Tuesday evening.

More of the same old, same old, eh. Today’s big adventure was successfully not turning rice into soup twice in a row with my instapot. I’m cautious not to say I’m getting the hang of it, because that’s a surefire way to jinx myself for all eternity. Gotta say, I’m mighty curious about the instapot’s cake-making feature… Eggs and rice I can understand, but cake? That’s black magic at work.

(I know, I know, the lockdown life is absolutely riveting and filled with excitement.)

At work, the business hours got permanently extended by an hour, from 5pm till 6pm. That leaves me just five hours per day for myself. That’s one way to cut down on existential despair, I suppose: it typically goes away when I make all the pie charts in Excel. I’ll really have to start clawing back my 30-minute lunches, though.

My quest to get back to baseline continues: I figure I can extend the sober October for another month or two, and I’m cutting my caffeine down to just one cup of coffee at breakfast. (Sidenote: green tea is disgusting.) It’s curious to feel my body adjust: I actually get tired and sleepy by 11pm now. What a fascinating concept. Is that what life is like for non-workaholics? Heh, I must sound like the lamest recovering drug addict ever, now that I’ve cut down on ginkgo biloba, cider, and caffeine.

In covid news, Russia has ordered national mask mandate: they must be worn in all crowded public spaces. There’s also a strong recommendation for local authorities to establish 11pm-6am curfew. If you believe the official numbers, Russia is currently in the fourth place in terms of covid cases. (The top three belong to the US, India, and Brazil.) Then again, that’s the same country that would literally throw dissenting doctors out of their windows if they dare to disagree with Putin. (No, that wasn’t in the Soviet Union. Yes, that happened here and now, in 2020.) I hope this new measure works out for them, and helps stem the tide.

In other covid news, a store security guard in Chicago got stabbed 27 times by two sisters (age 18 and 21) when he asked them to put on their masks. The news says he’s survived the attack. Not everyone, but some people, out on the frayed edges of our society, are starting to regress – rapidly and ruthlessly. There will almost certainly be more of these headlines, and more frequently, as the pandemic goes on…

And to wrap up the news cycle – I didn’t write about this two days ago because it was a little bit too depressing. Nonetheless, I guess I’d better present this without comment, if only to keep it as a dark bookmark in this here historical record. This is what the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows recently said during an interview with Jake Tapper:

Meadows: “We’re not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics.”
Tapper: Why aren’t we going to control it?
Meadows: “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.”

At least they’re honest, eh?.. Stay safe out there, friends.