Pandemic Diary — October 5 to October 11, 2021

Tuesday,  October 5, 2021

Drove over to Newport today, starting out at 9:00. Once we got there we went to South Beach State Park and walked a couple of miles from the park to the south jetty and back. The path leads through an area of sand dunes that has gradually formed over the years. There is now a mile-long beach backed by a range of twelve to twenty foot high dunes anchored by beach grass. If you climb the dunes and move inland, you see that the dunes give way to a forest made up of shrubs, grasses, and trees, many of which are specialized to this kind of environment. The trees hunker down and grow out sideways, perhaps because it helps to help them survive the high winds of winter storms.

Having worked up an appetite on our walk, we stopped at the Rogue brewery for lunch. Pub food, not very healthy, but pretty good. And the beer was awesome. We shared a half pint glass of what they called Imperial Pilsner. Sublime! We then headed home, taking the bayside road from Newport to Toledo, a route we’d never been able to find before. Got back home by 3:00. A nice treat to change environments without packing a suitcase.

Wednesday,  October 6, 2021

E called Nebraska to inquire about the condition of her yoga teacher and friend S, who is in a care facility in North Platte. She spoke with a social worker at the facility. The news is bad. S is in hospice care and is expected to pass very soon. As noted previously, our old colleague Edith also died recently. Death is in the air. The eerie thing is that both Edith and S. were born in Nebraska and ultimately moved to Oregon.

Thursday,  October 7, 2021

Took a walk in the OSU forest today. Another lovely fall day. We had lunch in a clearcut so as to catch the warmth of the sun. While we sat on an old log eating leftovers and bits of Dove chocolate, we noticed that there were lots of yellow dandelion flowers in bloom and that hordes of bees were taking advantage. We think we see bees in these photos, but it could be just our imagination. 

Friday, October 8, 2021

E had two Zoom classes, Better Bones and Balance and Laughter Yoga. In Laughter Yoga, it was one person’s birthday. As part of the festivities, the discussion turned to games remembered from childhood birthdays. E and one or two others remembered playing Huckle Buckle Beanstalk, though they couldn’t say exactly what the rules were. The internet knows.

E also got word that her long-time teacher S has died. She’s wondering if there will be a memorial get-together. Susan lived in this area for many years and E had the impression that though her family was in Nebraska, most of her friends were here. She was someone that E learned a lot from and looked up to, as did many others. 

M busied himself with matters automotive, ordering a new set of tires and securing a garage storage unit where the Boxster can spend the winter months. He also scheduled an oil change for the Frontier.

Today is the first day of the Greek Fest put on by the Greek Orthodox Church. The three-day Fest used to be held at the church and featured Greek food and drink, real Greek coffee, and lots of Greek music and dancing. In these pandemic days only the food aspect remains, but still, what an event it is, a giant drive-up take-out extravaganza with cars lined up for nearly a mile. Accompanied by our friend H, we spent over a hour waiting in line and then, having had enough time to work up an appetite, we drove quickly back home to chow down. Delicious.

Saturday, October 9, 2021

Started rearranging the garage to accommodate a small chest freezer. As we cleared shelves and moved things around, we found a number of items we could get rid of. Fall is a time for rearrangements inside the house too. Summer clothes get put away, winter clothes are pulled out of hiding, and in the process you now and then ask yourself “Why on earth have I been keeping this?” And thus the donation boxes fill. 

In the evening we listened to the last part of Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult. We won’t be going back to her any time soon. Picoult seems to think that what she writes is real and that she can thus change it into something else real if she chooses. But what any novelist writes is by definition fake, i.e., fictional, i.e., not true. That in itself is not a problem. But changing one fake thing into a totally different fake thing undermines the whole enterprise. The two realities cancel each other out and the novel flatlines. Whoop-de-doo.

Sunday,  October 10, 2021

Lots of activity today, starting with a walk up Angelica Street and down 13th. There was bright sunshine as we walked out the door; the rain started when we had gone about 50 yards. We were ready though; our weather app had warned us. Once back home we continued with the garage project and took some boxes over to the storage unit where the Porsche is staying. We brought along its car cover to make things cozier. 

Then it was off to Shonnard’s Nursery, who had just got in a selection of native plant seeds and corms. They have to be planted now as they need to winter over in the ground in order to pop up next spring. M got four corms each of Harvest Brodiaea and Ookow, a.k.a. Dichelostemma congestum. (M’s plant choices may be getting out of hand.) E got two ornamental cabbages, one white and one purple. 

As if that wasn’t enough, we also did some weekly meal planning, went grocery shopping, cooked fish, green beans and rice for dinner and watched two hours of very satisfactory television–one episode of Ted Lasso and one of Call the Midwife.

Monday,  October 11, 2021

Zoom yoga plus more grocery shopping and other errands, on another lovely, cool day. Before dinner we did another walk in the neighborhood. Also, M solved a mystery! For several weeks we have been finding little rubbery black blobs on the floors of our luxurious abode. We found several in the kitchen, several in the study and a few others here and there all around the town. What could they be? When you first see them, they’re ugly looking–yuck– and you don’t really want to bend down and pick them up. But when you do pick them up, they’re fairly inoffensive, just dry black rubbery blobs. In fact, after you’ve seen a whole bunch of them, they start to remind you of fragments from the sole of a really soft shoe, like a men’s Sorel slipper that you’ve been wearing for five or six years. You know, the ones where when you turn them over and look at the bottoms; the right slipper looks okay, but the left one has a big patch where something is definitely missing. (Don’t try this at home, kids. The underside of an old slipper is not a pleasant sight.)