Life of Wry

Coronavirus sequester Day #14.

It was a quintessential CV isolation day…. novel activities for a novel virus pandemic.

There was, of course, the standard social distancing…

I took this picture when on a walk with LL. She was in Sacramento, I was in Davis and we talked throughout the entire walk. Honestly.. it was great. Would love to see her, but this was, in some ways better (under the circumstances). We could have all the benefits of a beautiful walk (see pics below), while maintaining a safe distance. Each of us is hard of hearing, so walking at 6′ apart is sort of hilarious (in a sad way). Connected instead on our cell phones, we could walk with our earbuds in… which is great sound! And, we saved gas. Lot of positives.

Here are some nice pics from “our” walk:

I took a similar picture a week or two ago, but now the branches are full of leaves and blossoms:

So that was my walk… nearly 90 minutes of exercise, connection and photographing. Then:

– I did a little work on my recipe organization project;

– Jim and I had a wonderful conversation with Peter (who’s a bit bored and ready to get back to classes Monday);

– I had a Zoom meeting with the Communications Committee and prepared a proposal  — like, a real proposal with rationales, objectives.. the works — thereafter for the leadership team… which was feeling a little too close to the work bone, but also kind of fun;

– Jim and I watched episodes 5 and 6 of Brockmire (the reintroduction of entertainment media into our lives is fantastic).

And then, AND THEN, I went to a distance cocktail party.  This was loosely organized by a neighbor a few blocks away, envisioned as a way to bring folks out of isolation to socialize close to home, but in a safe distance-maintaining kind of way. Some neighbors actually thought this violated the Yolo County Health Dept Guidelines (and said so quite lecturingly), but enough of us felt we could handle ourselves in a conscientious way and gathered anyway (rebels!).  Besides, we decided mental health was also a worthy objective. We each brought our own cocktails (me, sauvignon blanc in a mason jar) and snacks (me, crackers in a baggie) and chairs. And committed to doing it weekly until the guidelines are lifted. Nice way to meet some neighbors. Here are some pics (the good ones taken by neighbor Adam) (and note: we mingled in household clusters.. that is, those from the same households were close to one another, but the clusters themselves remained at distance.. you know.. just so you know we honored the guidelines):

These UCD seniors brought their couch to the sidewalk (of course).. left guy is a senior in mechanical engineering, right guy is also a senior double majoring in spanish and ag econ, both very engaging (and I only just now notice the joint…):

Our “hosts” Beth and John..

Ron and Wendy, playing a lot of Grateful Dead and other 60s peace tunes, with Jan and Adam (and dog) enjoying right along …

A closer look at Ron and Wendy..

It’s funny….. three people, whom I’ve met through political action in the last 3 years, live within 3 blocks of one another on A Street (Beth, Meghan, Wendy.. and of course me). What are the chances?

Oh, and finally, I gave myself a haircut. Bad hair is a sad reality and a telling artifact of our stay-at-home and/or socially distancing M.O these days. A funny joke going around is that we are all about to see what everybody’s true hair color is, as our hair grows out shaggier and shaggier, grey-er and grey-er.

(Nice haircutting scissors, huh?)

To wit… (Adam took a photo of me, which I’ll crop in order to illustrate my point/s):

(Ouch.) Bad haircut and grey emerging. But I’m good with that. These are extraordinary times.

So, on this, the eve of week three of the global pandemic stay-at-home order, I managed to fill my day with novel novel coronavirus activities… self haircuts, zoom meetings, remote walks with friends, streaming media, long fallow projects, and a distance cocktail party.

Makin’ the most.