My Tale of 2021's winter

It gets more difficult with each passing season during this pandemic time, to come up with creative things to write about. I did not travel anywhere, I've taken very few photos. I read more than I did in the fall which was more than I did in the summer which is more than I did in the spring. In fact starting with the spring of a year ago I began reading more than I ever have. And now, I have read about 125 books since the original shut down of most normal services at the very end of the winter of 2020.

There was a certain jubilant the air at New Years 2021 at least in the mass media. It was if to remind us that anything was better than last year. I even felt it some but am too much of a cynic to jump on all of the bandwagons that the same mass media wants us to. Now nearly three months into this new year there are no apparent changes to daily conditions. There probably will be...I imagine...someday. We read positive news in between articles about a potential surge in cases.

One of the reasons that its hard to write about much is that everyone reading this has experienced the wider world nearly the same as I have. No one is immune (perhaps that is not so prudent a word to choose) from the shut down so I have nothing to complain about at least not as if my plight is worse or better than yours.

However I must write at least something. It is in my nature. For a variety of reasons I quit writing book reviews on my blog. The largest one was because I grew exhausted of that project. Secondarily because no one read them. I did the practice only for my benefit and just reading whatever book I did, was satisfaction enough. So my writing efforts have slimmed down to a seasonal update and maybe some topic that enters between my ears and between the seasons. So to address the former, the chronology and comments start below.

There was not much time left of December for much to happen. The last few years I has spent the holidays touring the Pacific coast and the towns, parks, oceans and restaurants there. I could have done that as 2020 ebbed away but the thought of buying some seafood renowned fin an area, and hauling it in its Styrofoam box back to a motel room with no amenities and eating it in front of a television set with a screen with such low resolution that it is like watching without glasses, just did not seem like fun in any way.

I did participate and a zoom lecture and did many times during the winter but I won't go into details about any of them here. They all were on topics that I have (or had) an interest in and were free.

I happened to notice while reading the Baltimore Sun, that 334 people were murdered in the city in 2020. I did a little computing, using conservative estimates and determined that at least 10,000 people have been murdered there since I moved there in 1981.

Here in Portland, end of the year commentaries remarked with alarm, that the city had 50 murders in 2020, the most in years. The ratio of homicides between Baltimore and Portland (cities with nearly identical population sizes) was about 6.25 to 1. Baltimore has its 50^th murder before March 1^st as a rule. In 2021 that goal was accomplished on March 10^th in a slow year for Baltimore homicides. There were 2 that day making for a count of 51.

For Christmas dinner I made an Israeli meat pie based on a recipe in the New York Times and it was a pleasant spiced meal. I did take a picture of it for memory's sake but it is not worth posting here simply because the photo is not very good.

I started to use the grocery service, “Imperfect Food” (Imperfect Produce when I first used it) In January. They started out providing unsalable produce for its looks, not quality or condition. They have expanded into a lot of products that I'll never use and some like meats, that I will.

Since the libraries have been closed I haven't been able to exploit the publications that I did not want mailed to me. I simply read them during each visit. One that I particularly missed was the New York Review of Books. So I went ahead and subscribed to that and it started arriving here in December. Even though its consumption means more recycling, I am glad I did. I am trying to figure out a reasonable option for sharing it with others so that it is not simply used once and discarded.

As December waned there were a lot of loud noises coming from POTUS about the “stolen” election of 2020 and the smug assuredness that this wrong would be amended. Then January came.

New Year's day was less eventful for me than ever before but it has been years since I did anything to mark that event. It was a bleak and rainy day so I did not go out much at all. You already know that on January 6^th at the urging of POTUS, a couple of hundred really stupid and ignorant “Patriots” stormed the White House, wrecking havoc and damage while threatening people inside the building in a variety of ways. I term it stupid because memorializing their antics was so important to them. It was if they were too feeble to understand that they were committing a crime and leaving specific evidence. Maybe they thought they would be pardoned on March 4^th when their 19^th president resumed office.. They imagined that they were given legitimacy by a demigod. Now there are legal prices to pay but at least their friends and the rest of the world got to see their 15 minutes of fame.

I use the term ignorant because they do not know or understand things like the Constitution or American history. They merely are doing and saying what their mass media heroes tell them to. They call people who wear protective masks during a pandemic “sheeple” while they do their provocation at the behest of imagined orders. They don't understand what any of this means, they just know that they are against it.

The older I get the less confused I am about the American urgency to be stupid. There are enough of them and they are louder than others so they just turn on propaganda news and obey the incredibly filtered understanding of reality including the routine utter lie.

We survived the inauguration and while the reality of Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer Group and the large number of other democracy hating patriots linger in the wings for the next event that they can be filmed at occurs.

I did go on a few birding hikes throughout the season but none memorable. Both of my daughters told me they would be coming down for a visit along with my grandson 

once the weather was improved do I wanted to scope out a location suitable for a visit. I thought that Sauvie Island northwest of Portland so on January 23^rd I scouted it. Since it was sunny and in the upper 40s I thought it would be a good trip. It was a good trip too. I had to go through many neighborhoods that I had never seen before. There are no light rails in this region so I had never been there. The first 80% of the ride out was through an incredibly articulated path through residential areas and then across the St. John's Bridge.

St. John's Bridge

Being fascinated with bridges as I am this was a treat. It is a beautiful historic one. Once on the other side of it I had only a few more miles to go, mostly through rural areas. Being an island I had another bridge to cross but this was a little one and while attractive, less memorable. I still had about 5 miles to go in order to reach the park. It took me through farm land mostly but there were some houses that did not seem to be attached to farms. There were wetlands filled with winter water birds to spot as well.

Housing there was interesting. Most of the homes were fairly new and clearly priced out of any league I've ever been in. More interesting were the occasional older dwelling. The scene evoked memories of many places around the country I have been to. Some of the older homes were neat and well kept and others clearly lived in but in poor repair. I imagined without fact, that these were surviving land owners who were bent on preserving their homes from the efforts of land developers to sell out. Their land was most likely worth quite a bit. No matter the reasons, I admired that they were there.

Finally I got to the park only to find out that it is closed during the winter months. So...my kids and grandson will not be visiting there in the next few months. Still the trip was a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon in January.

I saw my first flurries of the year on January 26 but they melted upon reaching any surface. Thus far this particular winter had been pretty normal. Mostly gray and ugly days with rain and mist the routine being upended every 3 weeks or so with some genuinely pleasant weather.

Every January I wash away holiday thoughts (should I actually have those) by imagining what I will grow come spring time. It was no different this year as I scoured catalogs for the seeds I would plant and this year I added a small green house to aid in the nurturing of those seeds. So one cold night I assembled it and left it in my living room for several weeks.

I bought seeds for Serranos, Greek Oregeno, Genovese Basil, Cilantro and Morning Glories. I decided this year to frame the peppers and herbs with morning glories in order to see how pollinators liked them. In Mid March I put the seeds in potting soil. The green house has a heater and grow lamps so things ought to work out well for the seeds. That is if the breaker doesn't snap every time I turn it on.

As you already know, February occurred on the 1^st. Every year on that date I am about .02% happier than the day before since I no longer have to imagine that it is January. In 28 days I would be about .03% happier still.

On the 11^th of the month we began to have the first serious snow flurries of the season. By the 13^th we had something like 8 inches of snow, significantly more than I have experience out here. In fact 8 inches is about what we accumulated collectively in my first three winters. Since they do not plow or salt out here, driving remained a mess and walking treacherous for several days. I even used my spiked over shoes while walking. I have not donned those since one big snow fall in Baltimore several years ago.

Somewhere around February 16^th there was no sign that we ever had this storm. There some piles remaining in the corners of large store parking lots but otherwise no residue for cars of pedestrians at all. It did not even get that warm. It just stayed at about 42 degrees for several days and nights.

On February 28^th we had a very spring like day and people got out of their homes and took to walking everywhere. We were all in a good mood too. Then for about 4 days it remained spring like even climbing to about 62 degrees for an hour in the afternoon. Then more typical winter weather returned as was expected. The sun was gone for several days and the rains returned. The spring respite was a good thing to have. Spring was clearly looming.

During the month I decided that I had to get rid of some the weight I've gained during the last year or so and decided that I had to plot my eating with more circumspection than I have been practicing. In the few weeks since I began this endeavor I've lost about a pound in each of them. So I only have about 25 weeks to go.

The plan has been to make some routine items like bar cheese with crackers a semi annual treat rather than three times per week. I also stopped eating anything after 7:00pm and have my main course around 3:30pm. In its early stage this plan appears to bring some success so I'll keep doing it until it doesn't.

I also returned to doing daily exercising for flexibility. I also am walking around 3 miles about 5 times per week. To make that interesting I keep going down different trails located within about ten miles of here.

Lacamas Lake

On February 21^st LawrenceFerlinghetti died. He was 101 so it was not sudden. I'm never saddened by someone with a long life has died since it is natural, even extra natural in this case but the news brought up lots of fond memories.

As a teenager I became first aware of then intrigued by the “Beat Generation”. I read much about it both in historical contexts and then in some prose and poetry from that era. Many seemed to occur in San Francisco but mostly New York City with Greenwich Village being front and center both fictive and historical. Ferlinghetti was often mentioned in both. His San Francisco bookstore (City Lights) was an iconic vista for travelers.

In the early 1980s I worked with a few others editing a magazine of prose and poetry. Each of its three productions were published in numbers around 300 but it was widely distributed. We were contacted by people across the span of this country. After the first issue had been released for a few weeks, Ferlinghetti actually wrote us. The main intent was to congratulate one of our fellow editors, Mark H. on the poem he contributed but each of us five, were pretty impressed that he would see to contacting us. It was our 6 degrees of separation from the Beat Generation.

In 2019 I visited San Francisco for the second time the previous trip around 1980. It was fairly likely that I visited the City Lights bookstore in 1980 but I have no clear memory of it. In 2019 it was an imperative on my visit. My friend Frank C. and I did a day of pedestrian visiting of as many sights as possible including Ferlinghetti's store. When I got home I was curious. I had never seen that the San Francisco bard had died but I knew that he at least had to be quite old. I looked him up on line and discovered that he was alive and with a centennial birthday approaching. We were a week off from the gala at the bookstore but that is probably just as well since the very cramped bookstore would have been claustrophobic for the likes of me.

Well, RIP Mr. Ferlinghetti and thanks for the memory. I played Mingus while reading the tribute in the Paris Review and now you can too. If you are so pedestrian to not possess any Mingus, you can find him on Youtube.

Like always I attended three Zoom lectures all at the end of February.

Since the last few days of February, spring has pretty much arrived. We have lots of pleasant days and a few that have been well more typically spring in the PNW. Today (3/18) it has been blustery and rainy with a half an hour here and there of respite including even a bit of sun. Spring is always a time of hope as buds shoot from the soil and on the limbs of trees.

                                                                 Multnomah Falls

Opening day is in early spring and predictions and renewed hopes flower earlier that the flora in any of our neighborhoods. Standard time makes way for daylight savings, porches and decks get their spring cleaning and the wafting of barbecue memories saturate the air-at least in the congested areas that I have always lived in. Dreams of vacations and travel enter the whimsy of those hopes endemic in spring time. Even this year when no one knows when safe travel will be available again.

So I am hoping to go to Michigan to see my ultra geriatric father (not quite the 101 years that the icon mentioned above attained, but getting there). Being only of simple geriatric age myself, at almost any time (perhaps the last one) the visits will be over. I'm hoping to combine that trip to Michigan with one to Baltimore. In the fall I am hoping to get to Galveston to see the bird migration.

During much of February I was awash with emails and newsletters exhorting me to get my vaccine for Covid 19. Locations were provided where they could be scheduled. I filled out applications etc. many times but while the flurry of vaccine news gained a life of its own, there were no vaccines to be had. Finally I found a location that was first come first serve with lines beginning at 6:00 am. I was expecting the worse. Conditions as they were I was concerned that at 6 I would still not be in the first 100 persons for the day (they were limited to that number on a daily basis). However on March 10^th at 6:00 am I was number 12. That fortune did not get me the vaccine however, merely the ability to schedule (sort of) my shot. So I went home and ate a huge meal of huevos ranchero and waited for a phone call with my time slot. This came at about the time I was burping the refried beans that were a part of this breakfast. I headed back to the clinic and finally got the first of two doses. The second is to come on March 31^st. A few friends and family are refusing the vaccine but they also think Trump won the popular vote so you get an idea of their critical thinking skills with that data alone. If they are wrong I guess that we will have a police state and then I suppose we will all be forced to imagine that there are Americans in existence other than our selves.

Today, the first day of spring, the local Farmer's Market opened and I was there. I haven't been downtown often during the winter but today I saw flowering trees. One of them looked like it was planted by the people at Imperfect Foods.

Until Next time.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/02/24/farewell-to-ferlinghetti/?mc_cid=bb75c51056&mc_eid=7cca08a247

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5STaUWmh9bw

On September 28 I drove up to Seattle to see my kids (and their kid). It was the longest trip I have taken since pre-Corvid quarantine days. I stayed at the Georgetown Inn and that was also a first since this new way of life has occurred. My last travel was way back in December when I stayed in Florence for a trip to Coos Bay.

The drive up was adequate. The Tacoma road construction continues so we slowed a bit and for a few miles. This construction reminds me of the “Big Dig” in Boston which continued into what seemed to be eternity.

I visited Hannah and Ali for around 90 minutes before I left for my motel. Lucie and Eddie joined me for a beer and some sandwiches in Georgetown.

It was good to be able to visit. I haven't been here since February when Ali was about 12 weeks old. Now at nearly 11 months he is developing a personality. Today he was pretty shy around me but clearly interested. He kept turning his head in order to see me but he did not smile much. He just showed curiosity,

A Pensive Ali at 10 months

Ali has only seen me on his mother's cell phone. While that has been often, an image on a flat screen phone and not as an actual three dimensional character is weak in comparison to a live visit. I wonder if he makes the connection-the image on the phone screen and real life. Things I say to him and the sound of my voice, can he connect them to this real person facing him?

When his mother and her sister were pre-speaking infants I spent an inordinate number of hours wondering about what connections they could make about events occurring around them. They never told me so I still have no idea.

Since I am not trained at subjects like child development, all of my thoughts are conjecture only. That fact never prevented me from continuing this type of wonder. What do babies understand?

Under normal conditions I use public transportation. While riding I enjoy watching infants and how they are dealing with their child care provider who is almost always female. I watch how they are communicating and the babies reaction to things.

This too, is something that at best I can only speculate about. I enjoy it anyway. One of the very few things that I have confidence in suggesting from this perspective while riding on public transportation is that infants like motion. They enjoy seeing what is outside the window as they whiz by.

That evening I spent time with Lucie and her pal Eddie. We took a leisurely walk to Jellyfish Brew Pub. We had a beer outdoors and as it cooled down we went indoors for another. The day was beautiful and warm but the temperature dropped quickly as the sun set.

It was my first experience at a pub since early March. We kept our selves fairly apart but probably not 6 feet. The next morning Eddie woke up with a fever so he went in for a Covid test. I spent the next day fretting that maybe it would be positive which maybe would have me catching the virus and almost assuredly Lucie having it. There was about a 30 hour wait for those results. All of the precautions that I have taken during the last 6 months may have been for naught all for the nearly benign easing on Monday night.

So our plans for Tuesday (9/29) changed. Originally I would visit with Hannah and Ali then in the early afternoon we would meet up with Lucie and have lunch downtown at a Georgian restaurant. Lucie instead hung out with Eddie at home so we got some pretty good Mexican food instead. Since I had an on-line class that night, I stopped visiting around 4 and returned to my motel.

I stayed at the Georgetown Inn which was a little strange. The virus prevented me from staying At Lucie's house about 4 blocks away.

The accommodations were pretty nice though located in the midst of where many homeless people congregate. Due to the pandemic the coffee pot and microwave were removed from the room. I would complain about these absences during normal times. They also did not provide the standard continental breakfast. We also had to request coffee from the front desk.

I didn't sleep well Tuesday night. I was haunted by the possibility that Covid was getting personal. Of all the thoughts that have been crossing my mind since the pandemic began, that getting it myself or any loved ones or their loved ones. I have no excuse for omitting this. I so sometimes find myself ironically naive. As it turned out Eddie tested negative. Not until I added this aspect of my thoughts about this incredible odd year for me and a tragic one for over 200,000 others in the US alone.

Two months later Lucie, who lives in a group home with peers actually got infected. One of the fellow housemates caught it at his job from one of his fellow workers. Fortunately Lucie only lost her sense of smell and suffered no other hardships. She also stopped being contagious after a few weeks so she is no longer bedroom bound.

I did drive back to Vancouver with some peace of mind and determined not to knowingly lapse in caution. I also get to consider the possibility that the disease could actually hit home.

On October 13 was the day that Mars was closer to earth than it has been for about 60,000 years. In 15 years it will be about this close again. On that day you will only have to travel 38.57 million miles to get there so if you did not already have tickets you'll have to pay a higher premium or wait until 2035.

Opposition

On October 26 I headed west to Astoria, one of my favorite places to visit.. I left at a gelid but sun struck 9:00 am and headed west for the coast. My plan was to go to Willapa NWR in Washington and then about 25 miles south to Astoria. That proved to be a disappointment. I had been there before but on that visit it was raining and I only stayed briefly. As it turns out I was at the headquarters for this national reserve. It was not manned in either visit. Well there is another portion of the NWR that I was unaware of at the time and learned of later. I'll have to check that out the next time I am out here.

View of Willapa Bay

I got into my room in Astoria after about 4 hours of a beautiful drive. It was pretty chilly for this late October but of course that meant little to a guy in a car. It was sunny and the drive along the Columbia River (or tributaries) on my left and the Coastal Cascades in front of me, it is an inspiring drive. Often I drove for several miles under a canopy of Douglas Firs which nearly darkened the sky. As often as I make that trip, I am never less than thrilled by the view.

I walked along the Columbia (after settling into my room) in order to see what water birds might be foraging along the shores this late afternoon. I saw nothing curious, there were a few ring bill gulls, some mallards and widgeons which are regularly seen there. The cormorants there are ubiquitous as well great blues.

Cormorants

I wanted some sea food from a place I had been to before but it was shuttered and empty. So I went a couple of blocks away to the swanky Bridgewater Bistro. It was a pretty nice place but normally out of my league. So I got some Willapa oysters to go and enjoyed them in my room.

My room about 5 blocks west of downtown Astoria was terrible. I had next door neighbors who spent the afternoon drinking while their pre-school child ran wild in the parking lot. This would be none of my business except they stood in front of my door to yell things to their child and each other. This went on until about 6:00pm when they were joined by several of their friends to continue the festivities long into the night.

At some point around midnight the partying turned into fighting which was at about the same decibel as the party but included banging on the adjacent wall while a portion of the party continued in front of their unit and mine. Finally the police came and things quieted down but by then it was around 2:00 am. In the morning the couple were still there, apparently readied to relive those glory hours of the previous day.

The room did include a bed and television but no coffee pot (listed in their advertisement), no coffee at the front desk nor even the packaged muffins that other motels offer (continental breakfasts were also offered on their web page). I understand that certain amenities need to be omitted during this pandemic but other motels leave a statement on their web pages indicating what they could not provide during these times.

In the morning I went to the front desk to discuss these problems but they were bewildered that such events as the night before could have occurred on their premises. That there were no apologies about not having coffee in the office. Rather I got shrugged shoulders and weak smiles to accompany the clerk's blaming management for any issues.

Another problem was that they offered no Wi-Fi (despite advertising its free availability). To make matters worse I could get no phone service while inside my room. I could when I was outside in front of room. It didn't kill me to forsake my e-mail for 24 hours but it was still an issue that is rarely dealt with these days.

Comically there was also no toilet paper dispenser. The roll just sat on the back of a toilet like I imagine it would be in a frat house. I checked out a day early forfeiting a days rent. I also contacted HQ with my complaints but they were ignored after they were “looked into”. I never heard back from them.

With the exception of occasional day trips and bird watching ventures, I did no other traveling during the month.

Before I moved here 3 ½ years ago I knew how winter weather would typically present itself here. To actually be here facing it is different. It is warmer here in the winter than any other place I have lived. Of course in Baltimore the coldest day of winter is notably colder than our coldest day. The warmest day is likewise much warmer than the warmest day here. There are more of those warm days too.

Growing up in Michigan, even the warmer parts of it where I lived, were much colder all together than I have found here. What we have in the PNW though, is days on end of gray clouds and rain. The average day in December is nearly identical to the average day in March. That means dark gloomy days with highs around 45 degrees. I should keep track of the days that are relatively sunny. I think of them as occurring less than once a week. That disconsolate miasma (as if there were any other sort of miasma) is even more blighted by the crescendo into the vernal solstice that leaves us on the northern side of the 45^th parallel, in middle of the night darkness at 4:30 pm. It leaves us that way until nearly 8:00 am. Well, apparently I am not keeping my own rules for winter occurred only a few hours ago and this is supposed to by my autumn entry.

It is currently easier to meld one season into another during this pandemic which our more prudent citizens are keeping partially sequestered. Every day is quite like the one before it and the succeeding one. I scan my calendar to see what I have written that might uniquely identify some action I took, first in October so I'll resort to a linear story for at least a little while.

Most everything I accounted for during October was academic. The first was a macro photography course taken using the ubiquitous “zoom” app that most of us have become familiar with. It was five weeks of learning about technological tools with some time spent on composition and technique. Since I like to photograph the act of pollination (it is reminiscent of insect porn) and plants like ferns and moss I thought I would learn something to improve those renderings and I did. The most valuable thing I discovered however, was that macro photography would not become a fascination but rather an adjunct to nature photography. I'm not longer deft enough or curious enough to put myself in the physical position that this type of photography finds they with a camera. It is also expensive and requires bringing more equipment with me than I want to.

Fern photo

I also signed up for some lectures about Mussolini whom I never knew much about (other than that he was the sort of brutish anti-intellectual with a personal agenda and thirst for power). Fortunately we in America are far too thoughtful to allow such an ascendancy to occur here. Apparently too few other potential students signed up and they canceled the class. However...there lots of worthy presentations found on zoom and cost little or nothing to attend. The Oregon State Jewish History Museum put on several and while all were interesting and well done I probably didn't come away the understanding they would have always wished. The first was a family history presented with a few photographs and mainly letters between family members who stayed behind in Nazi occupied Europe while some members wrote from Brooklyn, NY. They were fairly heart wrenching for two reasons. First, if we were to have part of our life scrutinized from written text we might be embarrassed at least since we bare aspects of our lives in private to dear ones and not air them to the public.

The second aspect was even worse because some of what they wrote about from Nazi land was simply horrific. For instance the patriarch was denied his required insulin as were all of his cohort Jews and slowly died from the diabetes that destroyed his body in what I have to imagine was as painful as anything that caused organ failure.

Another was a series of memories recorded from people in Portland's Jewish community in the early days of the city. As an outcast minority with their own preferred diets it was often that they were either purposely neglected or benignly ignored in their community. Despite their status they had good times at dances and picnics among other events. Photographs accompanied many of the recordings.

There was one presentation on “Moral Leadership” which was timely in this current time since there is a critical lack of the same. Part of this history was about the local suffragettes who 100 years ago finally got the right to vote. However it has become clear to me that within that movement there was a fear to complete voting rights for all citizens as it would lessen the strength of the female vote. To that end the utter exclusion of the rights of blacks and native Americans was prevalent and the body of power in the movement pretty much always excluded womenof color from participating. 

To plant a tree for future generations it is up to us to admit to our past. This is a lesson I have learned more clearly than ever during the last few years.

Finally there was a movie length biography of the philanthropist, JuliusRosenwald  He bought a partnership with Sears and Roebuck about 110 years ago, bought out all partners and became one of the richest men in the nation. He also was an erstwhile friend of Booker T. Washington and the benefactor of the many Rosenwald Schools for poor African Americans in the south. What was not portrayed well in the film, was that with that largess came considerable control not unlike some of the plutocrats today that use their financial state to exert considerable control over their recipients. Perhaps I am being guilty of “presentism” here. Standards of year 2020 being applied to activities of the past may be unjust and I should consider Rosenwald as being quite beneficent while a product of his times. Despite my personal notions, this was likewise a very good presentation by the Museum.

I also watched a series of three productions from Nova that dealt with making the sciences more inclusive of all races, ethnicity and gender identification. Each had a panel to present and answer questions. These forums were, like those presented by the Jewish Historical Museum were well done and quite informative.

During the fall I also virtually attended the “Science on Tap” series on “Music and the Aging Brain” presented by by a neuro-scientist and a local musician. I had been wondering about my own musical taste change during the last few years. For much of my adult life I have listened to the jazz music from about 1945-1970 nearly solely. I now find myself almost exclusively listening to classical music. The lecture didn't answer that particular question (though I never raised it) since the focus was elsewhere. At any rate I took notes like I was in college and left satisfied with what I learned.

Since this pandemic has landed me home bound, I have done a lot of these zoom productions and have not the slightest regret and will keep looking for them going forward.

On October 13^th Mars was closer to earth than any time in the last many years and the event was referred to as “The Mars Opposition of 2020”. That is good knowledge to have if any of us ever find themselves in a social situation where this information may come in handy.

Then November came as it is wont to do every autumn. Here in this country every 4 years we have November (since it is annual) and we elect or re-elect a president. The pandemic and the POTUS made this year a more memorable event. It was (and still technically is) the predictable shit show that POTUS lives in. Were it only the orange storm involved it would simply be buffoonery but his armed and bullying minions living in their own alt-world make it otherwise.

Everyone knew long before 2016 what to expect from the man who won the electoral college (via gerrymandering) using the slogan “Make America Great Again” and then did everything to undue American progress. His inane minions of course refer to themselves as “patriots”. So we have 4 years of an endeavor to make America something it never was. Patriots who want to erase the Constitution and democracy all together and nothing is putting anything back in shape. It seems that the definition of patriotism does not mean making this a better place for everyone. Rather it means that we want whatever we want now and will have a tantrum when we have to oblige anyone but ourselves. I have a year old grandson and he temporarily thinks the same way. For him it is a stage of development, one that apparently our current patriots have not moved on from.

Something else is difficult not to notice about our patriots. Typically they are white people who present as tough guys who are guided by their emotions rather than their actual lived experience (as sheltered as that usually is). They have personas not unlike the military and police leaders on popular television shows. They appear as righteous and filled with stoic rigor and yet they whine like elementary school children when they don't get their own way. Mewling about not living free from all restraints even the most meager of them, is not patriotic.

Then of course there are the patriots of the Republican party. I don't mean people with conservative opinions. The Republican party has members who perhaps are conservative but that is not what is represented by the Republican party. What it now stands for is being a party that rules at all costs. It will be interesting once Biden has his inauguration, how far distant some of the current administration will become and all for their own expediency. Marco Rubio, Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell to name a few have all shown that conservative values mean nothing. Personal integrity means nothing. Political authority means everything and their values will waft in any direction that the maintenance of power will take them.

Then of course there are the mass media propagandists who continue to use the presidency like profiteers. They are so nihilistic that it is hard to believe they have any philosophy other than being on public display often and loudly. They probably do not believe what they say any more than Republican politicians do.

The other news of November 2020 is that the virus is running out of control and too many people have delusional ideas about how it works. So not wearing masks or socially distancing is de rigeur. A vaccine is now in the early days of dispersal and there are those who will not get it (the vaccine that is, they are far more apt to get the disease). So we will probably stay in a form of lock down until the number of sick people drops to some metric agreed on by medical people. Hopefully the new administration can make scientific ideas part of their policy making rather than the magical thinking that is as pandemic in the white house as the corona virus is.

I suppose other things have happened during November. On the 25^th I know that Baltimore saw its 300^th murder which has long been the norm rather than the outlier it was when I moved there in 1981.

Thanksgiving came and while I had to do it alone, I still put some tradition into it. I watched the Lions (at 9:00 am Pacific Time) lose and look pitiful. I roasted a turkey (breast), mashed potatoes and made a scratch version of green bean casserole.

Turkey Dinner

Even though December is only 3 weeks old I cannot hardly remember what I have done this month. Some of the zoom experiences I described above actually occurred in December. I look over my calendar and have close to zero entries. I must have spent the month doing the same thing every day which is pretty much exactly what I did.

I've always liked to read but in 2020 I probably trebled my share of books. Many of them were older paperbacks that I picked up at the local library's used book store. As a result of reading so many of them my book shelves are close to barren save for reference books and field guides. Normally I read these books and give them back to the library so they can sell them again. I miss having access to the library more than nearly everything else. It is where I read periodicals rather than subscribing to them. But...as the virus lock down continued, I had to finally subscribe to one of my favorites at the library. It could be worse.

During December the first vaccine became available and a few days ago a second one. The Federal government said they would send supplies of the vaccine (based on population sizes) to every state. As the executive branch is wont to do those promised dosages have not been forthcoming. The head of that branch is far to busy working on his own personal and typically vain, pursuits so continuing to govern during the transition is not in his wheel house. Apparently America has been made great again.

So that is the seasons story here at 185 feet above seal level (as I learned this morning).

A Bleak Summer, 2020

 Summer 2020

I welcomed summer because I always have. Spring was pretty mild with more nice days than otherwise. Early summer was cool and rainy. I had to go out on July 5^th in mid morning and it required a light jacket...JULY 5!! Anyway by August it was hot and dry every day for weeks on end. I like the heat and sunny days but we really did not need that many of them consecutively Yet we got them.

After 3 months of Covid 19 lock down something of a malaise began to set in. Nearly everyone has developed a helpless sort of ennui largely inspired by the nation's either inability to stop the spread of this virus or an active effort from the White House to thwart any genuine progress. We are all together, a nation of dunces and the progress against Covid 19 is a shining example. Too often we are very proud of our stupidity and actively energize poor decisions.

I didn't do much during the season. This was partly caused by that torpor cited above. The heat of the summer was higher than the average (at least during this my 4^th summer out here). Yet I did do some things and I'll highlight the most eventful of them now.

Day Trips

Since the quarantine established 6 months ago, restaurants and bars are either closed or limited in the number of customers they could serve. Many also have plastic partitions so that customers are not exposed to the peers there, who are not sitting with them. It is all quite a drag but its better to comply for the best of all than to defy for some odd and hard to define principle called “personal freedom”. We are not free unless everyone is but such a statement will have deaf ears turned upon it by these freedom lovers.

So as a result I have made no over night trips. Everything was a day trip and included a trip up to Woodland about 15 miles from here so that I could see the memorial to the Finnish Hall there. About 100 years ago the coast had a large number of Finnish immigrants who labored in the lumber and mining industries. They built buildings to house civic and social activities. They also were meeting houses for radicalized laborers many of whom were associated with the International Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies. These halls were built in many of the towns from the Olympic Peninsula to at least Coos Bay, maybe further south. I've seen the one that still exists in Astoria as it is nearly across the street from the motel that I stay at. It is now a social center at least.

Astoria's Finnish Hall

What remains of Woodland's is a memorial plaque that ignores the labor radicalism that served its purpose way back when. It is an example of revisionist history that continually makes America's “good old days”, a prominent subject.

Woodland's Revised Story

One day I drove about 25 miles west nearly to Stevens, WA in order to check out a site that I have passed many times called Cape Horn. It overlooks a valley near the Columbia. The parking area is pretty narrow and near a bend in the road making me fearful of a speeding car careening around the corner and into us few photographers and fortunately that did not happen.

View from Cape Horn

Another day I went to Multnomah Falls where I had been last winter. On the initial trip I had forgotten my camera but not my phone so I got mediocre photos. This second trip I remembered to bring a camera but went at the wrong time of day. It was a beautiful, cloudless day but the sun was resting at a cliff just above the falls themselves and so my photos were largely bleached out. I'll go back on a sunny day later in the fall and try again.

Summer Version of Multnomah Falls

July 4^th was the Aphelion 

Due to the September air quality, a result of the many forest fires raging nearby I was not able to make a trip up to Seattle to see my daughters and grandson Ali. I had rented a motel room so that neither of the girls had to put me up which was the norm. I last saw Ali when he was about 12 weeks old but he is now 10 months old and has developed a personality. 

Now the plan is to visit next week.

Ali

In addition to the smoky thickness that has oppressed us for the last 12 days (it appears to be over as of 9/19) many businesses have not operated including the trash removal so in addition to everything else we have flies. I have not seen rats here but if this lasts much longer there will be.

September 19

 

On line seminars

Over the years I have joined on line sites to view or listen to seminars or talks. Today it is nearly a necessity since crowds of any size cannot legally (or sensibly) gather. So I have been joining more of these than normal. Some I have had only a whimsical curiosity about. As it turned out all but one was pretty informative.

On July 18 I saw one on Quantum Consciousness. It was bad for too many reasons but mainly it was an appropriation of two words that generally mean something quite different than the purveyors of this video meant, than to me. Quantum is a specific term applied to the sub microscopic world of quarks and muons. Consciousness is our awareness of ourselves at the present. In the case of this on line session, quantum meant something impossible to fathom. Consciousness meant some vague notion of our place in the world. It was far too new age for my interest.

On July 23^rd I saw a seminar on the Science of Emotions. Emotions have always been a difficult thing for me. My greatest errors in life have been made because I acted out of an emotional state. To the best of my ability I keep emotions at bay as a result. I heed the advice of Spinoza on this. We all have emotions but we need to check them when we have imagined such things as our 2^nd Amendment rights being stripped by what ever politician we are against or when we demonstrate at state capitals armed and with imaginary knowledge of the US Constitution which we have never read and only allow for our demigods to interpret for us (they probably haven't read the Constitution either).

Anyway...politics aside, I learned that there are survival mechanisms that require our emotions to step in and give us some direction. At least as long as they need to. I learned much more but that was because the seminar was presented by a genuine scientist using data to make her case.

Then there was one done by a reporter who has been studying conspiracy theories. These abound currently where our more truculent but less sage fellow citizens and some of their leaders propound. I did not learn much as this is a topic I have read much about during the last 30 years. It was still quite good and some of the audience questions were thought provoking. A new conspiracy for me, living in the middle of forest fires and with a smoky shroud blotting the sun are in the middle of now. That is that bands of left wing anarchists are actually going about setting these fires or impeding resolutions. I have not heard about this one from POTUS yet but it undoubtedly will be suggested soon.

Finally I watched one about diversifying various intellectual or liberal political organizations. Its true that while these sort of groups (which I am a proud member of several) talk a good game, we tend to be Caucasians with education. The main lessons that I left with were that we should be advertising in some way, to racial and cultural groups other than the ones we currently are in. We should assume nothing about visitors and new members-let them each tell their own story.

Spiders

I have no particular fear of spiders. Back in Baltimore I used to study the spiders in my basement. I wrote about this a few years ago when I noticed that I had the perfect setting for sort of a spider laboratory where I could view their web making or in the case of jumping spider, how they would wait patiently and then pounce on the prey that never saw it coming. Actually they usually had some sense of it because it would take about 3 attempts before success.

While I enjoy observing them and things like some of the beautiful orb webs they create-especially when they get dewy as dawn approaches. That being said I do not want a spider walking on my face. When that occurs I move quickly to resolve it. When one is on my pants I just flick it off.

Late summer in the PNW means that many species will be looking to get into warmer and drier homes. Who can blame them? They come into mine through a variety of means. Maybe one attaches itself to my shoe and strolls in with me. Others scurry quickly and unseen in the brief interlude occurring between the time I open the door until the time I close it. I think this is especially so when I am preparing food on my deck. I go in and out a lot and the door is open longer as I carry food out (raw) and in (cooked). There is also a small gap in the window screen in my bedroom that could give them access.

When I find them I catch them. Using a clear tumbler I enclose the spider who, sluggish in escape becomes enlivened by their new prison. They can see out but they can do nothing about it. I then slide something like an index card between them and the glass and put it on a convenient table top for some observation.

While looking at a spider from three or more feet distance generally shows a spider of one color and it is pretty uniform at that. Taking the time to examine an enclosed spider (when it has calmed down) one will see sometimes many colors not unlike the sharkskin material that were popular for men's suits 50 years ago. They also have markings that can readily be seen if the viewer examines them more closely. It rarely occurs that they die while in this short period between capture and release outdoors. When they do I like to look at them under a microscope. That sort of scrutiny reveals much more in terms of coloring and marking.

One predawn morning in late August while making my nightly bathroom return I spotted a very large spider in my bathtub. I had the wherewithal to grab a glass for the first part of the experiment, finished my original business and went back to bed. When I awoke for the day I took a look to see how my hostage was faring. It was dormant even as the light went on but as I knelt down for a closer look it became frenetic and literally climbed the walls.

I left it be for several hours while I did all of the things necessary for morning homeostasis. Around two in the afternoon I determined that the experiment was over and slid some stiff paper under the glass, lifted the package out of the tub and out to a brick wall in front of my apartment. I took a camera with me.

The spider which in the meantime I found is called a Giant House Spider-perhaps a mundane moniker but certainly a terse and pithy name. When I released the spider it immediately darted and headed a few inches down the wall which made it easy to get a photo. After a few minutes of pretty intense sun it crawled under a ledge and made itself as small as possible. I checked on it several times. If I did not already know it was the under the ledge, I never would have seen it. I did know however and spotted the crouched spider several more times. In the morning it was gone. Maybe it found itself back into someone's apartment. Maybe it was my own.

I'm glad I spotted the spider in the convenient way that I have just described. This would be an entirely different story if I had ventured into the bathroom and saw the same spider next to my nose.

                With a circumference of about 3.5 inches it merits name of Giant House spider

Free at last

Labor day 

September 7^th , was quite uneventful as far as these sort of holidays go. Children will not return to school shortly afterwards and no one goes to a sporting event. However I still barbecue. The apartment complex I live in has outlawed grills so I now smoke meats and vegetables. This year it was a slab of St. Louis style ribs, some sausages, an onion and some garlic. That was all well and good.

High winds began in the early afternoon. The skies grew increasingly overcast. It was not from normal clouds that might produce rain (which we have not seen for many weeks). We would not see rain that day either because these were not normal clouds.

This time of year there are forest fires nearby. In 2017 they were quite close but mainly on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. One day that year we had a rain of ash that covered everything with about a tenth of an inch of soot. Of course the smell of burning wood was prevalent everywhere. I understand that dense fires such as these create their own weather which makes them more difficult to fight. That includes high winds.

So this year we had mighty and destructive winds beginning on Monday afternoon and lasting for about 48 hours. They dumped a pile of leafy detritus at my door step but more importantly over Monday night all of my porch garden plants were unceremoniously dumped head first onto my porch floor.

Porch Garden before the winds

I don't know why but I did not take an “after” photo before spending a significant amount of time cleaning up the mess.

As it turned out, most of my garden was an utter failure anyway. With the exception of the herbs-basil and oregano, each plant had a dismal death to accompany its rather distressed life. I had about 5 mealy tomatoes to account for from three plants. I also reaped about 10 small jalapenos most all of which I incorporated into a batch of tamales I made for a planned but uncompleted trip to Seattle.

Then came the smoke. Fires are raging all around us and some sort of low pressure event coupled with the smoke from these fires, have provided us with low hanging clouds and a reddish color fog. During the first couple of days the sun could still be seen but through the filter of this pollution. It appeared as an eerie neon pink orb. The last few days we haven't even see that ball in the sky at all for the dense smoke.

Unfortunately I lack the filter that would let the photograph show the pink sun

3:30 pm September 12^th

Life Bird Sighting

Bird watchers refer to the event when one sees a bird species for the first time as seeing a “Life Bird”. I don't know where the awkward phrase came from but is entrenched in that vernacular. I have seen several of these since I moved out west and that is mainly due to some different species this side of the Mississippi or the Rockies.

However the elusive American Bittern finds itself on both coasts. No one else finds it however. They are particularly shy and excellent at hiding in reeds. I have been in their midst sometimes for a considerable period. I could hear them but could not see them.

The other day I went to my favorite nearby park called Salmon Creek mostly to see what sort of ducks might be there in September. Out the corner of my eye I could see something of a lump on the edge of a fallen limb over a pond. I was busy photographing other birds from this little hidden niche. Finally I focused my camera on that lump and saw it was a bird. By its posture I thought it was a green heron. Well American bitterns pose in the same way as they survey the waters for the fish they prey on.

It was pretty far away and even with a 300mm lens could not get a perfect image. I got a little closer and spooked the bittern into flying a short distance away. I went around to where I could see it again and this time it was back lit so I just observed it to the best of my ability. It fed many times which is always fun to watch.

From the west

From the east

I spent 10 hours getting Vestibular Therapy. Sounds like some new age idea doesn't it? For the last few years I've had an increasingly difficult time with my balance. I had about 10 different tests to discern the root of the problem. Obviously that was in order to resolve it. Finally I got referred me to an ENT who referred me to an audiologist. I went there for some tests and she determined that the problem was in the vestibular canal in my right ear. Then I went to a therapist who also put me through a test and saw that I could only perform at 35% of the norm.

So she put me through a series of exercises to improve my balance. Initially they were easy so my homework every week was to do the exercises that got more difficult each week. Initially the sessions seemed to increase the number of days with vertigo but suddenly those days disappeared and I haven't had a single episode in about 2 months now. I still do the exercises but now once a day instead of the 3 time a day regiment I was on.

I was enthused by the actual diagnosis because it was new, provided tangible evidence and simply made sense to me. I was less enthused as I faced the therapy because it is my nature to be pessimistic about things working. I expect more failures and that is not the trait of mine that makes me the proudest. However my pessimism waned to the point of non existence a few sessions in. Now I can finally take up skate board hot dogging.

The many local fires ruined summer's end. Labor Day was pleasant but as already mentioned, came with afternoon winds and a cloud of smoke that has lasted for a week now. What began in a nearly hopeless national sense ends with yet an increasingly bleak season on its way. There is no reason to feel heartened except that maybe at the very mid point of the autumn we will have a new administration for the winter and maybe something to look forward to come 2021.

I do worry that it will not be the peaceful transfer of power (if in fact a new president is in the cards) that our mythic history and civics classes suggest.

So during the summer of 2020 in my northwestern neck of the woods we had 13 days that reached 90 degrees and two that hit 100. No fall looms so we are not apt to see any more days with that sort of heat. We are apt to be doing pretty much the same as we are doing now though.