Three

Days since quarantine: 15. Grocery day today. Made our usual tour of Fubonn and then Safeway, which we prefer to New Seasons because they still haven't implemented any measures to prevent spreading of the virus (read: faster shopping). Living dangerously, I know. Maybe I'm just naive but we buy so. Much. Food. Especially now when every trip to the store is tinged with a hint of panic consumerism. Also, before both D. and I started staying home all day, we'd shop for a couple of meals at a time – I'd eat out a lot when I work late in studio and he'd survive on the leftovers. These past couple of weeks, we've been buying enough food to feed two adult humans every daily meal from breakfast to dinner, plus all the bored/emotional eating in between (which, admittedly, there has been plenty of). All that food, acquired in one go, is a pretty hefty lump. And expensive too. We talked to our cashier today at Safeway. He got laid off from a manager position at a Buffalo Wild Wings and picked up the job at Safeway. You do what needs to get done, I guess. But here I am, flailing about in dread and despair – suppose I don't have the security that I do, how would I survive in a crisis like this?

Lunch: takeout from Pho Kim, just for old time's sake. This was super meh. Sitting in an empty restaurant waiting for my order is also depressing af. 

Dinner: rice with shrimps in salted egg yolk sauce and canh mồng tơi. Slowly realizing I'll never reach Julie Powell-level of food blogging stardom because eighty percent of what I cook is obscure Vietnamese home cooking dishes with hard-to-find ingredients and impossible spellings. I was reminded of how much I love mồng tơi — an edible succulent popular in Vietnamese soups. There hasn't been much going on in my days right now, so it didn't take much for me to notice the tender, pleasing slipperiness of the leaves and stems in my mouth. After dinner I had a banana with peanut butter and honey. I'm not wild about this combination, actually. It just feels somewhat virtuous when I crave something sweet. But D. did get a box of donut today so I'm sure healthfulness will fall by the wayside any second now. 

Mood: fine. Being out and about did me good, as did not thinking about the new school term starting on Monday. I wonder what that'll be like. I also started a new skincare regime a week or so ago and my facial skin has visibly improved, especially compared to where it was at the end of last term. Hoping to keep this up for a while, even with school starting up and all. My face felt a little tingly after my routine tonight, so maybe tomorrow I'll take a break from the medicated treatments and just focus on hydration and mositurizing.  

Google Photos informs me that, this time last year, I was spending an unusually warm spring day on the coast with Becca and Gavin, and everything was just perfect. Who knew memories can be so quaint.