Lockdown Day 42: A rare peek "outside" to get medicine, and super quick Chinese chive pesto and chicken pasta

Breakfast today was a bowl of steel cut oats, with flaxseed, chia, and goji berries. The goji berries left the oatmeal naturally a bit sweet, so I added just a splash of maple syrup.

I also had coffee mixed with my red bean drink mix… which I spilled completely as I was setting my computer down onto the table! I made another one but… what a mess, and waste of precious coffee!

In the morning, right in the middle of a meeting, I got a call. The medicine, which I got a prescription for yesterday from the hospital, was on its way! I did a video consultation yesterday, that was supposedly free, but the “prescription fee” was 300 RMB. But in the final invoice, the description for the “prescription fee” was a physician’s office visit, so hopefully insurance will cover it. Then there was the cost of the prescription itself. Unlike going to the hospital in person, I had to pay upfront and file a claim later.

The “prescription fee” included the delivery fee, and they said it could take 2-3 days. Well, it took only one day. And the guy who delivered it to me was driving this Porsche. This wasn’t any ol’ kuaidi delivery driver. Maybe doctors were out delivering medicine?

Going to the gate led me to catch just a glimpse of the outside world. And I saw the gate being opened for a delivery person with lots of boxed meals - in those black boxes which I’m very familiar with from quarantine hotels. I guess some old people maybe get meals delivered?

My medicine came in this gift bag, typical of the hospital I go to. When I got my first vaccine shot, they gave out these bags with just a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer in it!

I came back, finished up my meeting, and had just 30 minutes before my next meeting. It was enough time to whip up this pasta. I first put the spiral pasta to boil, 10 minutes, while I cooked the Chinese chive pesto, added in sun-dried tomatoes, then cooked chicken from yesterday, then I added in the pasta, and in the bowl, topped it all with parmesan cheese. Just 15 minutes or so from start to finish! And very delicious.

In the afternoon, it started raining, but the PCR testing show went on. Observe the guy on the left with the disinfectant spray, spraying those umbrellas. As if they have virus on them, that could infect people underneath.

After the PCR, an antigen test.

I also tried out group buying for just the second time, kind of on a whim. I’m actually running low on a lot of things, but fruit especially. So I went in on a watermelon group buy. I had heard through the WeChat groups that last time they were quite happy with the watermelons. And this Pingduoduo group buying platform is kind of different from normal group buys. In that you pay directly into the app, and there’s no “团长“ or “group leader” who needs to organize the group and collect the money. Seemed less hassle.

After work, I did my workout of the day (posterior chain), and had a shepherd’s pie in the toaster oven the whole time. So I could come out of a shower with dinner waiting!

Dinner was simple, but then I did a lot of meal prep for tomorrow. For breakfast, I put white rice and lentils into the Xiaomi, along with dried shiitake cut into tiny pieces, ginger, and a bit of chicken bouillon granules, from my government supply. I saw someone on YouTube making congee 粥 this way!

For lunch, I have a stir-fried noodle dish in mind, so did a lot of chopping: carrots, onion, Napa cabbage, garlic, Chinese sausage, and dried shiitake, which I soaked along with lotus flower. And I also made the sauce: soy sauce, oyster sauce, rice wine, and white pepper.

And I cut up an orange, to have tonight.