Meandering on the Way

Monday, October 26     Deaths   655 (+2)   Cases  42,436 (+335)

Erken kalktık (We got up early) so as to have a time for a little more study before Turkish class. Class went pretty well. Çarşamba ekimdeki son dersimiz. (Wednesday is our last class in October.) We need to decide in the next day or two whether to continue for another month. We’re conflicted. 

Tuesday, October 27     Deaths   664 (+9)   Cases  42,808 (+372)

Wednesday, October 28     Deaths   671 (+7)   Cases  43,228 (+420)

Beautiful weather this week, very cold nights and mornings but warm afternoons. We decided to seize the day and change tertulia from the breakfast hour to happy hour. J and R brought pastries and we supplied tea and a bottle of Bordeaux on our patio. Nice. 

We had our last Turkish lesson of the month today and talked to the teacher about continuing. We’d like to continue but three hours per week is too much for us. So we’re thinking of maybe changing to just one hour a week if the school can work that out. Today we learned how to say Kendine iyi bak–Take good care of yourself–a useful notion for these times.

Thursday, October 29     Deaths   673 (+2)   Cases  43,793 (+565)

M went for a drive today, taking Highway 22 from Stayton to Santiam Junction. That stretch includes the towns of Mill City, Gates and Detroit Lake, which were all in the path of the Beachie Creek fire. (Video news report here, including an account of how it felt to be evacuating with burning trees on both sides of the road.) Here are some scenes from that area today. This is the town of Detroit Lake.

The fire spread very fast in the 40-50 mph wind. This fire truck was caught in it, perhaps while the crew was trying save this building. The left side of the truck looks fine; the right side, not so much. The sideways lean comes from the fact that the tires on the right side are gone while those on the driver’s side are intact. M felt a little ghoulish taking pictures of all this misfortune. Not that there weren’t plenty of other people there doing the same thing…

About 45 minutes after leaving Detroit Lake, M found somehow found himself 50 miles further east waiting in line outside the Sisters Bakery. So he pretty much had to go in and get something. Fifteen minutes later, he made these notes:

Sisters, Oregon 1:20 P.M.  Chocolate donut? Check. Fritter for tomorrow? Check. Half cup of caffeinated coffee? Check. Full tank of premium gas? Check. Is the Mackenzie Pass highway around here somewhere? Oh yeah.

The last time M went over MacKenzie pass he was in the Jaguar. That car handled the road competently, but it was really too big for the tight, narrow curves. On the other hand, there were no bicyclists on the road that day. This day there were just enough cyclists to make M very cautious. You have to just assume someone’s going to be there every time you go around a blind curve–and all the curves are blind to some degree or other. Doesn’t mean you can’t go a little fast, but you’re constantly recalculating based on angles of vision.

When an exhausted M got home, he found E in the living room doing yet another Zoom class. 

Friday, October 30     Deaths   675 (+2)   Cases  44,349 (+556)

There have been over 1,100 new COVID cases reported over the last two days. The Oregon Department of Education has announced new metrics for school re-openings. Some districts will be able meet standards now, but many more have a long way to go. 

Saturday, October 31     Deaths   689 (+14)   Cases  44,932 (+583)

Fourteen COVID deaths reported today, a new daily record. The youngest victim was 66. All had underlying conditions. 

We did a number of errands today, some of which involved going downtown. The weather was nice and lots of people were out and about. Everyone was masked, but with so many people on the sidewalks, we didn’t feel all that comfortable, even outside. Paranoid maybe, but there it is. We did not linger. 

We learned that the Habitat for Humanity store has reopened on a limited basis and is accepting donations. We have a couple of largish items that we have been saving for them. Donations are accepted by appointment. E made us one for Thursday.

Sunday, November 1     Deaths   691 (+2)   Cases  45,429 (+497) 

This is the 220th day of the Pandemic Diary database. During the last ten days, the daily COVID death rate average was 4.5 per day. This is slightly lower that the previous period, a welcome change after forty straight days of steadily increasing rates.

It got down to 28 degrees last night, but today is sunny and warm. Nov. 1 is the first day of our annual respite from the horror that is Daylight Saving Time. Must enjoy it while we can. M is doing DIY today: mini towel bar in the kitchen, light fixtures for illuminating the new pantry cupboard in the garage, building a lightweight storage rack to go on top of new pantry cupboard. Still to come is the installation of the solar powered light for the interior of the equipment shed plus the assembly and testing of the new cordless pruning gizmo. Project mania. It will pass.

E is doing good again today by taking care of dog Pepper for a few hours while new furniture is being delivered at his owner’s house. The dog is very active, always nervous. E is tired.

Monday, October 19     Deaths   628  (+8)   Cases  39,794 (+262)

A couple of short walks, just around the neighborhood. E had Better Bones and Balance via Zoom while M did a final run-through of his Chile talk. Then we did an hour of Turkish study , preparing for our next lesson, which will be on Wednesday since the regular Monday class has been changed to Thursday. E also did a last run-through for Chile; then she switched gears and practiced using the LearnCube white board for Turkish. But that was after she went to Bi-Mart for misc. goods and Halloween candy. E made another simple and healthy dinner. Then we settled in to watch the last episode of Season 2 of The Gift. It was very disappointing. The show has many virtues, but without a good season-ender we don’t feel that it has been a good investment of our time and attention. Will we ever watch Season 3? Well…it’s not impossible.

It was a cool and partly cloudy day with a beautiful sunset. Probably should be spending more time outside instead of doing all this digital interaction. 

Tuesday, October 20     Deaths  633  (+6)   Cases  40,136 (+242)

The Chile webinar, long awaited and much feared, has now come and gone. It went okay. M forgot to tell the young teachers to be that they’re going to have to love their students, but that might have been a little too mushy anyway. It’s a great relief to have it over with.

We celebrated with a take-out dinner from Tacovore, complete with a large glass of their incomparable lime juice, which we knew how to turn into a couple of margaritas. 

Wednesday, October 21     Deaths   635 (+2)   Cases  40,443 (+307)

In Turkish class today we learned how to say on the left/right side of something (street, page, river, etc.) You start with the thing you’re talking about, such as street. Then you make that word possessive by adding the proper possessive ending (in,nin,ın or nın). Then you add sağ (right) or sol (left) followed by the correct genetive ending (i/si/ı/sı). Then you add the locative suffix “da” but when you do that you have to remember to use the “n” spacer. Oh, and don’t forget that when you add the possessive ending to a word ending in “k”, such as “sokak” (street) the “k” changes to a silent ğ. So there you have it, sokağnın sağında, on the right side of the street. Wasn’t that easy? No. But is it logical? Yeah, it pretty much is. 

After class, we were off to the nursery to buy some trees and poppy seeds. We’ve been considering what to get for a long time. We are committed now to making our yard more of a native environment for birds, caterpillars and whatever, so we needed native plants. Garland has a good selection of natives, all in one place. Nice. For trees we ended up choosing a cascara and a vine maple. Then it was time for lunch, after which E went off on more garden related business, picking up some bulbs and seeds at the fall plant sale connected to the Tribal Native Plant Program of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. M headed out to the back yard to begin the process of converting a portion of our back lawn to some sort of prairie. 

In the evening we watched a couple of episodes of Winter Sun (Kış Günesi) a Turkish series we watched once before long ago. We’re trying to see if we catch more Turkish this time. So far, M has understood mostly just the old standbys: I love you, calm down, etc. But E is understanding a number of bits and pieces, including Trust me, which another basic staple of Turkish dramatic dialog.

Thursday, October 22     Deaths   646 (+11)   Cases  40,810 (+367)

Nice talk with J and R today. We had to do a Zoom tertulia this time since the temperature in the morning was too far down the scale to allow having coffee and scones outside. This time the menu was oatmeal for J and R, waffles with blueberries for M and E. We had to cut tertulia a little short so as to be ready for Turkish at 9:00. A kind of review and catch up lesson today. We went over the endings for present/present continuous verbs. It’s a bit like Spanish, in that the person is shown by a verb ending and you don’t actually need a pronoun. For example, in English we have a series of three-word sentences: I am happy, you are happy, she is happy, we are happy, you(all) are happy, and they are happy. Spanish does it with a series of two-word sentences: estoy contento, estas contento, esta contenta, estamos contentos, estais contentos, estan contentos. Turkish does it with a series of one-word sentences: mutluyum, mutlusun, mutlu, mutluyuz, mutlusunuz, mutlular. More importantly, we learned that the word for hot (sıcak), when it is used to describe a person, indicates that the person is warm-hearted, not that they are that other thing. 

After Turkish, it was time for rest, recovery and lunch. Then E had to get ready for her HEPAJ meeting at H’s house, from which she had to hurry home to do laughter Yoga. M dug in the dirt and planted trees.

On this the 210th day of PD recording keeping, the Oregon COVID news is not so good. In the most recent 10-day period, we had an average of almost five deaths per day, continuing the upward trend of the last 30 days and coming close to the peaks we had in August and early September. Here’s the updated chart.

Friday, October 23     Deaths   649 (+3)   Cases  41,348 (+538)

Did an outing today with B and B up to Mary’s Peak, up to the top where one of the B’s had never been. Drove in separate cars up to the parking lot, then hiked together up to the summit. Mostly sunny when we arrived with great views in all directions. Cold wind, though, and we all bundled up. It got considerably cloudier as we walked back down to the cars. To get out of the wind, we drove down to the campground to have lunch. Delicious! B–the one who does most of the cooking–had made chocolate chip cookies. Super, as the Turks say, (although when they say it, they stress the second syllable, so it sounds like zoo-PEAR). E brought a thermos of hot tea, which was extremely welcome. M brought a flask with just enough Aberfeldy for everyone to have a mini-shot. Also welcome. When we got back to town the temperature was up in the mid 50’s and our coats were way too warm.

E talked to her old friend L. in Vanautu in the afternoon, a FaceTime call out of the blue. L left upstate New York many moons ago and went to live with husband T in a tropical paradise. We visited them in the late nineties to see it for ourselves. Some years later L came to Turkey while we were there and we traveled around Ephesus together. E and L hadn’t been in touch for the last few years, so it was wonderful for them to catch up.

The last little while has been crazy full of international contact. Besides Vanuatu, we had Zoom Turkish lessons from Germany, Zoom webinar presentations to Chile and the Skype call with Margie in Spain. It makes M’s head spin.

Saturday, October 24     Deaths   653 (+4)   Cases  41,739 (+391)

Eve did her usual heroic Saturday duties. First she walked over to the Patissier for croissants. She says that the guy with the oxygen canister on his belt was there again, serving as an example to us all. Let not a mere breathing problem keep you from croissants. She then went out to do a dog walk for her friend but found the dog cowering indoors because of some shooting going on out there in the country. She decided to bring Pepper back to our place in town and let him run around the back yard for a while. That worked fine; Pepper pretty much stayed in constant motion till it was time to take him home. M, meanwhile, was still digging in the dirt, preparing an area of lawn to become a ‘meadow’ next spring. The dog made a contribution. 

Dinner was take-out from Ba’s Vietnamese Comfort Rood in Albany. We had to take the Porsche to pick it up because the Mazda was ailing. E got the vegan curry, M the beef pho. We both got the large size portions, which we carefully halved as soon as we got home, one half to eat and one to save for another day. 

After dinner we had a FaceTime call with Andi and Andy. Andy is settling into his new job working for the Post Office. He has to work tomorrow, as the USPS does package work for Amazon on Sundays. Andrea is starting a new job with Banfield next week, one that she expects will be more challenging and more interesting than what she has been doing.

Sunday, October 25     Deaths   653(+0)   Cases  41,101 (+362)

Zoom meeting with the siblings today, E from Corvallis, Jim from Clifton Park, and John from the new cottage at the lake. Jim reported that he has not been getting messages on his phone as it is locked outside in his car. Joanne can still answer a landline however, so that’s how the meeting organizer was finally able to contact him. Jim still has his old Corvette and they’ve been out in it quite recently. Good for them. John moved his camera to show us his canine friend, Mabel, who is currently keeping him company up at the lake. Mabel is a Puerto Rican immigrant, a refugee from Hurricane Maria. E showed a picture that she had come across while perusing old albums. It was of one of their great grandfathers on their mother’s side, one Luther Ochampaugh, a Vermonter worked with his brother as a cheesemaker. 

After the meeting E and M put the jumper cables on the Mazda and got it going again. Once it started up, we noticed that the gas gauge read empty, which seemed absurd, but there it was.  M put in half a gallon and we headed off to the gas station. After half a block, the gauge jumped up to one eighth full. Good news. After three blocks it jumped to more than a quarter full. By the time we got to the station it had settled in at about three fourths full. Very peculiar.

After lunch we got outside for a bit and then, when we were nice and tired, our Turkish teacher sent us the homework for tomorrow. Dragged ourselves through that. We’ve learned that preparation pays. 

Dinner was roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and salad. Lezzetli! (Delicious!) Daha sonra iki televizyon programı izledik. (Later two television programs we watched.) One was an episode of Kış Güneşi and the other was Part 4 of Flesh and Blood on PBS. We’ve now watched all four parts of the latter. It’s not terrible, but that’s as far as we’ll go.

Monday, October 12     Deaths   599  (+0)   Cases  37,467 (+218)

Having seen a near record high number of deaths reported last Thursday, we now get a second straight day of zero deaths. That helps some, but the trend is again upward. Here’s an updated chart on this the 200th day of the Pandemic Diary database. 

Tuesday, October 13     Deaths   605  (+6)   Cases  37,770  (+259)

Last night we watched more of The Gift, a Netflix series filmed in Turkey by a Turkish production company. It’s very good. There are lots of beautiful location scenes, both in the city and out in the Anatolian steppes. Much of the action in Episode 4 took place on Mount Nemrut, a site in southeastern Turkey where lie the ruins of the tomb-sanctuary of King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene. In Episode 3 Atiye dodged one bullet by bailing out of her wedding just in time. She’d been conflicted already, and when she learned that her mother had lied to her about nearly everything, that did it and she was out of there. But she cannot dodge her destiny. By the end of Episode 4 we understand that the mantle has been passed. Her sister Cansu, meanwhile, has broken out of the friend zone…but now feels terrible.

This morning E had an exercise class and doctor’s appointment; M did some grocery shopping. Weather wet and blustery. Turkish homework in the afternoon. 

Wednesday, October 14     Deaths   608  (+3)   Cases  38,160 (+380)

Turkish lesson this morning. We learned how to say “Shopping to do going am I” which is of course  “Alışveriş yapmaya gidiyorum.” That means we should also be able to say “Shopping to do went I” (Alışveriş yapmaya gittim.) So the next time M or E goes shopping at the Co-op, we should be able to report the fact in Turkish–provided that we remember any of this beyond the next few hours.

With all this attention toTurkey, we have been thinking a lot about our good friend Neşe, who unfortunately passed away about two years ago. Eve met her when both were working at the Turkish American Association in Ankara. After we left Turkey, Neşe came to visit us in Oregon. It was blackberry season when she was here and our neighbor Rich invited us to come picking at a place just south of town. Rich, who has also since passed away, was a former professional football player. Here’s a picture of the two of them. Presumably, Rich picked the high-up berries while Neşe got the ones lower down…

We also visited Neşe after she had moved from Ankara to the Mediterranean coastal city of Alanya, where she worked with a Georgetown study abroad program. Here’s one of our favorite photos from that time.

Thursday, October 15     Deaths   611  (+3)   Cases  38,525 (+365)

Tertulia at Bohdi’s once again. Although the sky was clear and the sun was bright, and it was a little chilly at 8:30 in the morning. You have to dress for it. At the other end of the day, we had dinner and wine with J and B (or was it B and J? We forget.) Anyway, that was also very nice. They have a large front porch that was designed–along with the rest of house–by B himself. It’s just right for this pandemicky sort of entertaining. Even if it had rained we would have been cozy. 

Friday, October 16     Deaths   617  (+6)   Cases  38,935 (+410)

Worked on Zoom skills in the morning. At lunchtime we went hiking once again in Mcdonald Forest. Several miles, so not just a walk. Had a visit from R. who came over by bicycle around 4:00. He’s looking well. Our friend P. also came over around 5:00. Weather was fine and we entertained both the guests on the back patio. Nice. Had some olive and cheese sandwiches with P and then later on dined on leftover chili. We got some carrot cake cupcakes from Trader Joe’s in honor of P’s birthday. Hm. Probably won’t do that again.

Saturday, October 17     Deaths   620  (+3)   Cases  39,316 (+381)

Spent most of the day prepping for seminar coming up next Tuesday. Ridiculous behavior. Splurged on take-out dinners from Sybaris. M liked his entree; E was disappointed by her pumpkin stuffed ravioli. We shared a Boston cream pie for dessert. Neither of us was disappointed by that. We were thinking that while we do miss going out to restaurants, having restaurant food at home also has its points. You can say whatever you want or laugh as load as you want anytime; plus the wine is a lot cheaper.

After dinner we watched more of The Gift.

Sunday, October 18     Deaths   620  (+0)   Cases  39,532 (+216)

The Patissier was closed but E fetched breakfast for us anyway on her morning walk–a chocolate donut for M, a cherry danish for herself. Then more Zoom practice. Then E had a Skype visit with her friend M in Madrid. M reports that the virus continues to be a serious problem in Spain. She says that most people wear masks while walking down the street, but then they go into crowded bars to meet their friends and of course everyone removes their masks to drink and talk. Sigh. M has two granddaughters, one seven and one three (?). She wants to teach them some English while they’re young. She’s having some success with the older one but less with the younger. The little one has been known to say (in a three-year-old’s Spanish) “I want to sit with grandma now, but not for studying English.”

M meanwhile was opening up our newish furnace to check the filter. Sure enough, the weeks of smoke and ash from the fires has left it sorely in need of replacement. The filter size turns out to be not a common one, so he had to order online. Once he started thinking about the garage, M was moved to try and tidy it up a bit. This involved moving the Porsche out so as to get better access to some storage shelves and etc. and etc. We still have debris from the great cupboard delivery and he got rid of some of that as well. Then, since the little car was already out in the driveway, it seemed like a good time to take a quick ride. While he was gone and the garage was sort of clear, E rearranged some of her stuff in her quest to create more free space, possibly enough for a bicycle. Then it was time for a walk, which took us to exotic places like Anjni Circle and Angelika Avenue. We ran across a street party, a dozen or more neighbors on lawn chairs arranged in a large circle on the pavement in the center of their cul-de-sac turnaround. They were a friendly group, even offering to let us join them if we paid a $2.50 entry fee. Back at home we had a bit of Turkish study and then E jumped in the car and took our completed ballots down to the drop box at the courthouse. It turned out to be a kind of party atmosphere with a line of cars and people saying ‘Yay for voting!” She says it was an energizing experience. When she got home, it was time for dinner: leftover spinach dal (once cooked by M), leftover raita (once whipped up by E), and fresh cooked but oddly mushy rice also courtesy of one who shall be nameless. Sunday night TV included two episodes of The Gift and and one episode of Flesh and Blood on PBS. Lastly we had to check the daily Oregon COVID news and as noted above, it turns out nobody died that day, which is quite fine and deserves a mention.

Monday, October 5     Deaths   572  (+0)   Cases  35,049  (+279)

Had our first Turkish lesson today, coming to us from Rostock, Germany via LearnCube. Yo! It was hard! LearnCube seems pretty cool but first we have to learn how to use the tools and remember how to type the Turkish alphabet. We have bitten off a lot here.

After class we had to pack up for the coast, including food for the first 24 hours. Did a poor job of this. As it happened, M remembered to pack many items of food, but not the three most important ones, one of which was the fat slab of chocolate lovers cake from the Market of Choice bakery! Had to make an emergency stop at Ray’s Food Place in Waldport. Arrived at the hotel around 4:00. Beautiful day, sunny and cool. Big waves.

As the sun set we had our dinner in the room with food brought from home and Ray’s. Quite adequate. The Adobe Resort was built in the 70’s (we remember) and was quite a place back then. It’s still very nice, although a few bits of seventies décor are looking tired. There are spectacular views from the restaurant and bar, where almost every table is at or very near one of the long wraparound windows. And there were definitely people eating and drinking in there, seated at every other table. We’re still leery of indoor dining.

Tuesday, October 6     Deaths   581  (+9   Cases  35,340  (+291)

Hiking day. Leisurely breakfast in the room, then a short drive down to Cape Perpetua. We hiked the Cook’s Ridge trail, which leads eastward away from the sea and climbs 1100 feet into the beginnings of the Coast Range. We knew better than to do the 8.0 mile loop and instead did a 5.8 mile up and back. That was plenty. Amazing trees. They grow fast here, so even the big ones are only 100 to 200 years old. The trees were hemlock and Sitka spruce in the first half of the climb and later some cedar and fir. We learned from a signboard that in this climate hemlock will outgrow Douglas fir; M had thought that nothing could. More beautiful weather. Here’s E about a mile up the trail exploring the remains of a very old tree, probably a hemlock.

For dinner we got take-out from the hotel restaurant and again ate in the room. Very good food. E loved her vegetable cacciatore. When you first look at the Adobe menu, it seems a little too regular American. But looking deeper E found a non-pasta vegetarian entrée–that in itself is a miracle around here–and it turned out to be really delicious. M had halibut fish and chips, also very pleasing. We washed it down with Rioja brought from home.

Wednesday, October 7     Deaths   583  (+2)   Cases  35,634  (+294)

Another hour and a half Turkish lesson today. We had not expected to be doing it on this particular date when we made hotel reservations. But…things change. Turkish and LearnCube are still hard, but we’re getting excited. We might possibly learn something. (Which we will then proceed to forget, but never mind.) But wait, our 9:00 A.M. Turkish class was not the first important event of the day. At 7:30 sharp we were third in line when the doors opened at the Green Salmon Coffee Shop in downtown Yachats. M had a star-shaped classic Danish and E had a cherry-rhubarb turnover. Plus we had our half cafs. We took it all back to the room and sat looking at the sea and making happiness sounds until it was time to start the class. 

After class it was time to check out. The drive home took just over an hour. We spent the whole time trying to master possessive adjectives. In English that would be my, your, his, her, its, our and their. Seven words and you’d be done. But not in Turkish, oh no. In Turkish there are twenty-eight; six basic words each with four different variations, except for third person plural, which seems to have eight variations. In practice Turkish possessives are quite logical–there are good reasons for all those variations–but it’s not easy to remember them all. 

Thursday, October 8     Deaths   594  (+11)   Cases  36,116 (+482)

A sobering number of Oregon COVID deaths was reported today, the highest Oregon daily total since Aug. 17 and the third highest ever. The fatality rate per 100,000 is now 13.8. 

We did an hour of Turkish study on our own this morning. Such motivation! E also had laughter yoga. Both us spent time catching up on paperwork and bill paying. We’re worrying about our Chilean presentations. Florencia sent us a copy of the seminar announcement. Our names were on the list of presenters. Oh no! We only have ten days to prepare! We’ll never be ready in time! 

Friday, October 9     Deaths   597  (+3)   Cases  36,526  (+410)

Grocery shopping this morning, M went to Winco and E went to the Co-op. Then Andrea stopped by for lunch on the back patio–cucumber sandwiches and a can of Amy’s lentil soup. Good cooperation from the weather. After that E contacted Chile to nail down some specifics of how our presentations would go. Then we worked on how to adapt our stuff to Zoom. Mostly we practiced screen sharing.

Online shopping update: M’s EarPods arrived.

Saturday, October 10     Deaths   599  (+2)  Cases  36,924  (+398)

The Corvallis Greek Fest is going on this weekend, but not in the usual way. Usually it’s a big party with food, drink, music and dancing in a giant party tent. This year there was no tent, no dancing, no drinks and no music. They did the food though, by golly, serving it up drive-through style. When we heard the plan we wondered how that would work. Friday was the first day and we heard that some people had to wait an hour and a quarter. So when we went on Saturday we took some reading materials with us–Turkish lessons actually–so as to have something to pass the time. But when we arrived around noon, there were only eight or ten cars ahead of us and the line was moving fast. E had typed up what we wanted to order (for ourselves and a friend) and there was a big crew of clipboard carrying order takers and tablet carrying payment staff. We took our haul over to H’s house, where she had set up a beautiful fall themed table on her covered back patio. It was a damp, cool day with intermittent splashes of rain, so we had to bundle up. But the menu was grand: pork souvlaki, falafel, spanakopita, Moroccan Chicken, braised lamb, vegan dolmas, fasolia, and pasticcio plus baklava and a bunch of kinds of cake. We didn’t actually order all of that, but we did our best. M made Greek coffee in his new Turkish coffee maker and served it in cups he had brought along for the occasion. 

Later on we started watching a new Turkish TV series. It’s called The Gift and concerns a painter living in Istanbul who discovers a mysterious connection between the images that have always inspired her painting and some images recently discovered during archeological work on an Anatolian hillside. Her obsession begins to affect her behavior and becomes a cause of  concern for her family and for her rich and rather boorish fiance, whom she inexplicably seems to be excited about marrying. At first everyone thinks she is just goofy, including the handsome young archeology professor that she tracks down, hoping that he can give her some explanation for what is happening to her. He initially assumes that she is just a nut and shoos her away. But he is forced to rethink when he begins to find evidence for some of the crazy things she claims, things that she could not have known, secrets that been buried deep in the earth for at least 15,000 years… 

Sunday, October 11     Deaths   599  (+0)   Cases  37,225  (+331)

Zoom meeting today with two siblings and one cuz. Nice to catch up with them. John is still in his new cottage at the lake and is thinking of living there through December. Cuz’s sabbatical year is being disrupted by the pandemic. She had planned to be doing a number of projects involving international travel, but that’s not going to work. She is adapting. J and J had some severe storms in their area last week and lost power for many hours, which would have been long enough to melt their ice cream had they not taken pre-emptive measures. E and M have been trying to learn how to use their new green screen. One thing we discovered was that when E wore a particular green turtleneck and vest, the computer assumed that her torso was part of the background and erased it, which left only her head floating in the middle of the screen. A little unsettling but hilarious. We wanted to let the group see this. Unfortunately the computer began to get smarter and in this session it insisted on keeping her torso firmly present. So disappointing. By changing up the lighting and camera angles, however, we were able to briefly recreate the effect. So everybody got to see the floating head, if only for a few seconds. 

Next we needed to do a little Turkish. The teacher has sent us feedback about our compositions, plus an extensive word list and lots of grammar notes. Argh!

Chili and corn bread for dinner. Flesh and Blood on Masterpiece for TV.

Monday, September 28      Deaths   547  (+0)   Cases  32,994  (+174)

Grocery shopping day. We went to the Co-op together (bad) but we did separate once we got in. That got us in and out fairly fast. Just so you know, the frozen salmon at the Co-op is way, way cheaper than at Market of Choice. Once we’d got our stuff loaded into the car, E set out for home on foot to get her steps in. M went over to Natural Grocers to get some particular things that they’re good at. Then later E went out to the Peoria Road farm market searching for tomatoes and peppers that meet her standards. We haven’t eaten them yet, but they look pretty good. Later E had Zoom yoga and M didn’t do anything except open his box that arrived from the Walgreen’s online. On the plus side, he did manage to get through a whole day without ordering anything else.

Tuesday, September 29      Deaths   555  (+8   Cases  33,291  (+297)

It was the first day of E’s new Better Bones and Balance class. The teacher introduced each student and had each one say hello. E was a bit upset. If she had known what to expect, she would have worn a nicer tee. 

Later she met a friend  for a socially distanced, bring-you-own-chair meeting at MLK park. She says they had an enjoyable wide-ranging conversation, which included the topic of what dating must be like these days, compared to what it was when the two of them were starting out. While they were talking, some folks began laying out a soccer field just next to them, using a bunch of orange plastic markers that she swears looked liked little caps or beanies. E left before the game started, but not before seeing the two teams arrive, several gaggles of seven or eight-year olds and their support staff. How is that allowed these days, she wondered, soccer being a sport that does involve some close contact?

M attempted repairs to the back lawn by over-seeding some dead spots. He then provided E with salmon, steamed potatoes and green beans for dinner, which seems to have satisfied her. After dinner, we watched episode one of a British series called Bodyguard, which features the actor who play mama Durrel in the The Durrels on Corfu. This new role makes a change of pace for her for sure. The drama is a little too tense for us old folks, but whole thing is quite well-done.

Last, and maybe least, it was a red letter day in the world of garbage containers. Of our three containers, two were getting terribly shabby and broken down, so M had requested new ones. As if by magic, they appeared today. M feels so much better now. Plus, E need no longer be ashamed of her trash containers when friends come to the back yard. (Which we suspect she has plans for.)

Online shopping update:: two articles of clothing arrived

Wednesday, September 30      Deaths   559  (+4)   Cases  33,509  (+218)

The Oregon COVID death rate has reached 13 per 100,000. This compares favorably to some places–New York 137, Florida 70–but not so favorably to others–Australia 3.55, Japan 1.24.

Busy day today, starting with a twenty-minute walk around town just before tertulia. At Bodi’s with R and J,  we had one chocolate orange scone, one beignet and two half-caf coffees. The latter gave us more of a jolt than we’re used to, so we had to rush off and do more crazy stuff. First E went off for another walk while M went to the grocery store for emergency essentials such as party supplies and tonic water. E then spent a couple of hours in the garden, dead heading, weeding, lavender trimming and generally cleaning up to prepare for having guests on Thursday. M joined in to do edging and lawn mowing. After lunch E made gazpacho. She had to do it early so as to allow it time para reposar tres horas antes de cenar. Just before dinner she made croutons and chopped up a couple of boiled eggs for guarnición. We also finished the leftover fish, washing it down with a sort-of-local pinot noir. Beautiful!

Online shopping update: M’s Turkish coffee maker arrived.

Thursday, October 1      Deaths   560  (+1)   Cases  33,862   (+353)

Hazy morning. We often get early morning fog this time of year, but now we are also getting smoke from California wildfires. There’s a weather system that is blowing the California smoke out to sea, circulating it north and then moving it back inland 450 miles from where it started. Most of the smoke seems to be up high; air quality at ground level is moderate. 

M took the Porsche on a drive out, first west to Alsea, then back to Monroe via Alsea Falls. Very little traffic on that leg, three cars oncoming in 30 minutes of driving. The road is narrow and curvy and runs through thick forest. Great fun in the Boxster, but it was even more fun years ago in the Miata. The lack of visibility around the turns makes going fast a fool’s game. Instead the route rewards liveliness and lightness of foot. Whereas the Boxster is an athlete; the Miata was a dancer. 

But as it happened this drive had something for everyone. After a sedate jog south on Highway 99, Porsche and driver slipped over to Harrisburg (via Lancaster) to cross the Willamette. From there we crossed over I-5 into some out-of-way farm country. First there was a miles long stretch of flat straight road. No traffic at all, perfect visibility in all directions. The Porsche liked that fine. The old Jaguar XKR would have liked it just as much if not more. The Miata would have been gasping, groaning and bored stiff. After that came a sort of miracle, a giant, sweeping S-curve on an otherwise featureless plain. The Porsche became very happy, as close to carefree as a Porsche can get. Go ahead, it was saying, go as fast as you want, I’ve got this. And even if we die, so what? That’s part of what the both of us were born for. Fortunately M knows a siren song when he hears it and sailed through just fine. Anyway, soon after the big curves the road turns north and runs through a different kind of farm country with curves, straights and rolling hills to keep things interesting. We arrived in Brownsville all too soon.

In the late afternoon E hosted a backyard gathering of the Lemon Meringue Pie Society. The pandemic has been a challenge for LMPS. They’ve tried various ideas, including meeting via Zoom, but these have not been completely satisfactory. Also, some of the members have health issues. But the LMPS spirit is strong and E’s solution–masked, distanced and at individual tables outdoors–seemed to work well. Masks came off for pie eating and for a passing photographer, but otherwise stayed mostly on.

The pie, by the way, was not lemon meringue. Instead, E got a ladder and picked some apples off the better of our two trees. She peeled, cored and dewormed them, then followed the JOC recipe exactly. The results were spectacular.

M had a bit of pie, but also made himself a haloumi pita with tomato, cucumber and cilantro. That was pretty good too.

Online shopping update: One article of clothing arrived.

Friday, October 2      Deaths   563  (+3)   Cases  34,163   (+301)

Found out early this morning that Donald and Melania have tested positive for COVID. A later update put DT in the hospital. No one knows quite how to respond, at least for the record. Heather Havrilesky posted “I want to scream and drink boxed wine and eat bags of salty shit and dance.” Her accompanying graphic was The Triumph of Surrealism by Max Ernst:

E went to the eye doctor after breakfast and reports that the old air puff into the eye has been suspended for the duration. When she got home, her eyes were still dilated, but she wanted a walk in the forest anyway. M made a lunch and off we went, just for a little stroll up to the lake. Nice morning, sixty-something degrees when we left home but in the lovely low seventies when it was time for lunch. On the way up we ran across a pileated woodpecker just ten feet away, perched on the side of a tree at eye level in full sun. Yo! How often do we see that? After a few seconds it flew to a higher and more distant tree where it perched on the shady side. Here’s a not very good photograph of that view, just to lend a hint of credibility.

E noticed this pattern on the pond as we were leaving. Said it reminded her of snowshoes.

After dinner, watched the final episode of Ted Lasso. Quite satisfactory. Will there be another season?

Online shopping update: One large pantry cupboard arrived. Two boxes, 43 kilos each. Yikes! Have E and M gone mad?

Saturday, October 3      Deaths   571 (+8)   Cases  34,163  (+348)

Yesterday was the 190th day of the Pandemic Diary. In the last ten days, average daily COVID fatalities in Oregon were 3.1, up from 2.8 in the previous ten-day period. Here’s a long term chart.

Despite this grim picture, E and M had chocolate croissants for breakfast again! While E went off to get them, M made coffee using beans from Cauca, Colombia. Cauca is the area around Popayán, the mountain town where we lived for three months once upon a time. We remember seeing coffee being grown there, mostly on small holdings and always growing in the shade, often under banana trees. But we had never seen any specifically Caucan beans until just a couple of weeks ago. Is it good? You bet. We could describe it as tasting like coffee with hints of more coffee. Not much banana.

In the late morning Eve did her Saturday dog walk out in the country while M started assembly of the pantry cupboard and making preparations to install it where it goes. After lunch E joined in and much progress was made. Not quite done yet, though. The cupboard is starting to take shape; it just needs its doors, shelves and anti-tipover strap. 

The rest of the garage is a mess.

Online shopping update: An empty box from Tennessee. (E has to fill it and send it back.)

Sunday, October 4     Deaths   572  (+1)   Cases  34,770  (+259)

E has a Zoom meeting with long-time friends S and Mrs. H from back east. We did of bit of outdoor work and M finished assembling the pantry cupboard. It’s still empty though; everything that’s supposed to fill it is sitting in various boxes in the garage. We haven’t stocked it yet because we have to prepare for two momentous events tomorrow. In the morning we have our first day of Turkish class and in the afternoon we head off to stay at the coast for a couple of days. Much to do.

Monday, September 21      Deaths   529  (+3)   Cases  30,995   (+194)

The little car is got cleaned and waxed today, looking good. We watched a couple of episodes of Derry Girls on Netflix. Hm.

Tuesday, September 22      Deaths   532  (+3)   Cases  31,313   (+318)

We got a take-out sandwiches from Ba’s in Albany. We finally discovered their online ordering system, which takes Apple Pay. Nice. In the early afternoon E went to a meeting of her HEPAJ group. They all took lawn chairs and treats and met outside at a park. This was a first for the group and E says it was fun. M was also outside for a while, mowing lawn and washing the remaining ash from the patio. M is on Ibuprofen today. Apparently he strained his shoulder working at the carwash.

It’s the 180th day of the Pandemic Diary database. Average daily deaths fell from 3.7 to 2.8. Here’s the chart. 

Wednesday, September 23      Deaths   538  (+6)   Cases  31,503   (+190)

After tertulia this morning we went back to the forest near where we used to live. What a difference two weeks makes! It was summer the last time we were there and now it’s fall, with maple leaves falling everywhere. The native maples don’t do much in the way of color; they’re mostly just brown. But we found a bit of red on this big fir, courtesy of a thriving poison oak vine.

We also passed an old maple that the forest managers decided to cut down about five years ago. It seems to be rebounding nicely from the experience.

And of course we stopped to see one of E’s favorite trees. She didn’t try to climb up onto that big limb today, but she’s been known to.

And e is not the only one…

Thursday, September 24      Deaths   539  (+1)   Cases  31,865   (+362)

The Chambers siblings did a Zoom meeting today, James from Clifton Park, John from his mostly finished house at Lake George, and Eve from our new Zoom studio in Corvallis. The meeting began on time with no technical difficulties. It seems that we are all getting better at Zooming. Jim and John are both well. We got to see a bit of the interior of John’s new place, including a very old wooden icebox that John and his father rescued from a yard sale many years ago when John was just a child. He remembers the two of them working to remove many layers of white paint to reveal the wood underneath. The top was rotting, so Hoy replaced it using pine boards that he had in his shop. They then sought out and applied the period correct type of varnish. John didn’t say if it had been refinished since then, but it certainly looks lovely now. Besides talking with Jim we got to interact a little with Joanne, who is as kind and lovely as always. We debuted our new green screen, which allows any photo to be used as a background, even on devices that do not have super processors. Also a couple of umbrella lights to smooth away some of the shadows. Our background, chosen in haste but still nice, was from Cyprus, a hillside village in the spring.  

After a supper of reasonably high-quality leftovers, we settled in front of the TV to check out Ted Lasso, an Apple-produced series about an American football coach who is hired to manage an British professional soccer team. We thought we’d watch just a little to see if it was any good, but we found it quite wonderful and ended up watching four half hour episodes. Just about everything about this show is excellent: complex characters, good acting, substantive situations,  meaningful dialogue, and a tone that is at once naïve and highly sophisticated. The level of maturity and insight in Ted Lasso is so far above that of Cable Girls that it made us laugh for joy. (We did miss the subtitles, though, some of those Brit accents…)

Friday, September 25      Deaths   542  (+3)   Cases  32,314   (+449)

We’ve been doing a crazy amount of online shopping lately. The purchases seem okay in each individual instance, but taken in total, it doesn’t look completely rational.  M has ordered an electric Turkish coffee maker, which we clearly don’t need. E is buying a new fall fleece jacket and some winter socks, which are a bit more practical. M has ordered a bunch of new ice cube trays–hey, the old ones were terrible, the summer was hard on them–and together we’re getting a new pantry cupboard for the garage.

And then there is the nice new mask with lanyard that E got for $16 from Tom Bihn, a Seattle company that has donated 115,000 masks to underserved communities. 

Saturday, September 26      Deaths   546  (+4)   Cases  32,581   (+267)

We watched more episodes of Ted Lasso last night. Liked them a lot. This morning E fetched us croissants from Le Patissier. After that, she went out to the country again to walk her friend’s dog. M watched a movie called Soledad, which is pretty good, and worked in the garden trimming away some things whose times have passed. 

Dinner was a real treat. We went to a place in Vancouver, WA called Andrea and Andy’s. Andy make an extraordinary thing out of spaghetti squash plus a wonderful fall soup made out of sweet potatoes and more other things than we can remember. E contributed a tomato and cilantro salad, an elaboration of an old recipe we got from Flo. We ate in the back yard, warmed by the late afternoon sun. 

For dessert we had a brief ride in the Cadillac CTS-V, sampling the lovely seats and the “Comfort” ride setting. Also the “Sport” ride setting and the 6.2 liter supercharged V-8 with 556 hp and 551 lb-ft of torque connected to some sticky Michelins with hefty Brembos nearby in case you ever wanted to slow down. Nice car. Back at the house we had more dessert–a flan that Andy was not too proud of but which was quite delicious for the rest of us.

The statewide media today are making a big to-do about the 449 new COVID cases reported on Friday. They note, correctly, that this is the highest single day total of the pandemic. The suggestion is that things are worse than ever and we’d all better do something now, even if all we really can do is stay home and moan quietly in our living rooms. But as so often happens in this crisis, this contextless number serves more to mislead than to illuminate. Of course the discovery of 449 new cases is bad news, but how bad is it? Let’s add some context. 

First, these 449 new cases were from a total of 12,385 tests, far more tests than are usually reported. That right there should make you stop and think a little. And of course you could compare this new record number with the old record number. The old record was 405 new cases, and it was set on August 15th, a day when there were a total 12,994 tests, which was also many more tests than usual. In fact, those two numbers, 12,385 and 12,994, are the two highest days of COVID testing ever done in Oregon. For comparison, on the third highest day of testing the number was just 7,337. So the two days with the highest ever number of new cases also happened to be the two days of the most extensive testing ever done. This is not news; this is just math, working as it always has. The large number of tests may deserve a headline; the number of new cases does not.

We can get somewhat more useful information by looking at the test positive rates on those two days. On August 15th the test positive rate was 3.13%. On September 25, the rate was 3.63%. Compared to other days, those two numbers are actually pretty low. People say that if we can maintain a rate under 5.00%, we’ll have chance of getting the pandemic under control. So maybe these two days did deserve headlines, not for being bad news, but for bringing such good news.

And, just for fun, let’s look at the data for two other days: September 20th and 21st. On the 20th, the new case number was 202, which sounds a lot better than 449. On September 21st the number of new cases was 194, even better. Should those two days have made us feel hopeful? As it happens, there were very few tests reported on either of those days, just 2,159 on the 20th and 1,215 on the 21st. The test positive rate for the 20th was 9.36%. For the 21st it was 15.97%. If you wanted to make a headline for these two days, would you really want to celebrate the relatively low numbers of new cases confirmed? Not if you had a clue.

The truth, of course, is that it’s impossible to know much of anything just by focusing on any one number on any one day. There is too much natural variation in the system. But possibly the worst possible number to fixate on is the number of new cases confirmed. As we all should realize by now, if you want that number to be low, all you have to do is stop testing and just let everybody die.  

Sunday, September 27      Deaths   547  (+1)   Cases  32,820   (+239)

Lovely weather for a quiet Sunday. Croissants again for breakfast. They were a day old, but when E rewarmed them, very briefly, in a real oven, they were delicious. Later in the morning we went for a walk on campus. We parked at the old Poultry Science building and walked east past the tennis courts and the giant artificial turf intramural sports field. We climbed up to the top of the parking structure to have a look around, then went back over toward the vet school to see some animals. We returned through the unfamiliar back lots of the College of Forestry compound. We passed by an odd new building, quite a large one. It was industrial looking, a windowless unmarked black rectangle. We paused for a bit to take a closer look. There was a huge garage type door at one end and on the other a loading bay with a glossy black hopper feeding into a heavy cart-like container, also black. The whole place was deserted and felt mildly strange. From there it was just six minutes or so back to our car. As we were about to leave, a campus security truck cruised by. We saw it turn and go down to that same black building and stop there. Had security cameras alerted headquarters to a possible threat? Unlikely. Funny coincidence though. We departed forthwith.  

Monday, September 14      Deaths   511  (+0)   Cases  29,484   (+141)

Meet the new day, same as the old day. M was out for a few minutes sweeping up ash from our back patio. As recommended in the poem, he spread a bit of the ash at his shrine to the dead. The rest went into a trash bag destined for the landfill. Air quality still quite bad.

While M was working, E went to look for a couple of take-out lattes. No luck. Coffee Culture is down; Starbucks is down. While she was out, she heard the announcement of a Level 3 “Go Now” evacuation order for the area in and around the town of Holley, Oregon. Holley is a little town on the Calapooia River, and is another place that M has driven through recently. It’s about 27 miles southeast of Corvallis. We know all about evacuation alerts levels now. Level 1 means get yourself prepared to evacuate. At Level 2 people are encouraged to leave; those who stay should be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. The system is fine if the fires give enough time for the alerts to be issued and if everyone gets the word. For a day or two there, the fires were moving faster than the alert system could deal with.

After dinner, there was a Level 2 Brownie Alert (Be ready to bake at any time) and E had to go over to Market of Choice and get a mix. When she got back, she turned around and made them.

Tuesday, September 15      Deaths   519  (+8)   Cases  29,662   (+178)

The window project moves forward. A estimator from Smith’s Glass came today to finish measuring. He had planned to come last Thursday, but the area where he lives was put on Level 2 and he was occupied with preparations for the family to evacuate. E had made the brownies mostly for the purpose of giving some to him as a gesture of support. Today he reports that they are still in the house but still all set to go. There are two different fires burning near where he lives, one four miles to the south and another 14 miles to the east. The former is the fire that we mentioned yesterday, near the town of Holley.  

Despite the fires still burning, our air quality improved overnight, from Hazardous all the way up to Unhealthy. M went out in the garden for half an hour or so, wearing a pretty much useless mask. He says that at first it feels wonderful just to be outside and that the air doesn’t matter. But after a while it feels distinctly unhealthy, especially if you do any exertion. Time to go in. 

E has been trying to keep up with her walking regimen indoors. By alternating step aerobics with tramping around from room to room, she eventually convinces her watch to give her credit for several thousand steps.

Wednesday, September 16      Deaths   521  (+2)   Cases  29,850  (+188)

E had her hair done today and got some big news there. Claire, her hairdresser, has announced her retirement at the end of the year. Inveterate traveller and very smart cookie, Claire is someone we have depended on for insights into all sorts of things. Hopefully we can keep in touch with her through this transition. Otherwise, we shall be lost. 

We also did some chores today, dropping off things at both Bottle Drop and Good Will. The garage was filling up with empty seltzer bottles and donation goods. We still have two large items that we would normally donate to Habitat, but they’re been shut down for months. Bleh.

Thursday, September 17      Deaths   521  (+0)   Cases  30,060   (+210)

Reasonably good COVID report today: no Oregon deaths yesterday and a daily test positive rate of just 4.84%. Wildfire news is also promising as rain is forecast for this evening and through the night. We’ve had a number of days now when rain was forecast but failed to arrive, so we shall have to see. If rain comes, most of it should fall on the western slopes of the Cascades, which is exactly where the fires are, so our fire officials are all “cautiously optimistic.” Already many of the worst fires have been partially contained in the places where they were approaching population centers.

Air quality remains in an issue. At 4:30 this morning it was in condition orange, the best we’ve seen for a long, long time. But by 6:00 A.M. it was back up to red, by early afternoon it was purple, and just now, at 4:30 in the afternoon, it is back into the dark purple Hazardous zone. We’re thinking we should have gone for an early walk. 

We’re into Season Four of Cable Girls and the fearless foursome remain really busy. Carlota was framed for murder. When she was convicted, she had a kind of breakdown (which was distinctly un-Carlota-like, but the writers have no shame). Her lover couldn’t stand to see her like that and decided to save her by confessing to the crime herself. She manufactured enough evidence to convince the judge and now Carlota is free but Sara/Oscar is in prison condemned to death. No problem, though, the girls are planning a prison break and Detective Cuevas has inexplicably agreed to help them. This is, of course, ridiculous, but fortunately it all goes by fast, like the pages of a comic book in the wind, so we don’t need to resort to the fast forward button. In other news, Francisco has awakened from his year-long coma but has amnesia. Pretty much everyone knows about his miracle recovery except Alba/Lidia. Carlos, whom she has just agreed to marry, has been hiding it from her because Francisco was her first love and he and Carlos have always been rivals. Last night’s cliffhanger was Lidia coming home after a tough day of planning the prison break and running into Francisco, alive and well in her living room, dressed in a really sharp suit. Presumably we’ll see how that scene goes later tonight. Lurking in the background, Doña Carmen is out of prison and plotting again, some dastardly business having to do with once again kidnapping innocent toddler Eva. E’s friend in Spain warned us that the writing deteriorated after the first two seasons, which caused her to give up on the whole deal. We get that now, but we’re not giving up quite yet. We only have about 12 40-minute episodes to go.

Friday, September 18      Deaths   521  (+0)   Cases  30,342   (+282)

So the promised rain finally came, starting about 8:00 last night. It came accompanied by lightning and thus had the potential to douse some fires while starting others. So far, however, it appears to have done mostly good. The biggest fires are not out, but all have been knocked back a little, a welcome development. 

This morning, the air quality index was around 70, roughly in the middle of the yellow zone. This afternoon it is 30, roughly in the middle of the green zone. Wow. Great to be getting outside. Pandemic and wildfires aside, it was nice to finally get some rain again. 

Saturday, September 19      Deaths   525  (+5)   Cases  30,599  (+257)

A couple of walks today. Wonderful air. And then in the evening, Magnum Infinite Chocolate ice cream bars, one each. All is well.

Sunday, September 20      Deaths   526  (+1)   Cases  30,801   (+202)

A lazy Sunday. Septembers are often lovely around here, sunny and cool with damp, misty mornings. The smoke ruined all that for days and days, but today was very fine. Waffles for breakfast, an hour or two of walks and gardening, Burgerville lunch, iced decaf on the patio at 4:00. Nice.

After dinner we tried to watch Cable Girls S5-E2, but it was just too dumb. We’re saying goodbye to the chicas. Also tried to watch Laundromat with Meryl Streep. We weren’t in the mood for that either. E wants to watch Derry Girls. After that, we might go back to Turkish things, especially as we’re getting serious about an online Turkish class taught by our friend Umut. It would start October 5th.

Thursday, September 10      Deaths   497  (+3)   Cases  28,654   (+183)

After three windy days, today has been mostly dead calm. So of course it’s still smoky. Our air quality was rated as Unhealthy this morning but then deteriorated to Very Unhealthy. M finished off his outdoor painting chores while it was still relatively good. Otherwise we’ve stayed inside. But E and her Lemon Merengue Pie buddies are planning a brief meeting in the late afternoon despite the difficult conditions. H is hosting, A is the instigator, and E plays the role of perpetual guest.

Friday, September 11      Deaths   499  (+2)   Cases  28,865   (+211)

Another smokey, windless day. We are back in the Very Unhealthy range, with occasional spikes into the Hazardous zone. No more orange glow or red sun poking through, just dirty gray smoke as far as you can see, which isn’t all that far. We’re so fortunate that there are no fires in the forests nearby. The closest fire to us is about 35 miles away. Much of the area between here and there is agricultural land, which does not offer much for a wildfire to chew on. That’s good since we hear that one fire last week travelled through 50 miles of forest in just a matter of hours.

We looked at an aerial video of the Talent to Phoenix corridor a hundred miles south of us. Sad to see whole neighborhoods gone. Amazing to find several places where you can see a row of houses all intact while across the street there is another row reduced to nothing but foundations. 

The video showed both built up towns and semi-rural areas. It made us think of our old house in the forest. When we lived there, we used to fret about what fire officials called defensible space, a wide area free of trees and brush on all sides of a house. Looking at the aerial footage of this fire, we could see that space was only one factor. Some houses that were closely surrounded by trees and brush mysteriously survived. And though many buffered homes survived, some others were consumed. Nothing about nature is simple. Reported deaths from the Oregon fires are few at this point, but everyone is saying that it’s too soon to tell.

Saturday, September 12      Deaths   505 (+6)   Cases  29,158  (+291)

It’s the 170th day of Pandemic Diary record keeping, which began in earnest way back at the end of March. The overall fatality rate in Oregon is up to 11.74 per 100,000. In the last ten days the average daily death toll was 3.7. That’s down from the previous 5.1. The current test positive rate remains less than 5%. Here’s the new chart.

Air quality today is in the Hazardous zone. It’s frustrating to be trapped inside by both pandemic and bad air. Also frustrating are the weather forecasts. In the middle of last week the prediction was that conditions would change by Friday afternoon. Didn’t happen. The next prediction was that conditions would change by Sunday. Nope. Now the prediction is for conditions to change by Tuesday. Harumph. Also, our house is looking shabby as hitherto invisible cobwebs are now covered with very visible black debris. 

So it’s best to just stay in and watch Cable Girls. Unencumbered by pandemics, bad air or shabby looking houses, these four young women are really busy. Marga, for example, has had to deal with her husband’s twin brother coming to live with them. Pablo, her husband, is sweet and caring and she loves him dearly. Julio, the brother, is charming and lazily amoral. What could go wrong? Well, for one thing, she could accidentally have sex with Julio thinking he was Pablo. When she realizes it, she is horrified, especially as it was the best sex of her relatively inexperienced life. She feels terrible. Meanwhile she has been promoted out of the switchboard rooms to become a secretarial assistant for Carlos, who has just returned to the company as its new CEO. Carlos is the scion of the family who first owned the telephone company. In one of last season’s episodes he argued violently with his father, causing him to have a heart attack and die, thus leaving Carlos to manage the company under the watchful eye of his mother Doña Carmen. But just when he was getting used to that, he was aghast to find out that his mother was a repulsive manipulative monster who was trying to crush all his dreams and especially to separate him from Alba, the woman he loved, who is also one of the four cable girls and thus a good friend of Marga’s. So Carlos broke with his mother and left the telephone company to start a radio station. A new character appeared, Sr. Uribe, and he took over as telephone company CEO, eventually marrying Carlos’ sister Elisa to solidify his position. But Mr. Uribe was not sufficiently docile, so Doña Carmen had him killed and orchestrated a preposterous series of events that convinced Carlos to come back and be company manager again, catching him in a vulnerable moment because he had just broken up with Alba because he thought she was insane to keep on insisting that their baby daughter had not really died in the fire at the church but instead was being sequestered in a convent somewhere by Doña Carmen, which was of course true, but who would believe such a crazy story?

So while Marga has been having sex problems and Alba has been going crazy trying to get her baby back, what’s been going on with Ángeles and Carlotta, the other two members of the formidable foursome of cable girls? When we last checked in on Ángeles she had just rid herself of abusive husband Mario by means of an accident involving Sr. Uribe’s baseball bat, at which point she and her three friends had to figure out what to do with the body and so on. They did their best, but because of bad luck and the work of a determined–and handsome–police detective, it seemed like their efforts were futile and Ángeles was doomed to go down. But sparks were flying between Ángeles and Detective Cristóbal Cuevas and before he could really figure it all out there they were in bed together and he was smitten. But not so smitten that he did not follow up some leads that led him to finally decide that Alba was the murderer. (We said he was determined; we did not say he was bright.) So then Ángeles had to confess the truth to Cristóbal so as to save her friend. The good detective was anguished. Finally he gave her two hours to get out of town never to return. “If I ever see you again,” he told her, “I will arrest you for murder.” Off she went and stayed away for a while, but eventually she just had to come back to attend Alba’s wedding to Carlos. She came in disguise, but she was injured in the fire at the church and woke up in the hospital stripped of her disguise, and there was that handsome policeman again telling her she was under arrest. But then Cristòbal got all smitten again–or at least pretended to be–and told her that he would spare her from prison if she would agree to work undercover to help him trap a notorious underworld figure named Guzmán, offering to see to it that some schmuck already in prison would confess to having offed Mario. Ángeles was forced to agree.

And Carlota? She was a rich girl who was doing the telephone operator gig because wanted to be independent of her military father. But he didn’t go for it and dragged her home and locked her in her room for a month or two. But then she found out–via her friends who listened in to her father’s phone calls–that he was in a conspiracy to overthrow the king. In return for her silence, he had to let her go back to work, where she rapidly got involved in 1929 style feminism as well as an ongoing ménage à trois with another operator (female) and one of the company engineers (male). Her father had a change of heart, apologized for trying to suppress her natural rights, and conveniently died, leaving her very well off. Using the code name Athena, she became a well known radio personality at Carlos’s station and managed to attract so much positive attention to her cause that she was attacked and almost raped by the leadership team of a radical conservative group. Her anarchist friend Lucia convinced her to spend some of her money to hire some leftist thugs to apply some lead pipe to the guys who attacked her. This led to one of the men ending up in a coma on the edge of death, which made Carlota feel really bad at which point she tried to break off with Lucia. She also had to worry about her lover Miguel, one third of the ménage, who has slipped back into his old cocaine habit and been fired from the phone company. 

Not to worry though, because at the end of Season Three everything works out. Unfortunately we cannot go into the details of how it worked out because of our editorial policy which requires us to maintain high standards of plausibility and strict historical accuracy at all times. Suffice it to say that Alba reunites with Carlos and finds her baby, Miguel gets a job in Alba’s old boyfriend’s nightclub, evil Doña Carmen gets arrested, Ángeles survives death threats from Guzmán and breaks up with the detective (who says he really loves her and in fact she likes him too, but she knows she can’t trust him), Carlota thwarts the worst of Lucia’s plans and feels a little better about herself, and Marga confesses to Pablo that she slept with his brother by mistake and sets about trying to make it up to him. Next up, Season Four.

Sunday, September 13      Deaths   511  (+5)   Cases  29,337   (+181)

Another day of thick smoke and no wind. Reported air quality is still in the Hazardous zone, but hey it’s at the bottom of the Hazardous zone, which is better than the top and even more better than that time when it went past Hazardous and climbed right off the scale, well into the dreaded Zone With No Name. Okay in the house though. And in fact, at this moment, (4:00 P.M. Sunday) visibility is better that it’s been for days. 

Our new neighbor across the street was out in the worst of it this morning, unmasked, using a leaf blower to clear ash from his driveway. This is, we believe, the worst possible method for cleaning up ash. (Do you have a problem with ash falling on your property? Just blow it back up into the air. You’ll be fine.) And why do it now, when the event is so clearly not over? Though he is blowing only a little of his ash our way, E is not pleased. If she wasn’t such a basically nice person, she’d shoot him. 

Finally, here’s another way to think of ashes, a poem circulated by the Willamette Valley Friends of Wildlife…

Do not forget that the ashes falling from the sky are all that remains of the pine and grass and thistle and bear and coyote and deer and mouse that could not escape. Gather some up in a sacred manner. Take it to your altar. Offer prayers for these beings. Honor their death. Pray for life. Call in rain. Remind Fire that it is full, has gobbled enough, and can rest. May all beings be safe. May all beings be loved. May all beings be remembered. May all beings be mourned.

Copyright Sadee Whip 2020

Tuesday, September 8      Deaths   486  (+4)   Cases  28,355  (+165)

We woke up to an orange glow at sunrise, but that soon changed to a dirty brown. There is ash in the air, some of it clearly visible as ghostly gray flakes drifting in the wind. So now we have two reasons to wear our masks outside. The smoke is coming from the east, they say now, where there are two different fires in the Cascades. 

Here’s the view from out our front door

The scene from the back yard.

It got even smokier here on Oak Avenue in the late afternoon. Our air quality has been designated very unhealthy, one step below hazardous, which tops the scale. The worst fires are on the western slopes of the Cascades, one east of Salem and another east of Eugene. East winds, gusting to 60 to 80 mph are pushing the fires down the mountain slopes toward the valley. Towns in the foothills are being evacuated. We’ve stayed inside. 

In other breaking news, the New York Times–a great publication but a little slow on the uptake–has an article today about how dentists are reporting an epidemic of cracked teeth. The surge in dental stress fractures was first reported, of course, in the Pandemic Diary, by co-editor Eve Chambers on June 19. (We’re not sure how the NYT learned of her report or why it took them so long to follow up.)

Wednesday, September 9      Deaths   494  (+8)   Cases  28,471  (+116)

News reports today say that multiple large fires in Oregon have burned more than 530,000 acres. Fire officials are focused on preserving lives and property; containment of the fires is out of the question. The winds around our house have lessened a little, but it is still very smoky and air quality remains very poor. Our housecleaner came today and we usually get out of the house at least part of the time when she is here. So we went downtown for coffee and scones then had our breakfast in the car. Although the air seems terrible, today must be a little better than yesterday because while we were out we noticed that today we could see the sun–at least we think it’s the sun. (It’s very odd to be able to look at the sun without it hurting your eyes.) The first photo is how it looked from a spot a few miles north of town where the smoke was a little thinner; the second is how it looked in Corvallis. Both images are straight from the camera–no filtering.