I saw quite a lot of container ships just hanging out in San Francisco Bay.

Really? We're receiving containers and haven't been told of any slow downs or stoppages at the port (although that information might not have filtered down to me because information I need to know often does not get to me (then again maybe this is something I will hear about on Monday)). It's such a delicate dance, though, and there are so many points that are clearly disrupted - that there should be backlog at the ports should not surprise me.

Mmmm, Foyle's War, that does seem like appropriate entertainment to consume right now.

Baby! Woohoo!

Dang, Tep, you've got an extensive extended family!

Congrats on the new great-niece, Teppy and Tim. We have eight with one on the way, so you're edging us out. Our oldest is 14, but he's an outlier.

Congrats to your nephew too, -t.

but someone finally got me to start watching Bon Appetit videos last night, so I'm doing that instead.

Jesse, are these on YouTube or somewhere else?

askye, I keep thinking of you and hope it gets easier and that you stay safe.

Timelies all!

It's been raining a fair amount here lately. That doesn't help anybody's mood here. Unfortunately, Mr. S hasn't wanted to go outside even when it isn't raining.

Congrats on the addition to the family, Steph!

Cindy -- Bon Appetit Test Kitchen is all on YouTube! They are prolific and thoroughly excellent:

[link]

Gourmet Makes is a great place to start:

[link]

Also Making Perfect:

[link]

Yes, YouTube. I have now watched SEVERAL hours of Claire Saffitz making gourmet versions of junk food.

Thanks esse and Jesse (whose names now rhyme in my head, even though I don't think they rhyme when pronounced correctly).

You know what I'm going to love about this YouTube rabbit hole? NO COVID, just yummy food.

You are going to fall crazy in love with Claire and probably Brad! It has happened to us all.

It's not as amusing, but as far as cooking shows go I genuinely do enjoy America's Test Kitchen. You can watch a pretty deep catalogue of episodes for free on their website:

[link]

Honestly, every recipe I've tried from ATK has been unfailing. And at 22 minutes each they're the perfect length for making and then eating dinner.

I've always liked ATK.

My stimulus check has been scheduled for payment, hooray! I feel like I should explain why I am so anxious to get it, since I am still working and should theoreticaly not need it. Well. It's kind of a long story so feel free to skip if you are not interested - it is probably very not interesting to anyone who is not me but I have to tell someone and it's pretty embarrassing so this seems like the safest place to get it all out. Anyway, I think I mentioned approximately a year ago that when I went to file my taxes I discovered that I'd had basically nothing withheld from my paychecks for Federal taxes for 2018. I suppose I should have noticed that during the year, but I did not. Nor do I know why that happened, other than tax reform changed withholding rules and I did not adjust. So that meant I owed a fuckload of taxes. So I set up an installment plan figuring if I could get those taxes paid off by this year and adjust my withholding everything would pretty much balance out. So I was paying $400/month on the installment plan, and that is a big chunk of change, and my savings dwindled and I got to where I could not quite make my full mortgage payment in the month it was due, and I kept thinking I would be able to catch up with my next paycheck but when I got paid apparently coincided with when the payment due amount would go up, and this was also the busy season at work and I just kind of...let it slide for a couple of months. And then my mortgage was sold to a new lender. So I had to call them to make any payment at all, and I couldn't make the full amount owed and they offered to let me catch up by paying 1.5x my usual payment for 6 months and then I would be caught up. Which I agreed to, because what else was I gonna do? So I have been doing that and barely scraping by on my other bills until I could not quite scrape by this month. That $1200 will let me pay my April mortgage bill on 5/1 (like I optimistically scheduled it a couple of days ago) and I very much hope allow me to pay my May bill by 5/15 and then I might actually be caught up. Oh, and btw, my withholding for 2019 was set up right to take out what I have usually owed in taxed but my tax bill was about 50% higher this year, but I'm setting up this installment plan to be a much lower monthly amount for as long as they allow the plan to get, hopefully that will work out better.

Sorry to dump a big old financial confessional on y'all.