Done Since 2020-03-29

It's been a week. Among other things, it was the last time Colleen's caregiver will be coming over for at least a month, and our housekeeper is working outside on yard care (which absolutely needs it). We picked up groceries, and last night's dinner from our favorite bistro, curbside with minimal interaction, and otherwise stayed home. I need to decide whether I feel safe going to a dentist appointment tomorrow -- should have made that call last week, but for some reason the combination of stress, depression, and anxiety makes things like that hard.

An article on making a will and other documents was pretty disturbing (I have one, but Colleen doesn't, and neither of us has an advance directive or financial power of attorney.) I was somewhat reassured, however, to note that Washington allows remote notarization, so we can do those without going out. I'm not sure whether the many articles I've linked to about how to make a mask -- including this particularly simple one and this No-Sew Pleated Face Mask with Handkerchief and Hair Tie were exactly reassuring, but at least they're sort of encouraging rather than alarming. "Don’t panic about shopping, getting delivery or accepting packages" was definitely reassuring. (Though I'm being a bit paranoid about the mail anyway.)

On the gripping hand, there is Filk Streams – Where to find the best Fannish concerts online. It looks as though there's going to be a virtual con or housefilk at least every weekend. I haven't gotten to more than a fraction, but I did sing in one of HELIOsphere's virtual circles last night, and expect to (um... "go to" isn't exactly right, is it?) the dead dog tonight. Another good place to find online filk is the "Festival of the Living Rooms" group on the Book of Faces.

Zoom appears to be the best software for circles, with Jitsi Meet an open-source alternative with end-to-end encryption but somewhat worse performance. (See Mozilla Foundation's article about Zoom for why you might want end-to-end encryption.) Note, though, that Jitsi's security depends on having an unguessable meeting name. They offer suggestions.

I've seen streaming concerts over Zoom as well -- that's how HELIOsphere is doing them -- but also YouTube and FB among others. I stay away from FB when I can, so I used YouTube for the mini-concert I gave two days ago. I wouldn't call it "great" by a long shot, but I think "not too awful for a first attempt" is a fair description.

( Notes & links, as usual )