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Today the government of British Columbia presented their plan to move the province forward, in careful stages, into what will be a post-pandemic future for all of us. I have always felt lucky to be a Canadian living in Canada and especially one that lives in British Columbia. The citizens of this province have done remarkably well in heeding the call to stay home, stay distanced, and stay smart. As other parts of the world continue to struggle with containing the virus (I won’t name a certain country), our diligence has led us to the point where our provincial government felt it was possible to chart a course forward.

It feels almost unreal that I could go to a restaurant in June, sit down, order a meal, and enjoy my unlimited bread sticks. The question though that surfaces for me is even if restaurants or other services are allowed to open back up, is that a guarantee that people will partake in them as before? I can easily see people staying away from eating out, getting a message, or getting a manicure, just because it’s not 100% completely safe right now. The premier of this province, John Horgan, even said in his press conference today that a lot of this will be up to a person’s risk tolerance. I think that’s a fair statement and gives everyone a choice. The choice is up to you.

Personally, I don’t think I’d be too scared of going to a restaurant. The places I used to frequent mostly have big dining rooms and I don’t remember being crammed in there like cattle. I am sure with new safety measures in place, it will be an acceptable risk. What gives me definite pause is public transit. If you’ve ever commuted during rush hour in any major city, you know public transit can be an exercise in being sandwiched next to someone in close proximity, making contact with their body, faces with less than a foot apart. This happens if you’re on a train or on the bus. Also, don’t get me started on how many people I’ve had the pleasure of standing or sitting next to in the past, who were sniffling and coughing. It used to be that maybe that person would give you a cold or worse yet, the flu. Now, that might mean something much worse. I just don’t see myself getting on public transit in mid-May to go to work. I understand I have a car but my car is old and unreliable. It’s not in a condition to be driven to work and back everyday. So, where does that leave me? I guess I’ll need to work from home until the situation stabilizes a bit further. My employer has sorta given a few indications that they won’t force anyone to come back to the studio if they don’t feel like it, so I’ll probably be ok there.

It’s going to be an interesting summer.

Many of us have done or seen new things during the last few weeks. Some of us have re-discovered people, procedures, and places. For me, I have been reminded that bananas make for a delicious snack. I know, what a moronic statement to make. I didn’t say that all my revelations here would be groundbreaking.

For weeks now, I’ve been buying more groceries than ever before. You can easily get tired of buying the same fruits over and over again. So, about a month and a half ago, I decided to buy a bunch of bananas. They’re easy to store, come in their own carrying case, and don’t require refrigeration. I had forgotten perhaps how delicious they are just on their own. They don’t need to be put in ice cream or seared in flames, though those two ways of eating bananas is pretty tasty too.

They are a convenient snack, healthy, and works well if you’re needing to stay in your home for days at a time. When all of this is over, there are a few pandemic habits that I hope to carry over, and buying bananas is one of them, even it’s a totally mundane habit to have.

This was a random monologue from Conan from a few weeks ago. It’s short and amusing. The last joke is the best one.

Traditionally for Mother’s Day I take my Mom and Dad out for dinner. We usually go out to a Chinese restaurant for lobster and some other delicious dishes. My mother enjoys a good meal, so this is the best way for me celebrate that day. We also usually go a week before the actual Mother’s Day. If you’re keeping count, Mother’s Day is next Sunday, so we would have normally gone out for dinner today. It may not come as a surprise to you but we did not go out for dinner today because no restaurants are open in our area for sit-down service.

How do you celebrate Mother’s Day during a global pandemic? One could say that we’ll just celebrate once restrictions are lifted enough to allow for people to sit down at restaurants again. For the province of British Columbia, we are tracking to probably allow that before the end of the summer. I feel though, I could probably do something for my mother before that though. Initially, I thought about getting my mother flowers but that’s kinda stupid. Like I mentioned above, my Mom likes a good meal, so getting flowers is nice but food is better.

I think I’ll try to get some food delivered to my parents this week. I’m not talking Skip The Dishes or Uber Eats, I mean some premium meats and/or seafood. Something that will allow them to make a nice meal and also prevents them from having to go out and get more groceries.

I wish I didn’t have to do this. It would be much better if we could just have dinner together again but I understand we all need to do our part. There will be a time when everyone reminisces about that one Mother’s Day where no one could go out for brunch or dinner. I hope that day comes soon.

April was the first full month of the quarantine for me, where I mostly stayed home for an entire cycle of bills. I was curious to see if my spending would be less given that I didn’t go out to any restaurants, couldn’t do much shopping outside of groceries, and in general wasn’t able to partake in commerce in a traditional sense.

As it is now May, I am now able to see how I spent my money for April. The easiest indicators to look at at my credit card bills. I basically use two different credit cards. Both are reward cards, one I use for restaurants, fast food, and recurring monthly bills. The other I use for groceries and anything else I need to buy that doesn’t fit the categories I’ve already mentioned. The first card usually hovers above $1,000 month, it’s usually not less than that. The second card can vary, depending on if I get a bit adventurous with online shopping or if general, I just wind up buying more stuff that month. I’ve had some months where that card comes in below $1,000, eg. $800 but some months it’s above $1,000. For simplicity sake, let’s say both cards average around $1,000 a month.

For April, the first card came to $292 worth of charges. The second card tallied up to $700 for the month. I saved a considerable amount of money this month, most of it coming from the lack of buying on the first card. The bulk of my savings came from not going out to eat or buying food to go. I last sat at a table in a restaurant in the first week of March. That card is also the one I use to pay for my overpriced lunches at work. Conservatively, I probably spend $50 a week on food at work, so that’s about $200 saved there alone. I also didn’t have to pay for a transit pass, so that’s about $100 saved too.

Now spending on the second card was down too but not as much as the first. There’s a few reasons for that. First, my grocery bills went up compared to a regular month, so that offset some of the savings. Still, I came out ahead. It’s not out of the ordinary for me to spend $50 at dinner sometimes, whereas $50 at Safeway this month allows me to eat almost the entire week. It’s a shame it took a global pandemic to show me the stark reality of the math but it’s true. You save so much money by eating at home. My savings would have been more had I not bought a new monitor this month. EA is reimbursing employees for “work at home” expenses and monitors were included in those expenses. I bought a really nice gaming monitor where EA chipped in $290 and my portion was about $300. Had I not bought that monitor (which was a great deal because of EA’s partial reimbursement), I would have only spent $400 with my second credit card.

This global pandemic has allowed many new perspectives to be gained and I certainly have been surprised by what I see here. At least for me, it appears that I can save an incredible amount of money by essentially eating all my meals at home, limiting your buying to mainly just groceries, not driving or taking transit, and spending all your time at home. Imagine how much money I could save if I did this every single month for at least a year. Now, you could ask the question of how enjoyable would life be if I lived the quarantine life year around, even in non-pandemic times. Well yeah, it probably suck after a two months. Some things, like not driving or taking transit, probably isn’t practical. So, maybe the answer is everything in moderation, like only allowing myself to get takeout or going to a restaurant once a month.

Whenever we get back to whatever semblance of normal existence we will have, I think I’ll need to examine what aspects of quarantine life I can still bring forward with me, even in moderated doses, to help me save money.

I had to replace my car battery last week. Like many people, I have been staying home for long stretches and I don’t go out as often. I don’t tend to drive that much in non-pandemic situations, so you can imagine how little I drive in these times.

About two weeks ago, I actually did need to go somewhere with my car and when I went to go start it, my car did not respond. I immediately knew it was my battery. I’ve been having trouble with it before in the last few months and I only had me to blame for this. I used a multimeter to measure the voltage of my car battery and it barely registered above half a volt.

I could have tried to get a jump but I knew the better solution was to get a new battery. Normally, this would have been just a minor inconvenience. There would have been numerous ways to get a new battery home: get a friend to drive me to the store, Uber/Lyft, or even public transit. We are, however, in the midst of a global pandemic so my options were limited somewhat.

I settled on patronizing one of my coworker’s husband’s auto repair service. It was cheaper than any of the other battery replacement services that I found online. I was charged the cost of the battery and it was just another $40 for him to come directly to my apartment and into my parkade to replace my battery and take the old one away.

My car now starts but this whole lesson taught me a valuable lesson. In an emergency situation or during a pandemic, you need a reliable vehicle. In my case, I was lucky I didn’t need my car for a critical reason. If, however, if an alien invasion was occurring or if zombies were overrunning the city and I needed to get myself or my parents out of town, I would have been screwed. That day that I went to start my car, if I had really needed it to go somewhere, that would have been the end of the movie for me.

Now, for better or worse, it seems like I wasn’t alone in neglecting my vehicle. BCAA reported this week that calls for roadside assistance specifically for car batteries were up 50% this month. Many others had cars that were not exactly in tip top battery shape and the pandemic exposed our lack of preparation.

I’ll know better for the next pandemic.

I’m running low on groceries, so for dinner, I decided to get some Boston Pizza. It’s not the greatest food in the world but it’s close by and they offer 15% off take-out orders. Also, if I may be honest, any food that I get to consume that I don’t have to make or prepare is a winner in my books.

I got a garden salad, medium meat-filled pizza, and a baked pasta jammed with spaghetti, cheese, and sausage. Even with the garden salad, it wasn’t even close to being a healthy meal and I did not mind one bit. I believe this might have been only the third meal I’ve had since the middle of March that I did not prepare myself. It was the first good pizza I’ve had since the beginning of the pandemic. After forcing myself to be an adult and eating the salad first, I then proceeded to eat almost half the medium pizza. I was stuffed but then decided I want a bit of pasta before tapping out. It was easily the largest single meal I’ve eat in a month and a half. It’s been almost seven hours since dinner and I still feel full.

As soon as I finished the meal, I felt super tired and lethargic. It’s almost as if my body is draining energy from me to digest this meal. It’s very true that during this pandemic, my meals have become smaller in portions. I eat enough to fulfill my nutritional requirements and not a whole lot beyond that. Tonight’s meal was more akin to a meal in the “before times”, where it was much easiest to just gorge yourself because the world was a lot different.

While I still have leftover pizza and pasta, I think I’ll be eating these in much more reasonable quantities going forward.

Since all of this craziness started, all my grocery shopping has been focused on the basics and staples: meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, bread, potato chips, and so forth. It’s come to the point though that I desire a plethora of condiments for my kitchen. I have been cooking the same items and dishes over and over again because they’re easy to make, healthy, and palatable for the most part. The easiest way to shake things up is to add some condiments to these meals.

I had an example of this last week. I made “Hamburger Helper”, which I love for its simplicity and deliciousness. It’s always tasty but I yearned for a bit of hot sauce on it to give it some variety. Unfortunately, I had no hot sauce in my apartment. I also made a steak last week. I usually season it with some kosher salt and ground pepper. Normally, this is great but as I ate the steak, I really wondered how it would be with some steak sauce. Again, I have none of that in my apartment. The same goes for some oyster sauce that I would have put on my bok choy. I technically have soy sauce but it comes in the form of these takeout packets which is a pain in the butt to deal with when you need a whole bunch for marinating or applying it to something larger than a California roll.

So, when it’s time for me to grocery shop this week, the bulk of my purchases maybe just condiments.

Before I go any further in this post, I want to say that I totally recognize that I am very lucky to be still working right now. Many people and small businesses have been hit hard by the global pandemic and are facing real challenges and hardships.

Now, having said that, I remain very much dissatisfied by work. I often find it remarkable how my employer has an uncanny knack to put people in positions without any regard to their interests and passions. It’s very late right now but I could write a massively long post about why I could be so much more productive and motivated right now as an employee but my employer has chosen to put me where I am very little use to my current team. I don’t have the time to write that post but I maybe I should in the near future.

I would say on most days, I feel very little motivation to do the things I’ve been assigned. Most people wouldn’t write such things so publicly but I don’t really care right now. Both my manager and my engineering lead know my feelings about my current predicament. They have been surprisingly very supportive but have no power to change things for me until perhaps the late summer or early fall.

It’s another start of a work week and while I don’t dread doing my job, I certainly don’t look forward to it either. If I could list one motivation for doing my tasks, it’s that I’d like to continue to get paid. That’s pretty much the only thing that gets me out of bed in the mornings.

Well, have a great week everyone!

Conan found a way to socially connect with his associate producer Jordan Schlansky using a product called the Furbo.