Issue 4 — plane food at home, NASA TV, Banksy’s latest, virtual Venice
There’s nothing like a pandemic to build up your reading list ‘how to’ articles - how to social distance together, how to safely sit on the sofa during lockdown, how to trim your own bangs, how to flatten the curve while stress baking.
This week, the NY Times told us that during a crisis the people who cope best are those who help others. Researchers call this the ‘helper’s high.’ I’m not a life coach or oracle, but I’ve read enough Roald Dahl to know that humanity doesn’t need a global pandemic to teach us how to look after ourselves and each other. But when in doubt, Roald Dahl just might have the answers.
Have a good week, stay safe,
Vanessa x
THINGS I’M LOVING THIS WEEK
Buy One, Give One
A group of hotel and hospitality brands — Fairmont, Langham New York and Chicago, and the Meritage Collection resorts to name a few — have joined forces to launch the Buy One, Give One program: after you book a stay, hotel room nights or gift cards will be donated to frontline workers, including the American Nurses Association and the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The donated stays will be gifted to medical professionals to use in the future. The aim of the program is to say thank you to health care workers while also aiding a crippled hotel industry. The initiative runs through June 30, visit the website here to read more.
Chicken or fish?
Who’d have thought we’d actually miss (and even crave) plane food? Like everything else we could have lived without pre-COVID, steamed fish in foil and single serve plastic cheese and crackers are now considered comfort foods. Enter the blessed US of A - Impact Foods are selling JetBlue’s Cheese & Snack trays. Unfortunately for Australian plane food aficionados, plastic cheese and crackers will have to remain a daydream for a while longer.
ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER
Paris is always a good idea, and LV is an even better one. The Fondation Louis Vuitton’s #FLVchezvous project offers (virtual) visitors three weekly opportunities to see an exhibition, hear commentary from a curator or watch previously recorded concerts. The program takes place Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday evenings, EST time —check the weekly schedule here.
Visit Venice in real time
There’s nowhere quite like Venice, and with Italy easing restrictions Monday, there’s been no better time to (virtually) visit - you can actually see people walking around, what a treat! I Love You Venice is a YouTube channel featuring 19 live streams (set to classical music) of the city’s top spots - the Rialto Bridge, St. Mark’s Basin, and Campo Santa Maria Formosa.
(CORONA) HERO OF THE WEEK
Street artist Banksy’s newest piece has been unveiled this week at Southampton General Hospital honouring health workers.
Game Changer depicts a young boy playing with a nurse superhero toy. Batman and Spiderman - perhaps yesterday’s superheroes - also feature, albeit, in a bin. The nurse wears a cape and a face mask and apron featuring a red cross—the splash of colour in the black-and-white piece.
Banksy’s note to staff read: “Thanks for all you’re doing. I hope this brightens the place up a bit, even if (it’s) only black and white.”
The artwork will be auctioned at a later date to raise money for national health charities, a spokeswoman for Banksy told the BBC.
INSPO IN ISO
Stories to warm your cockles
Smithsonian Transcribers are on the hunt for “history buffs and book nerds” (their words, not Musings) to fill some special volunteer opportunities. Historical documents, including field notes, diaries, ledgers, logbooks, photo albums, and manuscripts need to be transcribed into digital form.
Another US and international volunteer opportunity is with Bookshare. Bookshare have created a library which makes reading easier for people with dyslexia, blindness, cerebral palsy, and other reading barriers. They are looking for passionate volunteers to help people with print disabilities read - scanning and proofreading, describing images, and more. Read more here.
THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK
Eat
The Happy Pear boys could possibly be the happiest twins in Ireland - I love them, they exude joy and put a smile on your face in that Saturday morning Disney special way, and are just good eggs (or pears). Subscribe to their YouTube channel for their simple, wholesome, feel-good recipes that won’t take longer than five minutes. I love their Chickpea Curry; it’s impossible to stuff-up and for something sweet, try their idiot-proof fudgy brownie recipe. Yum.
Watch
I’m back on the Netflix train, this time binge-watching the second season of Dead to Me. I loved the first, jury is still out on this new season and I’m eight episodes in. Should I stick with it?
Follow
Tim Hollingsworth, the LA-based chef behind Otium and Barrel & Ashes has turned home cooking instructor extraordinaire since lock down. Check out his Instagram and learn the basics from the best: how to poach an egg, how to turn yesterday’s leftovers into tonight’s feast, and more.
Listen
There’s nothing better than listening to a stellar soundtrack while you prep dinner (or while perfecting your iso banana bread recipe). Since we’re in the kitchen a lot more these days, I thought I’d share my finds: Bon Appetit! Songs for Cooking has everything from Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke, to Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra.
Binge
After the last couple of months, who wouldn’t want to get off the planet? Now you can (sort of) with NASA TV. Missions, spacewalks, plus educational programming and events will keep you entertained until you’re forced to come back down to earth.
IF YOU ONLY READ ONE THING THIS WEEK
Almost overnight, the world’s offices emptied. Jobs that were deemed unable to be performed remotely, suddenly as if by COVID-19 magic, were moved home. What will become of the office - is it done for? Read The Economist’s interesting analysis here.
AROUND THE GLOBE
Musings goes international. Letters from interesting people in interesting places during lockdown.
This week, Charlene contributes from her home in California’s Bay Area. Follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
A Letter from the Bay Area
March 4, 2020: California declares a state of emergency following the first COVID-19 related death.
The virus had finally come knocking on our door. My husband and I had been following the news closely since late January as Singapore - where we’d relocated from and where I grew up - was one of the first countries to report cases. Early on, we had a very bad feeling about the virus spreading (and the knock-on effect it would have on all our lives) and now, it was here.
To date, we’ve been in isolation for more than 8 weeks. We’ve not left the house except to throw out the trash, pick up groceries - thank goodness for Amazon Prime and DoorDash - and for our daughter’s vaccinations - a privileged status not lost on either of us. Every instance outside of our homebound bubble follows a routine: N95 mask, gloves, hand sanitiser, protective coverings - be it in the form of a stroller cover or hoodie - multiple rounds of hand washing, and when the grocery delivery arrives, it takes the better part of an afternoon to unpack and sanitise the lot.
While California’s Shelter-in-Place order is fairly progressive (this being the ‘Republic of California’ and all) and allows for outdoor activities, with many state parks, playgrounds and beaches closed, it seems pointless to risk catching the virus, especially as we have no close friends or family nearby to call upon should one of us fall sick. Not to mention the (still) dire lack of testing and growing unrest spreading across the country.
Our days are kept deliberately simple. We rise before lunch, we have two square meals, three coffees a day, and a lot of snacks and bakes in-between. He focuses on work, while I focus on keeping the household running, feeding and entertaining the baby, making sure she gets enough naps and feeds. If the sun is out, we squeeze in some mid-afternoon balcony time - sometimes I bring the sound machine out, switch it to "oceans waves" mode and pretend I'm at the beach - me with a can of La Croix, her with a milk bottle, and occasionally my husband joins us with his afternoon flat white. Weekends are a rinse and repeat of the same, with extended playtime and YT sessions thrown in.
To be honest not much has changed since our self-imposed isolation that began in late September when she was a newborn; a state of ‘confinement’ I’d mentally prepared myself to be in till March, oh the irony!
As a freelancer, my work has been cut by almost 80%, so I now find myself with free time while the baby naps. I fill the void catching up on overdue admin matters, calls with friends and family (am loving how this crisis has deepened a lot of relationships), and the odd-Netflix sesh. A lot of time is also spent refreshing tabs to nab an online grocery delivery slot, baking (there’s been a lot of cookies and apple crisps served up), reading the news, and, if time allows, taking some LinkedIn courses to figure out how to be work-ready for when the economy improves.
Every once in a while I’ll have a look at flights and Airbnb's in the vain hope that our summer plans will come to fruition. With our families in Singapore and Serbia, we’d planned to gather everyone in Europe to meet our daughter, but for now, with travel bans and quarantine laws in place, this remains a pipe dream.
I won’t lie, I’ve had down days where I’ve felt overwhelmed by the pandemic and what the ‘new normal’ will be like. I’ve fretted over finances and I’ve grieved those early spring days in the park with the baby, and likely a lost summer - arguably my favourite time of the year. On the bright side, isolation has coincided with a stage where she has developed in leaps and bounds. Overnight, she’s learnt to babble, sit up, roll and crawl - all in a flash. She’s grown from a newborn to this all-knowing, curious little bub, unafraid of anything and ready to take on the world with her toothy grin and chubby cheeks. And through it all, my husband has been able to bear witness and share in these first moments in real time, not simply observing them via a quick WhatsApp video call in his open-plan office.
For this alone, we are already infinitely blessed and when I find myself in a down mood, I relive these happy memories. If anything positive has come from this pandemic, it has forced me to reassess my priorities and define what is essential and a “nice to have,” and to make my peace with it.
The little one will turn one in September. I have no idea what the coming months will look like, or even where we’ll be, but I remind myself that we’ve already received a priceless gift: to be safe, healthy and together with her 24/7, without too many distractions these past couple of months, and perhaps for many more. We will never get back this time, and while life today is anything but normal, the version we have right now is one to cherish.
Charlene in her new US home. Photo: supplied.