Friday, August 30 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning! We've made it to Friday, everyone. Yesterday was a good day. I got lots of work done, tried a new sandwich place for lunch, and made a pretty good dinner. We had a fire drill at work yesterday. I saw the upcoming announcement and decided to create a little calendar event so everyone could plan around it. Nate made me laugh because just before the drill, he leaned in and asked with a very serious face "In the event of a real fire, will you still put it on my calendar." Of course I agreed. Fire or not, you got to keep the calendar up to date.

It's been a "heads down" kind of week at work, and I think I needed that. It felt good to jump back into things, listen to music again, clean up my notes, and take lots of quiet time.

After work, I took Rod to Hy-Vee to pick up stuff to make saucijzenbroodjes. We've gotten pretty good at that meal now, so it usually turns out pretty great. And I say we because Rod helped. I'm impressed with how much he's picking up, in some aspects he's genuinely helpful. Yesterday he grabbed a basting brush out of the drawer while my hands were still covered in raw beef. When we cut vegetables, we knows how to empty the bowl of off-cuts into the garbage. And he also did a pretty respectable job sprinkling the broodjes with sesame seeds.

I also learned yesterday that you can make gravy really quickly if you need to. I had just filled the dishwasher and we were waiting for everything to come out of the oven, when I suddenly remembered that I forgot to make the gravy. I had even set aside a small amount of leftover beef stock for this purpose. So I sent Rod upstairs to get mom while I melted the butter, threw in flour, and added the stock. It was ready five minutes later, along with everything else, and nobody was none the wiser.

After dinner, Marissa graciously offered to put Rod to bed, so I made my way to the couch. The long, productive week must have finally caught up with me because I fell asleep watching YouTube videos. It felt good to not move, and not think about anything for an hour.

I "sobered up" from the nap with a hot cup of tea, and Marissa made her way downstairs so we could watch a few episodes of Handmaid's Tale. Season 1 really turned a corner last night. We had been talking about how difficult the first leg of the season was to get through. It felt about as bleak as Game of Thrones, only with the shock and horror cranked way up. But last night's episodes we watched started to get interesting, a little more hopeful, and some character development is really happening now. I figured it was only a matter of time that things started to work out for Offred. "Why else would they invest so much in making us feel depressed for her. If they never gave her a win, that would be completely wasted investment," Marissa and I discussed.

It's a difficult show to get through. The episodes are long, and there's a lot of horrible themes. But it's keeping us interested - I'd say so far it's a solid B.

Today, Marissa, Rod, and I are going to grab lunch somewhere on the square. Maybe we'll try the sandwich place I went to yesterday, or maybe we'll feel like sitting somewhere familiar and having a beer. After work, we're going to make a pizza, then I'm going to try to convince the family to sit outside by the fire and enjoy the cool night.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.