Wednesday 01/20/2021
In the morning, instead of going for my walk first thing, I stayed in my seat and supervised the presidential inauguration. I was really worried that Trump wouldn’t go — but he did, quietly — or that something ugly would happen during the ceremony — but nothing did. So after all the drama, just government as usual after all.
At 10 I could relax and go for my walk. After lunch I did some desk work. Yesterday I received my printed tax workbook from the tax accountant. So I opened that, and also logged in to their site. Prior years we have filled in the workbook electronically, on the accountant’s site, as well as uploading all the 1099s and other docs through their system. No mention of that in the package that came by mail, so I wrote an email to Katie, the person I’ve dealt with the last couple of years, asking about that. I have never met Katie except through email. So I was pleased to see that she was “employee of the quarter” or such and had her picture on the site. She’s a cute 30-something blonde, which is nice to know.
Another thing was to reply to a note from Chris Johnson, who had cut my and Marian’s hair since the late 1970s. (Yes, really, we started with her while our IBM group was located on Sand Hill Road. Scott would know what year that was; I’m just going to guess 1978.) I got a postcard from her yesterday announcing her retirement. She lives in Grass Valley, and for the last several years has driven down to a shop in Ladera Center to practice 2 or 3 days a week. Marian really liked Chris, loved to trade stories and recipes with her. Marian and I went to her for haircuts a month or so before Marian died. I went to her alone throughout 2019 and maybe twice in 2020 before the lockdown. But that will be it; I’ll probably never see her again. I wrote her a nice note, while sniffling and wiping my eyes.
A package arrived today, looking as if somebody had been playing soccer with it.
As I believe I have mentioned my breakfasts are meal replacement shakes. This is a hang-over from 2015-2018 when I played a meal replacement expert online and posted review videos on YT. I’ve been having mostly KetoChow because of their wide selection of flavors. But since about 2016 I have been aware of another small company (except for Soylent, all meal replacement companies are small) based in England, Genesis foods. I’ve exchanged a few emails with the founder, Joe Barrow.
In December, Genesis announced they were now able to ship anywhere in the world. Well, heck, I’m curious; I ordered two sampler packs from them. And that was what was in the rather distressed box. It took 14 days in transit. The contents were in fine shape.
So now I have 24 meals in 12 flavors. Unfortunately earlier in the day I mixed up five breakfast shakes in KetoChow. I only have 5 blender bottles, so I can’t try any of these until at least Friday.
Joe makes a big deal out of the fact that all their packaging is not recyclable but compostable. Degrades in 60 days, they claim. But how does it taste? What’s the texture like? We will see.
Codgerville 