second Week (March 23-29): Tennis, Blood Donation, Virtual Ballet

Monday, March 23-Tuesday, March 24
We took advantage of the beautiful weather on Monday evening to grab our tennis rackets and the new tube of tennis balls I had procured at Target to do some volleying on the public courts at Southside Park. What a perfect after-work activity! The temperature was ideal, the court was partially shaded, and we managed to shake of the rustiness of not having played for quite some time. We'll definitely repeat this experience again, and perhaps even try out Pickle Ball as well, since the court is striped for that game, too. Earlier in the day, I enjoyed lunch from Orchid Thai, which provided enough food to set aside another meal for later in the freezer (brown rice and vegetable stir fry with seafood combo).

On Tuesday, I had to postpone a virtual Happy Hour with T and my weekly chat with A due to a migraine. Oof. Not fun, especially with so much additional and extended screen time due to all the Zoom meetings! My daily takeout was again lunch from Mendocino Farms, and Mr. E tried out lunch from Kado's Grill food truck on Capitol Mall. It's nice to see that the Food Trucks are still out and about!

Wednesday, March 25
Happy Birthday to E! We gathered for a virtual Happy Hour at 6pm with E, C, B, B, & M. Mr. E and I enjoyed our Aperol Spritz and sushi appetizer and had dropped off some wine for E earlier in the day. It was great to catch up with B, B, & M as well, since we hadn't talked with them much since the COVID-19 situation started to kick into a higher gear. Later in the evening, I connected with my cousins W & M while Mr. E went off to fetch his takeout dinner (Shepherd's pie) from Fox & Goose.

Thursday, March 26-Friday, March 27
On Thursday, I connected with T in the evening for our postponed virtual Happy Hour, and Mr. E and I got dinner from Burgers & Brew (double burger and fries for Mr. E, portobello burger and Fuji apple salad for me).

Friday afternoon, E and I met up for a later lunch at Bernardo, where we took advantage of the option for cocktails to go as part of our meal. We headed to the Fremont Community Garden to eat and savor the sunshine. In my purchase, I also included the special for a pizza kit in order to hit the minimum amount necessary to get a free loaf of freshly made bread. Yum! The staff was super friendly and helpful and gave me an extra loaf that I then passed on to E to share with C. Mr. E and I used the pizza kit for dinner with lots of additional toppings of our own (veggies, tuna, olives) and supplemented the meal with the leftover Fuji salad from the night before.
Saturday, March 28-Sunday, March 29
Our weekend felt relatively "normal" since we had brunch at home both days and went together to donate blood at Vitalant on Saturday morning. A bit rainy and chilly, but that didn't keep us from being outside at various times. I had a cross-country tech support call with Mom in the afternoon and also got a bunch of little projects done -- set up and made covers for the new dual monitors, planted the mini flowers that E had given me for my birthday, ordered some kitty supplies from Chewy.com, and did multiple loads of laundry.

We had planned to cook dinner this evening, but the mahi mahi wasn't thawed out yet, so instead Mr. E headed out to our local R Street businesses again to pick up a salad for me at Mendocino Farms and a couple of items for himself at Panda Express. Then we settled in on the couch to watch the virtual Sac Ballet video of Soar, one of the new works that was supposed to be premiered this weekend as part of the Homegrown new works performance. Thanks to our DIY set-up with [Little Bucky] tablet computer, HDMI cable to flat screen TV, and Logitech webcam from my Kaplan days, we were able to easily join the Zoom gathering and watch on the TV downstairs instead of just on a small laptop screen. Not quite the same as being there in person, of course, but still surprisingly effective and moving. And we'll be so thrilled to see the live performance sometime in the future once it's rescheduled!

Sunday morning, even though Book Club had been cancelled, I went over to see M for a couple of hours to catch up and work on the French song translations. It was great to just chat in person with a friend! Mom and I had another tech support session to deal with her new printer, which was unfortunately unsuccessful and very frustrating for both of us. Mr. E spent several hours in the garden, mostly to do a bunch of tree trimming. Once he got home in the late afternoon, we went out for a walk and picked up some cookies at Mendocino Farms and fresh naan at Curry Up Now. Dinner at home was grilled mahi mahi, roasted veggies (cauliflower, carrots, brussels sprouts), and mushy peas. Mr. E used his fish for tacos, complemented by a bunch of hot peppers, of course! We also procured some single adult beverages from Market 515 to accompany our meal.





0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home