I made pretzels again today – it was the easiest batch yet. I didn’t make a big mess around the mixer and almost all the flour was properly incorporated into the dough, which wasn’t very sticky (I didn’t even need to put extra flour on my hands or the paper when I rolled and shaped the pretzels!). I didn’t even have to fight the usual boil-overs for the last couple of pretzels.

That last improvement may have come with a price, though – I couldn’t use the double burner that I usually use for the pretzel bath. I couldn’t turn its knob – and when I looked more closely, I saw that the knob was sitting lower than its mates. I’m just glad that the switch failed in “off” position so I can use the other elements until we can get it fixed.

I found out that one of my classmates brought home bedbugs from Reunion; she stayed at the same hotel as we did (the Westin), so I guess we got lucky in our choice of rooms. Before the pandemic, I had started to use a hair dryer to heat up the bed and make sure nothing came out before unpacking – I think I’ll get back into that habit for future travels!

A typical Thursday – Toastmasters in the morning, then the chiropractor, then shopping, then the allergist, and finally Trivial Zoom in the evening. After we got off Zoom, I turned on the Giants-Dodgers game (it’s the first baseball I’ve watched this season); as I write this, it’s 2-1 Dodgers in the top of the 9th.

While we were on Zoom, a friend suggested going out to see the Moon with Jupiter and Saturn, so we did; I got a better photo with my iPhone than with my camera!

We went to “Beyond Van Gogh” today at the San Jose Convention Center. Well, actually it was in the South Hall, which is really a big permanent tent.

Parking was shockingly easy – I found free street parking a few blocks away (something that would have been unlikely in the Before Times). There wasn’t much traffic to contend with on our walk, either.

We got to the entrance a few minutes before our appointed time; they didn’t make us wait, even though we hadn’t sprung for the “Premium Flex Ticket”. We had to show copies of our Covid-19 vaccination cards, and then we were in.

The exhibit started with a room filled with signs telling about Van Gogh’s art and life. There were also a lot of empty frames, which I guess fits with the theme of letting the art escape the frame.

After that, we entered the main room – Van Gogh’s paintings, or parts of them, were projected on every available surface.

They kept changing and moving – you couldn’t really examine anything because it’d vanish a few seconds later. And, unfortunately, some of the projectors were having problems, so there were some blurry areas. The musical accompaniment was nice.

I don’t know how this show compares with “Immersive Van Gogh” – it’d be interesting to see both, but not interesting enough to drive up to San Francisco.

I was hoping to visit the San Jose Museum of Art after the show, but they’re still only open Friday-Sunday. So we wandered around San Jose for a while before going back to the car and going home.

Would I recommend the show? Yes, but set your expectations for show more than art.

It’s been a pretty quiet day. At one point, we were hoping the “Play a Sound on your AirPods” feature of Apple’s “Find My” app would make some noise, but it turns out that it does nothing if the AirPods are in their case and the case is closed! We eventually found the errant AirPods (in their closed case), but it took a while to track them down.

The highlight of the day was a virtual tour of Jewish New Orleans (part of Shir Hadash’s “Lunch and Learn” programming), led by Roni Bossin of The Wandering Krewe. He used a mix of Google Earth and PowerPoint to lead us through the city (mostly the French Quarter) and give us closeup views of the relevant sights. Being there in person would have been better (especially when we “visited” Cafe du Monde), but this tour was a pretty good substitute and a lot more convenient.

Going to Reunion was a lot of fun, but there was one unsettling aspect – we spent four hours in a room filled with people with naked faces. It was the most time either of us had spent with more than a few unmasked people in at least 573 days, so I picked up a BinaxNOW Covid test at CVS and we took it this evening.

I used the macro mode of the iPhone 13 Pro camera to be sure I was reading the test strip correctly (I knew I bought the Pro model for a reason!) and both of us tested negative. whew