Quick Trip to Oregon

 (Or, Sleep is Over-rated!)

I made a quick trip out to the West Coast to see my girl. And, not coincidentally, to see the legendary Oregon Coast. The physical geography definitely lives up to the hype.

The problem is, there is no efficient way to get to where my girl is, a small inland town. I flew to and from Eugene, which required a mid-continent connecting point. The way the schedules worked out, I got into Eugene at 10 pm their time, 1 am my time. Then I picked up a car rental, and drove on down to Roseberg, another 90 minutes.

It's always a challenge to set up in a rental car, figuring it out. And my problem-solving abilities were not at peak performance in the middle of the night. This time, at least, I didn't need to search the car interior for the key fob, it was handed to me and I was given a parking space number. First, I had to try to adjust the seat so I could reach the pedals (is it electric? do I have to start the car first?) and then adjust the mirrors. I'm used to a proximity fob in place of a key, but after searching for a button to push I found instead a place to insert a key. I studied the small, square fob and finally found a button that caused a key to pop out. It started right up, but because it was a hybrid, it didn't sound like it had started. But things on the dash lighted up. Next task was connecting the screen to my phone where I had input my Roseberg motel address. I had cleverly brought both USB-A and USB-C cords with me, because I once had to switch cars due to having only the wrong cord. So imagine my surprise to find the cord was only charging, not connecting to the systems. Finally, in the menu, I found something saying "cord for Android only, activate Apple Car Play via bluetooth". So finally I pulled out of the parking lot and set out.

It was very very dark. It wasn't far to the single expressway that went all the way to Roseberg. But the expressway was dark and winding, requiring attention and both hands on the wheel. I knew I needed noise in the car to stay awake and alert. I had set up my book to play, and started it when on the expressway. It ran five minutes to the end of the chapter and stopped. In no position to take my eyes off the road or a hand more than momentarily off the wheel, I punched Apple music and the "Just for you" box that popped up. 

AAARRRGGGGHHHH! When did Apple decide I had absolutely APPALLING taste in music? There was a series of 70s and 80s disco country pop schlock playing, most of which I had never heard before, but all of which was horrible. I kept hitting "skip" and something else awful came on. Finally, I punched enough buttons to find my own actual playlists, and started up an R&B series that Apple took and ran off with, much better (though still maybe not my first choice). Upon sober reflection the next day, I'm guessing the horrible mix came about because of the singing group I'm in. Every new session, I make up a playlist of the original recordings of the songs we are going to do, and every session there are some real stinkers in the mix, along with many fun ones. Karen Carpenter, anyone?  

So finally I got to my motel, just a block from the expressway, and fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow. 

At the seal habitat

The next morning, Friday, I went and picked up my girl. She is living in a nice house with co-workers. Everyone else was off at work, so we just packed up and headed to the coast, two or more hours away.

More difficult driving - windy 2-lane roads through the (gorgeous) mountains, often with a steep drop-off and no guard rail. But the coast was worth it! And so, frankly, was the drive. Remember those middle and high school days when a drive was how to capture your kid and maybe have an actual conversation? I learned a lot about my girl's life out there. She is doing difficult work, difficult physically, mentally, and emotionally, taking all of the actual job, the company she works for, and the environment she lives in, into account. So brave! So capable! 

We went up to look at a seal habitat off a state park, catching our breath in the brisk cold constant wind. After contemplating the seal family dynamics for a while, we hit up a vegan restaurant in Coos Bay. Then off to a little local sea aquarium, that had tanks filled with water circulating from the bay right there, and many interested sea creatures. My girl knew them all! 

By then, we could check into our fabulous motel for the next two nights. Built on a hillside looking over the ocean in Bandon, Oregon, every room had a water view and a balcony. We both crashed for a while, took a little walk, brought some Chinese food back to the room, and crashed again. 

Puffin sculpture made of
beach-combed garbage

Saturday was our chill day. We drove 10 minutes to a beach access, and walked along the cliff and down by the water. The wind! The wind was whipping around at nearly 20 knots, as it apparently does all the time. It was high tide, and there was some shelter from the wind down on the beach.

Back to the room for another rest, then a foray on foot down through the little town of Bandon. We found an art gallery / local foodstuffs place built in an old warehouse, and picked up a couple of goodies. We picked a horrible place for lunch - waited 45 minutes for avocado toast and bowl of chowder - and the chowder was served with oyster crackers that were rancid and smelled awful. Oh well. We walked down to a dairy for some really good ice cream, and we had leftover Chinese food in the room in case of emergency.

More chill out in the room, watching the view and dozing. We had a low-tide rendezvous planned at other beach access point. My girl was excited to get to tide pools at low tide and see who and what was living there. It was absolutely the most fun ever! Rocks that had been surrounded by water before were high and dry, and many had tunnels and passageways through them. We saw some critters, and I got a commentary on the life styles of tidal animals.

High tide- later, we walked to those rocks

We did dinner again on foot in town at the brew pub - something every little town has. We were actually surprised at how not-crowded the town and restaurants were, considering it is a tourist town and the weather was fabulous. Back in the room, we figured out how to get Netflix loaded onto the TV, and watched the movie "Remarkably Bright Creatures".  This fun and enjoyable movie is told partially from the POV of an old smart octopus that lives in a cute little local aquarium a lot like the one we had visited the day before, so it was highly appropriate.

Sunday morning, up and out of the room by 6:30 am. Drop my girl in Roseberg, and off to Eugene airport. Arrived in Chicago to find the flight on to DC was delayed by several hours due to thunderstorms on the East Coast. So we finally landed at DCA at 12:30 am, and then sat on the tarmac in sight of the terminal for another 90 minutes before we got to a gate. (Is there anything more frustrating than staring at your destination a short walk away for more than an hour?) Not too many Ubers at that time of night, and they charge a premium. But the DC metro shuts down in the wee hours and it was way too far to walk. Finally, walked in my door at nearly 3 am.  VERY long day.

 

But worth it! 

 

Stylish dog on my plane

 

Pre-Trip Musings and Tidbits

I'm in a whirlwind of chores to get ready to leave for France. But in the midst of all of this activity, I'm also in my first little stall in weight loss, eight weeks in. It's not really a stall until it's lasted for way way longer than this. At this point, it's only been a week. But I'm concerned, wondering what is up. Is it that the meds aren't working, and I should up my dose? Or is it that I'm not eating and behaving appropriately? How is this going to affect my trip? 

I went on weight loss meds because I want to create an environment where I can be successful at losing weight and maintaining a lower weight without a huge amount of mental or physical effort to always be focused on eating the right things. (By physical effort, I mean the logistics of buying and preparing food. I know I will always need physical effort to be strong. Exercise till the day I die, baby.) The Weight Watchers app is a great tool to guide and track my food choices, but I don't want it to be my most used phone app every single day!

In the last three weeks I've had a birthday and an unusual-for-me number of social engagements involving food. I've relaxed and eaten what I want, in the quantities that feel right to me in the moment. I'm not meticulously pre-planning every day in advance to make sure I'm going to hit my targets. Instead, I'm more going with the flow, mostly going to my go-to foods I know help get me where I want, but swapping things out as the mood takes me. I thought, "I've got this nailed! Easy-peasy!" Based on recent scale evidence, maybe I shouldn't (yet) trust myself this way. 

I've found that in restaurants, my choices and my portions are different than they would have been before the meds. Those things that would have appealed to me in the past, carb and fat laden, (Alfredo pastas, I'm looking at you!) don't appeal quite as much. Fat especially is off-putting to me. But that is when I really stop and reflect before ordering, and when eating. If I charge ahead without much thought, old habits are right there. I go to the old staples on the menu, and then regret it.  Portions are easier. I fill up more quickly, and unless I'm really wolfing something down with no pause, I will stop well before I'm done. 

I read an article recently (I'm not taking the time to go back and search where, but probably in a newspaper, and probably now I think about it, the Wall Street Journal). The article was speculating on how the new weight loss drugs would impact the food industry. There is actually a lot of speculation about how supermarkets might need to change, but this article wasn't buying it. The author notes how use of the GLP-1 drugs is very much NOT evenly spread through the population. So, looking at the supermarket shopping carts of those on the drug, healthier foods will be spotted than in the average American shopping cart. But, the author asserts, that is likely because those currently on the drugs are those who already eat healthier than normal, are more affluent, more likely to shop at farmer's markets and less likely to buy fast food. But as the drugs become cheaper and more wide spread in their use, the demographics of those taking them will change. If the major effect of the drugs is to re-calibrate hunger and fullness (the author speculates), perhaps the type of foods in folks' shopping carts will not change much. After all, his final well-put thought is, "half a Big Mac is still a Big Mac, it's not an apple". It is too soon, he says, to change over our food system to different types of food. I don't know if he's right, but he has a major point on the demographics. And, on still going for a Big Mac, even if you can't finish it.

So I'm going to be in France, well known for taking food seriously. And excellently. And using butter and cream in everything. On the other hand, I'll be on a river boat where three meals a day are provided. Perhaps the boat cuisine will not that great. I'm not wishing for that, oh no, not at all, just speculating. (The internet reviews tell me it'll be great.) I certainly will not be seeking out the best restaurants in every port of call, though if on-board croissants aren't up to snuff, I will absolutely seek those out elsewhere! I intend to deny myself nothing during the trip, because food is definitely part of the experience. But maybe I'll be able to have a few elegant and savored bites, and be done.  I'm also taking along some dried edamame and garbanzo bean snacks for travel days, and if I feel like I'm not getting enough protein or fiber.

Already, weeks ago, I resigned myself to having a bit of a vacation bump-up in weight. My experience in the past is this always has happened, and generally I've gone back to my previous set point within a week of returning. But now, going into the vacation with a mini-stall, I'm worried. And, because I always borrow trouble plan ahead, I'm thinking about when I renew my Zepbound prescription for the next four weeks. That renewal is scheduled for the day I come back from the trip, and I had assumed I'd stay on my same low dose for another month. That was based on continuing to lose at that dose. I think I can delay requesting the renewal for a few days after I come back, but no matter what the scale says, I (currently) think I should just stay at this dosage through May. By then, I'll have significantly more evidence about how the drugs are affecting me and what it will take for consistent, continuing, weight loss. Time enough to bump up later, if needed.

In the meantime...

 

Most of these linen and cotton shirts were "hang to dry" anyway
But they definitely need ironing now!
The weird pink thing is a strawberry tower - 
check out the garden blog

I still haven't bothered to get my dryer repaired or replaced. Luckily, we've had some sunny weather, and the clothesline in the back yard works great. I don't hang my underwear out there, though! It's fairly private, but not completely. Everything takes longer to line dry, though, so I've had to plan way ahead on what I'm taking on the trip, and make sure it's clean, dry, and ready to go.

 

 

 

 

 

And in other news, my girl leaves for Oregon a couple of days after I go to France. I've offloaded a lot of my old camping equipment - and even outer-layer clothes - on her. She'll be living in an minimally furnished house with co-workers, and camping some of the time. I had a tent to give her, and emergency supplies I took from my own bug-out bag for her day pack: a multi-tool knife, a headlamp, a mylar blanket, a solar lantern, a water filter, a Bic lighter, and also rain gear I outgrew (sideways) and a beanie hat. We went together to REI where I had fun fitting her up with a compass, whistle, tiny first-aid kit, and new socks to go with her new hiking boots. I relate to this experience of hers through my memories of my undergraduate years, where I majored in field trips (though the degree says different). I had a summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in an old logging camp, learning the same field skills that she will use. (She learned much of what she needs to know in Australia, and will be trained in specifics. But she will be alone in the woods before dawn most days.) I'm sorry I won't be there to wave good-bye to her as she sets off into the world to seek her fortune. I know she'll do fine, and I also hope she will enjoy it. I'm so grateful she has wanted to share her prep and planning with me! It's been fun!

Travel Idea

Just a quickie: 

Talking to my middle boy last night, I learned he is spending a good part of March in England, near Stonehenge. I got an idea, and searched my photos for "Stonehenge". I pulled up the photos I was thinking of, when my girl and I went to Stonehenge in 2013, but also two surprise photos.

My mother, 1978

Mary, 1986

My girl, 2013

Me, 2013

 

I instructed my boy that if he goes there (which he will, being there a month with a car) he must take and share a photo for me to add to the series!

I have a few pics of our family in Bergen, standing in front of the iconic Brygge. I now make a point of taking a similar photo each time I go. But I hadn't thought about other iconic sites. My parents had made a large number of photo albums from their constant travel. I went through them and pulled out only pictures with them (or other folks I know) and had those scanned (the rest of the albums were tossed). I made an effort to add accurate dates to the scanned photos when I got them back from the photo service. And so, these pictures popped up on my Google photos image search! I immediately created a new photo album (online grouping) of these pics so I can find them again easily.

 This is fun! Something to think about doing as we and the next generation travel to these iconic sites. I’m thinking plenty of sites in NYC, but what about the Grand Canyon? It’s a great excuse to take a clichéd photo and instead call it iconic!

Stories of Stuff

Like most people, I have seasons of accumulation and seasons of divestment. Sometimes, it's even at the same time, I'm chucking and acquiring all at once, in different categories. 

In my fifties, I desperately wanted to renovate my basement, but the huge barrier was getting rid of all of the stuff that had accumulated there, from my several moves and my mother's big downsizing into an apartment. I worked away at it, and finally declared defeat and hired someone to finish the job. "Just get rid of it, and keep it out of the landfill" I said. By then, I had picked through it, and successfully disposed of most items of value. But some stuff I wasn't prepared to sort or part with, and so it all went into boxes to be stored in a shed in the back yard until the renovation was complete. Then, when my beautiful basement was complete, I sorted before allowing anything back in. Much stuff was gotten rid of. The basement was furnished, but uncluttered.

Then, my mother died.  Not tragically, at 92 she was just beginning to fail, but suddenly, and unexpected at that particular time. Among the tasks that fell to me was the cleaning out of her apartment. 

I was pretty organized back when I started in the storage unit

"Gosh, she has a lot of nice stuff! I mean, it's really nice, but it's a lot!" was the universal comment that came from everyone that came in to help. Yes, yes it was. I had embraced the philosophy of minimalism (though not entirely the practices, in fairness). All this very nice stuff. What to do with it?  I wrote about the struggles at the time.

I'm now down to the last remaining items in the storage unit I rented. To get it cleared out, I brought several boxes home, where they are cluttering up my office and spare bedroom. I'm done with most of the sentimentality that made me want to hang on to things. But, I do have sadness for the stories that attach to the objects. I had an idea years ago - about the time I retired, before my mother died, of using a blog as the place to capture the stuff and tell the stories. I even started the documentation when I retired. I had a big box of awards I had gotten at work, and I was never going to hang them up on the wall at home. So I photographed them, and blogged about them, in a separate blog. But I never published it, and shortly after, overwhelm hit me and I never got back to it.

But now I have picked it up again. I have some objects I am going to dispose of, and the blog posts are partly advertisements! Other things, I'll just write about without trying to flog them off on anyone. They may be gone already, anyway.

So, take a look at my Stories of Stuff blog.

 

Quick Trip to California

 I went out to Santa Cruz to assist my girl with some medical and logistical issues. This was my third trip to Santa Cruz, and the second where I stayed in the very lovely seaside motel. I ended up in the exact same room - probably their smallest, set aside for single cheapish travelers. 

The first sunrise, from just outside the room.
Part of the pier washed away just before Christmas!

 

The motel gave us sparkling wine, roses and chocolate
for Valentine's Day!

From the room, I have a view of the ocean (actually, Monterey Bay). With the window open, I can hear the surf and sometimes even the honking of the seals that hang out there. Even though this is the Pacific Ocean, due to the curving of the coastline, my view is to the south east. In February, that puts the rising sun directly in front of my window. As an east coast person, I was awake for every sunrise.

Second sunrise. Absolutely spectacular! I couldn't look away!

 The visit was great! My grown girl is a joy and a delight. We had several great meals, some successful and some unsuccessful shopping for her up coming semester in Australia, and mixed medical updates with a lot of uncertainty. I am now familiar with the area, and when my girl was busy I was able to amuse myself nicely in the lovely seaside town. There is a pleasure in going back to a place - I don't know it well, there is lots still to discover, but there are also known pleasures to revisit. 

 

Surfers! Many, all in wetsuits, shortly before sunset
Taken from the motel garden

We made an excursion down to Carmel-by-the-Sea, a precious rich-people's enclave with galleries and shops that were fun to browse. We amused ourselves looking up houses on Zillow- the cheapest we found, smaller than my small house, was $2 million! There, we had the best meal - a micro brewery that had a terrific fancy vegan bean-and-eggplant burger, and a smash burger for me.

Third sunrise - duller, but the Boardwalk amusement park was lit up!

 

On the beach at Carmel

I was fairly profligate in spending on this trip. My return flight was scheduled to depart at 6:20 am from an airport an hour away from Santa Cruz. I did that which you are advised never to do: pre-paid for a tank of gas to save the time of hunting for an open gas station near the airport at 5 am. (We managed to put 350 miles on the rental car burning a lot of gas; I figure this option cost me only $20 but saved me twenty minutes.)  In addition, when I booked the flights, I was offered an upgrade to first for the smallest increment I've seen. (I have a jillion miles on United because of the affiliate credit card, and charging some college tuition on it.) So I went for it! This was my first time in domestic first class in 25 years. (In my years working at the airline, I often flew standby in first class.) Judgement: nice to have less hassle overall and a bit more space, but truly not worth it.

First class pre-ordered hot breakfast

 

Last sunrise of the trip - fabulous!

Report Card

 The last time I published a report card was in January of last year, looking at 2022. I actually have kept up tracking myself primarily through apps and devices, and from time to time I sit down and go through the data trying to glean some meaning or insights. I haven't felt like I've learned that much recently, certainly not something worth sharing. I still haven't got any wisdom to share, and it's not that pretty a picture, but the data is what the data is, and there is a certain value in simply showing it. Keeps me honest with myself.

First, to get it out of the way, my weight is high and stable. No need to share a graph. I gained a bunch of weight in 2022 (Fuck You, Intuitive Eating!) and it's stayed on. I haven't been motivated to any kind of a big push to change it. And it's been remarkably stable - plus or minus four pounds. I do plan and track my food most days, but it's more part of planning how to spend my time than trying to morph it into fewer calories. And then, keeping me conscious of what I'm doing, to do away with mindless eating. I still weigh myself every day and it gets recorded on the internet, for whenever I feel like reviewing the history in detail. I chuckled one day recently when I got up and peed several times during the night and found the next morning I was two and a half pounds down from the day before! That's why I can't get excited about day-to-day fluctuations, the range I'm seeing is just water weight. 

First up: Activity. As always, darker is better. January was knee recovery time, and I give myself a pass for everything but workout days. My "workout days" focus on functional fitness, either in my home gym or with physical therapy (my PT experience the past couple of years has been a solid hour of working out followed by 15 minutes of massage and stretching). With PT from the knee replacement added to working out in the home gym, I was really doing a lot. It also paid off, as now my calories and steps are back to where they were last year (which was NOT a stellar year for activity, I admit). The walking mileage shown here is from taking a deliberate walk where I activate my GPS, not an accumulation of steps during the day. I'm currently pretty active in the house and garden, which keeps my steps up, but I haven't been feeling the walk as a way to spend time (and I only do short and slow training walks with the dog, not worth tracking.) I've added a new row since the last time I posted, "stand time". My apple watch tracks this - how much time do I spend on my feet all day. It seems worth looking at, since my goals involve being less sedentary. Here, I'm moving in the right direction!

Next, some health parameters. These are both controllable and uncontrollable things. The big worrying trend is migraines, which are up. I have fallen off the meditation bandwagon, and that might be a contributing factor. But my doctor thinks that perhaps allergies are acting up - and there is a connection between respiratory inflammation and migraines. So I'm trying to be more faithful on OTC allergy remedies. "Alone days" (still looking for a better descriptor) are days I don't talk to anyone. I might be texting or emailing, but it only counts if I talk to someone either in person or on the phone. I really enjoy days on my own, but I am aware it is not healthy to have too many. And besides, I enjoy my family, friends and neighbors! I continue to be a sleep champion, with a normal seasonal variation of less sleep with longer daylight hours. (These sleep hours are separate from time in bed, as the watch purports to distinguish between lying awake versus truly asleep. I am awake at least 45 minutes during the course of the night - but apparently, that is less than average for a woman my age.) Heart rate variability is meant to be an overall measure of stress, with a high number being better. I haven't been looking too much at it, but the apple watch keeps track, so I decided to add it to the list. Resting heart rate, as a reminder, measures resiliency, with a lower number better.

Lastly, how do I spend my leisure time? (Ok, it's all leisure time. I do a minor amount of volunteer work, but I'm not tracking that here.) This whole category is not necessarily "more is better", but it is what it is. I also struggle with whether the "year" column should show an average of the months, or a cumulative total for the year. It's currently a mixed bag. I've actually wanted to read fewer books this year, because I read a lot of fluffy entertainment and it gets in the way of doing more productive things. My TV watching is up recently, as I indulged myself with a season of my only reality TV show, "Below Decks". I haven't been watching movies, neither at home nor out. I have been traveling a modest amount this year, more shorter trips, which is suiting me right now. And I'm hoping for more sailing, as my partner has retired, which multiplies the number of possibilities of aligning our two schedules and the weather.

So that's the story in numbers. Looking at this does motivate me to move, so I'm off to do that now.

Excelsior!

California Dreamin'

 

View from the dorm

Wow, is northern California absolutely beautiful! And, it seems my girl is in love with it. And with school. And with the people she has met so far. I'm feeling she is well launched! 

The last week before leaving was fraught, indeed. Many last minute errands, several farewells (her brother threw her a going-away party!), and tears as we said goodbye to the dogs and drove off to the airport. But through all of this, "It's gonna be great!" was the mantra, even if sometimes through gritted teeth.

We got to SFO mid-day, and drove the almost two hours to Santa Cruz nonstop, going directly to Target to buy the essentials we didn't get in advance. By then we were exhausted, so off to the motel for a rest, before venturing out in the car to get more fully oriented. I was astounded by the change in terrain from the relatively flat and green town by the water, up the mountain through brown meadows to the wooded top part of campus where the dorm is. My ears popped on the way up, every time. We found our appointed unloading spot for the next morning, located one of her classroom buildings, and drove randomly around the mountainous campus, and then down to the waterfront campus three miles away where one of her classes would be. The main campus, not even including the coastal campus, is enormous and beautiful, stretching a couple of miles up and down the mountain, and about a mile across. It is completely separate from the town. There are clusters of housing units with food and various amenities, called colleges, and other clusters of the academic classrooms, laboratories, and libraries. They are designed into the landscape so that you don't see buildings until you are one them.

Evening view from overlook,
halfway up the mountain to campus

We got takeout dumplings from across the street from the motel. There was (yet another) orientation zoom session she had to be on in the evening, and she also wanted to take her time doing her hair in the privacy of our motel bathroom (before having to be in the gang bathrooms). After eating, I pretty much crashed out while she seemed to be having a good time on the zoom call. I fell into my signature hour-long deep sleep the minute I closed my eyes, but woke up when she came back into the room after facetiming with a friend in the motel courtyard. We both tossed and turned, dozed and woke, off and on for the rest of the nervous night.

Dorm from parking lot
Many stairs involved!

My girl had astutely signed us up for an 8:15 unloading slot, so we were among the first wave of cheerful students and parents rolling laundry hampers full of luggage and bedding and boxes around parking lots and into the dorms. Her room is a large triple, and she got first pick of the beds. All of the setups were the same - lofted upper single bunks with wooden desks and wardrobes under each one. She picked the one that seemed like it would have a view into the redwood grove behind the dorm from the bed! 

We had a flurry of opening bags and unboxing things, laying out power strips and surge suppressors, while waiting for roommates to show up. No-one joined us, and we decided to head back out to Target to knock items off the new list of more useful stuff we had been compiling while we unpacked and set up. It felt familiar to go back to the same store, but we also saw a Bed, Bath and Beyond with a final liquidation clearance and went in. We scored some high-end sheets as her second set for a pitifully low amount of money. 

After Target we went to a Hawaiian poke bar I had spotted on the map, and we got the absolute best poke bowls ever. But we had to hustle back for the first event happening on campus. 

Digressive anecdote follows:

The bed that trapped me

As she went off to the orientation thing, I decided to stay and set up the new foam pad and mattress cover and make up her bed. I pulled the plastic wrap off the compressed foam mattress topper, and from the ladder at the foot of the bed started unrolling it, and got the rest of it laid out while standing on the floor at the side and head of the bed. As the foam continued to puff up, I climbed back up the ladder at the foot and flung the top of the white fabric mattress cover as far towards the head of the bed as I could, and then tucked in the foot. The cover stuck to the foam pad, so from the floor I pulled and tugged to get it deployed over the rest of the top of the bed. I reached between the wooden bed frame and the wall to get at the cover from the head, and my arm was suddenly stuck! I couldn't pull my elbow back out through the small gap between the frame and the wall, even though I had gotten it in there somehow!

It was hilarious, and scary. I was alone in her securely locked dorm room - only the coded ID card could unlock the door from the outside. My arm wasn't uncomfortable while stuck in there, but no matter how I twisted and maneuvered, it wouldn't come out. I couldn't move the heavy wooden bed frame, anchored in place with the heavy wooden desk and newly stuffed with clothes wardrobe pushed against it. I tried to climb up the bedframe to slide my arm out the top of the frame, but I couldn't cling to the frame with my arm stuck. Feeling like Lucy Ricardo, I contemplated my next options.

My right arm was stuck, my left arm was free. My phone was in my lower cargo pocket on my right leg. I might be able to reach it, and one-handed dial my girl, but I pictured dropping it, having to remove my shoes and socks with only my feet to pick it up with my toes. Besides, the cell phone coverage in her room was lousy. Then I had an image of the missing roommates coming in with parents to find me stuck there and barefoot. 

That wouldn't do, so with a mighty shove by my stuck right hand and a pull with my free left hand, I moved the heavy wardrobe an inch. Then I could slide the bed just the half inch I needed, and I was free! Just as I was rubbing my poor red but free elbow, my girl came back in.

Return to main narrative:

At 3 that first afternoon, there was a half hour reception, introduction of some staff, and a very pointed dismissal of parents to allow the students to attend some mandatory meetings and optional additional events. We were each on our own. I went to the beach.

Santa Cruz has a road along the waterfront, with several parking areas every few blocks. There is a walking / biking path right along the cliff edge - the water is several yards down from the land. The weather was severe clear, and the California sun felt like it had a different quality than we get in the east. The temperature was perfect though the fierce sun meant that often you need a sweater in the shade but long for shorts and a skimpy top in the sun. I walked and sat on benches and read, content to be in such a beautiful place and rejoicing that my girl seemed to be settling in.

Saturday morning we exchanged texts, and set up a tentative evening rendezvous. Knowing she would be so busy, I floated the idea of going home early, but that received a lukewarm reception. So I decided to embrace leisure and tourism.

Seals under the wharf

Amusement park from the wharf

Santa Cruz also has a downtown, a municipal wharf, and an amusement park on a boardwalk by the beach. I drove out to the wharf, and spent time walking the wharf, people watching and then also seal watching. I went to a dog beach, and spent a very long time watching the canine and human interactions. I read on a bench on the sea cliff in the sun. From the motel, I walked to a beer garden (passing three other beer gardens on the way) and had a lovely lunch. 

My girl managed to squeeze me in for about an hour Saturday night, during which time we drove around downtown and stopped at Trader Joe's for a couple of necessities. But she had to get back to campus to attend a forest rave with her new friends. Also, one of her roommates had appeared and she wanted to spend some time with her. We set up another tentative rendezvous for the next night.

State park beach, with Coastal Campus seen in the background

So Sunday, I went to a lovely fancy breakfast at a downtown cafe. Then, I went to see Oppenheimer. (I opted against Barbie, because I was afraid that on a weekend daytime showing there might be kids.) While in the movie, I got a text from my girl saying she was downtown having lunch with friends, and would be happy to meet me there when she was done. The timing worked well. We met up easily ("downtown" is not that big) and wandered together for a while. We made another brief shopping trip for some more necessities (this time at CVS) and I dropped her off after a couple of hours. She had some pre-work to do before classes the next day. I had time to walk to ice cream and the beach, and one more trip to pick up a useful item for my girl at a hardware store (a flashlight - they have already had a power outage in her dorm!)

First day of school,
Grade 15

Her first class was at 9 am at the Coastal Campus. As I didn't need to leave for SFO until 9:30, I volunteered to pick her up and drive her to class. As a rule, she will take the bus, unless she manages to find a fellow student who drives. So Monday morning, I went to the usual pickup spot, and enjoyed a few minutes in the redwood grove while waiting. While she might have been pleased to just hang out and party with her new friends, she exclaimed that she loved her pre-work, was absolutely convinced she was studying the right thing. Biology is her jam. 

My trip home was long but completely uneventful. And, I am so happy for my girl, embracing the next step of her life with gusto! Her dad picked me up at the airport and was also thrilled to hear she is doing so well!

Then and Now, London edition

 It’s a family thing, the then and now shots. But back in 2013 a certain young lady was sad and sullen and hated everything. She composed the current shot to match, but said she couldn’t stop giggling so it took several tries! Yay, how time will often help our kids turn back into reasonable people!

Knees Are SO MUCH Better!

Today I took what I want to be my "normal" morning walk - out the door, down into the park, back up through the neighborhood, about a mile and half, with some significantly steep but short hills down and up to the park. I've been doing this off and on for years, but recently I've fallen way off. The fact that it hurts before I even start, and will hurt more once I get going, has been one of many barriers. (Other barriers include my reactive barky dog, any weather less than optimal, having to get dressed, and sheer inertia.)

But this week, I've had to head out first thing, just as the sun comes up, to do a daily vacation backfill on a citizen science project, hyper-local network of national precipitation reporting, CoCoRahs.  It's on the "normal" route, so some days this week I've kept on going to complete the loop. Today was the first pain-free day in months! 

My knees have steadily deteriorated over the past several years. I tore my meniscus and had it repaired back in 2018. But now, it's a loop. The more the knees hurt, the less I move. I went to physical therapy a year ago, after they were really bad. Symptoms included not only pain, but also restricted mobility - I simply couldn't bend them all the way. The PT really helped with both pain and mobility. I was then motivated to keep moving by active vacations, in March and April. But perhaps from overuse, the knee pain grew enough worse that it grew increasingly easy to blow off the daily walk, despite my fantastic Iceland vacation coming up. After all, I had satisfied myself with what I could do in March and April, Iceland in July would be just as good, no?

Well, no. A couple of months off from active training eroded both the quality of my knees and also my aerobic fitness. I did a whole lot on the Iceland trip, but it was hard. I didn't do as much as I wanted. There were often options for different activities and I backed off the most active ones, hiking up volcanoes for example. I spent a fair amount of time in my nice little cabin, with my feet up and knees bent, popping tylenol and rubbing stinky and persistent but effective voltaren gel into both knees. They never once didn't hurt on the trip, and haven't really stopped hurting since.

When I got back from Iceland, I signed up for a trip to Greece. More about that another time, but everything I've read suggest all the places I'll want to go will involve stairs with no handrails. Time to fix these knees!

(As an aside, I am fully bought in to the mind-body approach to pain management. I can minimize suffering I have from pain, and even reduce and even eliminate some pain, through mindful meditation and somatic practices. It has really helped me avoid catastrophizing about issues, and my back pains and even migraines are less of an issue. These practises also help avert physical symptoms manifesting in response to external or internally generated stress, something I clearly used to do a lot. These practices include breathing, visualization, and self talk approaches that really help keep things on a more even keel. 

The way I think about these practices and my knees is this: my knees have mechanical issues that send messages to the brain. I can interpret these signals as pain, or call them sensations, and I can observe them from a distance with kind curiosity. All this helps, but there is value in also trying physical and mechanical things (exercise, strengthening, pain medications) to reduce the volume and urgency of the messages being sent to my brain.)

My previous sports-medicine doctor retired, and so I found an orthopedic surgeon to consult. My basic questions were, what could be done to help the knees short of replacing them, and was I damaging them them further as I used them? I wanted another prescription for PT because while I know many exercises for the knees, I find the skilled supervision helpful. 

The doctor said no, I couldn't damage the knees with movement, was happy to give a referral for PT, and also suggested cortisone shots in each knee, which he did right then and there. The actual shots were quite painful, but it only lasted for a few minutes until a local anesthetic kicked in. Then, over the past few days, the local anesthetic wore off and the steroid gradually kicked in. 

And hooray, they seem to be having an effect! 

The doctor said, and my independent reading confirms, that the only proven interventions to actually improve the knees (as opposed to alleviate pain) are exercise and weight loss. No supplements have been shown to have more than a placebo effect. So I can do whatever I want in exercise, if done correctly it will help, but the pain will likely be there. If I can bear it, I can do it, and if I keep doing it, I can keep doing it!  As to weight loss, that is a topic for another day.

I celebrated this improvement by putting in for a place on a short overnight sail on my schooner, about a month from now. I had held off, thinking about all the ladders on the ship. But now I'm ready to go for it!

Dear Marilyn and Claire

I finally got through what I think (hope!) is the last of the paper-filled boxes from my mother's apartment. I have had new boxes spread out on the bed in the guest room for close to a year, each labeled with family names. As I went through my mother's boxes, I sorted papers I wanted to keep, without reading them beyond the point of deciding if I was going to keep them. So I have a box labeled "Shellabargers" with items from that side of the family, one labeled "Olsens" for that side, and so on. (At some point in the future I may dive into the contents further, and perhaps digitize some of it, certainly actually read the stuff). I actually thought I was done with document boxes earlier, but as I went to clean out the guest room, I discovered one more box. 

It was a great find! Full of important documents such as death certificates, it also contained a treasure trove of correspondence. Back in the day, people wrote letters. ("The Day" seems to have died out with the turn of the century, when email became the thing, later supplanted with social media.) This particular pile of correspondence was letters sent to my parents, dating from the 1960s through to the last poignant one dated 2008. That final one was from an old friend from Bellport to my mother, writing from her assisted living facility, disclosing her early Alzheimer's diagnosis, and going on to describe her continuing serious commitment to her church, including serving every week as a lay reader, "as long as I can".

I sorted the letters by sender, without reading them, but if they were from family or significant friends that wrote a lot, I put them in the appropriate box for later. Many documents in this last box went directly into paper recycling (who needs the caterer's invoice from my sister's wedding?) but I set aside into a separate pile some handwritten correspondence from people I didn't know or only vaguely remembered. It didn't feel right to just toss these letters without looking at them first. 

So last night, I sat down and read this handful of items. Many of them were touching, and I thought to preserve some of the anecdotes or aspects about my parents they reveal. 

My father was a professor at the University of Michigan, and there were several letters from former graduate students, in the United States and abroad. I was very surprised to see sincere thank you notes from a few former students, expressing in the strongest terms their gratitude for "your very generous gift". I'm guessing from additional clues my parents assisted these folks financially, in more than just a token way. I had no idea! My parents were fortunate indeed to be in a position to do this, and it gives new resonance to the way they drilled into me that wealth is not a sign of virtue, but a fortunate happenstance that should be shared.

One especially amusing letter I read was from my mother's friend from the neighborhood in Ann Arbor. Having children the same age is one of the things that cements relationships, and this friendship withstood eventual physical separation. Ruth was still living in Ann Arbor when I went to college there, and so the letter discusses what they had seen of me ("I think she has made a great adjustment and is quite content here.") The letter has notes of her despair over her boys, pursuing arts and fun things, ignoring their engineer/physicist dad's pleas to be practical. And she notes with humor and some irritation her husband's interviewing for a presidential appointment to the Atomic Energy Commission. "He was recently interviewed in some office surrounded by pictures of the Nixon family...  Nixon's men really zeroed in on his political life... It has been strangely quiet here since Bill stated in answer to a question that he could not always support President Nixon's programs or views... Maybe their Watergate guys have figured out we voted for McGovern!" Ruth was cognizant of the honor to her husband of being considered, but was greatly relieved it didn't happen.

The church in Bellport was very important to both my parents, and I already noted the letter above from one of their close friends from there. Our family was roiled by tragedy when the minister of the church committed suicide in 1971, when my brother and I were in high school. At that age, in my mind the tragedy was all about my reaction to it. So my memories of that time are only of me and my friends. I knew my parents over time became close friends of the widow, who remained in Bellport. But I was surprised to read a long letter from the mother of the deceased minister. She lived in Paris, before and after the tragedy, but had of course gone to Bellport immediately the news of her son's suicide reached her. She was writing to my parents some months later from Paris, thanking them for their extraordinary support while she was there, and asking them to let her know if the widow and children were not coping, and if she (the mother) should return to New York. Think about the intimacy that implies, for people who had never met until brought together by tragedy!

On a related note, my parents became very close friends with the new minister and his family at the church, standing as godparents to their daughter. He went on to become a bishop in the Episcopal Church in Cincinnati, and there are a stack of letters from him and his wife to my parents. But I read some pleasant notes from another church lady friend of my parents who actually peppered her notes to my mother with some snark about that second minister, snubs and thoughtless moments. Huh. I never would have known from everyone's more public behavior.

Many of my parents' closest friends for life were from their time in graduate school at Indiana University right after World War II. It was a happening time and place for biological sciences, but it was also a time where folks in their twenties (and early thirties - after de-mobilization) were getting married, finding jobs, and having their first children, forming indelible bonds. One of their intimates was James Watson, famous as a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA (and later infamous for acknowledging having used data stolen without consent from a female researcher to make the discovery, and even more recently infamous for expressing repugnant sexist and racist ideas about the role of genetics in human society).  I grew up on anecdotes about how he was actually kind of a jerk, tossed into a lake once by his roommates at a summer institute for neglecting his personal hygiene. At the same time, my parents were careful to acknowledge their friendship and genuine liking for him. So it was interesting to read some notes exchanged between my mother and a female friend from grad school (like my mother, once a budding scientist in a world of sexism, later a wife and mother) giggling about the controversy surrounding the publication / withdrawal from publication / subsequent new publication of his book, The Double Helix. Also giggles about the 40-year-old Harvard professor Watson's contemporaneous marriage to a Radcliffe 19-old undergraduate. This woman wrote about her "very close relationship [with Watson] that most likely would have become permanent" back then except for the intervention of their major professor, "who viewed any emotional liaison of Jim's as being tantamount to his intellectual suicide". Celebrity gossip, Shellabarger style!

I regret the loss of this form of communication. Not enough to start writing letters to people, but maybe enough to consider preserving on paper some more important email notes. Those immediately following my sister's death, for example. I tried to make sure I preserved them, electronically, but I haven't looked for them for years. Yet another rainy day project.

Guinea Pig

 I decided to dedicate my brain to science. Why wait until I’m dead?

Actually, I have applied several times to be included in various medical studies and trials. As the National Institutes of Health are nearby, there are bunches of trials around. I was turned down for an early Covid vaccine trial, due to my migraines. The migraines have knocked me out of several trials.

A year or more ago I applied for a study on the effect of exercise on memory being done at the University of Maryland. I was disqualified because I was already an active exerciser - they were looking for sedentary old people who would start an exercise program. They would be studied longitudinally, for at least six months. 

I was contacted again by the same folks this February, where they were conducting a related study, looking at short-term effects of exercise on memory. For this, they needed old people who had a basic fitness level, so we wouldn’t drop dead exercising for the experiment. I was excited to be included this time! There was no compensation for participating, but also no expense. Three visits to the nearby University of Maryland campus, at least two hours each. 

It was an interesting experience. I had to be cleared by my primary care physician for exercise, and by my dentist for the MRI machine - to verify I didn’t have any big metal things in my mouth. The first visit was to get a baseline of both my fitness and cognitive level. I was met at the door by a personable young man, Dan, who was in charge of this experiment for his doctoral research. I was led into the basement of the School of Public Health, into a bleak cinder block and linoleum room with just a Formica table and a couple of plastic chairs, where I signed a whole bunch of releases. I was run through a number of standard memory and cognitive tests: “remember these five words” and “draw a clock face and put the hands at ten minutes past eleven” and “name as many words starting with “F” as you can in two minutes”. I don’t have a great memory, but I’ve done these tests before. I knew it was just to establish a general baseline to qualify for the real test - make sure I wasn’t impaired - but of course I really put a lot into it, wanting to do well. Then, we went down the hall to an exercise lab. They strapped a mask on my face, a heart rate strap around my chest, and put me on an exercise bike. I had to pedal until my heart rate reached 85% of my predicted maximum, to get a “VO2 Max”, used as a proxy for overall fitness. Again, they were only interested in establishing a general category of “fit enough”, but of course I asked to see my numbers and figure out what they meant. (Dan told me I was “toward the top” of his test subjects, but I was then disappointed when I got home and did more research to realize the number put me in the “average” category for my age and sex. I want to be above average, of course!)

The next two visits were to involve a lot of time having my brain scanned in an MRI, while performing a cognitive task and also scanning before and after and the task, while simply lying there in the tube. The difference between the two visits was that one time I would first pedal on an exercise bike for 30 minutes, and the other time while sitting still for 30 minutes, before going into the tube. The MRI was in a different building on the edge of campus, adjacent to  a veterinary facility, betraying U of Md’s land grant college roots. The MRI is a scarce resource - Dan told me several times that it was costing nearly a thousand dollars an hour, so he was excited to have a grant big enough to handle 40 people with two scans each. But also, the scheduling had to be exact, with no wasted time. They have sorted through a lot of test subjects that can’t do the long MRIs, either because of metal in their body or inability to tolerate the confined and noisy space. So Dan was very pleased that I was able to do this. There were a long list of requirements for clothing - besides the obvious of no underwire bra, but apparently a lot of exercise leggings that are shiny have metal in them. So cotton sweats and tees are the preferred attire, unless you are willing to be put in scrubs or a hospital gown. Even some tattoos are problematic for MRIs. Who knew?

The first day, I found the test site, arriving early, just as Dan was also pulling up in his car so he could lead me in. MRI machines are often below ground, always shielded from outside interference, so of course there was no cell or internet reception there. The building seemed empty except for us - me, Dan, another grad student assistant, and the MRI operator. I was the second subject of the day, starting at 10 am. That first day, I sat and pedaled on an exercise bike, in an empty cinder block room with no music or entertainment and my seat got sore - I haven’t been biking in a couple of years. Every five minutes they took my heart rate and asked me for my relative exertion level. After my exercise, I went into the control room for the MRI, where I was stripped of my watch and glasses and shoes, and then the MRI operator wanded me down with a metal detector, like a TSA agent. I was insulated with ear plugs and pads, effectively rendering me deaf. We went into the room with the MRI itself, where I lay down on the pad and had my head caged in and a display fastened on top. I was handed a small keypad with three buttons to use with my right hand for the task, and a bulb to squeeze in case of emergency, and a finger tip heart rate monitor anchored my left hand. I was slid into the tube, and they communicated with me by typing messages that appeared on a display above me. After a moment, they started with the scans. Each was announced with a typed message, like "this first scan will be 20 seconds. Are you ready?"  It took me a beat to realize there was a microphone in there, so while I couldn't hear them, they could hear me if I talked, and they needed to hear me agree each time.

I recall some previous MRI scans as being mechanically noisy, with whirring and banging. These scans were all noisy, but in a more electronic way, beeping and booping and squealing. I couldn't really assess how time was passing, except by what they typed about how long each scan would be. There were some shortish scans, and then I did my "task". They showed me a series of pictures, and I had to push a button indicating whether the picture was new, a repeat of one previous, or similar to one previous. The "new" versus "similar" was nuanced and a bit difficult. I'm not sure how long each trial was - five or ten minutes? - and there were two different trials.Of course I worked really hard to get them right. And then after the trials more scans, some really lengthy, with at least four that were eight minutes a pop. During each scan I made an effort to be truly motionless, and in between I could flex my fingers and squeeze my muscles a bit, but all told it was 75 minutes in the tube. After my task was complete, I relaxed and just drifted while they continued to scan. And each scan had its own song, either high pitched or low, steady or syncopated rhythms, monotone or two or three notes. Finally, they told me we were done and slid me out, uncaged my head, and I got to sit up. I was stiff from staying still all that time.

The second day was just like the first, except instead of peddling on the bike, I sat on it for 30 minutes. My seat got sore again! And they took my heart rate and my perceived exertion every five minutes. They strove to make the session as similar to the first as possible, except for the actual exercise part.

The scan was long and tedious again, except for the tasks. I had been feeling sluggish all morning, and I know I didn't do as well on the tasks - I was conscious of mistakes right after I made them. I don't know if the difference was at all due to the exercise, but I'm sure they'll be able to see a difference. After my tasks, I was nearly able to fall asleep inside the machine, despite the beeps and boops, but I thought actually going to sleep would be a bad thing for what my brain looked like, so instead I mentally sorted through my mess of tools in the basement, trying to come up with a better way of storing things so I can find them again.

So I did my bit for science. I am on a list of potential test subjects for future tests as well - they are always looking for guinea pigs, and apparently I was a good one for them.

Seasons of Covid

Happy New Year! Our holiday was OK, but Covid cast its shadow. (Spoiler: nobody is sick yet.) 

Christmas Eve

Peripatetic Big Boy (vaxxed and boosted) had been in San Diego at the college frisbee finals until Tuesday, because he is coach of the women's team. Then he went back to Michigan, packed furiously (because he's moving to Berkeley for the next semester, was going to fly from here), drove himself to my house and arrived on Thursday, the 23rd, with one huge and two small suitcases and his negative PCR test result from Wednesday's swab. We dined together, and he settled into the basement suite. Friday, Christmas Eve, he texted about noon from the basement: "Update: one of my players tested positive". 

So then we began a furious search for a place to do rapid and/or PCR testing in the next few hours (because I didn't plan far enough ahead to have many home tests on hand). Many unwieldy website experiences later, I secured an appointment for 4 pm about half an hour away. Text at 4:30 from the long drive-through line: "Will I run out of gas waiting in line? Only time will tell!".  He arrived back home at 6 pm - the time the family was originally planning to assemble for dinner - along with his negative test result. But he had a bad sore throat (no fever), and more and more of the frisbeers were reporting in positive. 

So then began a furious consultation about whether we believed the test result or not! Should I pack food and take it to BILs house? SO MUCH WORK! But at his point, none of the others had been with BB and so were not at risk for a secondary exposure. We ended up in a cautious middle ground: they would come over, but no BB eating in the same room, my air filter running and open windows and BB masked and somewhat distant for conversations when we weren't eating. 

Julekage! The girl comes through!

This whole thing blew up my plans. This sounds like such a shallow and vain whine - but Christmas Eve dinner is my big event of the year. I had timetables written out, of when to do what. Roast in the oven, vegetables prepped and ready for cooking, when to change the tablecloth and set the table,  cooking commences at this point, candles need to be lit, appetizers and drinks to keep people busy while making gravy... None of this went according to plan. Dinner was an hour late, food wasn't optimal, BB ate by himself in the basement - I set plates outside his room, he came out and got them when I was back upstairs. Tablecloth never got changed, candles never got lit. Almost no pictures were taken. So did it even happen?

And another tradition got booted around. We have to have the Norwegian Christmas bread on Christmas morning. It's called Julekage, for goodness sake - it has Christmas in the name! Several years ago, BB, the baker in the family, took over this tradition. But he spent the afternoon trying to get tested, and I was in a kerfluffle, so suddenly it was after dinner and the Julekage hadn't been started. No-one thought it was a good idea for BB to bake. I declared I wasn't up to staying up and doing it. We discussed making it on Christmas day to have later, but that didn't seem like it made the magic happen. So my girl stepped up and stepped forth and did it! It took her most of the night, but we had also decided that noon was actually when Christmas morning started for us, so that worked out ok.

Christmas night

Christmas morning and evening were over at my BIL's house, with the same rules of distancing. Except for brief appearances, BB stayed alone in the basement suite. He had been planning to leave on Sunday for a fabulous vacation with friends - an AirBnB right outside Yosemite. But I offered and he accepted to stay hunkered down in the basement, where he had his own bedroom, bathroom, open windows, and access to separate living room and even a home gym. I got him an appointment for a PCR test on Wednesday, the first available, and he rescheduled his flight. Sunday, I was done cooking, but it was reasonably pleasant out so I bought hot dogs and buns, set out drinks, and folks came over to hang in the backyard under blankets.

Boxing Day

As BB's last known exposure to the infected people was Tuesday night before Christmas, he decided to try for a test sooner than the (8 days after) Wednesday plan. Monday, he went to a county-run walk-in place, but they ran out of tests and shut down after half an hour. Consulting with friends, he secured an appointment for a PCR test Tuesday night in Baltimore, and combined it with an outdoor firepit visit to a close friend who lives there. Test results came in about 18 hours, negative! Yay! Out of quarantine! He visited with some friends on Wednesday. After big family confab, most of us declined to dine together in a restaurant, so BB and I got Ethiopian takeout together, BIL closed his vaccine clinic which was in a bar and became a customer, and my girl and middle boy went to a private party.

Lines for testing - but with my appointment,
it took me six minutes

Thursday morning, day of BB's flight to California, new twist! My girl's two best friends, folks she and Middle Boy partied with the day before, were both positive! Oh no! (I had not seen my guys in this window, no secondary exposure from this source for me.) So girl and boy, both vaxed but boosted just this week, are hunkered down in quarantine at BIL's house, and I won't see the three of them until some clearance point is reached - not sure what that will be. I provided lots of info on available testing options, but left it to them to schedule. I did say if they are non-symptomatic I would drive them to tests (masked and with windows open). 

BB got off to California, with his plane delayed but not cancelled. Fierce headwinds across the country - just another bit of unpleasantness to add to the mix.

Cool lighting for our little dispersed party

Friday, New Year's Eve, was damp but fairly warm. Some neighbors opened their backyard to a party that started at 3 pm, with a planned small-child countdown and ball drop at 6 pm, and additional plans for adults to continue outside until it rained or midnight, whichever came first. I went over in the afternoon with a bottle of wine and it was pleasant. There are many small children in the immediate neighborhood, and I hadn't been around any for quite some time. I just observed, didn't touch. We remained mostly distant, everyone had masks near to hand, and many actually wore them. And two families on the street were isolating, wouldn't join outside. (Our host actually invited them to mask and come, and both families firmly declined. It was clear this was a relief to some of the others. Risk tolerances vary.) One of the isolating families had another milestone - it was the last day of work for the man - and we all walked over to bang on his door and serenade him (the only appropriate song we could think of was "For he's a jolly good fellow".) I lasted at the party for nearly four hours, but once again didn't make it to midnight this year. Maybe if I don't start drinking at 4?

I had made myself an appointment for PCR testing as soon as I heard of BB's exposure. The test was Thursday am; as of this writing (about 50 hours later) I don't have results.

So it feels like we're all going to get it. What I thought I knew about transmission - that outside would be mostly safe - no longer feels right. As I think my family members here will probably continue a slightly more aggressive risk stance than me, I'm planning on mostly being physically alone for a while. Luckily, this suits me fine. I picture myself walking with the dog and without the dog, working out in my gym, engaging with friends near and far virtually, gardening indoors and outside if the weather permits, reading, watching movies and TV. Basically, what I've done for two years, but with better strength and energy. Maybe, I'll try baking bread. I am so grateful for the many advantages I have in this dismal situation, and feel so strongly for those less well off than me. 

I felt the need to document this time.

UPDATE: Rapid tests should both my girl and middle boy negative, five days in. So I think they will leave the house, masking everywhere for the rest of ten days.