How Much Longer Will the Pandemic Continue? And the Prospect of Travel

Yesterday after clay, I went to a medical center to get my first shot of the Moderna vaccine. I had been telling my clay mate, Meral that I was feeling anxious about the re-opening of schools and everything else and of having to readjust socially. As an introvert, I relished not having to leave home when the world shut down last year though later the unintended consequences of the closures of art museums and the community pottery studio and outdoor recreation spaces was a regret. I also like being shrouded by a mask and not having to respond all the time with facial expressions. Therefore with all the announcements of society opening back up, instead of relief and happiness, I was feeling nervous and a bit depressed. I had settled into and liked the break from work in March and going on all day walks and making art after the initial shock, fear and sadness accompanied by lots of wine and Netflix. And going back to my workplace was not a big deal as the campus is largely deserted. I also confessed to my pottery partners yesterday that I wished I had accomplished more and that wine and Netflix hadn’t been so dominant in this pandemic. However, I know my social anxiety is a first world problem. I am immensely grateful to have remained employed and that I had the luxury to be bored. I need to retain that gratitude as life gets more hectic with the reopening of my school.  

Once I got that CDC card in hand, I got hopeful once I realized I could resume traveling. I could book a trip for maybe this summer and present this card to airlines and hotels. I could go see my family once they're vaccinated too. I had even avoided road trips during this pandemic, and now I can see me and the hubs going to some national parks and scouring other states for retirement.

I had scheduled my vaccination for late afternoon, and it had become too late to cook a proper dinner afterward and decided to run to the store for celebratory food (for me): wine, bread and cheese. And I remembered too the other gourmet cheeses and pate I bought the day before.

Luckily, hubs was okay with leftovers and in fact, declared that spinach pies taste really good with chili con carne.

      

As well as the makings for a kimchi fried rice, I've got a mess of mushrooms and pizza dough as well as the ingredients for lasagna roll-ups. 

On Sunday, I finally cooked the kimchi fried rice.

Pretty darn tasty, and I gave the rest to my neighbor, Cecilia.

However, on that Sunday, I was not feeling great. My left arm was painful from the vaccination shot, my eyeballs felt like they were burning, and I was just feeling out of sorts. I ended up taking a long afternoon nap, and then summoned the energy to cook an Italian American dinner. Before my nap, I soaked lasagna noodles in hot water for 10 minutes and cooked Italian sausage. I rolled the lasagna noodles with spinach and cheese and Italian sausage. I wanted to prevent a mushy, leftover lasagna and thought rolled-up individual portions of lasagna to spoon over marinara later right before cooking would make for better leftovers. I also sliced into a baguette to make garlic bread.

I was also hankering Caesar salad.

I was surprised that hubs garnished his Caesar salad with croutons and shaved Parmesan, which I left out of the dressed salad because I assumed he wouldn't.

However, I wished that I had let the lasagna cook 5 minutes less as the sauce in the bottom of the dish got burned, but hubs said no he liked a well-done lasagna.

And so I regard our old school Italian dinner a success.