Tuesday: walk, phone calls, lamb steak and stew

I made waffles in the morning.

It snowed overnight and stuck a bit; M. and I walked in the afternoon to avoid it.

I forgot to call my cousin on his birthday on Sunday, so I called him today.

I called A. (dutch instructor and friend, and maker of truly fine food) yesterday and wished him a happy birthday; he called me back while I was walking with M.

I had a long phone call with J.

I had a phone call with my sister.

On the whole, I would say that my cousin and I had a really enjoyable phone call. We caught up a bit, and committed to another phone call soon. We have similar perspective on the current crisis. The rest of the phone calls were also good to have, however, less enjoyable. People are really feeling a lot of stress, I suspect from the isolation preying on their minds. We are being taught to fear being with each other; that is psychologically a very damaging thing. Like a lot of medical treatments and prophylactics, there is some damage up front, to avoid worse. We will get through this. Hopefully, my relationships will survive. However, I am not super awesome at whatever reassurance or validation or whatever it is that people are needing right now. I feel like I am disappointing people who were really hoping I could help them.

We cooked the lamb steak. I made a stew with the couscous, lentils de puy (impulse purchase at whole foods a while back -- fortunately, I did not buy very many. Or maybe unfortunately. They are super tasty), fennel, tomatoes, bell pepper. It was really good. The lamb is gone, but there is still stew leftover.

I also cooked a loaf of bread.

F. rescheduled for tomorrow.