Nerds, Part 1: Nerds as marketing tactic

Fashion kind of took a backseat for me during the pandemic, but in March, I decided to treat myself to a pair of breakup shoes, to start my new life as a single lady on the right feet! When they arrived, hiding out in the bottom of the box was none other than a sample pouch of Nerds® Gummy Clusters! Because, of course, what goes better with a pair of shoes than candy chews?

I was thrilled (to the teeth!) because Nerds are one of my favorite candies. Despite the incongruity of unsolicited sweets in my shoe shipment, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth (not if I could put it in my mouth instead!).

When I had a chance to investigate my Nerds packet more closely, I noticed a QR code on the back of the card—but not just any QR code: specifically, a QR code with all the right angles softened just enough to evoke the blobby shape of Nerds candy or perhaps a gooey gummy. That visual trick definitely earned my respect, in a way that hasn't happened much since I graduated from design school in 2010. I guess it is only appropriate that after a decade, when I finally nerd out over design again, it's about a package of Nerds.

But the story gets sweeter. The QR code came with an invitation to "see the work Nerds have done. Get stories about inventions, teamwork & fun!" Never one to resist the siren song of a story, I scanned away! I was expecting some made-up cartoony tales meant to inspire kids, but what I got was a short tale about a real, (formerly) live human (John Walker, who I soon learned invented matches) — written in verse!

Well! If there were ever a marketing campaign designed to appeal directly to me, it would include candy, cute happy cartoon creatures, QR codes that subtly evoke said creatures, and a plethora of poetry with loose meter and slant rhyme! Oh, and it wouldn't hurt for it to be a celebration of nerds—because I've always considered myself to be one.

Or at least, I used to. Nowadays I'm not so sure. The question of whether I'm still a nerd or not consumed me so much that I decided I had to do some research on the subject. That took me so long and got so complex and gave me so much material that I could no longer justify putting it in the same blog post as my little ode to a cute candy-corporation campaign.

So here's where this one will end. Take some time to appreciate Nerds (the candy and the humans who inspired their name). The website and the rhyming stories are fun, and you might learn something! Go scan the blobby barcode above if you want to get there without typing. Marvel at the absolutely adorable cartoon mascots, and wonder, as I did, whether you can get them in stuffed animal form. (Answer: you can't, so maybe that's the marketing avenue the brand should take up next!)

And maybe, by the time you're done, I will have completed my investigation into the nuances of nerddom and published the second part of this essay. Maybe. But probably not!

Three breakups and a pandemic

These days, I usually try to be circumspect about how much personal stuff I share online, and if I do share, I like it to have a more universal purpose—some kind of takeaway that can benefit my readers. At first, I thought this post had totally failed in that. I thought it was a good old-fashioned self-pity party like I used to have in the old days. I almost decided not to post it at all. But the more I think about it, the more I see that this can be an inspirational tale. Or a cautionary tale. Or a tale of whatever you gain from hearing other people's stories. So sit down (it's long), and experience an increasingly rare glimpse into my heart. Just try to be gentle with it—it hurts!

It's March 12, the exact date that last year, my state's governor announced the first restriction on public gatherings, to slow the spread of the coronavirus. I'm glad to say that it looks like things are finally looking up, and like almost everybody else who writes stuff on the internet, I was planning to use this anniversary to do a little retrospective musing, perhaps share a few snappy tidbits about how life has changed since COVID.

But a few days ago, my subject matter took on an unexpected twist (because I'm not very good at dramatic suspense, I'll just tell you right now: my boyfriend broke up with me). So now, I'm taking this time to revisit not just the coronavirus era, but my last three relationships and the interstices between them. They all tell a story, and a year in quarantine is just the middle.

Eight years ago in January, my 7th boyfriend and I had a breakup. It was basically an accident; I went into the conversation thinking I wanted to clear up some concerns I had about our relationship; I ended it as a reluctant single lady. After I got over the initial heartache, though, I honestly wasn't too disappointed to become a single lady. It was during our tenure that I had finally learned how much fun life can be if you just act a little social, but we hadn't gotten out much together, so I was eager to experience the best of what city life had to offer!

What followed was a crazy couple of months. I went out clubbing; I got invited to parties (sometimes I brought my ex with me!); I did a fair amount of unenjoyable online dating; and eventually I ended up with my 8th boyfriend.

Though I kind of missed the thrill of meeting new guys once we paired up, I was happy to have a partner in crime. We spent a lot of our time living it up: going out at night, dancing, partying, and drinking—and I loved it. But he, who had been doing that kind of stuff for years before we met, was getting tired. Our relationship suffered a slow decline over nearly six years, from constant fun to the Valentine's Day that wasn't, to a breakup a week later.

Part of me was relieved that it was over, because we'd been growing apart for so long, but at the same time, we had been together for so long! I really didn't know how to be anything else!

Since our split happened around Mardi Gras, I gave up men for Lent, and focused on forming female friendships and becoming a strong independent woman. It worked, but it wasn't the life for me. As soon as Easter came around, I kicked into manic mode and jumped back into the dating scene! While being single in 2013 had been more downs than ups, I remembered how exciting the ups had been, and I wanted more of that! I had always loved trance music and concerts, but hadn't been to many. As soon as I was ready to mingle in 2019, I started going to a show almost every two weeks. And at every one of them, I had an absolute blast and met someone I was excited about. Then I met the one I was most excited about: boyfriend #9.

From June to the following March, he and I made concerts the centerpiece of our relationship; we didn't see each other often at first, but if there was a show in town, that was always a good excuse to meet up. I thought that someone 8 years my junior who I met at a concert would surely be up for lots of activities, but actually, other than for concerts, he wasn't often interested in going out. I sought out novelty on my own, through a women's Meetup group and my Bumble BFFs, but it just wasn't gratifying to me without a partner.

Sometimes I was disappointed that he wasn't as eager as me for constant activity, but our disparate drives for excitement were all moot when the coronavirus arrived and everything changed. I went from constantly striving for things to do and people to do them with, to just being at home. I was somewhat surprised how soon I grew to enjoy the quietude of a life unburdened by pressure to be moving and shaking. After a few isolating weeks, my boyfriend was permitted by his roommate to come visit me again, and we settled into a groove of after-work hangouts at my house, takeout dinner dates, and board games galore!

Our relationship was enough for me when our social circles narrowed, and I was feeling no further inclination to recommence the bustling life I'd led in the Before Times. I went into the COVID days desperate for excitement, but I was ready to go out of it with a comfortable sense that I'd had excitement enough. Although I was looking forward to attending concerts again, I also felt like I was ready to relax and enjoy a slower pace of life, with my slower-paced boyfriend by my side!

And then he ended things.

There are a lot of things that this breakup has in common with the last one: both occurred sometime around the intersection of February and March; both occurred for the same main reason (differing life goals, to be vague about it); and both involved an hours-long tear-filled conversation precipitated by a "We need to talk" (his words, not mine!).

There are also things that are vastly different. The last breakup (and the one before it), I was eager to have a chance to meet lots of people and explore my wild side...but this time, I don't feel like doing anything of the sort. Quarantine taught me that a quiet life isn't a bad life; it might even be the life that I prefer! Our final conversation as a couple really solidified for me how much my desires have changed, and I can't get over the irony that just when those desires were finally aligning more closely with my boyfriend's, that was when he stopped being my boyfriend.

A global pandemic did for me what years of experience did not: helped me to be happy with what I had. Now that I have something completely different, can I be happy with that too? My friends all tell me I've grown a lot since the last breakup—I'm more confident and less codependent. So this time around, can I just do my own thing and not need no man?

Haha, probably not. I know myself well enough to know that I am happier in a relationship, and as soon as I am over my devastation, I'll probably look for one again (in other words, no giving up dating for Lent!). But this time, I'm going to do things differently. I know I can do it, because I already have!

I had felt a lot of personal responsibility for the gradual demise of my previous relationship, so after it was over, I made some goals to be a better girlfriend next time around, and I'm pleased to say that I achieved all of them! In the process, I think I've evolved from seeking thrills to welcoming the quieter times that lead to a deeper connection. This doesn't mean I'll never go to concerts again, but I'm ready for a calmer, more deliberate approach when it comes to meeting boyfriend #10, whenever I'm ready for that to happen, and wherever I go from there.

 

So yes, my life has changed tremendously since COVID! As the world starts to return to normal, I don't feel like I have a normal to return to. But I'll figure out.

Adventures in Cooking: Broccamole

There are so many things that you can make with silken tofu! Smoothies, fruit dips, and stuff that is supposed to resemble cheese or pudding but doesn't—these are all popular tofu recipes. Basically, if it is supposed to be mushy, creamy, or somewhere in between, you can make an unconvincing vegan version of it with silken tofu!

If you have recently used some tofu to make creamed spinach that doesn't taste like creamed spinach, and still have some left over, you might want to search the internet for recipes you can use it in. Or not, because I've saved you the bother and hunted down the ultimate use for leftover tofu—it's broccamole!

This recipe has the kind of name that I enjoy inventing myself for other recipes I've tried — such as "tacofu" (tofu taco filling), and "no-tato salad" (potato salad made from cauliflower) — but this one came ready-made by the recipe author. The name alone is reason enough to give it a shot, but combined with the fact that it will help you use up the remains of a broccoli crown that you've had sitting around for just a tad too long make it a no-brainer!

Now, I've tried a lot of new recipes over the past year, but there's "trying recipes," and then there's "Adventures in Cooking!" I've realized there are actually a number of criteria that must be met in order for a kitchen session to qualify as a true Adventure:

1. You must attempt to make a smaller amount of food than specified by the original recipe
   
2. You must substitute, remove, or otherwise alter at least one ingredient
   
3. You must cut as many corners as possible during preparation
   
4. The process or outcome must be terrible, unexpected, or at least mildly comedic.
   

I'll leave it to you to tell me if I nailed #4, but in making broccamole, I followed the first three principles so diligently that it's not even worth trying to replicate the original recipe here. Instead, I'll just describe how you can follow the Rules of Adventuring so that they result in something that might be generously referred to as broccamole.

1. You must attempt to make a smaller amount of food than specified by the original recipe.

If you only have 1/4 a block of tofu and something like a cup of  broccoli florets, you're on the right track, because the recipe calls for more of both. The goal is to finish them each off, so don't worry about the exact ratio; just throw them in the blender and hope for the best! Since this lack of measurement means you can't neatly calculate the remainder of the ingredients, just guess on them all!

2. You must substitute, remove, or otherwise alter at least one ingredient

It's a good plan to not have most of the ingredients in the recipe. Try something like the following: Never buy fresh cilantro, because you'll only use a few sprigs of it for any given recipe and the rest will always go bad, even when you attempt to root it in water! So just use dried cilantro. Use the same principle for tomatoes, but instead of buying them dried (impossible), just wait to use them until they're on the verge of spoiling, then dice them and stick them in the freezer so you can at least use them in cooked food in the future. Then you will conveniently be lacking fresh tomatoes when it comes time to prepare this recipe the next day. Onion and jalapeno should never make it into any recipe, so enough said about them! The remaining ingredients (spices mostly) are easy! Most spices are overpowering when used as specified by a recipe, so feel free to just sprinkle them conservatively into the mixture until it smells right.

3. You must cut as many corners as possible during preparation.

The original recipe is only one step—but really 5 steps lazily combined into one, so the corners are already pre-cut, if you ask me!

4. The outcome must be terrible, unexpected, or at least mildly comedic.

Well, imagine what you would get if you took some mushy cooked broccoli and some tofu, and you pureed them together. That's what broccamole tastes like! Pretty terrible, right? Like most recipes that attempt to replace one ingredient with a healthier one, this food is nothing like the inspiration. It doesn't help that, in the absence of the onion, peppers, tomatoes, and fresh cilantro, the resulting substance has no mouth feel. But at least it's the right color! In the end, that's what's most important.

My first attempt at eating broccamole was just as terrible as you might expect from an Adventure in Cooking. I just dipped some leftover garlic bread in it and paired it with a side of lettuce. Somehow when combined with garlic bread, the spices in the broccamole could no longer be tasted; so it lost the one quality that gave it an edge over a jar of baby food.

On my second attempt, I got wise and added in some chopped bits of the remaining broccoli stem, for texture, and scooped the stuff over some black beans on a tortilla with olives. I even grated some carrot on top because I needed it to look cute for a picture. With the broccamole serving more as a condiment than the main event, it was much less disappointing. But hardly worth the effort at that rate. Unless I have more tofu to use up and no better ideas, I probably won't make it again.

In fact, I definitely won't make it again in the near future, because the broccamole broke my blender! Unexpected, right? My blender is a relic from the 1960's that I found on Craigslist for 10 dollars. Though the motor is still going strong, the plastic parts have all turned brittle, and there are a number of cracks in the blade assembly. When I finished blending my broccamole to find gooey gobs of greenish gunk all over the inside of the blender base, I decided I'd repaired it for the last time.

I'm getting a new blender, and this time, I'm getting one with a food processor function too. Truth be told, I was so spoiled by my last boyfriend's insanely powerful Vitamix that I might just be forced to spring for one of those. It's only 450 dollars.

So, mildly comedic? You see these tears in my eyes? They're totally tears of laughter. Totally.

Cuddling: A Dog's Guide to Next-Level Loafing

By Special Guest Blogger, Bilbo Baggins

In our last post, we mined the wisdom of expert canine, Bilbo Baggins, as he shared some napping tips he's learned over a 2-year lifetime of lazing about. Today he'll continue in that thread by digging deep into a subset of loafing that is beloved by humans and dogs alike!

The first half of my life was pretty awesome. I chased squirrels and balls and ate dog food and sometimes even human food! My human also left me alone every day, which gave me plenty of time for loafing. Then one day, my human stopped leaving! And, I didn't think it was possible, but my life became even more awesome!

As you can see, she has a thing she calls a "computer" in our house, which she uses for a thing she calls a "job," which she says means she's working. I don’t know how she can call it “working” when it doesn’t involve a bone, but I do know that it requires sitting in front of the computer, which is easy enough. If your human is working, you can help! The best position for working is with your chin on the desk and your booty in the human’s lap. Everyone is comfy this way! Working is so great!

Sometimes when I am loafing in another room, I will hear a dinging sound from the computer that means my human is probably going to have a meeting. I don't know what that is, but I do know it means my human will probably be talking. I love it when my human is talking! The best position to help your human while she is in a meeting is on her lap with your paws on her chest, so that you can easily bite at her face whenever she speaks. If you ever hear that funny ding, you should come running. You don't want to be late for your meeting!

 
Other ways you can ensure you don't get excluded from the workplace – and still get your loafing done at the same time – are: 

1. Surreptitiously interpose yourself between your human and her chair.

 

2.  Take up the entirety of her chair. At first, you might feel a bit guilty about this, because you are a dog and your human is glaring at you, but I have it on good authority that working is important for humans, and working means sitting on a chair, so you are definitely being helpful!
 

3.  Drape yourself over your human while she is on her chair. This is apparently the most effective of working postures. My human is always telling me to get off when I do this, which must mean that we have completed all the work! What a team!

 

One of the best ways to ensure lots of joint loafing time with your human is to have an out-of-control furry coat like I do. This means that once a month, she will have to sit down on the floor and groom you. The clippers will feel a little weird on your ear hair, but it’s worth it, because it means over an hour of non-stop cuddling and hand-feeding! This is a relaxing and cozy time for everyone involved!
 
By far the best way, however, to spend quality time loafing with your human is to do it when there are no distractions: no meetings, no tickly clippers, just you and your bestest favoritest friend! This is easy: just find your human when she is lying down, and position yourself on top of her.

The chest and back are classic options, but if you haven’t learned to cuddle with human legs, you’re missing out! When the legs are positioned properly, you can be fully surrounded on all sides by a secure, protective friend. Legs are way better than a dog bed, which is perfectly sized to your body and has no pokey bones and was designed exclusively for you to sleep in, and I’ll tell you why: because the legs are made out of your beloved human! How could any nest be more perfect!?

 
And that, my friends, is the pinnacle of dog comfort and lying-down mastery. I have no more to say...except a small reminder to any humans who happen to be reading this. It is inspired by a wise saying I would have seen once on a pillow, if I could only read:

“If you want the best seat in the house, you can’t have it, because it’s you!”

A Lazy Dog's Guide to Loafing

By Special Guest Blogger, Bilbo Baggins!

Life is hard when you're a domestic dog—so much human food to beg for, so many balls to chase, so many suspicious characters to bark at! Sometimes it's enough to make you just want to lie down and nap! But how?

Don't worry, our special guest blogger and expert on being a dog, Bilbo Baggins, has your hindquarters! With his vast experience in strategic lounging, he will guide you through a compendium of possible poses and get you well on your way to Doggy Dreamland!

A question I get from a lot of dogs is, “When I get the urge to loaf around, where should I do it?” 

The answer is easy: Any time your human puts something on the floor, that is an invitation for you to sit down on it. Outfits she has laid out for the next day and her yoga mat are the best of the best, but don’t overlook the less cushy objects either. Even the smallest shopping bag is a gift from your human and must be sat upon! 

Empty cardboard boxes don’t sound very comfortable, but what the human wants, the human gets! She will always take a photo of you when you sit in a box, so that’s how you know you’ve been a good boy!

If you haven’t tried sitting in the suitcase, you really must! This opportunity only comes around once in a while (usually when the human is planning to abandon you!), so act quickly when you see it! Your goal is to get your fur all over the human’s possessions so she doesn’t forget about you while she’s gone.

If the object you are lying on is too hard and flat for your liking, you might want to employ a trick I learned from my ancestors. Simply poke and pull at it with your paws and turn around a couple of times until it is no longer flat. You will have a bed of perfectly arranged lumps in no time! Definite improvement!

There’s one thing you shouldn't ever bother lying down on, though: your dog bed. Basically, if it’s got the word “dog” in it, you don’t want it! Freshly folded laundry is a better choice every time!

For some reason, my human doesn’t like me to sit on the couch (she says it has something to do with my tendency to puke on it! As if!) If your human is the same way and does mean things like put metal grates on the couch so you can’t sit on it even if she’s not looking and there’s absolutely zero chance that you’re going to barf up that combination of grass and dust bunnies you ate earlier, you can at least let her know how you feel by sleeping mournfully as close to the couch as you can possibly get. Much sad!

 

Pro Tip: One of my favorite places to get some shuteye is behind the toilet. My human thinks that’s because it’s a nice cool spot in the dog days of summer, but really I’m just trying to make her feel sorry for not letting me on the couch. Someday she’ll catch on!

 

In case you, too, are trying to guilt your human into sharing her couch with you, and the toilet trick just isn’t reaching her, try pressing your face into the leg of a chair. This sends a sure message of pitiful imprisonment. It’s a metaphor any human should understand!...except mine. I’ll keep working on her.

My friends, I am a dog of few words (in fact, I have said zero in my entire life!), but when it comes to loafing, I've barely gotten started! My human says she knows a thing or two about blogging, and that I'd better split this into two posts. So just steady... steady... 

And come! (back tomorrow, when I'll have another helpful guide to my favorite kind of loafing of all!)

Dog Mom Level: 500?

You might recall that last year, I rigged up a stroller to be a wheeled dog carrier and trained my little pupster to enjoy riding around in it. That was a great solution for conveying him around a public transit system, but since I haven't ridden Metro since March and don't plan on doing so in the foreseeable future, the stroller hasn't really seen much use. Well, he still loves to jump up and sit in it for no reason, though, so I guess that's an accomplishment I'll never undo!

This year, I decided to up my dog transport game and find a way to bring him with me when I ride my bike. My first idea was a trailer, like some parents use to carry their human children. I actually salvaged an abandoned bike trailer from the curb, but it was missing so many parts that I never got around to converting it for use with a dog. And that's just as well, because my second idea was a better one—I'd carry my dog in a backpack!

There are companies that make special backpacks specifically designed for dog transport. For a few months, I had one of them on my Amazon wishlist. But I could just not see my way to spending 50+ on something that might not even work. So I decided to test out the concept with a backpack I already had.

In a months-long process involving lots of treats and tennis-ball-chasing sessions, I trained Bilbo to love sitting on top of the backpack, then tolerate being inside the backpack, then tolerate being carried in the backpack, then carried on a bike in the backpack. 

 

Training in progress!

It was a big accomplishment this summer when I was able to bike with him all the way to campus where I work, because that meant I'd henceforth be able to bring my dog to the office whenever I wanted! You know, whenever the office reopened, that is.

Well, the office reopened, and today was my first day back. Naturally, I took my dog, which means we, together, have survived a full day at the office and a round-trip bike ride using a dog backpack! I have been so successful with my trial backpack, that I decided it's not necessary to invest in a special dog backpack from Amazon. The regular-old secondhand backpack (with a few slight modifications to make it easier to get a dog into it and harder for a dog to fall out of it!) is quite sufficient.

In spite of it being a success in almost every way, I can't help but feel that my dog backpack is a little anticlimactic after creating the dog stroller (which was a much more impressive feat of craftsmanship at very least), so I decided to construct a comparison chart to lay the matter to rest, and maybe help other DIYers out there decide where to invest their energies when they feel the need for more dog mobility!

	Dog Stroller	Dog Backpack
Allows you to bike with your dog	❌	✔️
Allows you to take your dog on DC Metro	✔️	❌
Takes up very little space	❌	✔️
Protects your shoulders from carrying a squirming 20-pound burden on your back	✔️	❌
Elicits reactions like "Aww," and "Hahaha" and "I love your dog!" from random passersby	❌	✔️
Unequivocally qualifies you as a "Dog Mom"	✔️	❌
Costs nothing in supplies (assuming you already have a backpack and a stroller and some basic sewing notions)	❌	✔️
Is an impressive feat of craftsmanship	✔️	❌
Allows you to feel like a dog trainer extraordinaire	✔️	✔️

 

Well, folks, looks like it's a tossup! The relative merits of the different methods of canine conveyance are highly situational, but one thing is clear: You're more of a "dog mom" when you're pushing your dog around in a stroller than when you are carrying him in a backpack! So if having that status is important for you, then by all means go for Dog Mom Level 1000 and make yourself a stroller. But if you're like me, and your present lifestyle is more suited to biking everywhere you go, then you might be happier with a backpack.

Bilbo and I clearly leveled down, but we're upwardly mobile and ready to work like dogs at the office! That is, once I can get him to stop barking his head off at every person who comes down the hallway. Next training project: Social Skills!

Fighting Backslash (An Illustrated PSA)

I don't know who needs to hear this, but the typographic character above is not a backslash.

 

Now, it's not inconceivable to hear a web address spoken aloud as something like "WWW dot mycoolsite dot com backslash mypage," and you might have even used "backslash" in that context yourself, but...well, how can I say this?

It's pretty certain you're using it wrong.

That slanty character that's used to separate sections of a URL is never a backslash. You can call it a forward slash if you need to disambiguate, but fortunately, it's got another name that's even simpler to remember and faster to say: It's a slash.

Though a slash can look confusingly like a backslash, it's pretty easy to tell them apart once you notice which direction they're leaning—a slash leans to the right, a backslash leans to the left.

If telling left from right isn't your talent (raise your left hand if you're still using your thumb and index finger to make the "L for left!"), there's yet one more way you can remind yourself just which type of slash you're seeing—just consider where it's heading!

If you're reading a line of text, at any character where you stop (a "/" for example), you can be certain that the words to the left of that character are words you already read,* and the words to the right of it are the ones you have yet to read. Said another way, the words you already read are the past, and the words yet to be read are the future. And look which way the forward slash leans!**

If the superhuman effort of trying to memorize which is a backslash and which is not proves too much for you, never fear! There is a simple rule of thumb you can follow in 99% of situations: Just don't say "backslash."

I can't think of a single place where backslashes are used, except in Microsoft Windows file paths, and how often do you narrate one of those aloud?

So the next time you're telling someone about a web page on your cool site, don't make your mouth do any more work than necessary! The word you're looking for is probably "slash"—no "back" required.

Footnotes

*That is, if you're reading a left-to-right language, which I assume you are, since I wrote this post in English...but best to head off any smart alecks at the pass!

**That is, if you're imagining the slash to be an anthropomorphized figure which stands on its bottom end and has its face in the same approximate position as that of a human, which I assume you are because that's how it looks in all the illustrations....Smart alecks, I'm watching you!

A solar system for the planet

There's always some ecological endeavor going on in my existence, but since January, I've been keeping mum about my biggest, most serious investment in the environment yet. It's something I've been hoping to do ever since I moved into this house, and it finally happened! Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a hint: you probably won't find it too shocking, but it will certainly be electrifying!

Do you give up? (I'm pretending you haven't read the title of this post).

OK!

It's that I got my house hooked up with solar panels! I'm officially running on renewable energy!

Here's me sunning myself on my newly multipurpose roof!
(I really was up there for a legitimate reason, not just a needlessly risky photoshoot!)

The plan had been in the works since summer of last year, but good things take time. It wasn't until late January that I had a functioning rooftop solar array. I'm now almost 7 months into my solar-powered life, and I can tell you it's stellar.

Get it? Stellar? Huh huh huh?

The actual process of getting solar panels was so uninteresting that I won't detail it here (it mainly involved signing a lot of contracts and forking over painful amounts of money every few months), but I'll happily field questions from anyone who's interested in setting up their own home solar system (planets not included!).

Now that I think about it, the period after going solar was also uninteresting. My panels basically just sit up there on my roof and, well, sit there. The first few months, I wasn't sure they were even working because I was unclear on the complex financial dance between me and my solar cells, the power company, and the free market. But after a short delay, my electric bills went way down. And then a few months after that, I began receiving payments for all the surplus power my system was generating!

You'd think that with all that free money rolling in, I'd be ready to cut loose and burn electricity like there was no tomorrow, but, if the initial estimates hold true, I still have 8 years before I'll break even on my initial investment. So until then, it's business as usual. In fact, I'm bound and determined to conserve electricity more than I did before—because once you go green, why not go greener? So it's been an interesting summer—thanks to coronavirus quarantines, I've been home twice as much, but trying to use half the electricity.

2020 is the year we'll all remember as the one where COVID-19 ruined everything. But at least I'll also be able to remember it as the year I finally achieved my goal of going solar. I kind of always thought of it as a pipe dream, but now it's real! So 2020 does have a bright side, and that bright side is as bright as the sun!

In case you were wondering what I've been up to...

What do you get when you cross a DIY-obsessed homeowner with a state-mandated stay-at-home order? A long list of home-improvement stories, broken down by difficulty level!

Stuff that was easy

When I first received my stay-at-home orders, I was initially a human whirlwind of activity. Spending 18 hours a day staring at the dirty surfaces in your house is enough to get even the most unmotivated among us to start wiping things down.

I swept floors, mopped floors, and polished floors. I scrubbed walls and baseboards, I scrubbed greasy light switches and door handles, I scrubbed bathroom tiles until they were almost white again! 

Even after a good scrubbing, I realized that the walls in the guest room were never going to lose all their stains, so I painted them instead!

One wall painted, 3 to go!

This was a fun project because I mixed the paint from a collection of cans I've been accumulating for years, collected from Freecycle and the side of the road. I ended up doing blue on three sides with a darker blue accent wall! I've never painted a room before, and I surprisingly enjoyed it. Who knew that cutting in edges (the part that initially gave me the heebie-jeebies!) could be so gratifying?

The handrail brackets on the basement staircase snapped in half sometime in the spring, so I took a trip to Community Forklift and found delightfully cheap replacements. This time, the handrail didn't require a handyman—I was able to fix it myself in only a few minutes.

I ordered a clothesline online and set it up in the backyard. The only hard part was drilling holes higher than my head for what seemed an eternity, but it was worth it! I'm so excited about it that I'm probably going to devote a whole blog post to it!

The threshold for my front door has been cracked for some time, so I made a new one out of some wood I had lying around, varnished it, and nailed it in. Another successful task with a minimum of effort!

Unfortunately, that was the last of the minimum effort. Some of the other things I attempted did not go nearly so well.

Stuff that was hard

If you recall from the last time I fixed my kitchen sink, the faucet would only turn off if you angled the very wobbly handle just a little left of six o'clock, and that meant it was usually dripping. I was nervous about this fix, because my kitchen sink was only held onto the countertop by a slapdash contraption attached to the bottom of the faucet, so a replacement faucet was probably going to require a replacement contraption. But I went ahead with it, because the sink was getting more annoying to use with every twist of the handle, and being home alone with it 24 hours a day was not improving our relationship. The faucet removal was a challenge, but the installation was surprisingly easy (although the manufacturer forgot to include an important rubber washer, it was fortunately the same size as the one from my old faucet). But the foretold new contraption that holds the sink to the countertop is even more slapdash than the last one. It involves levers made of wood blocks that put pressure on the cracked countertop and rotting cabinet. So I fully expect this fix to only last another year before something falls apart. I have learned one lesson from all my frustrating repairs, though: keep the manual! The faucet manual is wrapped in plastic and taped to the underside of the sink so I'll never lose it!

My house gets no shade, so every summer, I cover the skylights with a solar screen to block some of the heat. For years, I've been wanting to do the same to my bay window, but I couldn't come up with a practical way to do it. I wanted to go all fancy with a roll-up screen...but finally this year, I decided any jury-rigged screen was better than none at all, so I hung the screen on suction cups! It looks silly, but maybe, just maybe, it helps a little with the heat.

Professional window screening at its finest

Another thing you tend to notice when your office is right next to your bathroom, is just how noisy your toilet is. And when you start paying attention to that, you start to notice how low the water in the bowl is. And then you do some investigating and learn that both issues are symptoms of a faulty fill valve. Rather than buy a new fill valve (which is astonishingly cheap at seven dollars, but very bulky and plasticky and wasteful), you think maybe you can just replace the rubber washer inside the fill valve. But unfortunately, the only washer available does not fit, so you're out a couple bucks and still have a noisy toilet. Finally, you concede and buy the seven dollar hunk of plastic. You have difficulties with the locknut, but eventually you prevail. After only a few weeks of prep work, you have fixed your toilet, and you have the Instagram post to prove it! Doesn't that happen to you all the time? It happened to me!

View this post on Instagram

There's an actual hashtag for this! #FixedMyToilet #Fluidmaster

A post shared by Mostly just dogs (@valerie_n_stuff) on Jul 22, 2020 at 3:41pm PDT

Still more stuff

When I started writing this post, I was going to say that I hadn't accomplished much over the 4 months I've been quarantining, but after writing it all out, I realize it actually was quite a lot. I'm sorry for making you read all that. In fact, I'm so sorry, that I cut out the part about the three projects I still haven't completed, just to make it shorter!

Since the pandemic continues unabated, I'm sure I'll keep on plugging away at those, and have plenty more projects to keep me busy over the next few months. Until I write again, stay safe, stay home, and home improve!

Adventures in Cooking: Lazy Vegan Protein Bowl

I never realized how much restaurant dining was part of my life until it stopped being part of my life.

A year ago, I thought I was dining out less often, but just look at me now! In my geographic region, all restaurants have been closed since the middle of March, so I haven't had table service since at least that long ago. It's still possible to order carry-out, but, as I quickly came to realize, about half the fun of dining out was the company, and half was the ambience. Without either of those things, the remaining draw of the restaurant – the food – doesn't really seem worth the price any more. So I mostly stopped buying it.

As it turns out, once you your continuous influx of restaurant leftovers dries up, you have to be a lot more proactive in providing yourself with nourishment. For me, that meant actually cooking, something I've never been good at. Since I was embarking on a learning experience, I thought it would be beneficial for me to document my progress, so I kept a list of every recipe I prepared from March 16 to April 10. In that three-week period, I tried 16 new recipes, most of which I disliked (for the record, my favorite so far has been Old Fashioned Potato Salad, which I modified heavily with my usual adventurous flair!). I continued the cooking spree after that, but I stopped keeping track, because, well, no one cares.

With so many Adventures in Cooking! occurring at an unprecedented rate, they had lost their novelty factor. I decided not to blog about each and every (or even) one of them, but the one type of cooking adventure I decided was still worth recording is the type in which I invent the recipe myself!

So here is a new one for your perusal! It's an ingenious 2-minute meal that might even rival my world-famous Nearly Nachos. Sans spiciness, devoid of dairy, and absent of alliums, yet somehow still enjoyable to eat, it's a picky vegetarian's protein-packed dream dinner (at least, if said vegetarian has low standards)! It's...

The Lazy Vegan Protein Bowl!

Ingredients

• Frozen shelled edamame beans (only a masochist buys edamame beans still in the pod)
• Dijon mustard
• Quinoa

Steps

1. Measure out about as many edamame beans as you think will make a satisfying meal for you (I used about 1/3 cup. It was not quite enough!)
2. Microwave the beans until they are hot (66 seconds worked for me!)
3. Add a spoonful of dijon mustard and stir.
4. Sprinkle with a topping of uncooked quinoa* (I used approximately 1Tbsp)

Eat and enjoy!

*At last! I've discovered the secret to making quinoa somewhat palatable! Rather than cooking it into a gritty porridge of bland homogeneity, simply sprinkle it on top of other foods while still raw. The same nondescript grain that's unbearably boring when cooked becomes the very texture to complete the meal when used uncooked. Quinoa—the spice of life! Will wonders never cease?