Pandemic Diary — December 28 to January 3

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Monday, December 28   Deaths  1,433 (+6)   New cases  865

COVID deaths in Oregon have dropped somewhat in the last few days. Is this the end of the Thanksgiving surge? Will mid-January bring us a Christmas surge? 

Cold overnight but sunny today. M got groceries at WINCO early. The store was almost empty. Then came a walk in the forest with guest dog Pepper, followed by some garden work. At 2:00 E had a meeting with her HEPAJ group. The group meets in an open garage. While she was there the Co-op called to say that her grocery order was ready, so she picked it up directly after the meeting. While she was gone, M stayed with the dog and watched Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix. Quite a show. A powerful story with good performances by Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman.

Tuesday, December 29   Deaths  1,449 (+16)   New cases  713

Another cold clear day. We took Pepper on another long walk, up the hill to the top of Garryana. He loved it. M spent a couple of hours rebuilding our very modest smart home network. It consists of just one Homepod and one smart outlet, but both had gone haywire, resulting in Siri refusing to turn on the Christmas lights. M had to reset both the HomePod and the smart outlet, which is lot like unplugging something and plugging it back in, only with a lot more steps. Ridiculous. For dinner M made stir fry vegetables and rice with cranberry sauce on the side for color. 

Wednesday, December 30   Deaths  1,468 (+19)   New cases  1,052

A normal winter day, sorta cold, sorta wet, the kind of weather that’s unpleasant but is not really trying to kill you. We took Pepper up to the Chip Ross Natural Area. Four thousand steps and twelve stories up and down, said E’s smartwatch. A few years ago the country parks department went through and took down the fir trees. They also removed blackberry and other invasive undergrowth, leaving just the the native oaks and a few native madrones, making it a kind of savannah. In the winter the oaks are bare of course and on a wet day they’re all stark and colorless. With a grey sky, grey branches, faded grass, and the dark gravel trail, it seemed as if the scene had been filmed in black and white. But whenever we passed by a stand of young madrone, the world was colorized again. They’re bursting with health this time of year, showing off their deep green waxy leaves and red branches. They say the madrone population is declining in the Northwest, but the ones we saw today looked fine.

Thursday, December 31   Deaths  1,477 (+9)   New cases  1,682

It’s the 280th day of record keeping here at Pandemic Diary and time to update the chart. After forty days of record breaking increases, the number of reported Oregon daily COVID deaths has finally declined, falling from 21 deaths per day to just 13. 

We had a kind of hectic New Years Eve. We started the day off with tertulia to check in with J and R. They are doing well and their cat is less radioactive every day. It was eight in the morning when we talked to them, but they had already received New Year’s greeting from folks in Australia where the new year had already begun. After that we straightened up the place and packed up our guest dog’s things so that he could be picked up at 11:30. Once Pepper had departed, E was downcast, partly because she missed him already and partly because he had seemed so excited to leave. She started thinking maybe she hadn’t given him enough treats. Nor had she allowed the dog onto the furniture. Plus she had made him take long walks up steep hills. He must have thought he was in boot camp. (But in fact he loves E dearly and very likely misses her too, if M is any judge.)

After that trauma we ventured out, first to get gas for the car, then to the liquor store to get a pint of Southern Comfort. (Why, you might ask, would we do that? More later.) The first liquor store we tried was jammed with young people. The store was limiting the number of customers who could come into the aisles, which was good, but the people who were waiting were merely mobbing together just inside the doorway. Someone was a little unclear on the concept. So off we went to another store where things were easier. Then it was lunchtime. We got sandwiches from the Vietnamese Baguette downtown and ate them in the car parked by the river. 

After that we drove down to Finley Refuge. On the way, E checked in with brother John, who has finally left the north woods was just then arriving in Virginia, on his way to South Carolina, where he intends to spend the coldest part of winter. After a walk in the refuge–where the water levels are pretty high in the ponds and wetlands–we headed back to town and got a couple of lattes to reward ourselves. We saw a very shiny gold Mustang GT in the Coffee Culture parking lot. It was awesome, paint so bright it actually looked like gold. Who knows, maybe it was. 

Then it was time for E’s New Year’s Eve Zoom with S and Mrs. H. M found a Happy New Year Zoom background while E fixed drinks–Southern Comfort Manhattans. This cocktail had been suggested by S to commemorate the days of yore. There was a time, it is said, when the three friends frequently made a meal of SC Manhattans and pizza. M was not acquainted with this dissolute trio at that time. He remembers just one Southern Comfort occasion in his life, an overdose which occurred roughly 55 years ago and which had caused him to avoid that particular beverage ever since.

The meeting, 4:00 to 5:00 Pacific time, 7:00 to 8:00 in the East, was fun for all. No one managed to recreate the storied meal exactly. Mrs. H got a lot of points having dined  this very day on Hart’s pizza–their old favorite. She paired it with some mere wine she had around, but still edged out S, who had a BLT made with veggie bacon and brought a martini to the Zoom party. E hadn’t yet eaten but was looking to have a veggie hot dog with beans both baked and green. No points there. She got significant credit for her Southern Comfort and vermouth but was compelled to confess that it contained no cherry.

After the meeting, M and E had their dinner and then moved on to the next event: a jigsaw puzzle and a bottle of champagne. The puzzle was a present from the Andees, a picture of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Waters house in Pennsylvania. It had only five hundred pieces and would have been fairly easy except that it had an awful lot of green. 

New Year’s Eve is the only night in the year that we are still awake at midnight. Accomplishing this requires both extraordinary motivation and extraordinary fuel. Things worked out pretty well this time. Year 2020 ended with the puzzle lacking only its last 15 pieces and the champagne supply nearly exhausted.

Friday, January 1   Deaths  1,490 (+13)   New cases  1,446

E dreamed last night that we were eating our Christmas tree. So far, the dream has not turned out to be prophecy and our tree is still intact. Instead, E made her New Year’s scalloped potatoes. For many years she has made them to take to the traditional New Year’d Day black-eyed peas gala at A’s house out in the wilds of King’s Valley. There’s no gala this year, but she made the potatoes anyway and decided to take half a pan out to A so as to have a least a socially distanced outdoor chat. We sheltered under the porch roof and had a nice talk, though we had to shout just a little to be heard above a host of very vocal red winged blackbirds. A is an EMT and has learned that she will be getting the COVID19 vaccine next week. She reports that more than 40,000 doses have been administered in Oregon so far. 

Our the way home took us along Tampico Road on the edge of Dunn Forest, so we stopped for a short hike at Road 400, a route we had never explored. Being graveled, logging roads are a nice place to hike on these days of continual intermittent rain. By the time we got back to our car the daylight portion of January 1 was close to ending. Once home, we had our potatoes along with some of A’s black-eyed peas, watched some TV, and went to bed early.

Saturday, January 2   Deaths  1,492 (+2)   New cases  1,010

It was another dark and rainy day, but despite the weather E attended an outdoor retirement party. The time has come for our friend J, youngster that she is, to finally part ways with OSU and cast her lot with PERS. A group of her friends, organized by the indomitable MS, all met up at J’s house to sing her a congratulatory song composed just for the occasion by the Pointless Sisters. The masked performers spaced themselves many feet apart in the front yard. E reports that she kept well back and did not sing. She did, however, hold up a cardboard sign that said Happy Retirement in large letters and provided a gift of a new hiking guide. J accepted this homage while standing on her front porch. When the song was done, J made a brief speech of thanks, and the event concluded.

M, meanwhile, stayed at home and watched an old detective movie called Too Late on Prime. The movie stars John Hawkes, a wonderful actor that he had never seen before and who is–I think we can agree–not conventionally handsome. The movie isn’t conventionally handsome either. It is off kilter–way off kilter–and yet very good, sweet at heart if nowhere else. 

For dinner we treated ourselves to take-out from Sybaris, crab/shrimp Louie for E, chicken tikka masala for M, and key lime pie to share for dessert. Pick up required a long drive over to Albany in the dark and the rain, but it was worth it. After dinner we watched the final two episodes of Bridgerton. That long drama is also sweet at heart–I guess. As for being conventionally handsome (and conventionally ridiculous), it pretty much nails those.

Sunday, January 3   Deaths  1,500 (+8)   New cases  1,421

A nice morning, mostly sunny. It was warm too, around 50. We went for a walk in the neighborhood and found lots of like-minded others. We dodged them all. After that we started dismantling Christmas, first the lights in the back of the house and then the tree. E picked out some décor items that we don’t really need. She put them in a vintage, Christmas-themed, plastic shopping bag from AlphaOmega in Nicosia and set them aside to be donated next October. She’s an optimist. We haven’t yet removed the big light string from the front of the house. Best not to end all the cheer just yet. 

Today’s paper noted the death of Dawn Wells, who played Maryann on Gilligan’s Island. This reminded M that E has never seen Gilligan’s Island, not ever, and has no clue who any of the characters might be. M long ago decided not to be too concerned about this fact, as she seems otherwise fairly normal.

After dinner we watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. The film is set in East Germany during the Cold War era and it is terrible. It’s so bad that we both burst out laughing several times and eventually wondered if we wanted to even finish it. There’s a scene where the two stars walk together up what is supposed to look like a little hill on a university campus in Leipzig. If this little hill set had been created by a class of fifth graders, their parents would surely have been proud. But in the context of a major Hollywood production…we can only hope that the set designer insisted on a pseudonym in the credits. The movie does have some good moments, but basically the story is preposterous and it all moves so slowly that you have plenty of time to notice just how dumb it is. Not one of Hitchcock’s best. 

Pandemi Günlüğü   28 aralık – 3 ocak

pazartesi, 28 aralık Oregon’daki ölümler: 1,433 (+6)       yeni vakalar: 865

Dün gece soğuk ama bu gün güneşli. M WINCO’den bakkaliye aldı. Sabah erken gitti çünkü dükkanlar kalabalık değil. Alışverişten sonra misafirimizle ormanda yürüduk. Ziyaretçimiz bir köpek. Onun adı Pepper. E bir grup arkadaşıyla saat 2:00’de buluştu. Guvenlik için açık bir garajda buluştular. M Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom adlı film izledi. Viola Davis ve Chadwick Boseman filmde. Güçlu bir hikaye.

salı, 29 aralık Oregon’daki ölümler: 1,449 (+16)       yeni vakalar: 713

Soğuk bir gün. Pepper ile uzun bir yürüyüş daha yaptık. M daha sonra akşam yemeği pişirdi: asya sebzeleri ve pilav.

çarşamba, 30 aralık Oregon’daki ölümler: 1,468 (+19)       yeni vakalar: 1,052

Normal bir gün. Biraz soğuk, biraz yağmurlu, fena değil. Chip Ross Natural Area’da yürüdük. Meşe ağaçları ve madrone ağaçları gördük. Meşeler çıplak ve renksizdi. Madronelar çok farklıydı. Bu havayı seviyorlar. Derin yeşil yaprakları ve kırmızı dalları çok güzel. 

perşembe, 31 aralık Oregon’daki ölümler: 1,477 (+9)       yeni vakalar: 1,682

Oregon’daki günlük ölümler biraz azaldı. Bu iyi bir haber çünkü son 40 gün çok kötüydü. İşte yeni grafik. 

Yeni yıl arifesi çok meşguldü. Zoom üzerinde J ve R ile konuştuk. Onlar iyiler. Avustralya’da ailerleri var ve orada yeni yıllar vardı. Sonra Pepper’in eşyalarını topladık. Arkadaşı onu almak için 11:30’te geldi. E köpekleri seviyor ve üzgündü. Öğle yemeğinden sonra Finley Refuge’te yürüdük ve sonra kahve içtik. 

Saat 4:00’te Eve’nin arkadaşlariyla konuştuk. New York’ta yaşiyorlar. Zoom kullandik ve bir saat konuştuk. Genç oldukları zaman hakkında konuştular. Eski zamanlarda en sevdikleri yemek Manhattan kokteylleri ve pizzaydı. Tsk-tsk.

Yemekten sonra yapboz yaptık ve şampanya icidik. Gece yarısına kadar kaldık. İnanılmaz!

cuma, 1 ocak Oregon’daki ölümler: 1,490 (+13)       yeni vakalar: 1,446

Öğleden sonra arkadaşımız April ziyarete gittik. (April Türkce nisan.) Evinin dışında biraz konuştuk. O bir EMT ve bir itfaiyeci. Yanında bir COVID aşisı olacak. Oregon’da 40.000 aşı yapıldığını söylüyor. 

cumartesi, 2 ocak Oregon’daki ölümler: 1,492 (+9)       yeni vakalar: 1,010

Başka bir soğuk ve yağmurlu gün. M Too Late (Çok Ğeç) adlı eski bir dedektif filmini izledi. John Hawkes ana oyuncuydu. O çok ilginç ve film çok güzel.

pazar, 3 ocak Oregon’daki ölümler: 1,500 (+8)       yeni vakalar: 1,421

Sabah güzel, sıcak ve güneşli. Mahallemizde yürüdük ve başka birçok insan gördük. Bugünün gazetesinden Dawn Wells’in öldüğünü biliyoruz. O Gilligan’s Island adlı bir programdan unlu oldu. Amerika’da neredyse herkes Gilligans Island hatırlar. Sadece bir insan hatırlamıyor çünkü onu hiç görmedi. O kişi Eve. Gerçekten.