Pandemic Diary — February 1 to 13, 2022

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Driveway project scheduled to begin.

Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Driveway project actually begins.

The old concrete and gravel have been removed and a sheet of road cloth has been put down. The old gravel was pea gravel, of which our man Claudio strongly disapproved, saying it is not a good base for any kind of pavement. No wonder our driveway was falling apart. (Of course it did last 58 years.)

Thursday, February 3, 2022

We had R over for dinner. E made minestrone. R and M’s book project is proceeding.

More driveway work today. Many inches of new gravel (crushed rock type) have been added, along with a layer of sand. Lots of noise from the vibrating compactor. By the end of the day, it looked like this:

Friday, February 4, 2022

E went for coffee H and N this afternoon. Both seem to be doing well. When E returned around 4:45, we tried to order take-out from Ba’s in Albany. They have a good, easy to use, online order system, but they are apparently a little busy. The system did not tell us exactly where we were in the queue, but it did inform us that our order would take three hours to prepare. Whoa! We settled for Pastini’s. Pastini’s is a regional chain that used to have a really crappy online ordering system, but lo and behold, they have changed partners and radically improved! We are moderately pleased.

In the evening we watched two episodes of Yanık Koza, a Turkish series whose title translates to Burned Cocoon. The story is about a wealthy family and how secrets and lies from the past continue to wreck havoc in the present. It’s from 2005-06 and consists of 105 45-minute episodes. It’s on Netflix, in Turkish with English subtitles. Today’s Turkish lesson comes from a line of dialogue in Episode 36. The scene is a hospital corridor, just outside the room where two minor bad guys lie badly wounded and only semi-conscious. Unfortunately for them, they know too much and everyone suspects that their bad guy boss wants them out of the picture. So a bunch of good guys are standing around the hallway in an effort to protect them. The speaker is Kadir, one of our hero’s loyal sidekicks. Kadir is short, round and tough looking.

At a critical moment Kadir says: “If those two are nurses, I’m Brad Pitt!” Now you may wonder why anyone would want to learn this phrase in Turkish But if you ever find yourself in a Turkish hospital, it could turn out to be more useful that you think. We know, from having watched several Turkish series, that many Turkish hospitals are frequented by hoodlums disguised as nurses who have been ordered to rub out key witnesses who are lying helpless in their beds. So here we go. In Turkish the line goes like this:

Bu ikisi hemşireyse, ben Brad Pitt’im.

bu ikisi = these two hemşire = nurse ben = I’m

Grammar note: “se” is the functional equivalent of English ‘if.’ It comes at the end of the clause instead of the beginning and takes the form of a suffix added onto the noun.

These two nurses if , I Brad Pitt (am)

Bu ikisi hemşireyse, ben Brad Pitt ‘im.

Now practice pronunciation. Play the video. Listen and repeat.

More driveway work today. Not done, but coming along.

Saturday, February 5, 2022

We took a nice walk in the OSU forest. About five thousand steps and thirteen floors. (E supposedly climbed fifteen floors, but her watch cheats.) Along the way we saw the first new leaves of spring.

As we learned from one of our special correspondents, spring officially begins on February 1st.

Sunday, February 6, 202

M went out into the Coast Range foraging for yard décor. He found a nice chunk of wood and a few rocks.

E had a siblings meeting via Zoom. Ice storms in upstate New York. Very nasty. Hereabouts, in more temperate climbs, E’s amaryllis is coming along nicely. This is its third year.

Monday, February 7, 2022

More driveway work. Slow going.

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Driveway done! Good. It’s prettier and wider.

Thursday, February 10, 2022

In the first ten days of February, the Oregon Health Authority has reported 72 February COVID deaths. During the same period they have also reported 114 new COVID deaths for the month of December. Their count of total number of deaths in December now totals 338. Only about half of these deaths were reported in December and the first few days of January. Why the long delay in reporting the other half? Perhaps more importantly, when will this process end? Will OHA report another 114 December deaths in the next ten days of February or in the first ten days of March? We mention this not because we are obsessed with the month of December; at this point, that month is of only historical interest. But are we alone in wishing that we could get some idea of how many deaths are occurring now? As has been obvious from the beginning, death counts are the only way we have of determining how serious our situation is. We have lots and lots of numbers in Oregon–vaccinations, cases, positive test rates, hospitalizations, and more–but we don’t have the only one we really need in order to know what is actually going on.

Oh well. Let’s check in with the amaryllis.

Friday, February 11, 2022

Went into the OSU forest again, this time on the newish Vineyard Mountain Trail. Vineyard Mountain is just north of Corvallis and has long been home to a few broadcast and communication towers. Somewhere back in time, someone went to a lot of trouble to build a structure near the top of Vineyard Mountain. It’s hard to say what it was. Only the fireplace and the concrete pad foundation remain. From the foundation you can see that it wasn’t very big. But judging from the two-foot thickness of the pad and the rather massive fireplace and chimney, the builder meant business. A bit of a mystery.