Sunday night. If the numbers I’m looking at are correct, Spain has overtaken Italy with the highest daily death toll for yesterday: 838 vs 756. It’s troubling to watch the US numbers refresh on the site I use. I check the numbers, refresh the site in a few hours, and the death toll goes from 2,096 to 2,493. The fact that 397 more Americans (and many, many more Italians and Spaniards) died while I was hiding in a cottage… That really is surreal.

I don’t watch Trump’s press conferences because they contain zero actual information and far too much rah-rah nonsense. Even so, it sounds like today’s presser was more ridiculous than most – the twitter folks are up in arms about it. Evidently, Agent Orange got mad at a reporter who asked which medical professional claimed that the death toll from the economic damage will be greater than the death toll from the virus. Also, someone finally convinced Trump that maybe quarantining the entire state of New York isn’t such a great idea. Rhode Island also seems to be backing off, at least for now.

On the off chance you’re reading this far in the future, please note that all the stories about the White House incompetence, no matter how ridiculous and far-fetched they may sound to you in whatever year that is, are true. Every last one of them. Trump really did outsource the covid19 management to his not-so-bright son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner really did outsource the research to his relative’s facebook group. Trump really did eliminate the pandemic prevention funding. Trump really did care only about the impact on the stock market when he paraded one CEO after another. I know this sounds as ridiculous as some of the stories shortly before the fall of Rome, and it’ll be easy to dismiss them all as partisan exaggerations, but they were all true. Digital decay being what it is, I don’t know how many primary sources will survive decades from now – I doubt this blog will be one of them, but who the hell knows. (And hey, I hope you’ve finally got household hologram projectors and a Mars colony in whatever decade you’re from.)

Gf and I are making the most of our self-imposed isolation. So far today, we took a short walk through the forest, watched part of the Matrix (for which there were no sequels, as we all know), played “Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel” for four hours straight, and baked muffins with almost every single ingredient we have. (Gf’s leftover keto food like artificial sweeteners, nuts, some old bananas, coconut oil, chocolate, etc.) They turned out delicious. 🙂

Being so far away from the usual hobbies, the mind starts to wander. I’ve never been part of the kombucha tribe (those floating things mildly freak me out), but lately, all my online acquaintances have been on the dough starter train. So many giant threads on that topic all over Twitter… This is a very “bored white yuppie” thing to do, but I think I’ll give it a shot. Gf seems excited about learning to bake – but far less excited about the world outside. Either the virus has mutated to take out children (which it hadn’t before) or there were some strange back-to-back outliers. An infant in Chicago, a 17-year-old in California… Gf is spending time on the subreddit for folks diagnosed with covid19, and it’s giving her anxiety attacks. Combined with the keto withdrawal transition, she’s not feeling so good. Here is hoping tomorrow will be better.

Forgot to mention: during a grocery store run for Lysol disinfectant 3 days ago, I noticed that the local store has really ramped up their safety measures. In addition to free hand-sanitizing station at the entrance and plenty of warnings they had before, they’ve also added plexiglass all around the cashiers. (As well as announcements discouraging people from paying with cash.) A guy at the checkout line next to me got very vocally upset about the mild inconvenience of dealing with the plexiglass while paying for his groceries. Well, at least someone is taking this seriously.

And now it’s time to do impromptu body weight exercises with the aquarium channel on satellite TV in the background. Aspiring yuppie baker, over and out.