Yesterday I overheard Michael on the phone talking to our downstairs neighbor and asking her “do you have any baking powder? You do? Can we borrow some? Well how old is it?”

She is cautious. Her method of lending something in the era of CV-19 is not to simply bring it up. She comes upstairs, leaves it at our door, and goes back downstairs. She did the same thing last week with the flowers she left for us. (She said it was “love your neighbor day” and left several bunches on the stairwell for us all to pick and choose. I have barely clapped eyes on her for several weeks, though she remains helpful and generous. It’s like having a brownie in the building.)

Michael brought in the can, glanced at the stamp on the bottom and said, “Well, it’s a little past the expiration date, but I think we can use it.”

I took a look. The expiration was sometime in 2011. At least we don’t have to worry about it being infected, given that it’s been sitting in the back of a pantry for almost a decade.

Still, I tested the stuff by pouring a little boiling water over a spoonful and it fizzed nicely. Baking powder is more durable than I’d thought. Michael got his blueberry muffins last night and this morning, I took a couple down for our neighbor. She’ll get a share of everything I bake from here on.

It looks like the screaming minority opposed to the lock-down are getting more and more aggressive about it. A security guard was shot for telling a woman to wear a face-mask, and another man wiped his nose on the shirt of a store employee who asked him to wear one. In Ohio, the government is apparently offering workers the chance to rat each other out for following the advice of immunologists and staying home.