Plague Diary

A 2040-post collection

A taste of schadenfreude

The Muppet has been in close vicinity to someone who tested positive to the plague. It's in the White House, and of course all residents and staff are tested daily whilst the rest of the nation can't get anywhere near a test. This man is making it incredibly difficult to avoid crowing in joy at his inevitable downfall.

Of fucking course the extremely annoying orange is refusing to wear a mask or stop getting close to people. Yikes. Shades of Typhoid Mary [who was pretty much forced by circumstance to spread the disease she carried because lack of options. The Muppet has PLENTY of options, but chooses not to take them].

The local news feed has finally admitted that children actually do catch the plague and get some horrible side-effects as a direct result. And as an extra bonus, the plague can also induce pneumonia and meningitis. Cytokene storms abound regardless. There's been one episode of toxic shock in a kid, and I'm now finding out about blood clotting being another party favour from the plague. Then there's the thing about folks turning a corner and improving and then dropping dead.

It's all scary beans.

I do not want to catch this thing.

People are racing for a vaccine, some of them doing several approaches at once. They're doing human trials early and that's very worrying.

On bread news - I messed up and left the slow cooker on "Auto" all night and Beloved was sweet enough to stay up all night to monitor the loaf. It's still cooking, but now I have it set on high. I'm praying it's not a sod. The last step - according to the video I watched, is grilling the top so it's nice and brown.

Thanks to my mistake, the entire loaf is nice and brown [and wrinkled on top] except for the middle. The inside is still unripe, and I'm letting it sit for a couple of hours. Which means I have the time window to work on the other half of the dough.

It's looking like a good dough. Let's hope I can turn at least half of it into good bread.

Meanwhile, I work on a good story.

I'm having a frighten

We went out for some hardware, yesterday and... oh my glob. There were more people than I've seen in any one place for a month or more. Every single one of them was bare faced and only nodding at social distancing when reminded to.

This is how following waves happen. This is what's going to stretch this plague out for most of this year, if not the rest of it and some of the next one. I feel like my entire life

Read more »

Some Fun Now

Miss Chaos is the only one staying home to prevent the spread of the plague. I might send her back to school as of next week, but this really requires a consult with Beloved and an honest discussion of the risks. Chaos can't take her phone with her and therefore can't use the alleged protection of the extant Covid tracking apps.

YAY.

Our most vulnerable to infection and spread [with bonus points for being inclined to be asymptomatic] can't use the one

Read more »

Actual venturing out

Mayhem has work today. Chaos needs a better set of headphones with a decent dang mic to them. If this goes for the trifecta, we might be heading northwards to a place that sells bulk organic flour so I actually have a chance of regularly making some firkin bread.

So what am I doing? Scrolling through Tumblr!

I've had my coffee. I've had my meds. I've had a decent amount of sleep in that I'm not functioning tired. What I don't have

Read more »

Short Week

This Monday was a public holiday, so we have extra time for faffing about on the day. Schools are allowing students to come back so long as social distancing happens, but I'm betting my last dollar that this will be the source of another wave of the damn thing.

Australia and Britain alike want to investigate the pandemic and China is up in arms about it. Of course. China doesn't want to look bad, but I tell you, nothing looks worse than

Read more »

I spoiled my kitties

We went out into the wilderness and found some luxurious bedding for the felines, since they are one year old as of a few days ago. I also had the good luck to score some decent wholemeal - spelt wholemeal.

Beloved floated a conspiracy theory that perhaps the shops aren't that invested in restocking the flour. Especially the Wholemeal. The theory goes that the shops want people to keep buying bread instead of making their own... although there's still a lot of

Read more »

So here's a situation:

I'd like to get my hands on some wholemeal flour. Any wholemeal will do since you can transition a sourdough starter to literally anything going as long as it's in the same family.

Obviously, if I want a rye starter, I'm going to need another jar.

However, you can use a starter with any other kind of flour you like, so long as it's got the carbohydrates for the yeast to feed on.

Beloved's corporation has realised that office space and having

Read more »

Saturday Feast Day

I have had a lazy morning, not even getting out of bed before nine. Gorging myself on some remaining carbohydrates.

The news is full of false claims by the Muppet about how excellent he is, instantly followed by fact checks that say, actually no he isn't. The lack of cases in the US is directly related to the lack of testing.

So in the continuing clusterfuck, the news about the plague itself goes thus:

  • The virus can persist on surfaces for 24
Read more »

Friday!

I don't have enough flour to be confident about making bread, but Mayhem is taking up the slack by using all my bread mix to make bread according to the instructions. He's loving it.

I like the fact that none of this bread mix is going to waste. Mayhem is making bread to be proud of, even though I can't eat it.

I've blended my harvests together this morning and made some ENORMOUS sourdough frisbees. When Chaos gets back to school, I'll

Read more »

Getting a Groove

This morning, I over-estimated my harvest and cut up twice as many olives and mushrooms as usual. Nothing was wasted, though. I added them to a quick two-egg scramble, added cheese, and called it an omelette.

Of course, miss Chaos got half of everything, but she didn't want the omelette. Meh. I thought it was tasty enough. Whatever.

I think, this Friday, I will only be making savoury pancakes. The bread flour starter is still getting healthy and I think another week

Read more »

These last few weeks have been a long year...

New Zealand, one of the countries with the strictest protocols against socialising, has effectively halted the spread. They're talking about easing off with every caution about returning to the lockdown. Australia's opening up to letting two adults at maximum go and visit friends and family, with a weather eye for outbreaks.

Meanwhile, some creative folks came up with a creepy folksong about the outbreak. In twenty years this will be "traditional" and nobody will remember that it was ever made.

To the

Read more »

Cue the Heist Music!

In order to even try and get decent flour, I have to leave the house at 7:30 in the morning.

Which means I have to at least try to rush this out.

Plus there's no telling what restrictions there may be on flour once I get there. Yes, I recognise that I'm part of the problem, but I also want to make some decent bread.

You know, like literally everyone else is doing these days.

It's raining despite the sunshine, so

Read more »

A lot to unfuck

Mayhem has a job to go to. Chaos has online school to attend. I have a FUCKOFF HUGE MESS to unfuck because we all baked this weekend. I made bread, Chaos made keto-Anzac bikkies with the help of Beloved and I... and Mayhem made bread according to the instructions on the packet.

Turns out bread mix works fine when you use the yeast they include in the kit.

That bread didn't even last 24 hours. It was baked in the afternoon and

Read more »

Baking is fun... when you can

Heist plans will be underway for early Tuesday-ish, when I shall journey out of my bubble in the earliest possible hours to lay my hands on some decent darn flour to try and get one of my starters onto proper bread flour and not a mix. I may have to go with plain flour with nothing in it if I can't find the good stuff.

I mostly failed at bread. Things have been improved by putting my doughs into bread pans for

Read more »

Well, shit...

So I made my first loaves with bread mix, and Beloved decried that bread mix just makes bad loaves forever.

I'm still learning random BS here. Nevertheless, I am attempting to create loaves only with the wholemeal starter until such time as I can actually get my hands on proper bread flour instead of bread mix.

I'm going to have to get into the shops HELLA early to get my mitts on that. Gotta get me some heist music to organise that

Read more »