Saturday, April 24th, 2021

Food Crisis

Saturdays are very much feeling like normal life these days. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm for most of the day with rain in the evening, which my garden appreciates.

Aikido (still in the park), followed by a shared lunch for the second week in a row (thanks to L. offering her patio for us to gather) and then a swim before I head home and to deal with errands.

This is how my Saturdays were in pre-pandemic life, just that lunch was at a Vietnamese restaurant. Now we do pick-up at the same place. They make a wonderful Bun Cha, almost like the Hanoi street food I love so much. Only their meat balls are larger and hence there is only one rather than three, but it is the taste that matters. Today I opted for Pho Ga though, a nice light summer lunch. Then off to the pool for a swim. I had cancelled my 12:15 booking for lunch so was thrilled when I found a 14:45 slot had opened-up. Perfect timing!

Just as I arrived at home EM called, saying she did not feel. She thought she had not had enough food since she did not eat breakfast thinking there would be a big lunch. This made me feel rather guilty, putting my pleasure before her needs; though I did call to ask if the change inplan was okay for her. Anyway, I was just about to put my latest purple hair dye product onto my scalp (it sucks, there is zero color change, so I shall discard it and write a very bad review). We had discussed having lunch together before she set of for work and of course with me joining the Aikidoka I did not cook, and she neglected to eat. 

I scrambled to assemble some food for her (a pita bread with cream cheese and proscuitto, some fruit, some chicken wings and a few cookies) and drove to the Y like a mad person as her break was only 30 minutes. It took me 12 minutes to get there so she had 17 to eat. Now she just texted asking me to place an order for Chicken Tikka Masala with rice (my Asian child). So she must be really hungry. Glad though there is no eating disorder whcih I had worried about.

On the way home from the Y I decided to do the grocery run so as not to have to do another trip. I of course had forgotten all about the dye in my hair and must have been a strange sight.

I have decided to go back to my weekly grocery run as I shall be invincible (at least as far as the evil virus is concerned) as of next week Friday, yeah! This two weekly business ultimately ends in food waste. as I grab whatever seems attractive but am incapable of planning a menue day by day for two weeks in advance.

I spend an hour in the garden digging up the Dandelions taking over my lawn. My front lawn looks like a weed patch, not sure why. Obviously, the lawn seed I added has not taken. Alternatively, there is always the chance it was a bag of wildflower seeds aka weeds I liberally sprinkle across the lawn left rather brown after the dismal snowfall we had over the winter. I am also still battling the singular flower I planted two years ago which has evil creeper roots and appears to be taking over part of the front lawn. I think I will need to buy something I can drive into the ground to prevent it spreading further. For now, I am just ripping out the leaves, but not reaching most of the roots. Admittedly it is gorgeous when in bloom. It just leaves a wasteland in winter which is rather unsightly.

A day filled with activity, just how I love my days to be.

The USA registered 67k new infections over the past twenty-four hours, bringing the total to 32.78 million and another 3+ million shots in peoples arms. American export controls on raw materials and equipment threaten to hinder global vaccine production. Production lines in India, turning out at least 160m doses of covid vaccine a month, will soon grind to a halt unless America supplies 37 critical items.  The fact that the US will not allow the export of critical supplies or finished vaccine doses while it has an abundance of vaccines for its own population is causing significant upset around the world, and rightly so I find. “The White House stresses that the rules do not amount to an export ban. Critics, however, say the result is similar because it allows U.S. companies to cut to the front of the line for supplies, effectively shoving some global customers toward the back.Given that annual booster shots are probably needed, I am concerned that this situation will not change and much of the rest of the world will be left behind unless global supply chains are substituted by local production capacities.

Like New Zealand and Australia, Vietnam controlled the pandemic by sealing of its borders and isolating anyone with COVID. People entering Vietnam are required to quarantine in a hotel room for 14 days and can only leave if the PCR test conducted on day 14 returns negative. I am not sure this is feasible for all countries or the global economy and in the long run will hurt the USA also.

Dear USA: please rethink your policy, even if I and all of my friends have been beneficiaries and were able to get vaccinated.