A truly lovely evening.

SUMMARY: Good thing it was a good *#&;%^@# evening otherwise--

Backfill: From Facebook June 25. Trying to ease my mind of Chip's absence. Posted here July 2.

It was a really lovely evening. Zorro and I drove up to Milpitas to walk with my sister and her dog Abby, and they mostly ignored each other which was wayyyyy better than my concerns.

Temperature was great for strolling and looking at the hills. Saw a little smoke but didn't seem to be up in the hills, so that was good.

Found a beautiful piece of fractured glass.

Sister and her husband barbecued dinner and brought it down to my place and we had a lovely picnic on my patio, with a gorgeous sunset to top it off. (We have all been almost exclusively at home, very cautious when shopping, and have no symptoms...)

Oh, and then I remembered that I found a package on my front porch when I got home, so I took it out to the picnic and opened it and discovered that we could have a huge box of See's chocolates for dessert, thanks to another sister thinking of me and Chip. All together delightful.

Mostly. Just that one little thing...

Nice walk in Milpitas.

A little smoke in the hills but didn't see where it was coming from. Hope it was minor.

*#%&@&$@ 🤬

A beautiful piece of distressed glass!

Picnic in my back yard! Thanks to Chef Paul and my seester!

A surprise on my front porch in a big package marked
 "Perishable". Thanks, sister Ann!
Oh, my, I'll have to do a lot more walks now!

I didn't know who had sent it when I opened the box.
Didn't find out until a bit later.
Heartfelt message and I will certainly enjoy.

Picnic on my patio, with Zorro keeping us honest, and a lovely pink sunset.
(Well, it was pink in real life... I'll have to play with the editing sometime. Maybe.)

This is the World In Which We Live Now

SUMMARY: COVID-19? Normal reality? Somewhere in between?

Just a day in the life of... during lockdown... Monday, April 6, 2020

UPDATES APRIL 9, 11:30AM PDT: Added a bit more to the puzzle-doing and a related photo.

• 2 AM -- Poof! Awake! Why why why?  Don't need to visit the Little Human Mom's Room. No extraneous noises that I can  hear. Suddenly the sheets are scratchy, the pillow is lumpy. My shoulder hurts when I roll over. I roll back.
  
  This is not abnormal for me. I wish it were. Should not have stayed awake past 11, reading the Captive Prince books for the 3rd time in 3 weeks, where I dozed off twice with the Kindle and light still on, then slept for real--for a little while. Until 2.

• 7 AM -- Oh! Apparently sleep returned at some point! But NOW why awake?  I feel a little chilly: Darn it, electric mattress pad turned off at some point.
  
  It's nice that it does that after a certain number of hours, because I'd prefer that neither it nor my bedroom furniture catch fire. BUT if I turn it on early to prewarm my flannel-clad bed, then if I forget to reset it when I snuggle into bed, this happens sometime during the night or early morning.   No choice now: I rise and release the boys from their crates.

• 7:15ish -- Neither dog dashed downstairs immediately; instead, THEY are now  curled up on my body-warmed section of bedding. THEY don't care that it's Monday. So I have made my daily weigh-in and recorded it in my FitBit, chosen clothing (turtleneck and  warm fleece. And jeans, because always jeans), dressed, and taken care of The Usual Related Activities.

• 7:30ish -- Down to the kitchen, open the door to the back porch for the dogs. Gray skies and rain. I remind Zorro that he needs to get off the porch to Go Pee. Chip is self-monitored
  
• (Except yesterday afternoon when I heard this weird noise like Chip chewing softly on something unusual. Dashed around the corner of my desk and somedog had marked one of the cardboard boxes sitting there with Things To Do in it.  I still don't know for sure who it was  who Done the Deed, because he licks to clean it up so I have no way of knowing who left it there to be cleaned up, and I never catch either of them actually Doing It, and so I don't know whether I heard him peeing or licking. So there was some time mopping the carpet and box, applying Nature's Miracle, and so on. )
  
• Put the doggie door in: The door is clean and dry, unlike yesterday morning when it was covered with rainwater, on both sides, go figure, as it's resting closer to horizontal than vertical, but it gave me an excuse to clean the glass then.
  
• Stride confidently but carefully on my new-ish knee to the driveway in the rain to fetch the daily paper. 

• I always wonder--it's covered in plastic, which supposedly can hold COVID virus for up to 3 days, and moisture and chill encourage it, so how much decontamination must I do on the bag if it has been sitting in the rain for probably 3 hours?  This is the world in which we live now.

•  7:45ish -- What for breakfast? The Chef personally selects a prime cut of whole wheat sourdough from her personal freezer, places it into the high-tech defrosting/warming/browning device (yes! all in one device!), carefully spreads choice fruit puree from the cooling box, and pours a chilled glass of milk from only Happy Cows in California. Served at a private table. And A Baby's Arm Holding an Apple. Or, actually, only the apple.
  
  Eat breakfast, read some of the paper, start scrolling through Facebook on my Portable Time-Wasting Device, catch myself after not too long, and set it down.

• 8:30ish -- I have a 9:15 phone meeting w/client manager; I've been anticipating for the last couple of weeks that, despite earlier reassurances about renewing me, they don't have the work for me that they thought they did. So, anyway, for the client: download, read, and distribute emails or respond to them, check Slack for everyone's work statuses on the teams there, do a wee bit of work.

• 9:15 -- Meeting. Yep. 2 week's notice that contract is ending. One manager thinks there might be work there somewhere else, but nothing so far. My company is also looking for something for me. I REALLY wouldn't mind a couple of weeks off, even if it's unpaid.  But I also really need the income. With my company and my position, this is complicated. Might address in another post.

• With the current employment environment--higher than during the Great Depression in some places, and unemployment organization overwhelmed with applications, no idea whether a job exists anywhere for me.  This is the world in which we live now. 

• 9:25-11: Read client team's agenda for 11:00 meeting, more email, phone call, start this blog post, I dunno, work & leisure intertwined.

• 11:00-11:35 -- WebEx team video meeting. Status, what we're working on, what our plans are, and so on. Actually well organized and efficient, with 2 or 3 instances where some funny comment got us all laughing. Important in these not-really-end times.

• 11:10 -- OMD forgot to feed the dogs around 10! Chip gives me a gentle nudge, I pet him for a bit while continuing in the meeting.

• 11:35 to 1:15 -- Who the heck knows? Chat w/some people at client or at my company via Slack or email.  Feed the poor patient dogs.

• Start reviewing a website with a free How To Become An API Writer course, in writing, not dumb videos, which is exactly the kind of document that I wanted to write for my last project for the client but it turned into something else. This is billable in some form or other, because that's what I'm working on for the client AND for my company.
  
  Glad that I pointed it out to my client's writing team, because there are a couple of experienced writers who don't know the first thing about APIs or programming or documentation for such, and w/out my specifically suggesting it to them, they've already started working their way through it. I expect that they and my client will be enriched by it. So, I'm not the one who wrote it, but I am the one who typed the  link to it (big win for me! Yay! Gold star! Not real gold, though--).

• My mail-order fudge arrived! As did a mail order prescription in a plastic bag. 

• Mailman delivered to my front porch barehanded (well, gloves wouldn't have mattered), but did he disinfect his hands before handling it here or at the PO? Fudge is in a cardboard box, and I have my little spray bottle of alcohol ready; spray the whole  thing down, cardboard as well as the plastic tape holding it closed, because cardboard can hold the virus for possibly 3 hours or longer.   This is the world in which we live now. 

• Had lunch. Half can of spicy bean soup, hot for a cold wet day, combined with a big mug of hot chocolate. Hit the appropriate spot. Down side: Now I want a nap.
• 
  
• 1:15 -- Fudge package has been sitting now for about an hour and alcohol has dried.  I extract my 4 containers with different flavors of fudge (these folks do a PHENOMENAL job!). My order included a free flavor-of-the month, peanut butter banana, which I'd have never chosen on  my own, so I pull it out for a taste test... quarter of a pound later, yep, it's as phenomenal as all the other flavors! Shouldn't be reading paper & eating fudge at the same time.
  
  
• 1:31 -- Call vet to give him status of the lump on Chip's shoulder from a week ago. Looking good to me (so far diagnosis is simply a fluid-filled bruise, which he aspirated, tested blood & checked for cancer indications, and it all looks fine).

• 1:32 -- Bring this blog up to this hour.
  
  
• 1:45 -- OMG I really need a nap. Guess I'd better let work know that I'm taking another break. The day is gray and rainy; I try to survive by turning on every light in sight, but it's just not working for me today. 

• thru 4:00 -- oops, lost track of my time, so the rest of the day  is rough guesses. In bed, reading some, napping some, occasionally getting checked by the dogs, which wakes me some each time. Still, it's relaxing. I know that I'm really ready for sleep when I slip under the covers, put my head down, and everything immediately seems perfectly comfortable and safely enclosing.
  
  Fitbit tells me afterwards that I slept 1 hr 41 mins during that time, which is great, because last night I slept less than 5 hours.

• Thru 10:00 PM -- Some things that happened--
• I thought the yard guy wasn't going to be coming during the COVID lockdown after I paid him through May and said he should stay home if he felt more comfortable doing that; he skipped 2 weeks but showed up today with one or 2 assistants. So, while he was working out front, I went out back and started scooping poops. Seems like only a day or 2since I was out there, BUT there were little deposits everywhere! So my time sense was failing me again. It has been raining for a couple of days, so most of them were wet and heavy and partially melted into the grass, so it took a while. (I know you wanted to know all this.)  Finished just as he came through the gate. 

• We said hi, how are you, I'm good, from across the yard, and I went back inside. This is the world in which we live now.\

• After he left, I decided to go for a walk. (Walked yesterday in the rain with my brolly and barely a soul to be seen.)  Rain stopped much earlier, and things had started to dry out. It's about 6:30 and joggers are everywhere! My side of the street, the other side of the street, the middle of the street--   and I start wondering: 

• If  virus is detectable for up to three hours in aerosols (exhales), then is it safe for me to walk back to the house at all? Well, I'm not going to wait 3 hours, and anyway more people would be coming-- and there is a slight breeze for dispersal. So I go back home, a shorter walk than planned.  This is the world in which we live now.

• I did take a few photos while out. Posted a couple on Facebook. Probably spent a bunch of time on Facebook, too. 

• Ate more fudge. Way more fudge. It is really really really good, and so smooth! Until very recent years, I could eat sugar with impunity--that is, with no detectable symptoms--but in the last, I dunno, 3-4 years, my body starts feeling wonky. Can't describe it exactly, but it happens when I've had too much sugar. So: My body starts feeling wonky.

• I manage to have something small (because not that hungry now) vaguely healthy for supper--finish the rest of the soup, and some nuts?-- with a glass of cold milk, and now the milk is gone! 

• So am I going to go to the store? Scary! Am I going to order & pay extra to have it delivered? Expensive, plus will still have to clean things as they come into the house! How long do I want to go w/out milk? That means no oatmeal or other cereals in the  morning. And nothing to drink with fudge! Crisis!  This is the world in which we live now.

• Did a bunch of puzzles in the paper. Every other Sunday, they have the usual puzzles plus a bonus entire section with more puzzles. Crosswords are my main thing. For years I avoided cryptograms--did them as a kid but then they seemed like too much work. But a year or so ago, I did one out of desperation, and Lo! it wasn't too hard and didn't take too long. (The ones in the paper aren't all that challenging and give one letter for you. I typically finish them in 5-8 minutes, with maybe a max of 15 on occasion. If it's more than that, I do quit because it then *does* feel like work.)
  
  UPDATE April 9: The San Jose Mercury News, because it has hardly enough to fill the daily Sports section, has instead been filling another whole page with just puzzles! Sports have stopped. All sports. Tennis, football, hockey, golf, at high school, college, pro levels. All of it. This is the world in which we live now.
  Doing puzzles to avoid doing actual work or anything here at home that needs doing. Today is a day in which my stress level is high, can't concentrate, can't make even smaller decisions for the most part, feel completely incapable of functioning. 

• Pondering: It has now been 6 days without driving anywhere (back then, it was to the vet and get a few groceries). It was 9 days before that (groceries and Farmer's Market). And I think 10 days before that. I'd rather have it be more more more days w/out breathing other people's air or touching things that other people touch.  This is the world in which we live now.

• 10:00 -- Agreed with dogs that it's time for bed. But-- OMG, did I give them dinner?  I struggle to remember and can't, and I see that I didn't give Chip his mealtime medication. So I give them each about 1/3 of a meal and figure it won't kill them to have extra or to have a little too little this evening.

• 10:20 -- We are all tucked into our beds and crates. I read some but again doze off while reading, then eventually put that away and turn out the light, and it feels like reasonable sleep. Hope so, since the last couple of nights have been iffy. But I did get that nap in the afternoon--.
  
• Update next morning: 6 hrs 47 min sleep per Fitbit. Pretty good, for me.

Related images--

Walked in the rain the previous day. No one around.

Zorro with newspaper in its plastic bag

Who just stole my warm spot on my bed??

Chip resenting having his photo taken with the shaved spot from his shoulder-lump work.

UPDATE APR 9: Sports section with normal half page of puzzles plus
a whole 'nother page because there ain't no sports nowhere nohow!

Visiting an Old Friend

SUMMARY: I haven't been to this park in a long time.

I used to come to this park fairly often with Boost and Tika. The huge lawn area was perfect for frisbee, and then the trees along the sides were perfect for Tika to go exploring when she tired of the frisbee game. We'd walk all the way around the lawn, then up the hill for the view across southeast San Jose and out to the Mt. Hamilton observatory, then down the other side of the hill, then back up and down again.

The last time I was here, I had just gotten Chip, and Boost and Tika were along. So about 2 years.

I had no good reason to go here with these dogs; can't have either off leash yet. Maybe someday. If I pay more attention to training. I'd been dreading going here, because of the memories. And, oh, boy, it was hard-hitting indeed. I wanted to go here to start building new memories, but for now the old ones hold powerful sway on my heart. Kept wiping tears from my eyes.

There were changes.

All the times I had ever been here, for 12 years of Tika's life, the trails up and down the hill were wide dirt like fire breaks. I had never seen them overgrown to a narrow track like this.  And the huge rock to the left had always looked like a huge rock--yesterday you couldn't even see it for the tall weeds.

But the dogs seemed to enjoy it, tentatively--we hardly go anywhere--and I got maybe another mile of walking in for the day. Ground squirrels and their holes were everywhere, which Tika found hard to resist and fascinated Luke, too. And, for the first time in more than 2 years, here I am at the top of the hill with my dogs. I was pretty sure that one or the other would break their Sit when I moved back to take the photo (hence the leashes left in easy reach), but Lo! They remained!

(Luke's ears and eyes were pointed directly at me when I clicked the shutter, but dang the delay on the little camera. Still, he stayed.)

As I snapped the photo, I heard a man's guttural cough/laugh behind me, I assumed at the dogs being willing to sit, which startled me because I hadn't seen anyone on the trails.  I turned around, and no one was there.  Puzzle.

We descended the hill, and my knees began reminding me that I haven't done hills in a long time.  At the bottom, again I heard that guttural sound. Looking around, I finally discovered who was amused at my expense:  Mr. Raven.  I don't ever remember seeing ravens in our area before, and now I've seen one in my yard and there were a few flying around here, too.  Tres odd.

Went home, had dinner, dropped onto the couch with about 9,000 steps for the day on the pedometer, shoes off, slippers on. And then the renter came downstairs and said, "You up for a walk?" So off we went around and through Martial Cottle Park behind the house. Retired with over 14,000 steps. No wonder I'm tired.

Geocaching With Dogs at Neighborhood Danna Rock Park

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday.

Want to see what others are doing for Wordless Wednesday or add your own? Go here: http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/newhome/

Do You Wanna?

SUMMARY: Go for a walk?

Tika's response--part 1. Repeat several times.

Tika's response--part 2. Repeat several times.

Boost showing that leashie who's boss.

Hikies

SUMMARY: A long, new walk with the dogs, plus a hill.

This Wednesday is not wordless.

Wednesday evenings are the Sierra Club Singles hikes. During winter months, that's a brisk 5-mile walk through the sidewalks and byways of residential Palo Alto. I find it hard to drag myself on a 30-40 minute drive (one way) to walk, on the flat, in the suburbs. I can do that here. Granted, I don't, usually, and there's something to be said for companionship.

But now I know (from boot camp the other day) that there are decent places to walk up and down Communication Hill. And it's only about a mile and a half from my house. So--walk there (on the flat), go up & down a bit, walk back--voila, should be 5 miles or so!

So that's what the Merle Girls and I did for exercise today.

I had looked up the moonrise time and hoped that I'd be able to see it with a sunsetty glow from on the hill, but nope, that didn't work out. Still, we got in a good walk (4.22 miles the route we took per http://mapmyrun.com), about 300 feet cumulative uphill, and a bit of a surprise, too.

Starting out, we caught the beautiful near-sunset golden glow on the trees lining the street. Boost didn't care: She kept trying to turn right, which is where the park is where we ALWAYS go to play frisbee when we come up here. Took several blocks for her to stop trying.

Another half a mile, and we had to wait 2 or 3 minutes at this huge and very busy intersection. Communication  Hill--our goal--is visible below the traffic lights.

Yet another half a mile, and we're getting really close now, and the sun's glow has just vanished from the hillside.  The road I have my eye is the one straight ahead, which wraps around to the right and then to the left behind the houses at the top. Between the upper and lower houses, you can just see the line of the walking path that goes gradually up acros the hillside. Also part of my plan.

Oooh, fancy fancy houses wot they've done bilt on this yere hill!

Getting darker every minute. I took only my cheap point and shoot, which is not happy in the dark. And Tika just wouldn't hold still. (And Boost thinks, not with the dang photos AGAIN--).

We started up the hill, and halfway I could see the Santa Cruz mountains making stunning layers of blue. Cheap camera makes it very grainy.

Looking back along the road we've walked up, the sunset starts coloring the sky.

I'm intending to follow the roads and walkways, but suddenly notice that the unbuilt part of the hill is grassy and not off limits. So we climb up the hill to the fence line and follow the ridge up to the top. This is such a pleasant surprise--we're far enough away from everyone and everything that I let the dogs off leash for a few minutes as we walk. This looks back down the fenceline. Off in the left distance, that huge green area? The future Martial Cottle Park, and Taj MuttHall  is on the right side of that somewhere.

Cheap camera, really grainy, but the sky is glowing over the city lights as the come on below us.

I *am* on communication hill--and there's the big communication tower.  We're at the top of the ridge, now, also a surprise to be able to get this high. The dogs are happily sniffing and the sky is lovely. In a couple of months, this will all start going to foxtails, but right now, what a glorious hidden retreat with tightly crowded buildings just below us.

We walk as close to the tower as we can before a deep ravine intervenes.

Still no moon visible, and it's getting dark, so we wind around the hill a bit, up and down 100 stairs, and head home. Partway there, the moon finally makes herself visible. Crappy camera.

Summer's Almost Here

SUMMARY: Seasons are never static.

The sun has begun its steady climb to the north. Day by day it advances, like a slow heartbeat, setting a minute later each evening, rising a third of a degree more northerly every morning, flying a third of a degree higher each noon. With the winter solstice, Aten slipped below the horizon at his earliest, four fifty, with the afternoon barely begun. By summer solstice, we will see and glory in his blazing face until seven thirty.¹

A few days past, frost greeted me every morning. Then we had a day of rain, a day of sun, a day of clouds and drizzle, and today another beautiful day of sun. I'm sure I see the grass sitting up and taking notice and starting to take on its fresh summer new-growth green. Of a sudden, the DYCs² are bustin' out all over (yes, even with some trees not yet finished dropping last year's leaves).

I grabbed my dogs and a frisbee and strode briskly into the light that was quickly growing golden. Through the border fence, I could see Mount Hamilton capturing some of the pre-sunset glow.

At the park, we were able to get some good frisbee in as the sun sank and the wispy clouds came alive with color.

Boost's tongue got a great workout.

The sun pulled its last beam below the horizon at 5:13, already almost half an hour later than just before Christmas. I can feel summer coming, just in hints here and there. And fifteen minutes later, the colors reached their most intense, and then we headed home.

---

¹8:30 with daylight savings time! Find the times for your location here.
²Damned Yellow Composites. Hard to tell one member of the Asteraceae family from another.

Walk to the Park Near Dark

SUMMARY: Wordless Thursday (because I missed Wednesday).

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