— चार हजार सात सौ बत्तीस —

It's weird how busy I still feel, in a world where we all have to stay home as much as possible, and so many others are having to get creative just to find ways to fill up their time. I'm one of the lucky ones who still has a job, though, so that easily sucks up 40 hours of my work week. Shobhit still has a job too, both of them actually, and his shift still vary, although it seems more often than not at Big 5 his shifts end at 7:30. Still, even though I haven't had a chance to go to a movie in the theater in literally two and a half months (longer than most because of our trip to Australia), when Shobhit is home, we tend to spend that time together, usually watching a movie or a TV show. It doesn't leave a whole lot of time for me to focus on much else, least of all, say, reading a book.

(The libraries being closed has very much been to my advantage here. I have two library books at home, both of which I actually do want to read, I just can't seem to make the time for them! Back when things were normal, I most often read either on buses or walking home from work, neither of which do I do much at all anymore.)

And, I actually had two errands to run yesterday. Shobhit had no particular need to join me but he wanted to, and in fact he drove. I spent a lot of the work day yesterday on receiving paperwork, which I would have normally tried to get done Monday but I had too many other things to do Monday so I pushed it to yesterday. Once those are reconciled, though, Accounting needs it back within a day, so it was time to go to the office. Without also needing to go to Magnolia, I would have just ridden my bike. Come to think of it, I actually could have ridden my bike all the way to Magnolia! I didn't think of that yesterday, partly because Shobhit said he would drive me.

So, we went first to the office, where I went through the now-standard rigmarole of heading straight to the bathroom to wash my hands before doing anything else. I had some things sent to the office printer to print out; some paperwork to drop in the shredder; then the store-specific folders to put the reconciled invoices into. Craig, who used to sit next to me back in the "Narnia" back room for like a year and a half in the latter days of the old office in the U District, happened to be there, and he chatted me up for a couple of minutes. From a distance, of course; he must have been fifteen feet away from me. It did make me take a little longer to get all the invoices filed, though.

I raided the pantry for a sweet treat as always, and then went to the office kitchen to fill a paper cup with some vanilla and lavender syrup so I could have my requisite Friday "London Fog" tea latte. I set it inside my shoulder bag, which normally would be fine, if I were standing and holding the bag all the way home.

Instead, I set it on the floor by my feet in the car, and then we drove to Karen's in Magnolia.

— चार हजार सात सौ बत्तीस —

— चार हजार सात सौ बत्तीस —

Karen made Shobhit and me three reusable cloth masks. I did not get to see her, as she left them in a Ziploc bag outside her front door for pickup. (It only occurred to me today to wonder if she's gone outside at all in the last several weeks? She is also immunocompromised, so presumably she doesn't join her family for anything like grocery trips. Maybe they even get all their groceries delivered. I should ask her about this during our next FaceTime lunch.) I'm very happy with them, even though they are made with strings you have to tie behind your head, instead of just being ready for hooking over your ears. I compromised and tied them in such a way that I could then hook it behind my ears.

We passed right by a Pagliacci Pizza on the way up there from the office, and Shobhit suddenly asked if we should get pizza for dinner. Yes! So, we went back there on our way back. Shobhit did not bother to put on a mask, although he really should have. I wore mine. Not a single person working inside there had a mask on. Maybe because they're doing only takeout and delivery, and pickups are relatively rare so not a lot of customers actually come in? They still do, though. I mean, Shobhit himself is working with the public at his own jobs every day. Those people really should have been wearing masks, but, whatever. At least we never got close to any of them, save for the guy who brought our pizza out to us after we waited by the car for twenty minutes. Curiously, the pizza came with complimentary cheese sticks from Beecher's Cheese.

It was while we were waiting, by the way, that I discovered I had spaced the cup of syrup in my shoulder bag, which had turned over on its side . . . and spilled flavoring syrup all over the inside of my bag, on the bike tire pump I always keep in there, and on the outside of the file folder I had my receiving paperwork in. Thankfully it didn't get all over the paperwork, but it got on the side of the stack and soaked into a bit of the corners of nearly every sheet of paper.

I used a wad of napkins from inside at first, sopping up as much as I could, most of that just pooled at the bottom of the bag. But once we got home, I had to wait a while to eat, since I first had to deal with cleaning up the rest of the syrup. I had another folder with paperwork I had printed out for Shobhit so he could work on renewing his passport, and that cleaned up relatively easily. This just took a lot of time, especially going through each receiver report one by one and lightly wetting it with a dampened sponge and then drying with a paper towel. I don't want to be returning that all to work with them all sticky with syrup.

Then I washed the other contents of the bag: the bike pump, the case holding a pair of sunglasses, some batteries I still need to put into the battery recycle box at work. Then the entire interior of the bag itself. This was all just fairly time consuming, but at least I got it done. What a pain in the ass. Also, so much for the syrup! At least I'll be back to the office again tomorrow, which I did not realize when I was there yesterday. I need to work on this stack of receivers at work tomorrow so I have time to get other stuff done on Friday. I'll get a new cup of syrup then. On the upside, with more durable cloth masks to use and with my Birth Week over with, Alexia has already agreed to walk with me to the office and back again. So I have that to look forward to.

So I had my pizza, which actually was quite good (and I saved three slices to have for lunch today), before Shobhit and I watched the season three finale of Westworld (meh). We also made mango strawberry smoothies (yummy).

— चार हजार सात सौ बत्तीस —

[posted 12:27 pm]