covid thanksgiving and black friday

 Part of an email I sent to a particular friend, on dealing with Thanksgiving and Black Friday while managing COVID:

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(Are we w)ell? No, we're not well... but we're better. I woke with a sore throat, which has mostly passed; we had a bunch of Black Friday chores to do this morning, and we got them all done - gas for Regina; special sale at ShopRite; sale at Talbot's for Regina; two-for-one black Friday deal at Hand & Stone massage (I'd rather have dental work than a massage, but Regina likes them, so she got the deal, and I did as well as a Christmas present for her); stop at Costco. It's been a slow afternoon, I suppose, but I did a load of laundry; cashed two checks (remote; just uploading pics from the dining room); ordered a gift card for my sister's Christmas present; paid the water bill. With all that, I'm mostly falling asleep with the computer playing videos on my lap, and I hear Regina's computer in the bedroom; I suspect she fell asleep watching something or other.

...

I'm actually glad I missed the Thanksgiving dinner; I have one sister-in-law who's well-meaning, but perseverates on her belief that all government benefits are wasted on the undeserving; another sister-in-law is (redacted). We sent most of the dinner to them (and their children and the one newly-married-in wife), and kept out a few servings of the side dishes for ourselves... and bought turkey club sandwiches to round out dinner for ourselves. We set the good china and sterling (I inherited five settings of sterling), and decided this was a really good Thanksgiving for us, COVID or no.

If we could just hang out with the younger generation of her family, and leave out my sisters-in-law (and the one Trump-y husband), it would be a much better time.

...

Thanks for checking in. We're OK; we won't starve before we can get out to stores again... and I'm only a little sorry that I can't go infect some people of choice wit this illness, or that it would't be as crippling as it might be, if I did.

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I expect we will look back on this holiday, and smile at each other as we do. The story may improve with age and retelling; stories often do.

in buffalo for the eclipse

 The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I have just moved to a new house... and two days after we moved, we were off to Buffalo for a long-planned trip to see the eclipse. It had been one of my wife's "bucket list" items, and I make a practice not to stand in the way of those.

It was great. I wrote the following to an acquaintance who lives in England:

==

Buffalo, NY was cloud covered most of the day, which worked reasonably well for viewing the eclipse. While we had the approved protective glasses, we only needed them for those few occasions when the clouds broke and what was left of the sun showed through. Instead, the clouds provided protection, and while they did sometimes completely block our view of the sun, more often the clouds we just enough so that we could see the eclipse happen without the need for protection.

Totality was scheduled for about 3:18pm local time, but occlusion of the sun started about an hour earlier. We went out to the street and stood where we would be able to see. Across the street, there was a bar where a number of customers had been preparing (ahem!); one was so prepared that he fell over backwards, but we later saw him up on the roof with the others. There was a festive atmosphere; we had three locals standing on the street with us sharing thoughts and politenesses, and later the excitement and giddiness.

It takes a LOT of occlusion to change the quality of the light locally, but as the sun got more and more covered, darkness came on. It wasn't the darkness of sunset - the colors were different, and it came on much more quickly. As totality approached, the darkness became more complete: streetlights came on, and we noticed cheering and shouts from other bars on this street. Even through the clouds, with totality we saw the irregular corona, and a bright spot towards the "bottom" of the sun that we later learned was a sun flare.

And then the light began to come back, and within about a half-hour, the light was back and we went on our way. My wife had made this a "bucket list" item, and was still excited and grinning at bedtime.

==

My wife got some video of the event:

 

We came back to a house full of unopened boxes, and we still can't find anything. Moving is crazy. But the eclipse was immense.

vacation and bike trip reconnaissance

 The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I went on a bike club trip to Martha's Vineyard last year (from which I got three posts on the other blog). We both loved it, and TEW had the idea to consider the Eastern Shore of Maryland for a similar trip. She did the trip research; I found some rides on RideWithGPS, and off we went this past week.

We stayed in Oxford, Maryland, in Talbot County. It's a sleepy, but beautiful place.

That's the ferry we took to get there. You don't have to go by ferry, and if you do, it's only $18 for a car, driver, and one passenger.

The view from our table at one of the places we went to dinner.

We went to Annapolis one day.

... and did the tour, and got a picture for our anniversary (which was last month, but we often move the anniversary picture for when we're in a photogenic location)

And, of course, we took a few rides. Here's TEW on the ferry when we included that in a ride one day:

We loved this trip. We had a great time with each other, on a relaxing, fun vacation.

But we're not sure it will work for a bike club trip. There aren't many towns in the county we went to, and the towns that are there, are connected by single roads with a 50mph speed limit. There are huge shoulders, but TEW was unhappy with those roads. Further, while there are some loops that can be made without these roads, the loops tend to be short; we had to add miles to get up to 20. Instead, most of the roads are dead-ends that go off the main roads... so you can extend the routes, but you do a lot of out-and-back.

If we do go back, we'll probably stay in a different town. We took a trip to St Michaels, and there was a LOT more going on there. In Oxford, where we stayed, little was open this early in the season, and NOTHING was open Monday to Wednesday, except for a tiny general store for which we had high hopes, which were not realized. (I had visions of all the residents being pod people, who had to enter their pods to rejuvenate for three days, after acting like normals for four days in the week. I watched too much terrible science fiction in an earlier life.)

We took this ride on Wednesday (when TEW decided she didn't like the traffic), and this one on Thursday (better traffic, but only 18 miles).

We haven't completely given up. We may try a different location, and we'll report back when we know more.

fairmount park cherry blossom festival

 

The Excellent Wife (TEW) found out that there's a Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, and that it was this weekend, so we decided to check it out.

There are worse things to do than check out the spring foliage at the park. Below, the Shofuso House, built with traditional Japanese techniques, is open for tours, but was too busy today (which gives us an excuse to come back for another date).

 The festival was hoppin'...

... and full of delightful costumes. Luckily, they let me in, even though I'm as staid and conventional as turkey with mayo on white bread.

Japanese drumming! (The choreography is as fascinating as the rhythm. And they had women doing it! Is that even allowed?)

It was full of these wonderful characters, beautiful trees, and vendors selling the tacky and the gorgeous. I loved it. A great day.