During our trip out to Jackson Heights, Queens, yesterday, we also picked up a few more mini Ataulfo mangoes from an Indian grocery store. While Haitian mangoes were being sold, we decided we didn’t like them as much since they were more stringy and tart than the Ataulfo ones, so we passed on those. If you can believe it, we got six mini Ataulfo mangoes for just $2 – that’s crazy cheap! They were on the ripe side, though, so I immediately had to cut them all today, resulting in six plus two of the regular sized Ataulfo mangoes I got during the mango sale at Whole Foods. This apartment is just swimming in mangoes. I’m looking for different desserts to use them in so that we don’t end up having to eat four whole ones each per day. No-churn mango ice cream looks like a good and easy option that I’ll test out this week.

Today, we ventured out of Manhattan for the first time since quarantine began in early March. We took the train to Jackson Heights, Queens, and loaded up on delicious, cheap groceries and produce from a couple of Indian/Pakistani markets, picked up a box of Indian sweets, stopped by a Colombian bakery and bought some pan de bono (cheese bread), and attempted (but failed) to eat at one of the outside dining tables of our favorite dosa place. They had only two tables available, and they had a steady stream of people trying to eat there. Plus, the service looked quite slow. All of the outdoor tables and chairs that are normally outside the train station were gone, likely because of COVID-19, and so we ended up having to go back to Manhattan to find a spot for outdoor dining. It was still good to leave the borough and see life elsewhere, though. I miss the hustle and bustle of wandering around neighborhoods in Queens. I also miss the variety of produce and spices, the diversity of the clientele, plus the cheap prices.

I perked up for a bit, especially when I saw a sign for Pakistani mangoes at one of the markets. Unfortunately, a worker said that they wouldn’t be getting their delivery from Pakistan until next week, so we came just a week too early. I purchased some Haitian mangoes from a street vendor here on the Upper West Side this past week, and unfortunately, they just weren’t as sweet or delicious as the Ataulfo mangoes we normally get. Plus, they were quite stringy, which I strongly dislike.

Because of COVID-19 descending upon us and forcing us to socially distance, all of our usual activities, from dining out, hanging out with friends, exploring different neighborhoods, going to theater, and travel have come to an abrupt halt. With all this extra time on my hands, not only am I cooking, filming, and video editing more, but I’m also doing a lot more reading. Given the recent instances of racial injustice in the last few weeks along with the protests and ongoing conversations of racial injustice at work, I thought it would be a fitting time to bring Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to be an Anti-Racist to the top of my list. I finished reading that a few days ago on my Kindle. To balance all these serious topics that require a lot of re-reading and contemplation, I nestled Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel mystery/drama novel in here, especially since it has unlimited borrows on the Libby app via the New York Public Library since it’s the Book of the Month. It’s been good to get absorbed into a fun novel that has a dramatic story line that doesn’t require a lot of self-introspection. But on my walks, I’ve saved Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility for listening.

One of the things I had to noodle over for a while, which I guess I have not been very analytical in breaking down, is that she suggests that the current day denial that racism exists, the insistence that we live in a “color-blind” world where people “do not see color,” actually originates from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he said that he hoped that one day, he and his children could live in world where they could be judged for their actions and not based on the color of their skin. White people basically took this part of his speech, twisted it, and transformed it into, “I no longer see color. Therefore, I am not racist and cannot be accused of being racist.” Wow, that was an incredible and screwed up interpretation and turn of events! These same people carry “white fragility” and insist that the people who bring up race or talk about race “think everything is about race, the people who bring up race “are actually the ones who are racist.”

So, I didn’t know MLK, and I obviously never had a conversation with him, but I have a strong feeling that he didn’t advocate for people lying to themselves and the world that they are colorblind and thus BLIND to the differences of people and do not understand socialization. Nor do I think he advocated for the denial of racism or inequality existing. Why are people so terrible?

As of last month, I officially finished editing and uploading all my travel videos through Indonesia. Looking back, I never thought I’d get them all done by May given work and other work and personal travel, but with COVID-19 taking away all “normal” life, including socializing and travel, I’ve had a lot more time to be on a computer editing and producing more material for my YouTube channel. I still have a decent backlog of cooking videos I’ve filmed before and during this period, but other than that, we have no travel content to work with anymore. The San Francisco burrito comparison video was really the last “not here in New York or in my kitchen” video, and we uploaded that on Friday.

So we started with a new type of video, which is about takeout you can get right here in New York. We chose one of our favorite and much loved neighborhood spots, Pure Thai Cookhouse, and filmed the takeout we got from there and what you can expect it to taste like. Is this going to be the future of “travel and eating” videos — filming takeaway food we’re eating at home? When will be we able to really eat out again… travel again?

“What are we going to do this weekend?” Chris asked aloud. It was more a rhetorical question because literally every single weekend since shelter-in-place began, we’ve been doing the exact same things: cooking, cleaning, watching different shows/movies on Netflix/Showtime/HBO/YouTube, reading, shooting and editing videos, taking walks, buying groceries. The most exciting thing that ever happens on the weekends now is if we have a video call with a friend or family member, or if our handyman decides to come buy for a drink if he’s free.

I realized that given how poorly the federal government has handled COVID-19 that for the very first time, our lives, as in our two lives, have been directly impacted by the the idiot in the White House. President Dipshit has done a lot of terrible things over the course of the last 3.5 years, but our lives were never directly impacted. Our ability to work, travel, live our usual lives, has never been impacted.. until now. First, he denied the virus was an issue. Then, he constantly called it the “Chinese virus” and blamed China. Then, he encouraged people to NOT shelter in place and to ignore their state governments. The entire country was a complete cluster, a laughing stock of the world. If our government actually had a handle of this virus and handled it correctly, perhaps we’d actually be able to enter a travel bubble with other countries. But nope. The entire world sees our country has dirty and has travel bans for everyone with a U.S. passport. Thanks, President Dipshit, for ruining our ability to travel and be free.

This past week, I started reading Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist. It’s required a lot of focus, a lot of re-reading of sentences and paragraphs to give myself time to absorb and take in information, and a lot of stopping to think. What Kendi makes clear throughout the first 40 percent of the book that I’ve gotten through is that racism is something that is learned, taught to us by everyone from our parents, families, friends, textbooks, schools, media — you name it, and they’re teaching racism to you in some shape or form. Some people think that it’s impossible for a Black or Asian or other “person of color” to be racist, and this could not be further from the truth. Racism against anyone is possible by anyone. Black people can be racist against White people. Asian people can be racist against Latinx people. Darker skinned Latinx people can be racist against lighter skinned Latinx people, and Black people can be racist against Black people. But I think one of the concepts he points out in the book that really made me think was that the term “racist” is oftentimes seen as a pejorative word rather than a descriptive word, and that is actually part of the problem. Someone who is striving to be an antiracist can say or do a racist thing, but that does not necessarily make the person racist because they are (we’d hope) still learning, still evolving). Being racist vs. antiracist is not static. We can evolve and change for the better (sadly, for the worst). So, we should be able to accept “racist” as a descriptive word for a specific action or statement said by an individual and not just pejoratively write them off as a “racist” forever and always.

That sounds like a growth mindset, right?

I took a walk around the Upper West Side late afternoon yesterday, which was the first official day that low-risk businesses could begin reopening. This meant that a number of coffee shops and Starbucks locations had reopened, even allowing a handful of customers inside their stores depending on the space. Restaurants that had previously been closed have reopened for takeout and delivery. Even a handful of clothing shops along Columbus Avenue have reopened, along with a stationery store on Broadway. There was far more life at 72nd and Broadway, considered the central hub, of the Upper West Side, than I’d seen in months. Street performers were scattered throughout. A random man collecting donations had about a dozen different parakeets, cockatiels, and lovebirds sitting around him, along with two bunnies in the center, just steps away from the Upper West Side Trader Joe’s. It actually feels like we’re slowly but surely getting back to regular street and sidewalk traffic.

It still felt weird, though. We’re not at ideal testing levels. There’s tension all around not just because of COVID-19, but because of police brutality, racial injustice, and the protests that we’ve seen around the world in the last two weeks. My mind and even my body are just exhausted. Walking only about 30 blocks, I felt so drained afterwards. The world is just so tiring, and our nation’s leadership is only exacerbating the problems that exist instead of offering comfort or tangible solutions. This is 2020.

It’s been over three months of being on lockdown here in New York for us. We’ve gotten restaurant and groceries delivered. We’ve made weekly trips to different grocery stores. We’ve walked north, south, east, and west. We’ve walked all the way down to Manhattan Chinatown. We’ve taken the subway only twice with our groceries from lower Manhattan to be good citizens and stay off the subway. We walked in Central Park today, which Chris bemoaned since he runs there every weekday morning and is sick of it.

“You can just tell that people are walking around here aimlessly,” he grumbled.

That’s probably true. People are walking for the sake of walking, to get out of their cramped apartments and to get some fresh outdoor air. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to walk aimlessly, though. It could allow us to think more freely, to think without distractions. My daily weekly days have been done while catching up with colleagues and friends over the phone, listening to different podcasts and audio books. It’s been a lot of productive activity, but even though it’s different content and different people, it’s been a bit redundant. Who knows what “normal” even looks like anymore, and how that will be redefined in the coming weeks. But it still just feels so bleak.

New York City will begin opening up again in the next week, and the reopening of the city will take place in phases. People who work in white-collar professions such as myself are likely part of the very last phases to return to work, so I may not be “allowed” to go back to the office until the end of this month. But this reopening also means that restaurants who felt unsafe to open for delivery/takeout during this pandemic finally feel like they can open now, even if it’s just delivery/takeout. One of these restaurants was Ba Xuyen, who reopened for takeout earlier this week. They are a cash-only, independently owned establishment with owners who speak little to no English. It’s one of my most favorite spots in New York given that it has the most authentic banh mi in New York City when compared to the ones all over Vietnam. One of the fears we had at the beginning of the pandemic was: what restaurants are still going to be financially sound enough to reopen at the time of re-opening, or will many of them just close forever? The more of these businesses that close, the more New York will not retain what makes it such a great place to live and eat. I hope Ba Xuyen will be okay.