That's My Bix!

Plans are such silly things. Plans are a tiny prayer that you have any idea what the future holds and the hubris to put actual mental effort against that assumption.

The universe hates a spoiler. This entire year, nay, this entire last four years, has been Han Solo walking down a corridor saying “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, kid.”

Our original plan for spring 2020 was to finish up my doctoral plan, graduate on time for my funding, and then start looking for a house in Wisconsin. I had to be heads down on my comp exams and oral defense until early February, so I kept shushing Esteban every time he wanted to make plans or talk about houses. I’m a thinker — my brain needs to chew on plans all the time, problem solving, strategizing, walking mentally around and around a quandary until I come to the exact heft of the thing and the way to knock it down. I couldn’t think about a cross country move until I finished the exams and then my dissertation/novel. The assumption was that I would have things locked down in April (which coincidentally was when our lease ended and flipped to more expensive month-to-month rent) and we could potentially move as soon as May 17, the day after commencement.

Then, as you know, all this happened.

With the lock down and social distancing orders in place, I can teach from anywhere. I am defending my dissertation via Zoom (which is the official stance). We literally have no reason to stay in Las Vegas right now…

…other than the fact that we don’t have a place to live in Wisconsin.

Oh man, this is the exact feeling of why I was conflicted about selling our house. Not that it wouldn’t have been a different version of a nightmare — the renters could have destroyed the floors or cut down trees or any number of “oh my god what the fuck” scenarios over the last three years. But we would have had a hard “get the fuck out” date we were working toward this entire time.

Weirdly, since we left Coldington, the housing prices there have skyrocketed (queue more chagrin about selling our house when it was a buyer’s market) to the point that we’re seeing houses that sold for $300K in 2018 now being listed for $450K, with no upgrades or improvements. And near the stadium, it’s even more crazy — with houses that should be $110K now asking $650K. As someone who has lived her entire life (minus three years) in an NFL town, I am so bewildered that anyone thinks that highly of their 3 bedroom 1 bath within the admittedly impressive shadow of a venue that only rocks 8 – 10 days out of the year.

The prices are dropping, but inventory isn’t keeping up with the drops, ultimately. I mean, go figure that people don’t want to move when we’re heading into an absolute certain recession and maybe something worse — they’re sitting tight.

We’ve even begun looking at vacation properties to live in for the time being — including putting an offer on a very beautiful year-round house about 90 minutes north of Coldington (let’s call it Freezington) that boasts 300 feet of waterfront on perhaps my favorite languid black river in the entire state. We found out yesterday three other bids are also competing — we accepted their counter, but then had to make a counter counter and ask more than the list price — and we don’t think we’re going to come out on top, but who knows. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

And after I pushed send on my dissertation, my brain has started chew chew chewing on plans but with no resolution, no X at the end of the trail to say “you are here.” I’ve begun doing the only thing I can think of with this mental energy — decluttering and starting to pack.

Packing with nowhere to go ranks right up there with Swedish death cleaning. Well, I guess it’s kind of exactly the same thing, isn’t it?

Easter Sunday was just like every other day. I mean, it usually is — we don’t do organized religion and Esteban is an avowed atheist. However, usually we do Easter baskets for one another and he provides my typical fix of Reese’s PB Eggs, which is the absolute best chocolate-to-peanut butter ratio in the entire candy kingdom. I will brook no argument on this whatsoever! The Reese’s trees and hearts have irregular areas where there is far too much chocolate and the cups themselves lean a tad too far into the chocolate ratio for my taste. Ideally if I were absolutely obsessed, I would shave off each of the frills on the cups by 1/16th an inch and it would be ideal, but even then I feel like there has been a sea change and the top layer (the chocolate chapeau, if you will) has gotten a bit too palate forward for my taste. Thus, the Eggs are as close to perfection as we’ll likely see in our lifetimes, at least not until you can 3D print your own peanut butter cups.

Oh my oh my, to see such wonders.

Esteban has become a master chef in the years since his illness, and he has been baking and chefing up a storm in our confinement. Last week he created a ridiculously gorgeous roast chicken and root vegetables situation that has beaten even the standard Thomas Keller roast chicken in my heart — oh the vegetables. It is the best a parsnip, carrot or baby red potato can ever do for itself to be roasted in chicken drippings and then caramelized under the broiler to get those little brown spots of deliciousness.

This weekend, he used our last remaining chuck roast from the freezer to approximate a Portillo’s Italian Beef sandwich — and made the French rolls from scratch as well. Unfortunately we didn’t realize until too late that we had run out of pepperoncini at some point, and given the new world order, it’s not prudent to just hop out to the store to fetch a new jar, so he recreated the briney spicy funk with some pickled jalepeños, the brine from some capers and a splash of vinegar. It was exceptional and luxurious and just the way to spend a quiet Saturday at home (or any night really).

One would think that he’d have enough in the kitchen, but then today, in lieu of the Easter basket, he christened our Madeleine pan. I had purchased this pan three houses ago in hopes that it would inspire him and I’m thrilled that he finally accepted the challenge — plus we just happened to have everything he needed for it on hand, including cake flour. It was the best Easter treat ever and I’m not even a little embarrassed that a few hours after removing them from the oven, there’s only one left, and it will go directly into my yawp as soon as I finish writing this post.

In exchange, I made him a batch of Rice Krispie treats. This may seem like a pretty terrible trade off but I did have to plan for these ingredients more than two weeks ago, since we are now a week out from getting our groceries after we order them. I almost never make anything anymore, other than elaborate cheese plates (and my haphazardly updated cheese Instagram page), so hopefully he enjoys it. If not, I did also plan ahead and buy a truly terrifying Toblerone that could also double as a home intrusion self-protection weapon. Well, before the munchies strike anyway.

How are you holding up, friend? Sound off in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

Here’s a topic: What’s the first thing you would do if magically there were no threat of COVID19 right now?