Monday, October 5 Deaths 572 (+0) Cases 35,049 (+279)
Had our first Turkish lesson today, coming to us from Rostock, Germany via LearnCube. Yo! It was hard! LearnCube seems pretty cool but first we have to learn how to use the tools and remember how to type the Turkish alphabet. We have bitten off a lot here.
After class we had to pack up for the coast, including food for the first 24 hours. Did a poor job of this. As it happened, M remembered to pack many items of food, but not the three most important ones, one of which was the fat slab of chocolate lovers cake from the Market of Choice bakery! Had to make an emergency stop at Ray’s Food Place in Waldport. Arrived at the hotel around 4:00. Beautiful day, sunny and cool. Big waves.
As the sun set we had our dinner in the room with food brought from home and Ray’s. Quite adequate. The Adobe Resort was built in the 70’s (we remember) and was quite a place back then. It’s still very nice, although a few bits of seventies décor are looking tired. There are spectacular views from the restaurant and bar, where almost every table is at or very near one of the long wraparound windows. And there were definitely people eating and drinking in there, seated at every other table. We’re still leery of indoor dining.
Tuesday, October 6 Deaths 581 (+9 Cases 35,340 (+291)
Hiking day. Leisurely breakfast in the room, then a short drive down to Cape Perpetua. We hiked the Cook’s Ridge trail, which leads eastward away from the sea and climbs 1100 feet into the beginnings of the Coast Range. We knew better than to do the 8.0 mile loop and instead did a 5.8 mile up and back. That was plenty. Amazing trees. They grow fast here, so even the big ones are only 100 to 200 years old. The trees were hemlock and Sitka spruce in the first half of the climb and later some cedar and fir. We learned from a signboard that in this climate hemlock will outgrow Douglas fir; M had thought that nothing could. More beautiful weather. Here’s E about a mile up the trail exploring the remains of a very old tree, probably a hemlock.
For dinner we got take-out from the hotel restaurant and again ate in the room. Very good food. E loved her vegetable cacciatore. When you first look at the Adobe menu, it seems a little too regular American. But looking deeper E found a non-pasta vegetarian entrée–that in itself is a miracle around here–and it turned out to be really delicious. M had halibut fish and chips, also very pleasing. We washed it down with Rioja brought from home.
Wednesday, October 7 Deaths 583 (+2) Cases 35,634 (+294)
Another hour and a half Turkish lesson today. We had not expected to be doing it on this particular date when we made hotel reservations. But…things change. Turkish and LearnCube are still hard, but we’re getting excited. We might possibly learn something. (Which we will then proceed to forget, but never mind.) But wait, our 9:00 A.M. Turkish class was not the first important event of the day. At 7:30 sharp we were third in line when the doors opened at the Green Salmon Coffee Shop in downtown Yachats. M had a star-shaped classic Danish and E had a cherry-rhubarb turnover. Plus we had our half cafs. We took it all back to the room and sat looking at the sea and making happiness sounds until it was time to start the class.
After class it was time to check out. The drive home took just over an hour. We spent the whole time trying to master possessive adjectives. In English that would be my, your, his, her, its, our and their. Seven words and you’d be done. But not in Turkish, oh no. In Turkish there are twenty-eight; six basic words each with four different variations, except for third person plural, which seems to have eight variations. In practice Turkish possessives are quite logical–there are good reasons for all those variations–but it’s not easy to remember them all.
Thursday, October 8 Deaths 594 (+11) Cases 36,116 (+482)
A sobering number of Oregon COVID deaths was reported today, the highest Oregon daily total since Aug. 17 and the third highest ever. The fatality rate per 100,000 is now 13.8.
We did an hour of Turkish study on our own this morning. Such motivation! E also had laughter yoga. Both us spent time catching up on paperwork and bill paying. We’re worrying about our Chilean presentations. Florencia sent us a copy of the seminar announcement. Our names were on the list of presenters. Oh no! We only have ten days to prepare! We’ll never be ready in time!
Friday, October 9 Deaths 597 (+3) Cases 36,526 (+410)
Grocery shopping this morning, M went to Winco and E went to the Co-op. Then Andrea stopped by for lunch on the back patio–cucumber sandwiches and a can of Amy’s lentil soup. Good cooperation from the weather. After that E contacted Chile to nail down some specifics of how our presentations would go. Then we worked on how to adapt our stuff to Zoom. Mostly we practiced screen sharing.
Online shopping update: M’s EarPods arrived.
Saturday, October 10 Deaths 599 (+2) Cases 36,924 (+398)
The Corvallis Greek Fest is going on this weekend, but not in the usual way. Usually it’s a big party with food, drink, music and dancing in a giant party tent. This year there was no tent, no dancing, no drinks and no music. They did the food though, by golly, serving it up drive-through style. When we heard the plan we wondered how that would work. Friday was the first day and we heard that some people had to wait an hour and a quarter. So when we went on Saturday we took some reading materials with us–Turkish lessons actually–so as to have something to pass the time. But when we arrived around noon, there were only eight or ten cars ahead of us and the line was moving fast. E had typed up what we wanted to order (for ourselves and a friend) and there was a big crew of clipboard carrying order takers and tablet carrying payment staff. We took our haul over to H’s house, where she had set up a beautiful fall themed table on her covered back patio. It was a damp, cool day with intermittent splashes of rain, so we had to bundle up. But the menu was grand: pork souvlaki, falafel, spanakopita, Moroccan Chicken, braised lamb, vegan dolmas, fasolia, and pasticcio plus baklava and a bunch of kinds of cake. We didn’t actually order all of that, but we did our best. M made Greek coffee in his new Turkish coffee maker and served it in cups he had brought along for the occasion.
Later on we started watching a new Turkish TV series. It’s called The Gift and concerns a painter living in Istanbul who discovers a mysterious connection between the images that have always inspired her painting and some images recently discovered during archeological work on an Anatolian hillside. Her obsession begins to affect her behavior and becomes a cause of concern for her family and for her rich and rather boorish fiance, whom she inexplicably seems to be excited about marrying. At first everyone thinks she is just goofy, including the handsome young archeology professor that she tracks down, hoping that he can give her some explanation for what is happening to her. He initially assumes that she is just a nut and shoos her away. But he is forced to rethink when he begins to find evidence for some of the crazy things she claims, things that she could not have known, secrets that been buried deep in the earth for at least 15,000 years…
Sunday, October 11 Deaths 599 (+0) Cases 37,225 (+331)
Zoom meeting today with two siblings and one cuz. Nice to catch up with them. John is still in his new cottage at the lake and is thinking of living there through December. Cuz’s sabbatical year is being disrupted by the pandemic. She had planned to be doing a number of projects involving international travel, but that’s not going to work. She is adapting. J and J had some severe storms in their area last week and lost power for many hours, which would have been long enough to melt their ice cream had they not taken pre-emptive measures. E and M have been trying to learn how to use their new green screen. One thing we discovered was that when E wore a particular green turtleneck and vest, the computer assumed that her torso was part of the background and erased it, which left only her head floating in the middle of the screen. A little unsettling but hilarious. We wanted to let the group see this. Unfortunately the computer began to get smarter and in this session it insisted on keeping her torso firmly present. So disappointing. By changing up the lighting and camera angles, however, we were able to briefly recreate the effect. So everybody got to see the floating head, if only for a few seconds.
Next we needed to do a little Turkish. The teacher has sent us feedback about our compositions, plus an extensive word list and lots of grammar notes. Argh!
Chili and corn bread for dinner. Flesh and Blood on Masterpiece for TV.