Pandemic Diary — April 26 to May 2, 2021

Monday, April 26   Deaths  2,486 (+1)   New cases 630

Busy morning. We did our shopping and met with a contractor about a bathroom remodel. Later, M looked at the photos from his trip into the forest on Sunday.

Tuesday, April 27   Deaths  2,488 (+2)   New cases 740

Beautiful summery day. M worked in the yard for most of it. E had exercise class and a medical appointment. She is getting annoyed at all these appointments, but is working on solving the mystery of a foot problem that won’t go away. Later, in the TV world, we got big news about Melek! First of all, Melek isn’t her real name. The real Melek was her younger sister, who committed suicide. So what is our heroine’s actual name? We don’t know. We’re still in shock. Her family doesn’t know about this, but Özan and Raven have stumbled across it. But what does it all mean?

Wednesday, April 28   Deaths  2,490 (+2)   New cases 888

E had another medical thing this morning while M had a long FaceTime meeting regarding editorial changes to the paper he is collaborating on. Satisfying the series editor is boring work. M’s next assignment is to write an abstract. Oh boy.

We watched a bit more of 20 Minutes, the show about Melek who isn’t really Melek. We were hoping to find out what it all means. We didn’t. E had a short nap halfway through. 

Thursday, April 29   Deaths  2,491 (+1)   New cases 928

In the morning, Eve had her exercise class. M worked on his article abstract. He ended up writing two different versions, one serious and one parody. This was necessary, he says, to prevent the universe from getting out of balance.

After lunch we made a trip out to Dancing Oaks Nursery in search of native plant starts. It wasn’t easy, but by golly we did find some. Dancing Oaks is tucked back in the foothills northwest of here in the general vicinity of Peedee, Oregon. Lovely spot at the end of two miles of narrow, high-crowned gravel road. 

For dinner we tried out some Beyond Beef brand sausages that M prepared with grilled peppers and potatoes per request. The plant-based sausage was pretty tasty, and had a nice texture. 

Friday, April 30   Deaths  2,495 (+4)   New cases 990

It’s the 400th day of Pandemic Diary record keeping, time for another chart. Average deaths per day were slightly higher in the most recent ten-day period, but still relatively low as compared to the last six months. 

Who were the idiots who went and bought all those ridiculous plants yesterday? Easy work, buying. But what about planting? We both spent much of the today in the yard, bending over with hot sun on our backs. What for? Because we have a vision! (A lot of troubles in this world  have been caused by people with visions.)

Saturday, May 1   Deaths  2,498 (+3)   New cases 794

A good day for a leisurely breakfast followed by a look through the local newspaper–which just barely manages to exist but which we still appreciate. After that, E went off to visit her friend S, who may or may not be going to move to back to the midwest to live near her sister and brother-in-law. Nothing is quite clear. E didn’t get to see Pepper, who is off visiting a dog sitter for a few days. M stayed home and put up a wall mount for our television. The instructions made sense and all went well, the only real glitch being that the kit included only three of the four big lag screws that the instruction sheet promised. Grumbling mightily, M had to go off and look through his fastener collection to see if he could find something suitable. He found a lot of really big lag screws, all of them far too big, but wait, there amongst them was an almost perfectly sized one. Where it came from, no one knows, but it sufficed. The next step is to rearrange the living room–or not–to take advantage of the TV on the wall.

After lunch, E walked to the store to get some pastries for Sunday breakfast and M went off in the truck to get a bag of pumice rock that E needed for her patio decor project. Dinner was Asian Fusion from Magenta and TV was The Vineyard on Prime. Nice change of pace, a bit faster than the 20 Minutes series.

In local COVID news, deaths may be down but confirmed cases are up, so the governor has reinstated the ban on in-restaurant dining in many areas, including all of the biggest cities in the state. Roughly a third of all Oregonians have been fully vaccinated and already demand is down. Corvallis is now running walk-in vaccination clinics for anyone sixteen and above. 

A church in a nearby town is being sued by the parents of a church member who died of COVID. They say that their daughter contracted the disease at a church service where the congregants were packed closely together. Video shows that there was a lot of singing and that no one wore a mask, this despite the fact that there had been known positive cases among the membership. Sigh.  

Sunday, May 2   Deaths  2,501 (+3)   New cases 756

Not a whole lot of activity today, which is of course excellent. We did a little garden work, and E visited her friend P.

We have not been doing a very good job of identifying all these new plants, so we made some new, easy-to-read tabs.

There was a minor crisis in the front garden. We caught E’s new blue hen escaping through a gap in the fence. Luckily we noticed in time.