Captain's Log, Day 13: In Which I Find Symbolism

Date: April 20, 2020

Time of post:  8:45PM

Quarantine Day: 36

Last Song I Listened To: “Only the Brave” by Louis Tomlinson

Last Person I Communicated With: one of the many GTA GroupMe chats (we have so many!)

Last Thing I Ate: spaghetti and meatballs with alfredo

Last Thing I Read: a study guide of History of the Book terms

Current Mood: headache-y

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: almost setting my kitchen on fire and shattering a glass bowl

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: figure out why my email is down

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: Toothless got out today (immediately following my “accomplishment”) and took like 10 years off my life

One Reason I’m Happy Today: I think I’m presenting at the Lit Track Symposium next week—but my email crashed before I could read the whole thing; it said “pleased,” so that usually means good news

Dear Apocalypsers,

I’m tired today. My head hurts. Hopefully this entry will be short and I can have a relaxing evening.

Today has been an adventure, to say the least.

It was a pretty chill day. I woke up earlier than normal (at 10AM instead of noon). I actually did some dishes and picked up my apartment a little. I took my History of the Book Quiz—which was awful—and talked to my best friend for a while. Then I called my mom, who was on the phone with me for the rest of my “adventure.”

Then I made the mistake of wanting to make dinner. You’d think that everything was fine, considering that I cook for myself every day, and that, not 4 days, I was whipping up a coffee cake like Jacob Kowalski from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016).

I’m definitely more of a baker than a chef, apparently.

Me a few days ago proudly sharing my baked goods with you.

I decided to make spaghetti. I bought spinach and kale and alfredo sauce and wanted to make like a “primavera” type thing. So I put some water in a pot, turn the stove on, and head back to my room to put some laundry away, because I know it’ll take several minutes to heat up, and “a watched pot never boils,” right?

When I step into the hallway, I can see “steam.”

“Great, the water’s almost ready,” I think.

Nope.

That was smoke.

Me, today, standing in my kitchen.

I turned on the wrong burner, and, of my four burners, I turned on the only one that could have caused any problems. I turned on the “back right” burner instead of the “front right” burner, and of course my glass fruit bowl with a bag of halo oranges, a spaghetti squash and a set of measuring cups was sitting on that one.

I think it was the netting on the halo bag that was smoking, so I utter my favorite 4-letter-word  (it rhymes with “luck,” of which I had none today), turn the vent on, move the bag of oranges  to the stove top, and cut the burner off.

This is what "melted measuring cup" looks
like.

Then I start fanning the whole hazy kitchen with a spiral-bound notebook. I run back and dan the smoke detector in the hall for good measure, because I hate when it goes off. Then I go to the living room (things are still smoldering in the kitchen and my mom is on speaker phone asking what’s going on), and I fumble with the sliding door, trying to open it and slide the screen across without the my curious cats getting out.

Then I made another mistake. I moved the glass bowl to a different burner—and it, for lack of a better word, exploded. So now I have smoke and broken glass everywhere.

And my mother understood why I used a 4-letter-word.

The aftermath

So I cleaned up the broken glass and throw away the melted measuring cups and scorched fruit (most of the halos survived!) I post about it on social media, because I’m a mess, and I want everyone to know about my superb kitchen skills. (There’s still plastic melted to my stovetop, but my mom says if I let it cool, it should peel right off.)

 I finally get to make my spaghetti, and that, thankfully, goes off without a problem.

Before I sit down to eat, I decide to close the sliding door, because the blinds are open, and the sun is shining right in my eyes.

And, of course, I can’t catch a break. The sliding door comes off its track, and, as I’m trying to fix it, Toothless, runs onto my balcony and immediately onto my neighbor’s adjoining one. He doesn’t come when I call—no, beg—him to come back. Instead, he jumps down into the parking lot. (I live on the second floor, but the buildings are split-level, so the first floor is almost underground, and my second-floor balcony is probably only 4 feet off the ground.) I literally sprint out of my apartment building to find Toothless under our balcony with his tail all puffed up. Naturally, he tried to run from me…until he realized it was me, and then he just meowed like, “MOM, GUESS WHAT I ACTUALLY HATE THIS A LOT.”

Long story short, I scoop him up, come back inside, eat my now-cold spaghetti, and sit down to write this.

I think I need wine.

And, because I’m an English graduate who’s been cooped up for far too long, I started thinking: I survived that catastrophe. And while it’s a small-scale personal catastrophe compared to the large-scale global catastrophe that’s going on right now, the process is similar. I kept my head when things were literally on fire; I did what I had to do. Even my mother, who witnessed the whole thing, was impressed with how calm I was. (And she’s been dealing with my dramatics for 24 years now!) And I think that if I keep approaching this pandemic in the same way, that I’ll make it out okay. That doesn’t mean that things won’t be scary. I mean, I almost set my kitchen on fire while trying to boil water—that’s terrifying—and I could have easily lost my cat, whom I love beyond belief, if I hadn’t noticed that he slipped out—that’s almost scarier. This pandemic is scary; it’s uncertain and stressful and all-around scary, but if we buckle down and do what the experts say—and call our moms and Zoom with our friends and tell people we love them and wash our hands and wash our hands and wash our hands—I think we’ll make it out of this.

Here's Toothless the Escape Artist

Here's Minnie the Very Good Girl

And, idk, maybe salvage the second half of 2020.

I could compare this to all the protagonists of apocalyptic literature. I want to make a rally corny Katniss as the “girl on fire” joke. I want to dig through my Twitter and find an appropriate Justice quote. But, like I opened with, I’m tired, this is definitely one of those “let go” moments. So I might just go get that wine and try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s a new day, hopefully with less fire and smoke—both literally and figuratively.

So here’s to tomorrow.

May the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie