It’s been a very quiet week. That’s understandable since many things in Maryland are still closed. I’m riding a couple of days a week. The rest of the time it’s been rainy. There’s plenty of water in the rivers, and more rain in the forecast. My goal is to have at least an hour of good physical activity every day. But with all this rain, my indoor projects are drying up. I might have to get inventive soon, because doing jumping jacks in front of the TV is definitely not my thing.

Wearing masks at the grocery store went from being recommended to mandatory a while ago. In spite of the increased demand that created, the supply of face masks seems to be opening up. That’s good because the masks I made from T-shirts definitely have their limitations. Danita found some disposable masks that will be in this week, and some reusable masks that should be in within the month.

Neighborhood activities are dramatically reduced. There are no neighborhood parties or gatherings. Condo meetings are held over the internet. The clubhouse is totally locked down. Residents aren’t allowed to even enter, much less get a cup of coffee. Lots of people are walking. You see small groups standing and talking, carefully separated by 6 feet. I think I pulled a coup of sorts. The office ladies had problems with very slow computers. I told them that if my clubhouse card worked, I would go over early in the morning and look at it. I’m pretty sure they made my card a “staff” card so I can enter any time. Woo-hoo!

We traditionally eat breakfast out on Sunday and dinner out on Thursday. Restaurants are all closed, but most are still doing carry out service. We are substituting carry out for dining in. It’s not as good. We don’t get out of the house, the food isn’t as hot, and it just isn’t the same experience. But we’re learning which restaurants do carry out best. Which foods heat up well. It helps us anchor the days of the week.

People are getting antsy about being on lock down. Everybody wants to know when things will start opening up. We don’t normally watch TV news, but we watched Governor Hogan’s press conference to present Maryland’s plan. There were no surprises. It more or less follows the federal guidelines. The key to get to phase 1 is a downward trend in ICU admissions and deaths. These numbers are clearly displayed on Maryland’s COVID web page. After the Governor repeated this 3 or 4 times, reporters stopped asking when phase 1 will begin and started asking what “downward trend” means. Finally, one reporter tried to indirectly ask if we could remove nursing home patients from the numbers. (We’ve had several nursing homes that had a huge percentage of residents get COVID. These people understandably have a high incidence of ICU placements and deaths.) The Governor wisely side-stepped the question and talked about the recent regulations for personal protection equipment and other practices to reduce nursing home infections. There’s no doubt in my mind. Our president is a lot smarter than some of our news reporters.

With a little luck, phase one might start next month. For Danita and me, phase 1 means no changes. We’re over 65 and aren’t employed. But we need phase 1 so we can get to phase 2.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Bud’s settled, kindof. Danita has an aid coming in 3 days a week at Noon. Bud’s kickin’ and complain’. For now, it’s what we can do.

My four and a half year Dell Latitude computer stopped charging the battery. I have this super duper 5-year “we’ll come to your house and fix anything” warranty. So I called Dell. They’re like “Dude, your battery’s 5 years old, buy a battery.” And I said “Hey buddy, if I buy a battery and it still doesn’t work, will Dell pay for the battery?” So they agreed to replace some parts and I’m saying “Hey, bro. You’re the man.” So I cleared off my desk and created an admin account for the tech. The tech came, went directly upstairs, and did stuff to the computer for 45 minutes. Then he said “It works.” and left. Danita immediately starts wiping down doorknobs with alcohol. That’s when I realized the tech didn’t cough, sneeze, or look sick. But he also came in without gloves or a mask. Danita found out the virus can live on a wood desk up to 4 days. I think after day two, whatever’s left has to be sparse and weak. But really, there’s no reason why I have to sit at my desk. So I have my computer back now (because it is not made of wood) and I’ll get my desk back tomorrow. And my computer lives for a few more months — or maybe years. Who knows?

I’m still bike riding. I was out the other day. The weather was cool so I had a jacket. But I was going up hill and working hard, so the jacket and jersey were unzipped. I don’t bike with a mask because I need the air. I’m puffing and panting up this hill, trying to keep over 5 MPH when a lady comes up from behind, dinging her little bell. She’s all bundled up in her jacket like she’s cold. She’s wearing a mask that looks like it filters the larger air molecules. And she’s effortlessly going about 10 MPH.

Not that I feel particularly old, but we have another cool, windy day today. Danita and I decided to take a walk. I’ve been having real problems keeping my glasses clean, so I took them off and left them on the table. While I was walking, it looked like my glasses were dirty. Drat. I have too many floaters, and for some reason they’re not moving around much.

I often have problems hearing other people. It used to be only at noisy parties. Now with social distancing, it happens quite frequently. I was planning to see an audiologist when we got back from vacation. Unfortunately, the world was pretty much shut down when we got back from vacation. Danita and I cancelled several medical appointments. The one I kept was done by video conference.

Now for the finishing touch. The federal plan for re-opening the country has everybody else going to work, going to school, and eating out, while us old folks continue to shelter in place. I hate that phrase.

Other than these minor irritations, we’re doing quite well, and I hope all of you are also.

I hope everybody had a happy Easter. It was a very strange Easter for us. No Stations of the Cross, none of the St. Louis Friday perfectly grilled cheese sandwiches. No church services of any kind. (Sorry, U-Tube recordings don’t cut it.) No ham for dinner. (Danita made her most excellent spaghetti, which can be cooked for two.) Still, we are all well. We’re getting out for exercise and chatting with neighbors when we see them. Julia organized a nice video conference. Besides the Reeds, we had Ed & Lynne, Joe Toni & Maisie, Mark & JiaJia. That was fun.

Bud continues to be the headliner here in Maryland. His move to advanced care was set up for Friday. Danita got permission to go into Bud’s apartment to help pack up. After she got there, they called her and said the move wasn’t happening. Bud had been getting a housekeeper, but that was suspended because of the danger of Covis contamination. The situation is very unclear (at least to us). Danita found spoiled food out on the counter, dirty clothes, etc. She’ll be talking with the folks at Riderwood to see what kind of solution is possible.

We had some quite unusual weather last week — two days of 30 mph winds with 50 mph gusts. If there was any property damage, it got buried below the Covis updates.

There’s not a lot else going on here in Columbia. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

It’s been an intense week. The main event this week centered on Bud. Bud lives in Riderwood, a CCRC. Riderwood is trying to protect the health of their residents. They don’t allow visitors and have asked residents to stay in their apartments. Bud is out wondering the hallways, knocking on friend’s doors, asking Danita to visit him, etc. He is repeatedly reminded that he shouldn’t be doing these things. He complies, but then a few minutes later it’s all forgotten. He watches TV, which I suppose includes at least some news shows. He reads the Washington Post daily. But he doesn’t know there’s a pandemic. He’s also not taking his medicine, not eating well, etc.

We’ve been trying to get Bud to move from independent living to advanced care. There have been phone calls and Emails galore, tons of stress, and at least a few tears. Yesterday, Bud agreed to move. There’s a lot that has to happen before he moves, but it looks like the move could happen as early as Friday.

A really good thing that happened this week is Mom’s 90th birthday. We had planned a party in Florida. That was obviously cancelled. Instead, we had a video party. All of Mom’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren attended. It’s rather limited what one can do with 15 people in a non-structured video chat, but Mom had a grand time. I was amazed how well it all worked. We were even able to surprise her. We had people from Japan, Iowa, Alabama, New York, Maine, Pennsylvania, Florida and Maryland (and maybe someplace I missed).

The latest COVID change is a sudden request to wear masks when in grocery stores and other areas where social distancing is difficult. This in spite of the obvious lack of the availability of masks. I’m looking at various ideas for masks on the internet. Here’s the one I like the most so far. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mai-UqdNRi8

I just finished a very good book: Two Years before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr. There’s a lot of romance and lore about the old American clipper ships. This book will tell you what it was like to be a sailor in those days. It was a wildly successful book in its day because when the California gold rush started, it was just about the only book that gave information about California. Today it’s still an excellent book, and perhaps the most realistic view of life in a bygone era.

Next week, Danita’s going to be busy arranging all the things required to make Bud’s move successful. I won’t be all that busy. Fortunately, an under-cabinet light burned out. This is my opportunity to replace halogen mini-bulbs with LED strip lighting. Materials should be in Wednesday. Woo-hoo, a project!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The new HVAC is installed and working. It’s very quiet if we are in the basement. I can’t even tell if it’s running when I’m upstairs. That’s a welcome change.

The week went by fairly quickly for Danita and me, but for different reasons. Danita suffered from frustration trying to get medicine to Bud. She isn’t permitted to go to Bud’s apartment. She can drop off a bag of stuff, or Bud can take a bag of stuff down for Danita to pick up. The frustration came in trying to explain to Bud what stuff Danita wants. Danita made two round trips to Riderwood this week and has called either Bud or Riderwood at least once a day. It looks like this might be resolved Monday, when the last medicine is due to arrive at the drugstore.

My week went by quickly because I was working on a project to change the security system for our website. Several residents contribute content to the website. We fence them off so they don’t step on each other’s toes. The old system was incredibly complicated, failed if we updated the software, and in general was falling apart. The new system is simple, clean and works very well. I spent most of the week doing tests with this website. Today I spent all morning installing the new system (took about an hour) and removing the old (took about 4 hours). It’s all up and running, the documentation is written, and everything looks great.

Another thing that’s helped is that supplies are more available. Danita has been able to buy ground beef, chicken, and bacon. Most paper products are still extremely scarce, but our household stock is in good shape.

Riding the bike has been great for me this last week. We’ve had mild weather and there’s less traffic. I have some rides that use trails. Unfortunately, those aren’t fun because there are so many people out walking. But riding the streets is great. Danita has been walking the neighborhood for her exercise.

We obviously won’t be traveling to see the grand kids for a while, so we did a video chat. It was fun.

That’s about it for us this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The biggest change is undoubtedly Mom’s 90th birthday party. We had planned to go to Florida and host a party of about 20 or so on April 4. All of my kids and grandkids planned to attend. Rick and As our vacation wound down, emails were going back and forth about what we should do. There are so many news articles and advice was rapidly changing. Some of the news articles were correct when published, but quickly overcome by changing advice. Other articles were just wrong. I wanted to make a fact-based decision based on CDC advice. Their website isn’t unfriendly, but there’s it’s a big site and finding advice that applied to us was tedious. Danita finally found the correct paragraph. We were advised not to have any gatherings of 10 people or more when elderly were involved. We reluctantly cancelled Mom’s party.

By the time we got home from vacation, we were advised to self-isolate for 14 days. We couldn’t do it completely. But we’ve been pretty good about it. We don’t mind being a little lax because there was no indication of COVID on the cruise ship. While anything is possible, we were a largely isolated society for 16 days. If anybody came on the boat with COVID, it would have been apparent by the time we disembarked. Doctors have asked us to reschedule all our appointments.

There was no food in the house. We had to visit the grocery store. We couldn’t buy what we wanted. For example, there was very little meat available. But Danita is wonderfully flexible and very inventive in coming up with tasty and varied meals with what’s available. Danita’s Kindle E-reader stopped working while we were cruising. She can read on her phone, but it’s an inferior experience. There is no one-day delivery these days. Her new E-reader arrived this morning, which pleases her immensely. My hair has been growing for the last 5 weeks or so. It’s bothersome. I finally realized that after our self-isolation ends on March 30, I still won’t want to go to the barber. I ordered some hair clippers from Amazon. The clippers should arrive Tuesday. It will undoubtedly be a lousy haircut, but few will be able to see it. There are so many little things we need. We’re looking forward to the first day we don’t order something from Amazon.

Many places are closed, which is common throughout much of the US. But some of the implications were not anticipated. No visitors are permitted in Riderwood, where Bud lives. Danita can meet Bud in the front lobby and they can exchange packages. But Danita can’t go to Bud’s apartment to load his pill container or pick up tax forms. As I was writing this, Bud called and said he might have sprained his ankle. Riderwood sent an employee to Bud’s apartment. Everything’s OK. But between using the telephone, talking through a Riderwood employee with an accent, and Bud’s confusion, it’s a complex operation.

There are a few more unexpected consequences of all the closings. Churches are closed. Our priest came up with something I somewhat irreverently call “drive through Eucharist”. The idea was to offer the Eucharist without having more than 10 people congregated at any time. It sounded like a good idea, but the bishop shut it down. Our clubhouse is closed for all uses. Danita can’t go to the clubhouse to get her morning cup of coffee. Our condos and community have monthly meetings. They have set up a way to attend electronically. The next scheduled meeting is Tuesday. It should be interesting to see how well residents adapt.

Among the things that are closed are county parks. Gates are closed and cars can’t drive in, but walk-ins are permitted. Or they were until a ranger stopped by a playground and found over 100 people. One wonders what the mothers were thinking. In response, the playgrounds are closed and taped off. It’s a mildly interesting story, I suppose. But it had a personal impact of sorts. On my ride yesterday I decided to use a long-cut I often use through a park. It’s a pleasant area and avoids some traffic. I just ride through. I have never seen a ranger in the park. Until yesterday, when a ranger was driving through as I approached the entrance. I wasn’t sure of the current rules. If the ranger told me not to enter, it would add another 2 miles as I rode back and around. I decided to ride past the entrance and turn around after the ranger had time to leave the area. That worked fine. I hadn’t made it all the way through before I encountered a second ranger driving through. They didn’t stop me, so I guess I was OK.

We decided this is the perfect time to replace the HVAC system. All houses in our condo have a gas-fired furnace and an air conditioner. Larger houses have a second heat-pump in the attic. Many of our neighbors have had their air conditioner or heat pump fail, so it’s about time for replacing the AC. Furnaces aren’t failing, but we have a sealed bearing in our furnace that squeals like a banshee. It’s so loud the house is not habitable. Repair costs about the same as replacing the furnace. We have reduced the squeal to a low rumble by lubricating the bearing. It doesn’t make sense that one can lubricate a sealed bearing, but for the last 5 years, it has worked. That doesn’t mean it will work forever. Plus, if COVID gets a lot worse and the AC fails in August, we’ll be suffering and sweltering for quite a while. Plus we won’t be traveling for a while, so the travel budget can pay for the new system. So we are getting a new system Tuesday. The contractor will be working in the basement. We’ll be upstairs.

This is a long message for a simple week at home. I hope this finds everybody getting by.

This is the last day of our vacation. We drove slowly up Highway 1 from Monterey to San Francisco. There was quite a bit of rain early in the day but we were quite lucky. It rained when we were driving and let up when we got out for a look. Our first stop was Greyhound Rock for some way cool shore sights. Then we drove on to Pigeon Point Lighthouse. This is the most photographed lighthouse in California. Unfortunately it’s falling apart, so it might not be around much longer. Our final beach stop was Pescadero Beach.

Then we were in San Francisco. We decided to drive to the Golden Gate bridge and walk across the main span. We’re staying at the Columbus Inn, the same hotel we stayed at many years ago when we vacationed here. The hotel is is quite comfortable and in great shape. Tomorrow morning we’ll drive to the airport and head home. We expect to get home around 11 PM Eastern time. It would have been nice if things were open and concerts were being performed. But we had a really great vacation. We are grateful we got as much done as we did.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The Pacific Ocean forms the west coast. Highway 1 runs along that coast offering amazing vistas. There’s mountains immediately east. The Hearst Hacienda is on the east of the mountains. Highway 101, a near-interstate high speed highway, runs north to south east of the Hacienda. The original plan was to take the windy road back to Highway 1, then slowly drive north along the coast. With fog likely still around, we didn’t want to see if we would be twice lucky with that windy mountain road. So we went east to 101, then north to Monterey. That added about 2 hours of driving, but it was much easier driving. We wanted to visit the fabulous Monterey Aquarium, but it was closed. Our hotel for the night is in Monterey. We had plenty of time and not a lot to do. We decided to slowly drive south on Highway 1, backtracking and catching the views we missed by going up to the east of the mountains. It’s a magnificent stretch of road. It was hard to select just a few pictures for the blog.

Our first stop was Point Lobos State Park. We arrived around 10 and walked the trails. By the time we left, the park was full. They were turning away cars. People were parking on the street and walking in.The line of parked cars was over a mile long. We continued south, driving and stopping until we got to the Point Sur Lighthouse. Unfortunately, the lighthouse was closed and there were no tours yesterday. So we snapped a few pics and turned around, taking the opportunity to stop at a couple of vistas we missed going down. Our last stop was at Bixby Creek Bridge. By this time it was mid-afternoon. The crowds were so large that people were parking anywhere they could, including one hapless car parked immediately in front of a “no stopping any time” sign.

We were at our hotel around 3, with plenty of time to do some laundry. The rain kindly waited until we returned from our trip for take-out pizza.

We’re about 150 miles south of San Francisco. The original plan was to spend a day driving up and visiting a few parks, then spend a couple of days in San Fran. Unfortunately, most of the things we would do are closed. We decided to cut our vacation short. We’ll be flying home Monday.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We drove to the Hearst Castle. Just before arriving, we stopped in Cambria. Most of the towns we went through were rural agriculture communities. Cambria is completely different. It’s the “perfect” tourist town. Downtown is filled with eateries, arts, organic foods, etc. The parking is a great bargain. One can park anywhere for free. This is really good because everything else in town is very expensive. If you are ever in Cambria, I suggest you check out the ice cream / bakery and get a scoop of “motor oil” ice cream. It’s very good.

Normally, tours at Hearst Castle sell out months in advance. Today we could have walked up and purchased tickets for any tour we pleased. Quite frankly, the biggest surprise is that this state park was still open at all. Danita really enjoyed the tour, but I didn’t. So far as I can see, Hearst dumped about half a million dollars a month (in today’s equivalent money) into this rambling complex until he ran out of money. His companies were taken over by the court and restored to financial health. Then we went back into dumping money into this complex. His father didn’t trust him with money and gave the estate to his mother. (Very unusual for the day.) His mother wouldn’t let him start building the complex as long as she was alive. Any sense of coherence was due to Julia Morgan, the first female architect. She did over 500 projects. About 499 of them were on time and below budget.

We took the “back road” from there to Hearst Hacienda. Our tour ran long, it was late in the day, there was a lot of fog, and we had to drive through the mountains on a very narrow, very curvy road. There were two places where I couldn’t see the road and had to guess where the road is. (I’m a good enough guesser, it turns out.) We made it without incident, but Danita was pretty distressed. The Hacienda is on an army base. It’s a wonderful building. We stayed in one of the towers. The room was warm, dry, safe, and clean. But the WiFi didn’t work. Danita said she could see my withdrawal pains.

The army base is quite isolated. The only place we could eat was at the bowling alley. We had loaded hot dogs. How can one possibly have a more American experience than eating loaded hot dogs at a bowling alley on an army base?

All the pictures are from Hearst Castle. Fog prevented any outdoor shots.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our main objective was to get from San Diego to someplace north of LA.Our plan worked out well. We took Amtrak to Oxnard, then took a cab to the airport, then rented a car. It was a 2-hour drive to Embassy Suites in Lompoc. But it took us longer because we took a detour to the Chumash Painted Cave. It was cloudy and late in the day. So I shined my cell phone’s LED light into the cave to catch this pic. I am amazed at how well it turned out.

The drive up to the cave was amazing. Basically we turned East at Santa Barbara. We saw amazing mountain scenery (50 shades of green, at least). Then we turned onto Painted Cave Road, which went up into the mountains on a 1.5 lane road with the tightest switchbacks I have ever driven. We drove past the cave because the turn-off is so small I couldn’t believe we were there. I turned around on the narrow curvy road with Danita in serious distress. We got back to the turn-off and trusted to luck parking our rental car on such a narrow road. We’ve seen other painted caves, but this was a good one. This pic was taken with my pocket camera illuminated by my cell phone’s LED “flash” light and the camera lens poking through the grate.

From there, we drove to our room at the Embassy Suites. We have taken full advantage of the happy hour. I don’t know what we’ll do tomorrow. Danita and I are saving that conversation for tomorrow after the wine has worn off.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.