Life of Wry

So, gosh.. Day #35..

I finally fell asleep at 5:00am.. got about 3 hours of sleep last night. That was weird.. and left me a bit fuzzy of brain today. Still, got a workout, a yoga session, two zoom meetings in, made some progress on my Inbox Zero project, attended a Distance Cocktail Party and made some great scalloped potatoes to go with the last of the meatloaf. Off to watch season 7 of Veep.. Pretty good day for a walking zombie.

But I have no pictures.

Just for fun…

I ran across this photo attached to a long-ago email (one of thousands I’m trying to cull from my inbox). Saved the picture, of course.. I mean, wouldn’t you?

He was just about to turn 6.

And I did manage a picture of those scalloped potatoes. Very low cal: half and half, butter, parmesan cheese.. and a pincha freshly grated nutmeg (oh, and 2 russets).

Little did we know that when we came up with the dinner plan for tonight — leftover pork tenderloin, a bottom-of-the-veggie-box veggie and a standby carb — that we’d end up with a color palette devoid of… color.

It was so spectacularly bland that it required a photo, and then, of course, provided a focus for a quickie blog entry (a good thing because I didn’t have a better idea).

We both agreed, however, it was an extremely tasty dinner.

These are pre-amber waves of grain.. when they are greener than green. Jim took this picture a few days ago.

Lucky for him (us), he’s been able to continue working during California’s stay-at-home orders, largely because this big ol’ contract he’s been working on for weeks and weeks takes him way out to the far reaches of the county where he’s all by himself, in fields, far away from folks. So, beaucoup social distancing.

Also, lucky for him, it’s just beautiful out there.

And he’s good at capturing that beauty.

I just cried at an Uber commercial. I mean, it was beautiful, it really was. But wow.. an Uber commercial?

That got my attention. It made me take a pause… and do an emotional check-in.

What’s got me down?

• I just listened to an epidemiologist from Harvard’s school of public health who suggests that social distancing and at least some form of self-isolation could extend into 2022, or at least until effective immunizations come along. We knew that.. right? If we truly think about this, we understand our risk doesn’t go away when some of these guidelines are lifted. We’re not miraculously immune. Jim and I are still 60-somethings, squarely a part of the at-risk population (we don’t believe this because we’re fit and in good health, of course). We know that when they lift guidelines, it won’t apply to us; we will be told to continue wearing masks in public and not to be a part of any crowd. It will suck big time. And nobody with a brain believes the president’s suggestion that “we are close, closer than anybody thinks,” and soon will have a beautiful rebound like nobody’s ever seen (no mention, of course, of the public health side of this equation because, for him, it’s all about the strength of the economy which, of course, is essential for his reelection). Anybody who listens to public health experts understands that we remain vulnerable until there is a vaccine, and that the overall impact on the public at large is lessened through some combo of testing (diagnostic and antibody) and effective treatments for those who get it, which could lessen the overall death rate. We understand there will need to be careful re-openings in targeted areas and that we may expand and relax the guidelines as the incidents go up and down, as measured by the capacity of the health care systems to handle it all. We all get that. He’s ignoring all that, of course, because he’s transactional and self-absorbed and can’t see beyond his self-interest and re-election. The ultimate me-president
• My back hurts from all the sitting

But.. what’s got me up?

• Our hand sanitizer finally arrived, ArtNaturals (62.5% alcohol) (soon to be followed by alcohol wipes and disposable plastic gloves.. preparing for the long haul)
• It was 80 degrees today
• I wore just a t-shirt (well, and leggings)
• At Jim’s suggestion, I turned off the heat and opened the doors and windows
• I sprawled out on the window bench (a first!) and (almost) read
• I smelled my first barbeque wafting through said open windows, complete with lighter fluid, a sure sign of spring 
• Peter got the tennis racquet we sent and is playing a lot of tennis with Ray.. AND we might get to talk with him tonight

So for tonight’s photo, I’m going to post a screen shot of something that really got my attention (and puts me in a good mood).. this was a couple of weeks ago, but I’ll share it now. It’s a screen shot of a University of Michigan webpage that officially lists Peter as a student (Jim came upon it while searching on the UM website to see if Peter had an official UM email address yet.. which he does:

Check out that title!

The most productive thing I did today was to close 50 browser tabs.. some that’d been open for over a month. Scratched that one off the list. Seriously, that was a big deal for me.

I intended to make progress on two other new goals for the week: inbox zero and start/finish a book (The Dog Stars — a post-apocalyptic (due to a pandemic) story about a man who lives a lonesome existence in an airplane hangar.. sound cheery?). Didn’t start either.

The funnest thing I did was to participate in a campaign launch zoom meeting for one of those down ballot races (Kelly’s running for a seat on the Los Rios community college board). That’s a new thing for me.. to be involved in someone’s campaign for elected office. Looking forward to that.

But, truly, that’s all I did today (well, I did work out and yoga’d, but that doesn’t count).  It actually doesn’t feel very good to be that sluggy. I’ll do better tomorrow.  (Ironically: one of the browser tabs I closed was an article “Stop Trying to be Productive,” from the NYT which gives people permission to just veg out and stop expecting to get a lot done.)

Just ugh.

So.. no pics.. how ’bout another round of memes:

I listened to a podcast today on a beautiful arboretum walk (aren’t they all). Listening to a lot of podcasts on solitary walks these days. And now with masks. Talk about weird, talk about isolating. Not only are you sealed off from others, people go out of their way to avoid getting anywhere near you (and you them), like walking off paths, or stepping behind bushes, like we’re all a bunch of pariahs. Nobody can see you smile at them. Alone, even in public places.

Brene Brown was talking to a grief expert, David Kessler. I cried under my mask when Kessler spoke of how we’ll never really go back to our lives as they were. It’s a shocking and scary thought; we didn’t get any time to prepare ourselves for this kind of transition. The planet was thrust into this sudden crisis, forcing everyone into near-immediate sequester, and now we’re looking at the likelihood that when we emerge from this, however that might happen, it will be into a new reality.

I hope that’s true, actually. I hope we return with a renewed focus on what is more important in our lives… for us, for our planet, and especially for our children. Skies are really clear, roads are easy to navigate, we’re not making as many unnecessary car trips, we’re making better use of resources, we’re spending time alone, thinking more, becoming more resourceful, mindful. For starters.

So maybe it’s all a big giant reboot. And I certainly hope we start fresh with leadership and return decency, justice and caring about humanity to our politics. We need to kick that great big baby out with his soiled bathwater.

Okay, so that’s not what I was going to write about.

It’s Easter.

In all our years, we’ve never settled on any reliable traditions. Been all over the map with different things in different years, all fine. Egg hunts and baskets and chocolate bunnies during the kid years, usually family gatherings, especially when Peter was little. Sometimes even hot cross buns and ham. We don’t celebrate the religious aspects of the holiday, but I think both of us look forward to the season. Spring is Jim’s favorite time of the year (I like them all), I love the symbolism of renewal and rebirth for a trillion reasons, including flowers. Here’s our front yard on this sparkling day:

Nothing not to love about that.

One of our new pandemic routines is Jim serving up Sunday breakfasts, rotating between pancakes, french toast and waffles (we’re thinking of cinnamon rolls next Sunday!). Today we were back to barnyard animal waffles…

This is a cow, lobotomized, with bonus udders:

We may be senior citizens, but we love our juvenile humor.

Here are a few shots from my walk today..

Nice ducks swimming in formations..

I saw this fellow sitting on a log with his dog in the sun. He had two canes, a bandaged hand and seemed a little lost in thought.. I was glad he had a dog. I wanted to say hello in there, channeling a John Prine song. I couldn’t catch his eye. I just teared up.

Sat for a while in the grove. Hung out with a couple of ducks who had to check me out. She said hello in there. I just teared up.

Walked around a little checking out some flowers..

I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the petal design on a purple iris…. so beautiful.

Then I saw these…

.. and lots more besides. Somebody played Easter Bunny and left I-don’t-know-how-many easter eggs around the grove. It was so sweet and unexpected, and such a total delight, even though I’m 64. I teared up again.

Not sad.. just a little melancholy, a little weirded out by all of this, a bit anxious with uncertainty, a lot overwhelmingly grateful. Headed home to make dinner.

We had pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, zucs with parmesan. Exceptionally good. I made bread…  though 1) it wasn’t done until well after dinner, and 2) it was the first batch I’d tried in our bread maker in about 20 years so I went basic with the only flour we had (white). Edible for sure.. but it sure is.. white. We’ll be experimenting with this….

Day #29, the usual stuff: workout on my stationary bike; a two-hour zoom phone banking session for a congressional candidate in Modesto; laundry (it’s Saturday, after all); a nice conversation with Matty; a whole lotta nothing; a 7-ish mile walk in North Davis.

I texted Janet to see if she might want to meet and talk over her fence for a few minutes as I passed her neighborhood. She did, but that turned into a long walk with her around the pond, then up by the ditch, then a long meander back through the North Davis greenbelt. Lots of folks out, not that many with masks.

This is what walking with a friend looks like:

She said she was smiling.

The ditch..

The park over by Senda Nueva and the Domino sculpture…

Greenbelt art…

No cars on Covell! Taken from the Covell bike over-crossing…

Late breaking: Davis Police just released an alert about a stolen Covid-19 specimen from Sutter Davis hospital. The suspect, whom they got a great security camera photo of, wore a UCD sweatshirt and made his escape on a bike (of course he did). They later recovered the specimen, still in its protective wrapping, in a shopping cart over at the Marketplace shopping center. Suspect still on the loose.

Grateful that most of my days feature a nice, long walk… and most of the time down by the creek. The ducklings and turtles were out in force, but I didn’t get great shots of either. The flowers, on the other hand, were decent subjects. The bees were extremely busy, and I got right down into the weeds with them to get a couple flower shots, but I came away unscathed. Clearly, they were interested in sweet things.

Late afternoon’s a nice time to be at the arb.

I’ve been wanting to make this meatloaf for a few years, ever since I visited Sally and her parents in Mountain Ranch and her mom served this fantastic dish. It’s her standby meatloaf recipe — Bologna style — one she got years ago in a Biba cookbook (Biba Caggiano, the legendary Italian chef from Sacramento who died just about 7 months ago).

I went back into my archives and dug up a few photos from that visit (I’d even written about it here: https://lifeofwry.com/2014/10/19/sixty-two-and-cranking-along/). It was about the time of the Alden’s 62 wedding anniversary.

Here we are consuming said delectable meatloaf:

(And I just need to say, 5 and a half years later, the Aldens are still in their beautiful country home; he’s 95 or so, she’s 91.. struggling with health and aging issues, but still living on their own.)

So I made it and it was just wonderful, but not without challenges along the way.

Here’s the loaf itself (yet to be cooked), made with a combo of turkey and pork (v. beef), and covered in bread crumbs. Inside: fresh torn bread, milk, eggs, parmesan, freshly grated nutmeg, salt and pep. I left out the pancetta only b/c I didn’t have any.

Then you saute chopped onion, carrots, celery and parsley in olive oil:

The meatloaf rests upon this mixture and is baked for about 25 minutes, then wine is added to the pot to deglaze and flavor the veggie bits and baked for another 10 minutes until the wine’s gone. Then a couple of cups of chopped tomatoes are added (canned, she calls for) and baked for another 30 minutes or so.

So…   I’d do some other things to keep this from happening, but other than the not-so-attractive appearance, it was seriously, intensely flavorful and moist. I can’t wait for leftovers.

I managed to smoke up our entire house — like thick black smoke that required the opening of all windows and the running of fans — when I forgot I was sauteeing potatoes in butter (bad me, I was blogging last night’s post and got totally distracted until I became aware of this awful smell and realized I’d left the potatoes unattended…)

Jim and performed burnectomies on each poor spud-half… and netted enough, actually, for two decent servings…

Don’t recommend this last part, but the rest of the dinner was great. #cookshumbleopinion.

Three things dominated my thoughts today (covid-19 was not one of them, shockingly).

John Prine died last night (complications from coronovirus). It’s a really sad loss. I listened to him a lot during a time when I was deep into finding myself — during my first years in Davis, graduating from college, figuring out where I was going with my life, my first real adult years.  It’s a direct association — my bumpy growth, John Prine’s songs.

My boyfriend at the time (1979-ish) Brad, was a disc jockey at KDVS and had the coveted Saturday night time slot. He’d play a lot of great rock and roll from 10 to midnight, then would quiet things down between midnight and 2am and that was John Prine and Bonnie Raitt ballad time (lots of others, too, but those are two I most remember). Often Brad would say something like, “this one’s for you, Pedrohijo” (he called me Pedrohijo) and then, “Angel From Montgomery” might play. It was pretty fun.

John Prine was such a decent human being who wrote compassionately about people in real life. He was a tender poet, he cared about justice, and was a comrade in the fight against the Vietnam war. Because of terrible skin cancer that required removal of a sizable portion of his neck (about 20 years ago), his voice at the end of his life had been completely transformed to something gravely and deep.  Same songs but with a raspy, seasoned elder’s quality. If I’d have been blogging last October, I’d have written about how Jim and I cried through a good portion of his concert at the Mondavi. It was his presence, his familiar songs, his wrenching lyrics, his aging, my aging, the obvious hole in his neck. He’d aged almost cruelly, but had not lost his humanity nor humor.

I can cry easily thinking about it all.

RIP lovely man, thank you for your music.

Whammy #2 was that Bernie Sanders suspended, as they say, his 2020 presidential bid today. Not quite dropped out, since he’s planning to stay on the ballot in the remaining states’ primaries in order to continue to amass delegates in order that he have a legitimate influence on the party platform.  That’s good. He committed to supporting Joe, who he called a decent guy, and underscored that this is a must win election. My feeling is that, by doing it this way, he maintains the enthusiasm of his dedicated base toward a worthwhile goal — all of our goals, regardless of whom we supported at any point in this race. He’ll have ample time to bring his die hard supporters along with the idea that this is about preserving the critical elements of a movement, and Joe will have ample time to integrate some of Bernie’s vision into his campaign. I hope.

All of that said.. I’m sad. I didn’t think Bernie would be able to bring along enough people to beat Trump, but I believe in him. I believe in his vision. I hate where the dems are now with an old establishment guy. Ideologically I hate it. But I think Biden, between the two of them, was going to have the better chance of winning.

I’m sad for the state of the party. State of our politics. State of our future. I believe deep, deep down we are messed up and need a redo. That’s another eleventy hundred posts.

Bernie is the real deal. I believe he’s a very decent, smart man. I hope we see a lot more of him. Here is a photo from when he was in Davis almost 4 years ago. (And remember that crazy story about how, as I waited, among the throngs on a hot spring afternoon over by the Rec Hall, for him to speak, HE and his entourage were parked across the street from OUR house, playing catch with tennis balls on the lawn outside the Senior Center. He did finally arrive to the field outside the Rec Hall and spoke for nearly two rousing, extremely inspiring hours to thousands and thousands of huge fans, of which I was a very enthusiastic one. Voted for him in that primary, proudly.)

And, whammy #3 is Ken Burn’s 10-part documentary on the Vietnam war, which is very much on my mind. Jim and I started the series last week, and watched Part 4 last night. It’s one long, relentless gut punch. I’m absolutely fascinated, and overwhelmed with sadness at the senselessness and losses of war. Many tears during last night’s nearly 2-hour segment.

I was just entering junior high during the part of the story covered last night. While I was certainly aware of the coverage on the nightly news and the many fragments of conversation my republican parents were having about the situation in Vietnam, I wasn’t very knowledgable about what was happening. Over the decades, I got a better sense of what went on, but I’m learning a whole lot more watching this documentary than I ever knew.

In junior high, and maybe into high school, I wore a POW bracelet that honored Everett Alvarez, the first pilot shot down in the war and taken prisoner. (I thought then that I was the only one wearing his bracelet, but that is certainly not the case.) Remember these? I wonder what my parents thought of my wearing one.

Anyway.. these sat in my head all day today..

Reflecting on unsettling eras of the past, longing so desperately for a better, more humane tomorrow.