Good day here. I went to the Farmer's market, saw Lisah from a safe distance. Came home, did some cleaning, then hung lights on the deck and two motion sensor lights. Then I trimmed trees. The Bradford pear in the front yard is hitting the house and with the wind this last week has pulled away two pieces of soffit. So I need a tree service and a repair person.

Now I'm watching the evening news for the first time in years. It sounds like everyone is yelling.

We are buying groceries again, i'm not sure why we keep buying stuff. It will be Wal Mart pick up this time. The list we are getting has very few vegetables I can't get anyone to eat any. Matthew's mom this morning decided she wanted to get the grandkids something for Easter so she was going to go out somewhere and go shopping. Matthew convinced her it was not a good idea but she was upset she probably couldn't get anything delivered tomorrow. And she has been fretting over Easter dinner, we ate our ham. We are going to have steaks and sweet potatoes and some other sides, but she wasn't happy with sweet potatoes and steak.. I guess they don't go together?

The anti anxiety meds I tried don't make me drowsy at first but then I sleep soundly, wake up to take the Vyvanse, then a couple hours later that wakes me up for an hour or two and then I'm sleepy and sleep for several hours and then feel out of it . At least when I take a whole tablet so I'm going back to a half.

There is a lot of cooking I woudl actually like to try but we don't have the ingredients for it and I don't want to spend the money. I really want to lean into my comfort food which would just be burrito bowls or tacos or anything Mexican inspired. I'm making some kind of pasta thing tonight, including Alfredo sauce from scratch.

Glad Gud has checked in and that he is doing ok. It will be nice when we can see his pixels again.

I'm glad to hear about Gudanov.

Thanks for the update on Gud, Hec.

How is everyone at Casa Zmayhem?

{{{JZ}}} I'm glad you could have Hec and Matilda close, at least.

I'm also glad Gud checked in. Thanks for letting us know, David.

I've reached the stress cooking phase of the COVID crisis. Luckily, I have some neighbors on whose doors I can hang a bag of food, so at least I won't be eating an entire apple cake myself. Tomorrow I'll be making a Cajun-ish dirty rice dish, with chicken andouille sausage in place of giblets, and a shaved vegetable salad. Also to be shared.

I look at how this has hit my blood family, and this community, and I read about the dead in NYC and elsewhere. And there's absolutely nothing I can do to fix any of it. So I stay home, answer support tickets for students who can't access their online course work, and feed some of my friends. It feels a bit like sautéeing while Rome burns. But at least there's cake at the end of it, I guess.

Hivemind (especially Hil) - I know that aquafaba (the liquid in canned chick peas) can be used as a egg white substitute. Does anyone know if the liquid from chick peas that you cook yourself has the same properties?

I think yes, but I've never tried it. I've seen people use the liquid from cooking them in an Instant Pot.

How is everyone at Casa Zmayhem?

Pretty exhausted yesterday. JZ took Matilda back over to her dad's house to sort through things while her brother Chris is still here. He's driving back to Portland tomorrow.

But he'll have to come back down in about two weeks when they have the death certificate so they can meet with the attorney.

Starting to shift from the immediate shock and grief to the nuts and bolts of handling a tricky estate. But Chris was talking about coming down in the late summer with his wife and kids, in the hopes that people can move around the country by then. So the youngest brother, Lukas could fly out with his husband TJ, and some of the cousins would fly in from Greece and there would be a proper memorial ceremony for the whole community.

I think the idea of planning something like that helps after the sense of...irresolution after yesterday's ceremony. Which was lovely in its way but No Hugs makes it feel incomplete.

And Gene was a true pillar of the community type guy. He spent decades helping to put measures on local ballots to help the Oakland Public Schools. He's well known with deep roots in Oakland. He needs a goodbye from Oaklanders.

Yeah, the lack of hugs felt wrong even to read about.

The estate turns out to be less tricky than we'd feared--he and his lawyers crafted a trust that seems to have been exemplary and transferred ownership of basically everything to the three of us the moment he breathed his last. The main complication is that he'd been working for some time toward retirement and selling his business, but over the last year or two his intended purchaser began to look more and more dodgy (not dishonest, just dumb). Our dad started to drag his feet, and the heads of the corporation started making noises suggesting that they might refuse to approve the sale.

So, my brothers are stuck as the owners and decision-makers; unfortunately, the one who's closest by and has the most business ownership experience also happens to be, well, a business owner with a business of his own plus two young kids who are of course now being homeschooled, and the one who has the most time on his hands is at the other end of the continent and as yet unable to even come for a short come-to-Jesus meeting with the not-optimal guy. And I'm extremely local, but pretty much the last person anyone would want making business decisions regarding mergers, buyouts, firings or money.