Happy Christmas/holidays. We're going to do something Ina Garten-related to a piece of cow. I'm very eager to try it.

Merry Christmas! I'm still testing positive for COVID, faintly, so everyone is masked when I'm out of my room. But presents have been exchanged and we're grooving to SomaFM's Christmas Lounge.

Same, but my weight in fried foods!

Yesterday I went to Whataburger for the first time in my life. My ambition for today is to try a Sonic. (I feel like I got the wrong thing at Whataburger, so if anyone has an opinion on what to order at Sonic, please feel free to weigh in).

I don't like Sonic.

2: Oh my! AJ got COVID about 11 days ago, then promptly gave it to me (I'm deeply annoyed about this), so we're missing everything - sad about some, relieved about others. We had extremely mild cases, but I've been watching you to try to guess how long we'll be quarantined.

4: People really like the drinks - like cherry limeade or putting syrup in a "regular" soda. I haven't been to one in years, but I used to like their tater tots as a side, probably more for the novelty than for actual flavor.

3. I have already used 1.5 lbs unsalted butter and am not nearly done yet. I made chocolate babka for breakfast and a couple kinds of cookies. Dinner is 100% uninspired because I wasn't sure how either of us would feel, so later is a Thai curry soup with tofu and fresh herbs.

Sonic is all right if you know you're only going to have one meal over the next 36 hours.

The last time I ate at a Sonic it was to avoid eating inside with the covid exposure. The burger was meh, the fries not great. I didn't think to try the tots.

Sonic's food is famously terrible; stick to the drinks. Cherry limeade is a classic.

I was at a party a few days ago and the hostess was saying how she drives to this specialty store in a different part of LA because they have pebbled ice, and how it's so good, because it's like the ice at Sonic. How good could ice be? Anyway, I wanna try.

6: My experience seems to be out of the ordinary. Today is "day 19", so that's now 20 consecutive days of positive tests.
If both of you in the household are sick/positive, that's a little easier - you aren't confined to one room trying to isolate from the rest of the people in the house. Being in just the bedroom with occasional bathroom visits for the first 16 days was a major drag, and we only relaxed that because my wife was getting worried about my mental state with that much isolation (I had the Internet, so it wasn't as bad as actual solitary confinement or anything, but perhaps that's a low bar).

You can pee out the window. You need to commit to the bit. Hope you test negative soon.

People fucking love sonic ice.

I ate so much meat. I really hope the Hindus are not right about the cow thing.

At least no one is opposed to roast potatoes.

I was going to eat a lot but instead am in an ER waiting for my mom to get treated for a broken arm. Thankfully nothing worse.

The goose was still alive?

16: Sorry to hear that.

We had a family celebration last night, and I've had a nicely quiet day today.

Hope your mom is alright, fa.

I made a French toast casserole and spinach and cheese quiche for Christmas brunch. I'm a typically a mediocre cook, so I was happy and impressed with myself that they both turned out well.

11: 6: My experience seems to be out of the ordinary. Today is "day 19", so that's now 20 consecutive days of positive tests.

All told I was positive up to day 22. However I had 4 days early on after I got Paxlovid where I was negative before the rebound.
I managed to start Paxlovid very early after I tested positive (before I had even gotten a fever). So I was 4 days positive (with some fever), 4 days negative (and feeling pretty good) and then 14 days of positive (initially a slightly higher fever than the first few days). My last 2 or 3 tests were so faintly positive that I initially thought they were negative until my wife looked at them or I looked under very bright light. I also still felt a bit off and had a persistent low-grade (99s) fever.

I was pretty dragged out for a month or so* after getting to negative, but seem to have recovered fully since then. No signs yet of long haul issues.

*Some of that might have just been old generally active person mostly sitting on their ass for nearly a month.

However I had 4 days early on after I got Paxlovid where I was negative before the rebound.

I probably tested positive up until something like the 14th day, but was only a bit ill for about two days -- and maybe Paxlovid was responsible for both of those things.

Had a nice weekend. I baked up a storm on Sunday, making several kinds of cookies - snickerdoodles, persimmon cookies, vacuum cleaner cookies, and lemon bars. My wife came home with some cookies that were given to her at work, and we had just finished off cookie exchange cookies from the 17th. We'll be rolling into the new year, for sure.

We had a very lazy Christmas morning, lounging in bed until noon. Then I prepped the chicken (a simple herbs de provence that my wife loves), over some potatoes, garlic and onions. I also made a green bean casserole that was a reprise of the one from Thanksgiving -- my wife raved, so I decided to stick with a winning formula. We visited a friend and had a feast together; way too much food - delicious deviled eggs to snack on while the chicken baked. All in all, a wonderful day -- and making the effort to see a friend (instead of staying in alone, like Thanksgiving) was a nice upgrade.

4: My wife is a huge fan of the Cherry Limeade, so we get Sonic relatively often. We do a coney dog meal, with tater tots and a diet cherry limeade.

The "Never Back Down" PAC has flooded the roadsides in this town with bunches of ugly red Ron Desantis signs. They are everywhere, except in peoples front yards, and it appears very much like some asshole staffer wanted to clear out inventory before leaving the state.

It was certainly an asshole.

I think we're about to get flooded, almost exactly a year since we were last flooded. BUT! this year we have demountable barriers in place. Question is, are they high enough? The peak of the flood is due in eleven hours. Watch this space...

26: Hope the barriers are high enough and do the trick!

I finished the first two seasons of Broadchurch. Now I'm wondering how long it would take me to sound like David Tennant.

27: we have not, in fact, been flooded. Though it was a bit tense.

Good job barriers

Slightly to my disappointment the water stopped rising 10cm before it would have reached the barriers. So, yay, not flooded, but also I still don't know if the barriers actually work. I suppose I could leave them in place, flood the basement, and see if any water gets out.