Grey Cocooning

The sun is out for the moment, and I'm taking the opportunity to work outside while I can.

The last few days have been wearing--it's been very, very grey.  I don't mind the rain so much, but the grey, sunless skies add to the smothering sense of endless, identical quarantine days piled on top of each other.  Being unable to switch from working remotely on The Day Jobbe to a different hardware setup has made it difficult to write, and I find that my bedroom office furniture makes me sore after a few hours.  I never realized how comfortable and supportive my campus office chair was.

Also, when it's wet out, I can't sit outside with the laptop and write at Café John (as I am now).   I'm  less likely to physically leave the house, which, I've discovered, is problematic.  It was bad enough the other day that I was seriously contemplating which was worse:  staring into the void and having it stare back, or staring into the void and not caring if it stared back.

Mercury and Venus are within about a degree apart from each other in the sky.  I'm hoping to get a photograph of the event, but it's looking like the clouds are going to interfere.  The outlook is better for a few days later, when the new crescent Moon shows up in the evening sky next too them.  In lieu of astronomy photos, here's some flowers from various local yards.

Animals and Everything

Week four? of Shelter in Place.  We continue to work and study from home.    I drive the car some place once a week just to keep it moving.  We walk place or hang out outside when it's nice.   What I do notice when I drive, is that traffic is very light, but that there's two or three instances of loopiness from other drivers making interesting choices or random pedestrians crossing the street in random fashions.

Stuck my head out of the window this morning (Wednesday), thinking that I might see the Lyrid meteors, but it was raining.  The last few days have started out overcast, but have cleared by mid-afternoon.  The snow

Some time in the night, a bag of dog treats had spilled -- I suspect a midnight snack raid -- and there was about 2/3rds of a cup of treats on the kitchen floor.  If I had been more properly awake, I would have swept them up -- but the dog was happily hoovering them up.  Later, it crossed my mind that maybe the kibble wasn't proper dog food.

On the Writing Front:  did a final pass on a 6900 word story by having the computer read it back to me.  I've been polishing for a while, so the process caught only a few odd places where there was a missing "the" or some other word-o.

I should put more stories into the mail.  One of the last items, which I thought had been in the slush for 90 days, apparently had been rejected after 5 days and the reply was stuck in my spam filter or something.

On the Gym Front:  Did my Power Walk, only without music this time.  On the plus side, the music keeps my tempo up; on the minus (?) side, having the soundtrack makes me pay attention to the surroundings differently.  I am unsure if having the soundtrack makes me more engaged with the neighborhoods I walk through (because I'm compensating for not hearing soft sounds) or if the soundtrack engages the woolgathering part of my mind that pulls me out of the world when I walk.  Came home and did some free weight work; looped an elastic loop over a cherry tree branch and did some cable pull-downs.

On the dream front:  I haven't exactly been having the intense dreams that some folks have been having because of COVID19 lockdowns.  I did have an intricate "back at Reed, failing Physics, freshly-discovered missing attendance" anxiety dream, which I'm going to attribute to an unsettled stomach this morning.  I had an intense advising meeting with Del Rhodes--who in real life was the head of the Psychology Department, but in the dream was a perky Physics Professor.   I can't recall the conversation verbatim, but she said something ambiguous, which I took the wrong way, and replied with a pointed remark, but after some back-and-forth, we ended up on the same academic plan.

On the animal front:  Aoife and Smokey just now had a nose-to-nose meeting.  Smokey was in the windowsill.  There was no growling, barking, howling, snapping, or claw swiping.  Mark says Cicero made some kind of wailing noise from outside the window (which I think I heard from the next room) along the lines of "Oh, Smokey! You're gonna die!"   There's apparently a second meeting going on in the Cat Sanctuary, so I better go see what's going on.

Moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter

This morning at 5:20 I managed to pull myself out of bed and photograph the morning sky.  The Moon, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter were lined up east to west.  At first I wasn't going to.  I really would have preferred to photograph the morning before, when the moon would have been about thirteen degrees to the west, underneath Saturn, and I could have composed a picture about a quarter of the size (and with greater resolution).  And I would have, if yesterday morning hadn't been completely overcast (the day before had been clear!).  But, this morning, the planets shone bright.

I trooped out in my slippers and PJ's and set up the tripod on the other side of the street.  I supposed I must look like Arthur Dent, the kids from Narnia, or possibly an absent-minded professor.    Smokey and Cicero joined me -- between the advent of the dog and the clear weather, they've been spending a lot of time out of the house.  I think they weren't expecting food.

Yesterday I did some marketing and got discouraged over one very short story that hasn't found a home; it's been through the usual professional markets, none of the semi-pro markets seem right for it (wrong theme or they only want reprints or they're closed), and I found myself thinking about self-publishing it..... and on one hand it seems like a cop-out, and on the other hand I'd have to call myself "Fit-Of-Pique Publishing," and on another hand do I really want to put stories out there that might not have been picked up for a reason (although I suppose I could call myself "Glowing Rejection Press")?

On the gym front, I did my power-walk Wednesday evening...and I'm wondering if I might try the jogging path again to see if my knee joints have beefed up enough to not bother me jogging.  The power-walks are fun and all, but I feel like I'm not getting enough of a workout.

Sheltering in place is going well all things considered, but it is wearing on my nerves.  We're very lucky: no one in the house is sick, we are able to work remotely, on nice days we can escape to the backyard, and so far our immediate families are healthy.   Occasionally the cabin fever does strike me and I have to resist the shriek trying to climb up my throat and the urge to run berserk into the street.  As soon as it's safe to do so -- which probably means next October -- I want to dance in a drum circle or go clubbing or something.

Blurry Days and Animals

Isolating in place at home and working remotely has made the weekdays blur together.  It's an odd feeling working with less physical boundaries between work lives, home lives, and family lives.  I'm getting a touch of cabin fever, the treatment for which is physically leaving the house for a power walk or to get food.  Mark is working from home (most days), as am I.  The Child is attending his classes remotely.  Mostly,  we're managing to give each other enough space.

On the dog front, the cats have moved from fear and grief to anger.   Okay, and a little indifference.  Mostly.  Smokey was going to do something about That New Creature the other day when Aoife came into the bedroom while Smokey was on my lap, but I was able to negotiate a peaceful retreat with the use of a blanket.

I connected with a FaceBook group that watches a local pair of bald eagles (and their arch-enemies, the ospreys).  There's a nest that's visible (at least until the leaves come in) from a local Willamette River path, so I fled the house with my camera and managed to get a photograph or two -- mostly of eagle beak.  It's not quite as concentrated bird as The Raptor Center, but at least it's open.

On the writing front:  staying home means I'm actually at home before 1:30, so I've had lunch and I'm actually writing by 2.  Some friends have started up writing groups in Zoom, which seems to work as far as motivation.

On the gym front:  well... I've been doing power walks, so that's better than nothing.  Aoife makes doing mat exercises difficult.

Cats, Dogs, and Quarantine

Day something of self-isolation with the family.  We're doing fairly well, also I am a little stir-crazy.  I would very much like to go to a dance party right now.  Last weekend the sunlight made being in the back yard pleasant.   However, starting last Tuesday, the weather has been cold, wet, and overcast.  We need the rain, but I could do without sunless skies (and more rainbows).   I was also disappointed that the clouds hid a conjunction of The Moon and The Pleiades on Friday (and Thursday and Saturday) night.

Aoife, the new puppy, has settled into the house.  So far we've pretty much established that she's a stick dog, she's a car-ride dog, and she's a frisbee dog.  She loves us, and once social distancing isn't such a big deal, we'll work on socializing her.

The cats are still annoyed.  We've established our bedroom as the cat sanctuary, and Mark occasionally opens the door and stands with the dog while the cats furtively eat their meals.   Mark usually times some long-ish dog walks around meal times so the cats can come out of our bedroom to skulk and sniff.  The down side of all this is that that cats frequently want to leave the room at 3:30 AM and wake us to open a window.   If we're not stealthy enough, the dog hears us rustling around and wants to be let out of her crate in The Child's room.

It's slowly paying off.  The cat's aren't in a complete panic when they see the dog.  Aoife has always been mildly curious in a "let's play" kind of way about them, but is otherwise uninterested in the cats... unless she thinks they are intruders on the front porch, in which case they get an "intruder alert!" bark through the front window.   Smokey ventured out, took a strategic position on the table, glared with Great Glaring, then forgot that Aoife had fallen asleep on the couch while Mark and I were watching a Wooster and Jeeves movie.  I didn't see Smokey's face when Mark stopped him from jumping onto his lap -- which coincided with Smokey realizing that the brindled pillow was Actually A Sleeping Brindled Dog! -- but Mark said it was priceless.  Mark was also thankful he had avoided getting his lap shredded to ribbons.

Staying At Home With Cats and a Dog

Today is overcast and damp.  I had hoped that I might be able to write outside, but that's not going to happen--even with a deck umbrella.  Kate Brown, the Governor of Oregon, has issued executive order 20-12, which translates to Lockdown-Not-Quite-So-Lite-This-Time.  Still, pretty much everyone is being strongly encouraged to stay at home and not go anywhere if they can help it.

We're going on Day Three with a New Puppy Bull-Terrier Mix.   The cats have moved from full panicked “Oh My God, it’s a dog! Stand you ground! No—puff out to twice size! No—I’m outta here!!” to Irritated Bushiness (Cicero looks like a stereotypical Black Halloween Cat) and a low growled battle song (the lyrics of which are “When the Foeman bares his steel (ta-ra-tara ta-ra tara) We uncomfortable feel...").   Our bedroom is the Cat Sanctuary, and they've taken to fleeing the house through one of the windows.   Even Spencer, Cicero's brother, is on high alert, and performed his signature bound over the chainlink fence when I came out with Dog Smell on my Hands.  

Aoife pretty much wants to play with the cats.  She pretty much wants to play with other dogs.  She loves us, and is a leaner.  She's not quite so sure about other people, although she threw doggy heart looks at some guy in a Toyota muscle car and booming hip-hop (he actually pulled over, got out of his car, and said hello).   She has figured out the home is The Den That Must Be Protected, so there's some barking at the mailman.  When Mark commented on how cliché it was, I responded that Cliché would be a great dog name.  

In other animal-conflict news, there's a hawk or other raptor that's been hanging about and getting mobbed by the local corvids.  Just now as I was writing this, I saw a smallish--maybe a red-tailed hawk--be forced to land in a tree across the street by two crows.  I was too slow with my camera to get any photographs... although I did get a woodpecker in the same branches about fifteen minutes later.

 

COVID19 and Working Out

Saturday morning.  Oregon is on lock-down-lite for COVID19; Governor Kate Brown is telling Oregonians to "stay home, stay healthy" -- meaning, don't leave your house unless you need to go to work, walk the dog, or get groceries.   Going on solitary hikes is okay.   We're lucky that we have a back yard we can escape to -- this morning the sun is shining, the sun on the dew on the grass has turned the lawn into glittering pave, and it feels like it's 60 degrees.

On the gym front... I haven't gone to the gym for about two weeks.  Yesterday I tried jogging around Amazon Park in lieu of using gym elliptical machines.  The idea was that I'd do two laps or at least five songs on the gym music list.  Alas, about a song or two into the session, my right knee started doing something odd along the inside; I'm guessing it doesn't like the pounding along the sawdust trails.  I slowed to a brisk walk and then sped up again.  And then walked again.  And then a fine, fit, jogger dude came the other way and I had to speed up because one always wants to look one's best for the fine, fit, (sweaty) jogger dudes and not like some limping fifty-something gym refugee.

Then I went home and did a cobbled-together workout routine.  Since there's been a run on free weights (and RollerBlades!) at the local Sports Equipment Store, I only have a pair of 8 pound dumbbells -- but I made do.  Okay, I did get a resistance band to mix things up.  Luckily, a bunch of exercises from the Aerobic Routine don't require weights.  There's a plethora of "so you're stuck in your home" gym routine tutorials on the 'Net, so I think I'll be fine.

Isolating Raptors, Corvids, and Ducks

The Cascades Raptor Center will be closing as a coronavirus safety measure.  This is a good thing--my sense was that it was the last place families could visit, which made social distancing difficult--but it also means not being able to go and photograph or sketch the residents, which is relaxing.

I guess I'll have to get my photographing birds fix by photographing herons Delta Ponds, or photographing the neighborhood corvids.

Slightly related, the University of Oregon announced that their Spring Term Courses are all going to be full remote.  This is going to make things quiet on campus... and I imagine it will feel like Summer Term, only cooler and wetter... this is, of course, assuming that the campus will be open (currently, only students, faculty and staff are supposed to be there) and Eugene or Lane County isn't on some sort of lock-down (entirely possible if we're following Italy's trajectory).

I'm not sure how much work from home I'll end up doing--I currently share my office with various bits of technology, so it's less likely that co-workers would breathe on me.  I will certainly be using more remote support tools.