SL 777

~ Laura
From a 1940’s edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

Last night was a bad insomnia night, so I got sucked into the blind gossip websites at 3am. One of them referred to the rumor that Prince William had an affair with a neighbor (which Meghan supposedly leaked to the press and that’s why everyone hates her). I was up for a while, so I kept reading. Turns out the the super rich-rich English people who rusticate in ancient piles in Will and Kate’s neighborhood call themselves the Turnip Toffs. Which makes you want to kick them upside the head, doesn’t it? Anyhow after click-click-clicking, I some how ended up at a blog that shows the castle of the former friend of Kate’s. Wow.

I’m making black beans tomorrow night. My tip for people, like us, who have hard water is to soak dried beans overnight in a bowl of distilled water. Then I’m going to cook them in chicken broth (homemade, frozen). Here’s info from the NYT.

“What I Learned When my Husband Got Sick With Coronavirus”

In Spain, elderly in some nursing home were abandoned by workers. “Ms. Robles said that emergency military units dispatched to disinfect nursing homes had found there some residents “absolutely abandoned, if not dead in their beds.”

The shit is going to really hit the fan in NYC hospitals soon.

There will never be a point that I am so bored that I will play board games with my family. I hate them all.

Published by Laura

22 thoughts on “SL 777”

  1. “There will never be a point that I am so bored that I will play board games with my family. I hate them all.”

    I can’t play board games with my family because I’m too competitive and that’s really annoying.

    My sister’s BIL tested positive for C19, so, that’s happening. My other sister reported 65 cases in her hospital as of yesterday. She’s an outpatient chemotherapy nurse, and they’ve moved her unit to a conference room to keep beds open.

    S is being … difficult. I told her that I know it’s difficult, but she has to be an adult right now and not risk infecting people just because she is bored. I keep offering to send her papers from my students to grade.

    Like

  4. Serious question. Why don’t you ask Jonah to take over cooking, or do some baking? He gets life skills and you get a break.

    Like

    1. Everyone does their own breakfast. Lunch is either leftovers or sandwiches usually. It’s dinners that take the most work, especially because I try to have them count for another meal, plus a lunch. Jonah doesn’t know how to cook anything beyond tater tots and hotdogs. Which is still fine. We’re talking about doing that in a couple of days. He has a ton of school work, so it’s better that he does that right now. His college has cranked up to regular speed extremely quickly. And Steve does one meal per week. So, I’m getting breaks somewhat.

      Like

  5. So which was stupider: the Italians having “Hug a Chinese Day” in Florence or the Spanish having a rally with thousands of people in Madrid?

    Like

      1. bj said, “Disneyland not closing until March 14th? Smurf rally in France on March 12th?”

        Lots of options!

        Like

  6. Laura said, “There will never be a point that I am so bored that I will play board games with my family. I hate them all.

    I don’t HATE them…I just don’t want to play.

    I’ve also somehow managed to avoid cooking…but I do a lot of laundry, I’m homeschooling the 1st grader, and I do a lot of kitchen cleanup. The 9th grader made French toast this morning before “school” and did dinner (daddy’s leftover quiche, turkey ham and cooked carrots). I did a bunch of dishes, as I find that doing cleanup and dishes magically encourages other people to cook.

    We let our twice-monthly cleaners go for the duration. I didn’t buy a 3,000 sq. ft. house with the intention of being in charge of cleaning it, but here we are. My plan is bathrooms and kitchen Wednesday afternoon (after school and lunch), declutter/prep Friday night and dusting/vacuuming Sat. morning. Today’s big job was cleaning 3.5 baths with help from husband and kids and giving my teens some much-needed life skills instruction in bathroom cleaning. I’m hoping the kids will be able to do their assigned bathrooms with less help/instruction next time, because I’m beat. It also consumed a lot of precious cleaning supplies. (I am paying the teens $5 per bathroom cleaned. On the one hand, blah blah blah personal responsibility. On the other hand–much less whining. I have priced out the vacuuming, too, and if they go for it consistently, they are going to make a bundle.)

    Fortuitously, both teens finished up their school work before lunch today (although the 1st grader took a bit longer), so the teens weren’t doing the cleaning on top of a big school day.

    Like

  7. My kiddo is still on spring break, but I expect she will be quite busy once college starts again. We’re trying to respect that space. Other kiddo and I are going to try to do an online EdX class together. We’re interested in Energy Within Environmental Constraints and American Capitalism. Will be interesting to see how it goes. We aren’t trying to a verified course certificate and one of the classes is archived It will be an interesting experiment and I’m looking forward to it. His teachers have started to assign optional homework, especially in the AP classes.

    Like

  8. I also don’t play board games. Am considering trying to convince the kids to try bridge. And, the two are playing Sims (which they bought on the fire sale). It’s quite adorable because they used to play sims when they were 9 & 6. I’ve told them that I just find their squabbling heartwarming and nostalgic now.

    Like

    1. I never did learn bridge, but my sister did. My parents played regularly. We played spades or hearts. I like Ticket to Ride for a family game and not just because I usually win.

      Like

  9. Sorry to hear that the virus is creeping closer and hope that everyone stays as healthy as possible.

    Like

  10. We’re big into puzzles here. Finished two 1,000 piece puzzles already and on to a 750 piece puzzle now – those were the only ones we had not opened yet. Going to be moving back to puzzles we’ve already done soon. People can drop in and out any time of the day, and you don’t need everyone there at the same time. Plus, when you looking for that one damn piece in a pile, it’s pretty much all your brain can focus on, which is welcome respite from the news.

    Like

  11. Who’s the artist? That looks a lot like Thomas Hart Benton, or perhaps another Regionalist?

    Like

  12. We’re big on games. Ticket to Ride is good, but better in the app, as you skip the lengthy setup in the real world. You can also play with friends across the globe.

    Our favorite family game right now is Balderdash. Other favorite games are:

    Cards against Humanity (warning: spectacularly politically incorrect. Probably not a good choice for people with difficulty predicting how others will react.)

    Splendor (available in an app, as well. Set up in real life is not annoying, though.)

    Skull King

    Munchkin

    Our relatives who are even more interested in games like Coup. I don’t personally like these sort of find-the-spy games, but they love them.

    Another, very different game, is Dixit.

    Like

  13. Dixit is great, and so is Apples to Apples. I also love Ticket to Ride, Bananagrams, and Boggle. Codenames is good. Strategy games require a little investment at the beginning but then – I bet, even for those of you who say you don’t like games (quelle horreur!) they’re fun. Current family favorites are Wingspan and Photosynthesis. I also like Cataan though have mostly played it with friends whose preteens sometimes get a little cranky and competitive.

    Like

Comments are closed.