More thoughts in the time of COVID-19
Wednesday, Day 27 …
To start the previous post this morning I wrote “(Paul) is writing a journal. He is actually printing … they no longer teach cursive in 2nd grade.” and within minutes of posting, I received a call from a reader (actually a cousin) in Florida challenging my use of “printing” to indicate “not cursive”. His background is in architecture and civil engineering, and according to architects and civil engineers “printing” is what printing presses do. He tells me writing by drawing individual letters is properly called “lettering” and is done in architectural drawings and plat maps in UPRIGHT CAPS.
It made sense when I was listening to him but now I’m having trouble distinguishing between what we do when we are writing in individual letters, both upper and lower case, rather than connected ones and what printing presses (or computer printers) do.
How’s that for a confusing way to start a blog?
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Thursday, Day 28 …
I think I’ve already told you about the mini white rose for my desk (and for dried rose petals) I bought a bit ago. Well, I thought it had died. In the past I had not had good luck with mini roses, but hope springs eternal so I had tried again. And as in the past, it showed every sign of dying … leaves and buds turning brown and dropping.
My older grandson had worked with a landscaper back in New York (am I repeating myself? Oh well …) and he told me it might just be stress at all the changes between the commercial nursery and here. He was right. She is now showing oodles of bright green new leaves. Kaloo Kalay! Maybe I’ll start calling her Eleanor after the Queen who kept coming back.
Thinking of Eleanor, the book I’m reading (The Queen’s Man) has turned out to be a fun read. I’ll have to search out more by Penman as soon as I get back to the library.
And thinking about plants … one of the Peace lily plants (from when I divided and repotted a couple of months ago) is coming into bloom!
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Friday, Day 29 …
Good Friday … a day for sorrow. Isn’t it interesting how in spite of hope, good intentions, and effort life can occasionally whopp you?
Interesting is turning into one of my favorite, most used, words. Maybe because I now have time to see and listen and there are a lot of things which catch my interest. One of the latest has been wind patterns. Looking out my east facing window I can see several tall evergreens and watching them move in the wind is a trip. Sometimes they all seem to move together. Other times the wind will be whipping the tops around and lower branches will be moving gently, if at all … and sometimes the other way around. And of course there are the times when big birds land on a branch or a squirrel runs along a branch and only that branch is moving. This morning, nothing is moving.
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Saturday, Day 30 …
Mornings are warmer … in the mid-40s rather than the 20s and 30s. And opening the chicken house gets earlier and earlier. Sun in my east window before 0715 with hens out talking loudly earlier and earlier. It used to be that the brown hen with the malformed beak was the only talker. Now one of the pure blacks has joined her. I watched them a day or so ago and found that they don’t open their beaks when they talk and so wondered how we “hear” them. I asked Mark if he knew and his answer was that they probably have resonating sinuses in their heads like dinosaurs did. Interesting …
Another wonder (as in “I wonder …”, not as in “a miracle”), during this time of enforced input diminishment, was “laughs”. Why and at what do people laugh? I’ve known people who just laugh most of the time, especially when they are talking … even when speaking of non-funny things.
Self-depreciation? See, I’m laughing at me so your laughter can’t hurt me.
With joy? This is a really good day.
With relief? Wow … glad that happened to someone else instead of me.
In disbelief? I can’t believe that happened. Can you believe they did/said that?
When sharing fun? Now that was really funny.
And, of course, I then wonder at times when people don’t laugh.
Another earthquake … 5.8 a bit south near Bodie … with aftershocks … more activity on our section of the Ring of Fire, this time further away from the Yellowstone caldera.
The red maple and the plum are leafing out, the apricot has bloomed, but nothing so far on the birches, apples, or the catalpa.
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Sunday, Day 31 …
Easter … Passover … Ramadan … Celebrations this year will be long remembered. More than one family with whom I am acquainted included a laptop or iPad at the table in order to share with friends and family. The sun came over the Mountain here at 0700 … bright and clear. Tyler had to go to work (animals don’t differentiate holiday sundays from any other day and want to eat). The family went to the church to do the Easter morning service and discovered parishioners had seated stuffed toys in the pews, so they weren’t doing the service in an empty house.
A good day.
The last two nights, as I was out to close in the hens, I heard a pair of sand cranes overhead on their way between the nesting area in the meadow and the reservoir. I’m hearing more and more Canada geese as well.
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Monday, Day 32 …
Were you aware that during WW II Britain had a “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”? Intriguing. I wonder if that meant all Geneva bets were off. I didn’t know about that group until I saw a brief bio of Christopher Lee on the net. Seems Dracula had some training.
My mother was born on this date one hundred twelve years ago. To most of those alive today, 1908 was ancient history, but I remember Mama … short, hazel eyed, soft, industrious, good shot with a hunting rifle, adaptive, rattlesnake killer, Charleston dancer, and in love with my father to the day she died.
It was reported that black bears have come down out of the mountains around Ashland, just across the border in Oregon, and are wandering the streets without challenge. Here in the High Meadow, we live in close proximity to our indigeneous wildlife all the time, so not much change here.
Late last evening, as I was getting ready for bed (I now can’t close in the hens until 2000 … but that’s another subject), I noticed the witch hazel is budding. There is even about an inch of new growth on the end of one branch. The elderberry has a bit of brown-off on a leaf or two so I’ll transplant it to a bigger pot. And the first of the tomato seeds has sprouted.
It is still too early to plant outdoors, but the time is getting closer.
And another earthquake on the Ring … this time in the far south Pacific near New Zealand. Most of these have been 6s or more.
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Tuesday, Day 33 …
Are you still with me? This blog is getting quite extended. Must be the isolation. I don’t think I’m observing or thinking more than usual. But I am talking less, with such a limited number of folks available to listen, and so you are being required to read more. Oh well …
I have always been pretty good at writing. I used to be proud of my cursive … maybe too proud. Now, with the “essential” tremor, if and when my hand is steady enough to handwrite my pride is no longer so full of hubris. Besides, I find I compose my best letters etc. in bed as I am falling asleep. Too bad that technology isn’t yet to the place where thoughts can be automatically written (printed) someplace and so be available in the morning.
On the subject of morning, the morning sun has gotten so far north that I now live in a room full of rainbows (from the window crystals) every sunny day. Nice …
Yesterday evening I watched the Met’s streaming of Renee Fleming’s “Rusalka” from a production in 2014. The “Song to the Moon” from the first act (about 23 minutes into the Met recording) is one of George’s favorite arias. “Rusalka” is a Czech telling of the same fairy tale as Anderson’s “Little Mermaid”, but with a very different ending. Listening to the opera, I tried to tune my ear to the sound of the Czech language. George’s paternal grandparents spoke “Bohemian” at home and his grandfather introduced teaching Czech in Chicago public school curriculums back at the turn of the 20th century. It didn’t stick, George’s father didn’t use the language, and George knew very little of it. It has a different sound … not Russian nor German. And listening to it made me wish I weren’t language limited. The best time to learn language(s) is early childhood and our schools are failing … to our disadvantage. In my next life, I hope to be multi-lingual.
All these thoughts because George enjoyed listening to the “Song to the Moon”.
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Wednesday , Day 34 …
I spent several hours today trying to get some pictures into the blog. There is still much to learn.
And finally a thought from an interesting Passover essay …
Like the Israelites who mimicked Miriam’s vitality to gain their footing in a desolate place, so should we be inspired to replenish ourselves — drained by the emotional toll of what feels like an apocalypse — and quench our thirst with music, art, and dance.
I’m bingeing on Doc Martin, watching operas, reading a mystery set in 1193, learning about musicians of whom I’d not heard (Kenny G), enjoying sunrises, watching Paul learn, researching the family of Moses and the lesson carried by his parents, contacting family and friends (to keep tabs on who will be where when the lockdown is over), traveling virtually, watching plants grow and leaf out and flower, keeping the clock wound …
So … ‘til next week …