Monday, October 19 Deaths 628 (+8) Cases 39,794 (+262)
A couple of short walks, just around the neighborhood. E had Better Bones and Balance via Zoom while M did a final run-through of his Chile talk. Then we did an hour of Turkish study , preparing for our next lesson, which will be on Wednesday since the regular Monday class has been changed to Thursday. E also did a last run-through for Chile; then she switched gears and practiced using the LearnCube white board for Turkish. But that was after she went to Bi-Mart for misc. goods and Halloween candy. E made another simple and healthy dinner. Then we settled in to watch the last episode of Season 2 of The Gift. It was very disappointing. The show has many virtues, but without a good season-ender we don’t feel that it has been a good investment of our time and attention. Will we ever watch Season 3? Well…it’s not impossible.
It was a cool and partly cloudy day with a beautiful sunset. Probably should be spending more time outside instead of doing all this digital interaction.
Tuesday, October 20 Deaths 633 (+6) Cases 40,136 (+242)
The Chile webinar, long awaited and much feared, has now come and gone. It went okay. M forgot to tell the young teachers to be that they’re going to have to love their students, but that might have been a little too mushy anyway. It’s a great relief to have it over with.
We celebrated with a take-out dinner from Tacovore, complete with a large glass of their incomparable lime juice, which we knew how to turn into a couple of margaritas.
Wednesday, October 21 Deaths 635 (+2) Cases 40,443 (+307)
In Turkish class today we learned how to say on the left/right side of something (street, page, river, etc.) You start with the thing you’re talking about, such as street. Then you make that word possessive by adding the proper possessive ending (in,nin,ın or nın). Then you add sağ (right) or sol (left) followed by the correct genetive ending (i/si/ı/sı). Then you add the locative suffix “da” but when you do that you have to remember to use the “n” spacer. Oh, and don’t forget that when you add the possessive ending to a word ending in “k”, such as “sokak” (street) the “k” changes to a silent ğ. So there you have it, sokağnın sağında, on the right side of the street. Wasn’t that easy? No. But is it logical? Yeah, it pretty much is.
After class, we were off to the nursery to buy some trees and poppy seeds. We’ve been considering what to get for a long time. We are committed now to making our yard more of a native environment for birds, caterpillars and whatever, so we needed native plants. Garland has a good selection of natives, all in one place. Nice. For trees we ended up choosing a cascara and a vine maple. Then it was time for lunch, after which E went off on more garden related business, picking up some bulbs and seeds at the fall plant sale connected to the Tribal Native Plant Program of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. M headed out to the back yard to begin the process of converting a portion of our back lawn to some sort of prairie.
In the evening we watched a couple of episodes of Winter Sun (Kış Günesi) a Turkish series we watched once before long ago. We’re trying to see if we catch more Turkish this time. So far, M has understood mostly just the old standbys: I love you, calm down, etc. But E is understanding a number of bits and pieces, including Trust me, which another basic staple of Turkish dramatic dialog.
Thursday, October 22 Deaths 646 (+11) Cases 40,810 (+367)
Nice talk with J and R today. We had to do a Zoom tertulia this time since the temperature in the morning was too far down the scale to allow having coffee and scones outside. This time the menu was oatmeal for J and R, waffles with blueberries for M and E. We had to cut tertulia a little short so as to be ready for Turkish at 9:00. A kind of review and catch up lesson today. We went over the endings for present/present continuous verbs. It’s a bit like Spanish, in that the person is shown by a verb ending and you don’t actually need a pronoun. For example, in English we have a series of three-word sentences: I am happy, you are happy, she is happy, we are happy, you(all) are happy, and they are happy. Spanish does it with a series of two-word sentences: estoy contento, estas contento, esta contenta, estamos contentos, estais contentos, estan contentos. Turkish does it with a series of one-word sentences: mutluyum, mutlusun, mutlu, mutluyuz, mutlusunuz, mutlular. More importantly, we learned that the word for hot (sıcak), when it is used to describe a person, indicates that the person is warm-hearted, not that they are that other thing.
After Turkish, it was time for rest, recovery and lunch. Then E had to get ready for her HEPAJ meeting at H’s house, from which she had to hurry home to do laughter Yoga. M dug in the dirt and planted trees.
On this the 210th day of PD recording keeping, the Oregon COVID news is not so good. In the most recent 10-day period, we had an average of almost five deaths per day, continuing the upward trend of the last 30 days and coming close to the peaks we had in August and early September. Here’s the updated chart.
Friday, October 23 Deaths 649 (+3) Cases 41,348 (+538)
Did an outing today with B and B up to Mary’s Peak, up to the top where one of the B’s had never been. Drove in separate cars up to the parking lot, then hiked together up to the summit. Mostly sunny when we arrived with great views in all directions. Cold wind, though, and we all bundled up. It got considerably cloudier as we walked back down to the cars. To get out of the wind, we drove down to the campground to have lunch. Delicious! B–the one who does most of the cooking–had made chocolate chip cookies. Super, as the Turks say, (although when they say it, they stress the second syllable, so it sounds like zoo-PEAR). E brought a thermos of hot tea, which was extremely welcome. M brought a flask with just enough Aberfeldy for everyone to have a mini-shot. Also welcome. When we got back to town the temperature was up in the mid 50’s and our coats were way too warm.
E talked to her old friend L. in Vanautu in the afternoon, a FaceTime call out of the blue. L left upstate New York many moons ago and went to live with husband T in a tropical paradise. We visited them in the late nineties to see it for ourselves. Some years later L came to Turkey while we were there and we traveled around Ephesus together. E and L hadn’t been in touch for the last few years, so it was wonderful for them to catch up.
The last little while has been crazy full of international contact. Besides Vanuatu, we had Zoom Turkish lessons from Germany, Zoom webinar presentations to Chile and the Skype call with Margie in Spain. It makes M’s head spin.
Saturday, October 24 Deaths 653 (+4) Cases 41,739 (+391)
Eve did her usual heroic Saturday duties. First she walked over to the Patissier for croissants. She says that the guy with the oxygen canister on his belt was there again, serving as an example to us all. Let not a mere breathing problem keep you from croissants. She then went out to do a dog walk for her friend but found the dog cowering indoors because of some shooting going on out there in the country. She decided to bring Pepper back to our place in town and let him run around the back yard for a while. That worked fine; Pepper pretty much stayed in constant motion till it was time to take him home. M, meanwhile, was still digging in the dirt, preparing an area of lawn to become a ‘meadow’ next spring. The dog made a contribution.
Dinner was take-out from Ba’s Vietnamese Comfort Rood in Albany. We had to take the Porsche to pick it up because the Mazda was ailing. E got the vegan curry, M the beef pho. We both got the large size portions, which we carefully halved as soon as we got home, one half to eat and one to save for another day.
After dinner we had a FaceTime call with Andi and Andy. Andy is settling into his new job working for the Post Office. He has to work tomorrow, as the USPS does package work for Amazon on Sundays. Andrea is starting a new job with Banfield next week, one that she expects will be more challenging and more interesting than what she has been doing.
Sunday, October 25 Deaths 653(+0) Cases 41,101 (+362)
Zoom meeting with the siblings today, E from Corvallis, Jim from Clifton Park, and John from the new cottage at the lake. Jim reported that he has not been getting messages on his phone as it is locked outside in his car. Joanne can still answer a landline however, so that’s how the meeting organizer was finally able to contact him. Jim still has his old Corvette and they’ve been out in it quite recently. Good for them. John moved his camera to show us his canine friend, Mabel, who is currently keeping him company up at the lake. Mabel is a Puerto Rican immigrant, a refugee from Hurricane Maria. E showed a picture that she had come across while perusing old albums. It was of one of their great grandfathers on their mother’s side, one Luther Ochampaugh, a Vermonter worked with his brother as a cheesemaker.
After the meeting E and M put the jumper cables on the Mazda and got it going again. Once it started up, we noticed that the gas gauge read empty, which seemed absurd, but there it was. M put in half a gallon and we headed off to the gas station. After half a block, the gauge jumped up to one eighth full. Good news. After three blocks it jumped to more than a quarter full. By the time we got to the station it had settled in at about three fourths full. Very peculiar.
After lunch we got outside for a bit and then, when we were nice and tired, our Turkish teacher sent us the homework for tomorrow. Dragged ourselves through that. We’ve learned that preparation pays.
Dinner was roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and salad. Lezzetli! (Delicious!) Daha sonra iki televizyon programı izledik. (Later two television programs we watched.) One was an episode of Kış Güneşi and the other was Part 4 of Flesh and Blood on PBS. We’ve now watched all four parts of the latter. It’s not terrible, but that’s as far as we’ll go.