Pandemic Diary — November 30 to December 6

Monday, November 30    Deaths   912 (+7)   New cases  1,314

Grocery shopping again today. M braved the vastness of Winco at 8:15 in the morning. It was far from empty, but it was even farther from its usual packed condition, which we have not seen lately but clearly remember from days past. Prices are good there, and it’s easy to find Reser’s bean and cheese burritos. Winco also has graham cracker crumbs, condensed milk, chocolate chips, and coconut–four critical Christmas items. Check-out was slow, with only two lanes open, and M was late getting back home. E was impatient, stamping her foot, probably the left one. Immediately as he arrived, she departed for the smaller and somewhat claustrophobic Co-op, where she did her part of the dreaded shopping. At least it was a nice morning to be out and about. Both shoppers reported seeing rainbows during their respective journeys. 

In the middle of the day, M glimpsed the sun and started putting up lights on the house, while E, with all critical items in hand, started work on The Bars. Later on, E delivered a birthday cookie to her friend A and picked up some take-out falafel for dinner. After dinner we sampled the bars. And after bars a little TV, the last two episodes of Bir Başkadır. The series had a nice ending. Basically everybody got in touch with their feelings–well, almost everybody–and felt a lot better. Even the little boy who never spoke started talking. Meryem fainted again, but that’s all right since it was mostly from happiness. 

Tuesday, December 1    Deaths  936 (+24)   New cases  1,223

The Oregon Health Authority reports today that there were 24 COVID deaths on Monday, a new daily record. Today is also the 250th day of the Pandemic Diary and so it is time for another chart. The news is grim. As always, the chart tracks average deaths per day per ten day period. Again the scale of our chart has had to change; the vertical axis now extends to twelve. 

The overall total of 936 COVID deaths brings Oregon’s per 100,000 rate to 21.76. The current rate for the U.S. as a whole is 81.93.

Wednesday, December 2    Deaths   953 (+17)   New cases  1,244

We started the day with Turkish class, always a bracing experience. After that, the main event was that we did some Christmas shopping. Stores are open in downtown Corvallis, but they seemed, from our limited experience, to be mostly empty. We were wondering about E’s favorite store, the place where we often get her present. So E called to see what the situation was there. They talked about how they were sanitizing everything after every customer and even offered her a private after hours appointment. It was also clear that hardly anyone was coming in. Also relevant is that the store is in an historic building with high ceilings and an open loft level. All in all, we decided to take a chance and do a modified version of our usual Christmas time custom. First, E went down to the store at 11:00 in the morning just as they opened. For most of her time there she was the only customer and there was only one person to assist her–which happened to be the owner. E picked out a number of things to try on, focusing on sweaters and eventually narrowing down her choices to half a dozen favorites. She then asked the owner to hold a group of the best items, so that M could come in and make final choices. (In this way E is sure to be pleased on Christmas Day and is generally also semi-surprised because by the time the day comes, she can’t really remember all the ones she tried.) M did his part of the process after lunch. The store was slightly more populated when he got there–two assistants and two other customers–still not much for such a large place.

For dinner, E is making her famous spinach lasanga. M will assist by opening and pouring a modest domestic red. Now that we have finished Bir Başkadır, we are somewhat at a loss for TV. 

Thursday, December 3    Deaths   973 (+20)   New cases   1,151

E was out walking early this morning and found the moon still bright in one direction and the sun just about to rise in the other.

Also in the morning came Zoom tertulia with J and R, a Zoom exercise class for E, and a haircut for M. For some years now, M’s barber has been splitting his time between the cutting business and the home building trades, especially painting. Lately he’s been into painting more and more. In times of pandemic it’s a lot less stressful to go into an empty house to paint it than it is work in close quarters with a parade of people. Good for him, not so good, maybe, for M.

After lunch we went up to the Baskett Slough refuge and walked around a bit. The refuge consists of oak savannah hills above many acres of wetland that provide winter habitat for ducks and geese. 

Friday, December 4    Deaths   1,003 (+30)   New cases  2,176

A busy day today. E spent the morning preparing and packing up Christmas presents for the faraways, then rushed off to the post office to mail them. She came back pleased with herself for having got there before the noon rush and having had to share the place with just one other customer. M, meanwhile, dealt with a failing kitchen light. It was a new LED type fixture, which means, as M discovered early in the process, that there are no bulbs to replace. Instead, the fixture is “integrated” which is to say that when one wears out, you buy a whole new one. Fortunately the replacement that M found was 1) not very expensive, and 2) required a kind of installation process that was not new at all. (Newness is all very nice, but there is only a certain amount that can be tolerated.)

After lunch, E and M should have just rested on their laurels and taken a couple of long naps. But instead, we ventured out to get a Christmas tree. And indeed we did get one. That is, we visited a kindly tree seller, selected a tree, paid $55, stuffed it into the back of the CX-5 and took it home. We placed it in a stand and looked at it. We noticed after a few moments that this was the most fundamentally misshapen tree that either of us had ever seen. The main trunk was in fact curved throughout much of its length, and not curved in any particularly elegant way. There was no possible way to make the top point straight up without somehow making the bottom go sideways. What kind of people could possibly have picked out such a tree? We shudder to think. Somehow we will just have to make this do. We will not, of course, be inviting anyone to our house to view our tree because of the pandemic, so there is that. We just have make sure that we don’t accidentally include it in a Zoom or FaceTime backgrounds.

To distract ourselves, we had to watch two episodes of The Crown. (We’re still in Season 3.)

Saturday, December 5    Deaths   1,027 (+24)  New cases 1,847

The number of COVID deaths in Oregon has been high recently, especially in the last five days. All signs suggest that this trend is likely to continue, at least for a time. As we learned very early on, deaths are the only reliable measure of the seriousness of the situation. Other numbers, including those based on case counts and those based on test positive ratios, may be useful and interesting in some ways, but they are problematic. The total of confirmed and presumptive cases, for example, rises steadily as more and more people are tested. But it is not feasible to establish with any certainty the relationship between that number and the number of people who actually have the disease, either during any one period or at any one moment . And those latter numbers are the ones that would be most interesting and most useful. As always, PD will continue to report daily Oregon death data. We will no longer report total cases as this number is becoming more and more complicated to interpret. We will continue to track the number of new cases reported daily. This number is heavily dependent on the number of tests given, but as long as testing in Oregon remains robust, the number of positives will generally be of interest. 

Sunday, December 6    Deaths   1,033 (+6)   New cases  1,290

Tomorrow is our major grocery shopping day, but this morning we made an early run to Market of Choice, so as to have some fresh salmon for dinner tonight. That was just after we had some croissants that E picked up from Le Patissier on Saturday. Darn good, even when a day old. And speaking of Saturday, that is when M took advantage of the dry weather to take the Porsche out for another spin. Went down Peoria Road a ways, turned east and made a loop back. Interesting route. The way back up passed a little more quickly than the way down. One advantage to driving in this season is that there were no bugs on the windshield when he got home.

Today after lunch we had Turkish coffee. Then E finished making the tree beautiful while M made refrigerator pickles. We keep thinking about the treats we’d like to make for the holidays season, but then we think about the weight we’re gaining. So far we’ve just had the bars; we’re holding off–so far–on the cappuccino truffles and the shortbread. We hardly need more treats when the sweets cupboard is bulging! Burst’s nonpareils, two bars pf Hershey’s dark , Dove dark chocolate hearts, Nestles semi-sweet chips, some leftover Halloween Almond Joys…Jeez.