Shelter in Place – 1

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Do any of you remember that wonderful story that floated around the internet years ago about dog vs cat in their outlook in life?

The one that presented a day in the life of – the dog –

0700 – my people are up – just the best!

0730 – food – the best time of day!

0830 – walkies! – just the best!

etc

As apposed to the cat –

0700 – this is the 436th day of my captivity

0730 – perhaps I will lie on the stairs and trip one of my captors….

Well – this is the first day of our captivity in the SF Bay Area. It is not like I was going much of anywhere in the last couple of week. Well, other than running errands for just about everyone in the family. But still – I could run errands for myself which meant stops at important places like JoAnns and Micheals. And the Dublin Sewing Center, Stone Mountain and Daughters, and book stores and…. you get the idea

Now, I am not at all adverse to reasonable attempts to slow down Corona Virus (which, the US President aside – has absolutely NOTHING to do with Mexican Beer). Flattening the curve will spread out the burden on the health care system. That is reality.

What is also reality is that this a virus that spreads just like a common cold through a fall kindergarten class. It is going to spread. Most people are going to get it sooner or later, What we are trying to do is make that “later” happen as far in the future as possible.

The other part of the reality is the economic devastation. If you are someone who enjoys history, perhaps tries to learn from history and is wondering if this virus is going to be comparable to one of the ten plagues visited on Egypt from the Passover Story  – I direct you to Dorothy Armstrong’s The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague.  It is one of the Great Courses, available through Audible, several other sources, and perhaps your public library. It was a US public TV series in 2016 (available through Amazon Prime) and on DvD. More than just talk about the medical and health aspects – she looks at the economic, social, and political changes that were the result disease spread, lives lost, fear, hate, and complete societal changes. The entirety of Europe, as well as most of the Far East permanently changed.

Perhaps you would also like to think about the 1917-18 Influenza pandemic which helped bring WWI to a close. Or the 1956 or 1968 Pandemics.. Oh, wait! Most of us were fairly young then and lived through them with little bump in our lives.

What is going to be important about this epidemic is, in the final accounting – not going to be the virus, but how we, as a society respond and recover. It is going to take years to decades to come back from what has already happened. Every week that shut downs continue, millions more will be economically devastated in the “Western” world.  Every month adds at least a year to that recovery period. We are so used to expecting medical “miracles” that being locked down for 18+ months just stuns everyone. And, if we do that – lock down time after time, there will be little left at the end.

Only one of our “chicks” is out of area right now – Noah is finishing his exams at UCSan Diego on Thurs and will be home on Friday. The rest are now all local. Everyone is healthy, bored. I now have three off work (two daughters, one SIL), one headed to work everyone morning, and one working from home.  George can continue, as he has for over a year now, to work over phone and internet. We are lucky. The house is paid for. My income is assured unless the US government completely fails (in which case there will be more serious problems than the local government demanding property taxes.

I would appreciate knowing that you are all right and safe as you have time.

I have a number of essays written over the last month which I will take off private in the next couple of days.

 

Leaping

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well, ambulating anyway toward bed at a reasonable time.

If there was supposed to be something special about today (other than dozens upon dozens of bad puns) I missed it completely.

Life is rolling along. I have to call a halt to my procrastination and add in the references and footnotes to that flipping paper so that I get it off my to-do list.

George is doing fine, the kids all seemed to be occupied at this and that which leaves me with little complaints, a sewing room to clean, and a lovely pile of cross-stitch waiting my attention

At least it wasn’t the fridge

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There is a semiserious joke among docs that any individual who, in putting their keys in a safe place, dumps them in the freezer warrants a dementia evaluation.

On that scale, forgetting my phone and headset in the SFVA Infusion Center is hardly cause for concern. To tell you the truth, I thought I had dumped them in my backpack. Since my Clipper Card was in my back pocket, i didn’t notice their absence until after I was on the 38R and two stops down Geary.

Deep sigh.

Disembark.

Hike back to the VA.

Back up the stairs, retrieve items from the amused nursing staff. Back down the hill, catch the next 38R. Since I had gotten extra exercise, I decided to get off a stop or so early once we hit downtown and headed to Frena’s Bakery.

I deserved goodies right?

Armed with desert for the evening, I caught BART at Powell and headed home.

He needs a name

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Returning home last night, I cut through the downstairs apartment to both say hi to everyone (family, dogs) and to avoid dealing with the outside stairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I noted that some kind person had turned  on the outside lights. On my way up the inside stairs, I stopped in the entry way and turned off the outside lights.

This morning, I was focused on getting us out of the house and to George’s appointment on time. Miriam had gotten up to ride along (HOV Lane, here we come). As I started down the stairs, she sort of screeched.

This is what she saw looming up in the darkness.

kind of shiny

And this is what he looks like in the light of day.

But he definitely needs a name, followed by a determination of exactly where in the flock he needs to stand.

Blocking my Sunshine

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there are large cruise ships, there are big cruise ships, then there are the “too damn huge” cruise ships. The Harmony of the Seas (also Royal Caribbean) falls into the later category. It is docked across the pier from us today in Cozumel. Holding more than 6k worth of passengers – it is totally and completely blocking my sunshine.

neither pretty or exciting

 

My cabin is a lovely and surprisingly quiet outside tucked into the forward portion of Deck 3. I have few neighbors. The corridor deadness which totally eliminates through traffic. Much to my amazement, neither the noise from the ice rink or the theater noise are audible from my cabin.

Spending much of the morning in a 14th Deck lounge making a valiant effort to write more on “that paper” as well as stay out of the way of my poor cabin attendant. I then head back to hole up in the cabin for the rest of the day. Today is Cozumel – oh, I said that already – and tomorrow we head back toward Galveston.

I figure if I can force myself into 1-2 hours every morning, the icky thing will be finished by the end of Feb. Complete with all references, citations, tables and other assorted “wow” bullshit. I can’t help still being irritated by the general attitude that a needle can fix every disease while it does nothing to over come the conditions which lead to the mess in the first place.

Day 3 – Liberty

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in which I attempt to draft a couple more pages, discover that I have left some important information at home and find that my computer doesn’t want to do audio. Since neither the speakers or headphones seem to respond to anything on a reliable basis, I am down to using my phone for both FaceTime and YouTube.

Oh, wah. Not. There are much worse fates than not having computer based connections.

Day 2 – Liberty

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As like many cruising itineraries, the first full day after leaving dock is a day spent at sea. With three ports and three sea days, at least the Cruise Director doesn’t have to jam all of the sea day activities onto one day. Tonight has been designated Formal Night (not bothering), a reception around lunch time (might go – tasty snacks), and various scheduled entertainments (now why would I be interested in karaoke or a belly flop contest).

I left my cabin early and headed up to one of the lounges. Last night I scouted out both key card lounges and picked a nice location to work. Out of traffic and right next to both 110 & 220 outlets. Did I mention the presence of the coffee machine? Essential for keeping sanity while working my way through I don’t know how many pages of notes.

This particular ship carries way too many passengers for my comfort. One of the larger ships, but not the largest, she carries over 4k worth of passengers including way too many children and a lot of adults in flip-flops and beer in hand. I am sure that noise cancelling headphones are going to be a serious help.

For those who care about such things, there are 22 Pineapples (Pinnacles) on this cruise, most of whom seem to be local to the area and have earned their status by cruising around and around and around the same routes out of Galveston, Boring,….

And back to my paper, interspersed with detours into cross-stitch and pattern design on MacStitch.

Western Caribbean

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on Liberty of the Seas

and the reason for this ship? Leaving this weekend, not a mega-ship (altho large) and the most affordable when I booked it last weekend. My other options only had more expensive cabins available, weren’t back for George’s next appointment, or didn’t have a lounge with latte machine. Royal? I have enough status that they give me free wifi. Always useful when you find that there is still another item to look up or check reference details.

The Plan –

Sun, Jan 19 Galveston, TX 4:00pm
 Mon, Jan 20 At Sea
 Tue, Jan 21 At Sea
 Wed, Jan 22 Roatan, Honduras 8:00am 5:00pm
 Thu, Jan 23 Belize City, Belize 8:00am 5:00pm
 Fri, Jan 24 Cozumel, Mexico 7:00am 5:00pm
 Sat, Jan 25 At Sea
 Sun, Jan 26 Galveston, TX 6:30am

Current plans? Not leaving the ship. Not doing any of the entertainment, happy hours, or sit down meals. Other than the mandatory safety drill at 1530, I will have no excuse not to write…

On approach to Houston

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I will admit that I turn my phone off airplane mode on approach. I leave the WiFi off, but let my phone seek out and connect with my communications carrier prior to landing. Which means that I am also doing that well before the cabin attendant has announced that “use of small, personal electronic devices to include cell phones is now allowed.”

I started this practice a number of years ago, right after SFO adopted the use of Mobile Passport. Since I was flying into the US regularly from overseas locations, and being too cheap to fund a system that the government should be providing, Mobile Passport proved ideal. But, you can’t load your data to include entry information if you are not connected. WiFi works, or phone carrier network works. Initially, the App always went for Wifi, and if it was turned on and not connected, then you were stuck. So I developed the habit of turning on my phone without the WiFi on approach, loading the data and then being at baggage claim eight minutes after exiting the plane. That is right, eight minutes. Easy, Peasy, no lines. faster at SFO that Global Entry. Faster than the kiosks which were a huge improvement over static lines which took forever (which anyone who entered through US Immigration in Houston or Toronto up until the last couple of years can attest). I can’t say how things are now, since I haven’t been out of the US for almost a year. For that matter, the last time I went any where was last June to DC for the ISTM meeting. I can’t claim attempt to decrease my carbon footprint – family and baseball just have disrupted my schedule along with grad school which wiped out any opportunity at the Spring TA season.

But anyway, turning on my phone  is just habit. Besides, I needed something to read while waiting my opportunity to escape the plane, being seated in row 34/36. (and, just so you know, rows 33 and 35 don’t exist on this particular plane). It was packed to the gills complete with a number of families (small crying and screaming children), a number of travelers who didn’t see to comprehend that ONE carryon doesn’t mean a roller, a duffle bag, a computer bag, a backpack and some shopping bags.

I could partly understand those members of the Chinese tour group, which numbered about 40, having more than a small back pack. But the rest of the passengers? Especially those who were sitting up front and could check luggage? Not so much. My backpack, with a week’s worth of computer, clothing and cross stitch, fit under the seat in front of me, which turned out to be a really good thing. The pilot was cheerful, one cabin attendant (obviously the one on the tannoy) spoke with the speed of light, and the other two trudged up and down the plane attempting to hand out pretzels and beverages.

I am now ensconced in my Houston hotel with a 0700 scheduled return trip to the airport in the morning. From there I am off to Galveston and a week on the Liberty of the Seas with the plan of completing the rest of my last outstanding paper somewhere with a latte machine, meals prepared, and no other demands on my time. Since George is now on an every two week schedule for UCSF, this seemed like an ideal window of opportunity. The Liberty was the RCCL ship with a reasonably priced cabin available. RCCL because I see no reason to pay for wifi and am sure that I will need it.

Unpicking

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(in which I typed out this whole post which then refused to save….) –

As I started back at the cross-stitch this morning – this one section just didn’t look right. Specifically, the purple just didn’t look like it fit in

see that bit of dark purple next to the pink?

I finished later last night than normal; it was dark except for the light around my chair. And purple is purple? As it turns out – no – it isn’t. As it turns out, 3838 and 3835 are both in the purple family, and it in the same bin in my stitch bow roll. But 3838 tends toward the blue end of the spectrum and is several shades more saturated than 3835 which is definitely more closely aligned with reds. And this particular area has more than a few pinks.

So, I spent 15 minutes unpicking 12 stitches in a careful manner so as to not disturb the stitches around them. The only time previously I had managed to insert the wrong color, it was five stitches and it was fairly easy just to stitch over them. Not an option in this case.

So this is the new end result.

Now with the right color

Unlike in knitting where you can tink or frog (knit spelled backwards for taking out one stitch at a time or rip-it, rip-it for tearing out a whole section) I can’t find a special word in the cross-stitch community for this careful removal of a few stitches.

So it is place a few stitches here and there in between running an errand or five…

Drunken Diagonal

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Yes, I can stitch along the diagonal – see!

Being what I accomplished in my New Years start

This is a 20 stitch wide diagonal with the first two completed. The fabric is 16 ct white Aida easy-count (translated to – it comes pre-gridded in 10s) Total pattern is 341 x 225 and is a full-coverage design.

But what I was going to say is that my discipline went a bit off the rails as I ran into just a few too many places where, rather than parking the thread, I went ahead and stitched another one or two stitches so that the particular color would be finished. And my nice, even edge turned into this –

which is 5250/76,725 completed stitches

It is cheerful, the colors are bright. but neat? rather not….

More Monkey

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on Spruce St

Underneath it all is this almost gargoyle appearing monkey. Dressed differently according to the season, I just noticed this version the other day. Walking down the hill with Miriam and Angel, I took them this route on purpose.

They are Owls

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What are those? I was asked at the Cal Women’s Basketball Game this evening.

It was a much more intelligent question that the previous – What are you knitting? Are those Warrior Colors?

the start of a scarf

Hello? This is a Cal Basketball Game. I am sitting the CAL Bleachers. I am wearing the exact same colors (blue, gold, and a bit of white). I have no idea where the Warriors got their colors, but, since Cal has had Women’s Basketball since the late 1800s – I have a feeling that Cal had these particular colors first.

Anyway – back to the Owls –

two small Owl Earrings

There is actually a nice history behind the owls. I purchased them in 2010 while on a P&O Cruise with Noah. We were headed up along the Norwegian Coast with with a great crew and a passenger collective that averaged age 74. Which doesn’t seem anywhere as old to me now as it was then. It certainly was a bit much for Noah who had age and interests in common with some of the crew. In Aleslund, after hiking to the top of the overlook to see all the islands which made up the town, I stopped at a Husfliden on the way down. Besides all the standard amount of Rauma yarns, fabrics, trims, and patterns for traditional garb as well as a number of lovely wooden handmade items, there was a case of jewelry off to one side. Sitting by themselves on the top shelf were these owls.

No question, these were my souvenir of the trip, even if they were in a color that I rarely wore. So now, when I am stuck on land, they bring back a bit of my travel memories.

Another Rose

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It was a few years after WWII, but the industrial area in Richmond where the major shipyards were located gradually started undergoing a transformation. As the post-war period no longer needed ships, other manufacturing took over for a while. And then, for years, the area went to seed. Undergoing a renaissance in the last decade, there is now a ferry terminal for those San Francisco bound with that rare offer of FREE parking. Columbia has taken over a major portion of one of the old buildings and runs a significant operation including their “employees warehouse/discount” store. To which others (trust me) can receive an invitation. About 2 years ago, they extended the courtesy to all with a military ID, including retirees. With prices running 40-60% of retail on Columbia, Mountain Hardware, and now Praha – if you need one of their products, it is worth the drive. This area is also now home to the Rosie The Riveter Museum.

Where was I? Oh, yes, heading into Craneway Pavillion – which was hosting this year’s holiday craft market. This is not your ladies auxiliary market. There are no hand crocheted toilet box covers, nor did I spot anything even remotely plastic or disposable. But if someone is shopping for artisan wares – this would be the place to go.

We spent a couple of hours wandering through about 200 vendors. There was nothing I needed, and surprisingly little that I wanted.

This followed me home (purchased by Dani since she remembered that once upon a time….)

coffee mug

. This mug was made by another Rose with a studio in Oakland. The cat was because, when first starting out, she shared a house with a fluctuating number of others, usually about 10. And, there was a cat in about every room. I gave her the “clowder of cats” but forgot the alternative (a glaring of cats) when I had stopped by her display earlier to admire the bowls. She said that the two siamese were the only ones which were distinctive out of that “bunch of cats.” It was a number of years before she headed out on her own, catless, but still uses the image.

From there, it was off to coffee and back to the house. It has been a quiet evening.

I wish you all joy and freedom.

First Night

A late celebration

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Her birthday actually was Wednesday. Dani works at a location which does a huge amount of business over the December holidays. Which meant long days at the warehouse. She was returning home so exhausted that getting time with her dogs and the occasional meal was a real stretch. By her request, we put off her birthday dinner till tonight.

Our family tradition has been to go out for dinner to the restaurant of the birthday person’s choice. Given that we lived in Europe for decades, some of the more horrible, child friendly US locations were never an option. This year, with George still in that 100 day home restriction post stem cell transplant, I ordered in. After careful perusal of the menu, I found something that was reasonably safe to order for him (yes, take-away is also on the banned list. Unfortunately,  most packed with preservatives is completely safe, so is cooking at home, but not leftovers).

Her choice was Korean from one of the places on Solano Avenue (Bowl’d). I hadn’t eaten then, but am quite likely to do that in the future.

It is hard to figure out what to give adult children; an Amazon gift card just seems so impersonal. At the same time, it let her pick what she wanted. And she did. Noah and I also make a bookstore and paper store run so she had some presents to open (books are always good, and magazines, and coloring books). I actually think that the Bob’s Burgers Cookbook and the Dark Crystal (Jim Henson’s Muppet original) color book were her favorites.

We ate an overwhelming amount of food and still had enough left overs for meals tomorrow. I didn’t take pictures or bake a cake. Instead, I selected a number of individual tortes at Masse’s Pasteries. [And no, I have no clue as to why my browser gave me some kind of security warning. I have been gettin a lot of those lately, none of which have been valid.]

On the fiber side, I decided against knitting a third “Cal Colors” hat and started turning the yarn into a narrow scarf while watching a heart-breaking loss of the Cal Women’s Basketball team. I think they are still working through the changes that have come with a new coach as well as not always having the skills to deal with a really aggressive opponent that barely skirted the boundaries of good-sportsmanship play.

The Case of the Empty Cookie Jar is finished. It still needs to be washed, pressed, and framed. Since it is one of a set, I may delay the finishing until the second one is done so that they match.

Since my choices were clean, organize, sort–you get the idea–or find a short project, I started a Thea Gouverneur sampler featuring the essential food group of chocolate. I had purchased it Amazon and have the matching 2 – Coffee and Tea on order.
 

It is not a toilet seat

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If you live in a mixed gender household you may, perhaps, have dealt with the discussion on toilet seat up or down. If you happen to have dogs, cats, or small children, the chances are that this discussion is moot. Obviously, toilets are not provided as drinking vessels for pets or play areas for small children. But in other households, the position of the toilet seat, I have heard, is a problem. We solved it a long time ago. Just completely close the thing so that the inconvenience of having to reposition part or all of the seat/cover is an equal burden on everyone.

This essay is not about toilet seats; it is about a shower.

When we renovated the downstairs/main bathroom we elected to go with a large, walk-in shower and completely eliminated the tub. Before you even start a discussion about resale value of houses without bathtubs – I don’t care. I was more concerned about safety and water usage. Resale of this house will not be my problem; those in charge at the time can deal, As well as point out the hot tub on the back deck if someone really wants to soak. As far as small children – tubs are a really bad idea. Slips, falls, injuries and drownings occur. It is pretty hard to hurt yourself or drown while sitting on the floor of a shower. Just saying.

Anyway,

walk in shower with rain head and separate hand held shower head

what you see in the lower left hand corner is this –

folded wall mounted teak seat.

which unfolds to this –

so that you can sit and shower

it is positioned such that handheld shower head reaches without problems. For anyone not stable on their feet, feeling ill, or otherwise not up for standing, it is great.

However,

leaving it down when you are done

impinges on the space and is a bruising risk to the next person headed into the shower,

This seat – it is not a toilet seat. It needs to be folded out of the way when not in use …..

Completed

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The Case of the Empty Cookie Jar

Started 12 Nov. Finished 20 Dec. 66 stitches by 369 rows. Stitched on 16 count pre-gridded Aida. I still have to wash her and block her, but am rather pleased.

Garage Chaos

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one small section

and I don’t even want to show you the rest. Noah and I are tackling the left-side bay first. It is the unit with shelves, and therefore the most manageable. But there is a long way to go.

Do not expect frequent updates. But there will be updates, because I have hit my limit of chaos. And besides, it is a great alternative to finishing that paper….