Pandemic Diary — April 5 to 11, 2021

Monday, April 5   Deaths  2,394 (+2)   New cases  248

A beautiful morning to go touring around Winco. There were some other humans there, not enough to make the aisles crowded, but sufficient to overload the two open check-out lines. Several people were buying truly vast quantities of stuff. Are the end times closer than we thought?

E went out and brought Pepper home for a while, just to give S a break. The three of us went for a walk up to the neighborhood natural area, where Pepper found much of interest. Then it was time for M to bop over to Safeway for his second COVID shot. He came back home vaccinated and also carrying a Pepperidge Farm Coconut Cake and a pair of limes. E took Pepper home before preparing our Monday repast. 

Tuesday, April 6   Deaths  2427 (+33)   New cases  544

Yikes. Thirty-three COVID-related deaths reported in Oregon today. Positive test rates are also up a little to 3.93%, the highest since March 9th.

M’s reaction to yesterday’s second shot is extreme tiredness. Other than that he feels okay. He did a few errands today, but he also did a lot of lying down, which he says is quite wonderful.

For the last two nights we’ve been watching a Ken Burns series on PBS, the one about Ernest Hemingway. It’s absorbing and follows more the less the line of who was the myth and who was the man. Hemingway makes for an interesting subject. However, the tone is so very earnest (sorry, but that’s exactly the word) and the pace is so very, very slow. We defy anyone to watch two hours of this without glancing at the clock at least twice, wondering when it will ever end.

Wednesday, April 7   Deaths  2,434 (+7)   New cases  470

M woke up feeling more or less normal and joined E for a walk around the neighborhood. Later he worked on making a garden map and list of plant names so as not to lose track of what they all are. E had a medical appointment in Salem in the afternoon. This being her night to cook, she prepared her bread and cheese bake before she left and stuck it in the fridge for later baking. M put his newest plant in the ground (salal, a native!) and then watched two episodes of Dickinson on AppleTV+. It’s a comedy series about a young Emily Dickinson. It’s set in 19th century Amherst, Massachusetts, just before the Civil War, but it is enlivened by a generous sprinkling of 21st century attitudes, language, and music. It is not very earnest and is sometimes just silly, but it is young and alive.

After dinner we finally checked up on poor Melek, locked in a room with a psycho woman that the other inmates have nicknamed Scorpion. We saw Scorpion move swiftly to the attack when she thought Melek was sleeping. But Melek was expecting just such a move and managed to wrest away the deadly shiv despite having one of her arms handcuffed to an iron bedstead. But then the corrupt guards came in and took the shiv away from Melek and secretly gave Scorpion another weapon. So this long night isn’t over. Outside the prison Ali discovers strong evidence that Melek was having a passionate affair with her supposed victim in the weeks before he died. Now his world is really falling apart. Desperate for any way out of this horror, Ali violently accosts a man that he knows to have been a friend of the victim and demands the truth. And the truth is…that the new evidence is totally bogus! This is good news, but poor Ali, to be buffeted hither and yon in such a way. And what is even worse for him, a key member of the viewing audience, someone right here in our own house, has called him a dud character. You light the fuse, you hear that hissing sound and then after a pause there’s this little smoosh and then…listen as you might…it’s only crickets. Ooh that’s harsh.

Thursday, April 8   Deaths  2,439 (+5)   New cases  667

Our regular Thursday tertulia with J and R had a major change of venue today as we cast FaceTime aside and officially resumed in person meetings. We sat under a heat lamp in the big white tent at Coffee Culture on King’s Blvd. We had botanero rolls and coffee cake just like the old days. We had to hurry home though because E had her Zoom exercise class at 9:00. M went to the store to get fresh pizza dough. Later in the morning E walked to a medical appointment at the Corvallis Clinic and when she was done called M to come and fetch her and take her to lunch. 

In the afternoon E went to BiMart to pick up a prescription that wasn’t ready, which was quite annoying except that while she was there she found a shelf full of low sugar recipe pectin, a product that mysteriously disappeared when the pandemic began and which she sorely missed last summer. Then she went to her Zoom laughter yoga class where the idea is to laugh at things whether they are funny or not because even fake laughing is good for you. One thing that sounds sort of funny is that one of the participants had a hard time unmuting herself so no one heard what she was saying during the first half hour or so. M spent the afternoon writing a memoir of his time in Czechoslovakia in the mid seventies. Here’s something he heard while he was there. Q: Why do security police go around in groups of three? A: There has to be one who can read, one who can write, and one to keep an eye on the two dangerous intellectuals.

After a home-made pizza dinner (made by M, rated 5 stars by E), we watched an episode of 45 Revolutions. No dud characters here; everyone is hissing and popping and throwing sparks all over. Robert plays a concert in his hometown of Alicante and is confronted by his estranged father who only drops by remind him how truly disgusting it is that he has chosen to be a rock star when he could be working in the kitchen of the family restaurant where he belongs. Robert says he is sorry to be such a disappointment, but hey, hard cheese, and walks away. He’s so upset by this encounter, however, that he has a big fight with the beautiful and venal movie star that the studios have been making him pretend to be in love with and walks away from her too. As soon as he tells this to Maribel, she gives him a thousand watt smile and they start pulling each other’s clothes off. One thing to be said for this show, it’s not slow.

Friday, April 9   Deaths  2,440 (+1)   New cases  570

M did garden work today, something involving compost. E went flower hunting in the forest. M says that his new compost is beautiful, but he has not provided any evidence of that. E, on the other hand, says that wildflowers are extraordinarily profuse this year and has brought back photos.

We watched a bit of 20 Minutes and can happily report that Melek has survived the latest attempt on her life and has been returned to her regular cell at the prison. AND she is wearing yet another gorgeous new sweater, this one a brilliant deep red cable knit. We had already admired the same sweater in blue that she wore in the last episode. Melek and her cellmates have been wearing a succession of lovely and expensive looking sweaters. As mentioned, we’ve never visited any Turkish prisons, so we’re not sure if this is completely realistic. But would TV producers lie to us? Ali and his mentor The Cat also get to have nice sweaters, though they get more subdued colors and patterns, with a lot of those off-white tones of undyed natural fabrics. Cat’s daughter, Raven, and her buddy, the now suspended Detective Ozan, are rarely seen in sweaters, but they do get to wear lots of black leather outfits, which are also quite nice in their way. The costumes in this show partly–but only partly–make up for the fact that the cars are mostly crap.   

Saturday, April 10   Deaths  2,440 (+0)   New cases  761

E again delivered chocolate croissants, slipping off to Le Patissier early in the morning in a light rain, while M stayed home and made coffee. The croissants were awfully good. Some might think we only like them because they’re chocolate, but connoisseurs know that the flavorings or fillings of a croissant–beautiful as they may be–are essentially superfluous. It is the pastry that matters. Let us enjoy it while we still live.

And speaking of death, today is the 380th day of Pandemic Diary record keeping. Time for another chart. The last ten days have not been as good as we might have hoped. After having fallen to 2 per day in the last part of March, deaths per day in the first part of April averaged 5.7.

Sunday, April 11   Deaths  2,440 (+0)   New cases  499

A quiet day of not doing much. Take-and-bake bread for breakfast, a little yard work and in the afternoon a walk in an older Corvallis neighborhood across town where many of the houses date from before WW2. There are a few large homes, but also lots of cottages, close together and close to the street, with no driveways or garages. The houses are well maintained and many have beautiful front gardens, so it’s a pleasant place to walk around on a brisk spring day.

Dinner was leftover pizza provided by M and a green salad with mandaquats provided by E. For TV we watched another episode of Atlantic Crossing, taking a break from those voluble Mediterranean countries and testing the colder waters of the north. Kyle MacLachlan is doing a great job playing FDR, who has just sent a ship to Finland to rescue Martha and her children.

Finally, it is with great sadness that we announce the untimely death of a chocolate Easter Bunny due to a motorcycle accident.