How do we eat? Turns out, pretty well

For four weeks now (or is it five?), my only car rides have been to the grocery store.  Our shopping list gets longer each week, and each week we seem to manage to eat most of whatever we've bought.

The Canadian stores, like ones in the USA and elsewhere, have been short on toilet paper (which we only notice with a researcher's disinterest, as we are still working off our usual Costco stock) and yeast (this one was becoming a problem - then a friend dropped off sourdough starter and we're working on our first loaf for right after Passover) and flour (I got the last bag of unbleached in the entire store on the last trip).  The line-up-and-wait-to-go-in that we'd seen in photos from the USA have arrived. One visit to our usual grocery store had store employees wiping down shopping carts before handing them off to individual shoppers, another time at the same store the carts were just sitting out with no attendance. Tape marked off at six-foot distances for the line to check out is universal, and cause the lines to snake through a full half of the store's perimeter sometimes. Store hours are universally shortened, 8am-8pm with 7-8am opened for seniors and others who need more social distancing.  The last trip to the store I wasn't allowed to bring my own bags into the store.  It's running 7-10 days to get a pickup spot. We waffle between whether it is better to go ourselves or do the pickup option. We finally decided the employee is in the store anyway, taking our bodies out of the store should be one less possible vector of infection so we have an order placed and ready to pick up ... a week from now.  In anticipation of this we got 2 weeks' worth of groceries, although of course we're getting low on fresh produce.

We're waiting for the day the kinds of severe restrictions on mobility we see in some other countries come here - requiring papers to be outside your home or only 3 hours a day to be outside. Alberta''s spike is expected to start in a couple of weeks, so we expect the harsher measures then. In the meantime we have been building our stores of leftovers and, while not hoarding, trying to have a bit of an extra stockpile. Terry has been joking about scurvy and it is annoyingly sinking in. For those who are also wondering, it takes a month of no vitamin C for scurvy to really start showing symptoms. You're welcome.

Lockdown Passover

Calgary surprised me with the dearth of Hanukkah candles in December, so I was prepared to expect nothing in any store in the way of matzah come spring. Calgary did not disappoint.  Mails shut down before I could ask my mom to ship me  few boxes from the USA, so I called up the old recipe I used back in Russia to make my own matzah! No rabbi would bless this stuff for a number of reasons, but it did get from water-touches-flour to out-of-the-oven in 18 minutes or less so I am calling it a win and moving on.

We have been able to find some lamb, and after searching our bookshelves I have discovered about seven different Haggadot. I first debated between the "30 minute Seder" and whatever we have the most copies of, and it turned out we had the most copies of the "30 minute Seder". Another win.

The kids had a huge fight that left one child refusing to come down when it was time to Seder ... until Terry worked his magic. Wine and grape juice were drunk, matzah was eaten with horseradish and charoset (although I keep telling Terry he isn't doing it right because he likes the horseradish), and yes we opened the door for Elijah. He didn't touch anything.

I thought I was a "6 months of winter" person. Turns out I'm a "5 months of winter" person

It has snowed nearly every day during the last two weeks. Without the office to go to providing an incentive to leave the house, the daily walks are getting a bit sluggish. Once I force myself outside I'm glad to have gone, but that first step is very, very hard. The super cold, brightly sunny days of deep winter are gone and in this uncertain time the color of the day, ever day, is gray.  This photo was the world outside my front door yesterday. Today there has been melt so the dominant colors are brown and gray. No worries, snow is expected this afternoon.

One day this week I did not leave the house at all and Terry only left it to go to the garage to tell Alex lunch was ready - she was practicing fencing with a duffel bag Terry stuffed and rigged up in the garage for her. Zoltan has gone out there a few times to use the bag as a punching bag.  This weekend we will probably watch some Learn to Box videos so nobody gets injured. Going to Canadian Tire to buy an actual punching bag and sets of gloves for the family seems simultaneously inappropriately frivolous, and also somewhat life-saving. No decision has yet been made, no trip to Canadian Tire yet planned.

We got the good news that we were able to score a garden plot at the local community association. So far gardening hasn't been cancelled, and it seems really clear that schedules can be developed to make sure it doesn't get too crowded that I am cautiously optimistic we'll be able to garden this summer. The earliest planting date is end of May, so we have plenty of time to plan and dream of the day we can walk without hesitation into Home Depot and get bags of fertilizer and plants to grow (not knowing if we'd get a plot, we started nothing indoors). It may be a year of lettuce and radishes otherwise!

* Note, Terry had nothing to do with this photo and probably disapproves of it.