March 7th weekend – Saturday began with our coffee ritual and briefly hanging out with the dogs. Then we were off to the garage. I started the E30 up and managed to drive it around the house to and through the large garage door. We then spent much of the day tearing apart the engine. This proved to be a major pain.
I’ve now spent many hours in and around engines of a handful of makes. The BMW E30 was, by far, the most difficult to work on. Bolts are just in odd places and I had to use every extension and wobble tool we have to get to them. Sometimes Susan’s smaller hands were needed to simply reach things. It was difficult.
Lunch was delivered Garbanzos as we didn’t want to clean up and go out at that moment. Eventually we had to take a break as Susan needed to perform a Colorado Pug Rescue home inspection and I needed to pick up specialized tools from Alvin as BMW uses odd bolts. Susan and I somehow arrived back home at the same time and proceeded to finish pulling off the engine’s head before heading inside for a dinner of meatballs.
Sunday we were up early for coffee. It was to be another day spent at the track and we loaded up Tia and went on our way. We ran late but still had fun. There was drama on the track for several drivers but none for us. We left around 3:00 and stopped at Walmart on the way home for food stuffs.
After unloading at home we went back out to Noodles for dinner and then on to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a new duvet cover. Unfortunately we arrived minutes after BB&B had closed (stupid Sunday-hours) and went home empty-handed. The rest of the weekend was spent with the pups on the couch.
March 14th weekend – Saturday we were up at 10:00 for coffee. We worked on the E30 for a bit before going to Harbor Freight and then Walmart. On the way home we stopped for lunch. The rest of the day we toiled away on the E30.
Sunday we slept, again, until 10:00 before having coffee. We spent some time working on the E30, mostly we did wiring stuff. Susan soldered and I helped where I could. Susan let Oliver out without a leash for the first time. We didn’t know what to expect and he mostly hung around the and under the RV. We did not get a whole lot done but that was ok.
March 21st weekend – we didn’t accomplish a whole lot this weekend. On Saturday we went to Walmart after coffee to buy food but found many of the shelves bare. The biggest bummer was the lack of meat. We settled for buying fresh rotisserie chicken for our protein needs. Sunday was a lazy day and we entertained ourselves with the TV and internets.
March 28th weekend – for the first time in a long time I didn’t take any notes for this weekend. I know we spent some time in the garage working on the E30 but ran into problems pulling out the pilot bearing. We went to Walmart for food stuffs to find the meat shelves still empty. More rotisserie for us!
March was a strange month for us and likely for the rest of the country. COVID-19 has changed so much. Susan and I started working from home towards the end of the month (me first and then Susan a few days later) which has been challenging.
I sit at the kitchen table and Susan repurposed a plastic table into a workstation in the front entry of the house. She brought home her dual work monitors and set things up to more-or-less mimic her office environment. I use my work laptop in combination with my home monitor to have two screens. I also use my personal keyboard and a separate mouse. Not the most convenient but it works. The biggest issue I have is that our kitchen chairs aren’t comfortable for long use and our internet is slow enough to affect my productivity.
We think the dogs are confused by the situation. We’re home all day but don’t hang out with them until the evenings. The Sunday-Monday change has been the most difficult. It takes a couple of days before they really relax and do their sleeping-all-day thing.
We’ve limited our excursions to roughly once a week and essentially only to do essential things. Susan bought a new printer from Best Buy which had us going there twice (the second time to pick up toner). Both times we waited in our car while an employee brought the orders out to us.
Buying food has been interesting. For the first few weeks of the pandemic the raw meat shelves were completely bare as were many of the canned-food isles. We lucked-out in that we already had plenty of paper products as, hilariously, they were sold out all month long.
My biggest annoyance with this situation is that my company’s work out facility is closed. I really miss that part of my routine. Susan’s biggest bummer is that the track is closed and rallycross events canceled until further notice.
Concerts we had tickets to have been cancelled as has one of our Lemons races. We’re hopeful this whole thing blows over soon but it’s really impossible to know.
We’re saving some money by not going out to eat and needing fill up the gas in our cars but we miss those things. At least we miss the option of going out.
I’m so glad I have Susan to hang out with all day. I think of myself as not needing much in the way of personal interactions but have Susan so don’t really know how I’d feel if I were truly alone.
