Good afternoon everyone!
Welp, it’s March 26 now, and we chance are we’re going to hit 70,000 COVID-19 cases in the U.S. by the end of the day. Or, 70,000 that we know about, since testing is limited. In Nebraska this morning we made it to at least 70 cases, and this past week about 16,000 Nebraskans filed unemployment claims. Honestly the more I think about it, the more I’m thankful that for the time being I basically have job security — I mean, we’re the ones that are tracking this thing, and my job is fairly quarantined as it is. In fact, we’re airing a “COVID-19 in Nebraska” special this Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
So, needless to say, this is going to be a thing for awhile. At work today we tested recording meetings in Zoom, and we’re figuring out how to be more “social distanced” at work (i.e. doing shows with the anchors in different places). Governor is maintain the idea he will not issue stay-at-home order for the state, even though that’s a fairly popular action at the moment. But hey, whatever, he’s the governor. My boss is really trying to keep everyone at the station well — disinfecting keyboards and workstations, having people stay home if sick/work from home, starting to use Zoom, having us all self-quarantine and social distance as best we can.
That is actually going pretty well except for a few days ago. . . .
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with last weekend. . . .due to the looming fear of getting sick (in fact I’m checking my temperature every day when I go into work — partly due to new corporate rules, partly for myself — and I haven’t gotten above 97 degrees this week) WF and I cleaned my apartment! We did the usual; disinfected all surfaces, vacuumed and swept the floors, cleaned the sink and toilet, washed some towels and sheets. But I also finally got around to taking care of some other small things, like refilling the salt and pepper shakers, scrubbing the burned food off my stove burners, organizing my infused olive oils and starting a new batch (with rosemary), refilling spice jars and organizing my kitchen cabinets. It was such a productive day! I was really proud of us! And just the other day I actually cleaned out and reorganized my closet; my work clothes are now stacked my color.
WF has also been showing me this TV show called “Mr. Robot.” Long story short, it’s basically about this socially awkward hacker who works at a cyber security firm and gets involved in this massive underground hacking operation. We finished season 1 this past week and it’s pretty good; but after season 1 it makes you want to rewatch the whole season to pick up things you missed the first time. I would recommenced it, though! It’s a really good drama and is supposedly super accurate about how real hacking works.
Oh, and cooking! We cooked! We have made mac and cheese (with half cheddar cheese and half mozzarella), and then a makeshift chicken sir-fry (with soy sauce marinated chicken, rice, broccoli, and some other mixed vegetables). Those I sadly do not have pictures of becasue I didn’t think about it at the time, but I do have photos of the things I made whilst WF was working.
So yesterday, Wednesday, I made brownies from this recipe I found online. They were going to be for my coworkers (since I love baking and I cannot possibly eat all the brownies myself) and then I remembered that WF loves brownies himself! While they were chilling on the counter cooling he was literally staining over them, like, COOL FASTER lol. So we each had one to try them out, and they came out very good, and the rest are in the fridge right now. I was going to wrap them up in tin foil like I did with the banana bread I made before, but I dont know. They’re cut kind of big, so there aren’t that many brownies. Eh, maybe I’ll have this trial batch for WF and I and I’ll make abetter batch for my coworkers — this was my first time trying this recipe.
But, I also made knock-off crab cheese wontons — like the ones you get at Chinese restaurants. I’ve been wanting to make them for awhile, so I figured I would! But I didn’t purchase any crab, so I made them veggie-versions, with just cream cheese, green onion, spices and Worcestershire sauce. I also had to use sporing roll wrappers becasue I couldn’t find wonton skins at the time, and I had to bake them because I dont have deep frying oil. Again, this was a trial batch, but they came out very good! I personally like them. Maybe would be better with actual wonton skins, but still good!
Now, back to that whole social distancing thing. So I’m by myself (or not in large crowds with a lot of people) most of the time. I only work with one other person for less than four hours a day, and I go home and it’s just me (and WF when he visits). And I only am around a lot of people when I get groceries and Walmart. Not to mention I’m religiously taking vitamins, drinking Emergen-C every so often, constantly checking my temperature at work, washing my hands and disinfecting my workspace.
But anyway, so on Monday I was so ready to go home after work, right? Like, so ready to just go home and hang with WF and work on my hobbies.
Welp, that didn’t happen.
My boss had me call about this story — a man in town who auctioned off a toilet paper roll and was donating the money. The auction was set to end at 12:15 p.m., so I’m like, well this is up in the air as far as when the donation is happening, it could be at any time, so I’ll just have him call us ahead of when it happens. Well then I find out that I am to track this story and do this story, after my shift was already over. So I was a little unhappy about it, since at that point I was so ready to go home and have the afternoon to myself. Not to mention it wasn’t at a certain time, which means I couldn’t take off my makeup, nap or start a project without having to stop right in the middle. Plus it was going to be overtime work and I was supposed to be social distancing anyway.
So literally I came home frustrated, ate breakfast, and laid on my living room sofa on my phone, waiting for something to happen.
Well, it did! The guy called me ahead of time and I got dressed, went to the office to grab equiptment, shot B-roll footage beforehand, did the story, went back to the office, said hey to my coworkers, finished a VO/SOT and went home. Coworkers understandably were like “what’re you doing here?” and I was like “Oh, this guy auctioned off the roll or toilet paper,” and they were like, “Oh cool. By the way thank you for the treats you bring in we love them, they’re so good,” and I was like, “Aww, thank you!”
The whole thing gave me about 3 to 4 hours of overtime pay. But despite the mood I was in , it was a cute story: a local man thought it’d be a quirky idea to auction off a single toilet paper roll on this Dollar Auction Facebook page. So he did, and some local business owners bid $100. (Keep in mind, toilet paper is selling out like it’s the freaking apocalypse right now). So they met up at the local homeless shelter to do the official exchange, and then the money was donated to the homeless shelter.
Actually yesterday my coworker did a story about a local school principal and their lion mascot videotaping the Pledge of Allegiance and announcements at various locations around town, and then posting them on Facebook. Remember, all schools in town are doing remote classes basically until the end of the semester. So they shot a little segment in our studio and it was super cute:
But that’s all. Bye!