Quarantine Diaries – Weeks 33-35

Posted on November 13, 2020 by Thistle

Today is Friday the 13th, eight months to the date from the Friday the 13th in March when we got our first case of Covid in San Antonio. The country is undergoing a third spike, higher than previous spikes. Unemployment benefits – which are already a joke as most people get red-taped out of them and those who don’t get almost nothing (we, for instance, would get less than a third of Jason’s salary if he lost his job) – haven’t been extended by the current administration, so they’ve expired (maximum of 26 weeks). San Antonio has been named one of the top five cities in the country for covid financial distress. People are out of work and unable to go back to work safely because our state and country are doing absolutely nothing to help or get this under control!! Texas became the first state to reach a million covid cases just a few days ago, and the US is now experiencing well over 100k new cases and 1,000 deaths per day. And with people protesting masks by wearing them under their noses even more since the election results, I’m kinda terrified of what we can expect to see before we have a vaccine available.

Week 33 – October 23 to 29
65,423 cases, 1,250 deaths, 201 cases for the 7-day rolling average (major increase), 6.9% positivity rate (up 1.1%). That plateau we were on? It’s now a steady increase. Not a spike yet, not this week, but it feels like it could become one easily. Why? Well, a big chunk is all the kids returning to school. Another big chunk is cooler weather and people thus hanging out (with people outside their household) indoors instead of outside. There’s also a lot of pandemic fatigue – people just tired of being strict with the rules. Not to mention, if the rest of the state/country has increasing numbers and people have to travel for work, there’s gonna be cross-contamination. So hospital numbers are on the rise, testing numbers and positive results are on the rise, and Bexar County has moved up from low to moderate risk this week.

Things hit hard at home this week. My aunt, who runs a preschool with my mom in a small town west of San Antonio, tested positive for Covid. By the time she got tested and had a positive result, she’d had a week of symptoms exposing my uncle, mother, stepdad, and elderly grandparents (not to mention however-many pre-symptomatic days!). Her case was mild, thank goodness, and she’s recovering already, but the preschool is shut down for several weeks and we just have to wait to see if anyone else caught it. My mom was tested on the 28th and has yet to get her results, but has no symptoms at this point.

(Dec 2014: left to right – my uncle, aunt, grandpa, grandma, mom, and stepdad – everyone here had potential exposure, plus a few others)

Unfortunately, this is the side of my family where a lot of folks aren’t wearing masks, limiting shopping trips, etc. And my grandparents are extremely vulnerable being in their 80s/90s with multiple underlying conditions. It’s been a very stressful week. Doesn’t help that another six kids from the local high school came down with covid – we got a new notice almost every single day about at least one kid – and Laurence was scheduled to take his PSAT there on the 29th. He decided that he flat-out wasn’t going to take it – he doesn’t need it for college and he didn’t want the covid risk. Jason and I tried to convince him to go, but he put his foot down. And honestly, I don’t blame him. I just hope this doesn’t take away future opportunities for him.

Week 34 – October 30 to November 5
66,909 cases, 1,268 deaths, 212 7-day rolling average, 7.7% positivity rate (up 0.8%). We’ve now shown a steady increase in daily case trend for the last few weeks, contrary to the two-week decline trend that we look for. Unfortunately, lots of other parts of the state are overloaded. El Paso is beyond capacity so hospital patients are being sent all over TX, including over 40 here so far (and we’re 10 hours away from El Paso!). One news station estimates that we saw a bit over 8k cases in October total (about 12% of our numbers), but of course that’ll likely change with backlogs etc, which is why I don’t even bother to try to tabulate that stuff now! And at of the end of the week, the county judge was exposed to covid through another county employee, so we’ll have to see what happens there.

My mom’s covid test came back negative thank goodness! Several other family members (who I didn’t even know had been exposed) also came back negative, but I have yet to hear about my grandparents and don’t even know if they’ll go in for tests. There’s so much pandemic fatigue going on. My chiropractor office, which used to do well in terms of safety, is getting more and more lax to the point where I’m getting afraid to go (photo shows my chiropractor and how he always wears his mask now). People are hoarding toilet paper again (this time in anticipation of post-election riots). The library has officially moved to Stage 3 as of the 4th, and Fitness in the Park has returned with limited classes – all this despite the current increases we’ve had. My family is starting to talk about Christmas and what we might be able to swing or not swing safely. It’s all rather depressing. It would be easier if we didn’t have another spike…

Week 35 – November 6 to 12
69,014 cases, 1,287 deaths, 283 (!!!) 7-day rolling average, 8.4% positivity rate (up 0.7%). We’ve seen some major jumps in numbers here this week, including multiple days with over 300 and 400 new cases for the first time in months. The positivity rate has been climbing for the last month, and our hospital numbers are up quite a bit too (though some of that is a continued influx of patients from El Paso). Texas is back up to over 10k cases a day, a level on par with the peak in July, and it looks to continue rising. Other than a few spiked days that reflected case backlogs in SA and Houston, we’ve had the highest daily increases in our state ever this week. Nov 11th was nearly as high as the spike day from SA’s backlogged cases! Sigh.

In better news, the county judge had two negative covid tests so it looks like his exposure last week didn’t lead to contracting covid. On the other hand, our mayor was apparently exposed this week and is currently in self-quarantine awaiting a second negative test (first came back negative). With things getting worse, the Rock ‘N Roll Marathon people finally saw the light and decided to cancel this year’s event despite saying just a few weeks ago that they’d still be hosting it traditionally. We saw another three students at the local high school come down with covid – at least that has slowed a bit now! – and sadly, we got notice that one student passed away. We don’t know if that was covid-related as they keep that info private, but it’s always sad when a classmate dies. It wasn’t someone my kids knew (the high school has over 3,000 students enrolled), but either way, grief is tough and even more surreal in a situation like the current one.

Moving forward
Well it would help if Prump stopped acting like a toddler and let the transition process begin. If he were anyone else, he could help bridge the divide here. But then again, if he were that kind of person, he could have pulled both sides in together over covid – and hey, he likely would have won the election had he done that. In any case, I think we’re in for a rough few months of lawsuits and protests (both in-person, and safety-related), and that’s going to lead to worsening covid numbers. The current ones are staggering, and they’re predicting now that soon it could be 200k+ daily cases in the US.

At home, we’re going to keep quarantining as much as possible. I’m being more careful about how many hikes I attend/lead, and likely our little individual support bubbles will get smaller/stricter as the numbers grow here. It’s really frustrating, right in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas! But I’d rather have my family and friends alive for future holidays than with me this year. At least our deck is almost finished and we can have a few people over for outdoor, distanced celebrations! Ironically, the Texas weather that we despise so much is actually going to make the next few months easier. Temps in the 60s and 70s over winter makes for great outdoor gatherings! Certainly easier than the 100+ temps from over the summer!

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Dawnshard, by Brandon Sanderson

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Thistle

This novella is #3.5 in the Stormlight Archive, taking place between Oathbringer and the upcoming Rhythm of War. In it, Rysn guides her ship toward the treacherous island of Akinah, with help from several Radiants, and a traitor on board. This is the sort of book that is absolutely dependent on reading the others in the series to know what’s going on. It’s a book that bridges gaps and fills in holes in readers’ knowledge of the Cosmere.

Did I love it? Oh yes. Absolutely. I knew that the book would be about 75% Rysn’s POV and the rest mostly The Lopen’s POV, and while Rsyn hasn’t always been my favorite character, I was interested in watching her continue to grow as a person. The Lopen, of course, is just awesome, and I knew he had a good arc to navigate as well. Plus, the prologue clued me in to the fate of someone I’ve wondered about since early in the second book, which is awesome!

The region felt so empty. Quiet as a home with no cousins. –The Lopen

Um…Not really much else to say here. I’m not going to go into realmatic theory and I don’t know if any of my current readers have ever even been interested in the Stormlight Archive, despite my obvious enthusiasm. So I’ll just keep this short: Brandon Sanderson does it again!

Revisited via audio in August 2022: The audio production of this book released two years after my original read, and it was lovely to revisit this book read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading. It’s funny how a book that you’ve only read once can feel like a comfort read due to it being part of a larger series that you love. The audio just enhanced the story that I already loved, and my only quibble was the change in how the narrators pronounced Aimia, but that’s just a tiny thing. Loved this audiobook wholeheartedly!

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At the Top of a Mountain

Posted on November 9, 2020 by Thistle

Do you remember where you were on 9/11? Where you were when President Obama made history as the first Black president of our country? How about now – will you remember where you were when Kamala Harris became our first female, Black, Asian-American vice president?

I will remember.

Saturday morning, the fifth morning of the election, dawned with no new news. Things were leaning blue, but I was still nervous that something might change. I was awake very early to get ready for an hour-forty-minute drive up to Lost Maples for a hike. Once there, I discovered that – as expected – I had no cell signal. I met up with the other seven ladies going on this hike, and we hit the trails. Lost Maples is known for its amazing color changes in November. You have to reserve one of the limited day passes a month in advance – you can’t do it any earlier than that and they run out FAST. And you never know exactly which week the trees will begin to turn. Happily, we arrived in the early turning. Maybe a quarter of the maples were red, orange, or gold, and that will ripple outwards over the next week or two, with new trees turning and turned trees losing their leaves. If you’re lucky enough to get to the park in this window, it’s a riot of color.

I haven’t been to Lost Maples since the fall of 1998, but I still recognized a lot of the trail. At one point, we diverged from the trails my family used to take, and took the challenging East Trail upwards. For 0.8 miles, we went up. And up. And up. About 400-450 feet of elevation in a very short distance! When we reached the top, we could look out over the valleys and peaks of the area. I say we were on top of a mountain, and that’s not quite true as these are technically still hill-sized – just very big hills! It felt like we’d reached the top of a mountain, though.

And as we stopped to check the map and decide which direction to go, one of the ladies realized that she had signal, now that we were at such a high altitude. She started to check her phone, and suddenly quieted us all. “Ladies,” she said, “Ten minutes ago, Kamala Harris made history.” We paused for only a beat, letting that sink in, and then began to cheer and whoop.

As we traveled over the top of the mountain and down a slippery, rocky slope back to the bottom, we heard other groups break into cheers as they got the news. Various groups on all sides of the mountain were cheering back and forth to each other, echoing across the valley. Amazingly, we didn’t hear a single set of boos or insults. Everyone we passed was celebrating. I’ve heard about towns where cars were driving by honking, or where crowds gathered in the streets to dance and shout, or where people rang bells all clanging together. My experience was of a mountainside exploding into joy as people got the news intermittently in an area with almost no cell signal. It was glorious.

I’m so glad I got to spend this day with these women. It’s very hard for me to do a lot of what I did Saturday – especially to drive by myself over roads I don’t know to an uncertain destination (no one knew where we’d meet up) – but every hard step was worth it. I know where I was when history was made. I was with my hiking family at the top of a mountain.

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Sunday Coffee – Favorite Photos of October

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Thistle

I had a lot of fun playing with my camera in October. It’s just an iPhone camera, but the iPhone 11 (not pro) actually does a decent job with a lot of shots. Especially outdoors. I ended up having to cull my favorite photos down from almost twenty initial choices! Only after I finalized my top dozen did I realize that all but one photo was taken outdoors, and seven of the twelve were taken on group hikes!

Left to right: Atticus tries to eat the grass while outside on his new harness and leash (we’re working on it, since he desperately wants to be outside); the giant tree at a nearby park that’s invisible from the trail (this photo doesn’t even begin to capture the majesty and size of it!); miniature portraits painted on wooden walls along the Riverwalk

Top left: Jennine on top of a foggy mountain. Bottom left: Spot the froggie! Right: the medieval-style tower at the top of Comanche Lookout Park with the full/blue moon rising on Halloween

Left to right: Gavroche models; painted rock found at my local library; night shot of group hiking in the dark on Halloween (lit by flashlight, blurred through multi-second light uptake – it just looked so cool!)

Left to right: shadow walk as I wait for Laurence’s wisdom teeth surgery to finish; scenery along the Riverwalk; Jason extinguishes our fire (again with the multi-second blurring)

As always, these photos were taken by me with no filters on them. I think technically, the “portrait” mode on the iPhone might count as a filter? If so, then the photo of Gavroche has it on there. But if it’s just a lens-focusing, then no. In any case, I didn’t do any editing/filtering after taking the photos. Besides of course putting them into these collages! Heh.

(photo credit: AP)

PS – I am very happy about the news that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election. I have a whole story about finding out (if you’ve seen facebook or instagram, you already know, but of course I have to put it here too!), but I was out most of yesterday and will be out again for a big chunk of today, so I don’t have time to write that up at the moment. This post was already pre-drafted so it will work for today! In any case, congrats to our new President-elect and our first-ever female, Black, Asian-American vice president! So many historical statements in the latter half of that sentence!

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Wellness Wednesday – Uncertainty

Posted on November 4, 2020 by Thistle

Four years ago, I wrote about the heartbreak of the 2016 election. Somehow, I’d managed to garner some hope last time, even though a big part of me was already sure what the results would be. Maybe I’m too cynical, or maybe I’m too realist. I’ve always been one of those “um, the glass is half empty AND half full…” people. And even though I hoped in 2016, I knew what was going to happen. This election? I didn’t even bring hope into it.

Sure, I voted. And yeah, I’ve worn my F*ck Trump lipstick every day for the last week. I stayed up until 11pm watching the election coverage, just like last time. Then I slept poorly, woke up at 5:50 to check the results again, and eventually gave up trying to go back to sleep. Instead, I’m having a very indulgent breakfast of pumpkin muffins with butter or Nutella and a large mug of coffee. Nothing is decided yet, and it doesn’t look like it will be for days, but I can already feel things slipping back into Trumpland, and it’s depressing.

So maybe you’ll tell me to keep my hopes up, to stay positive, or point out that there are promising signs for Biden. But as I’ve said to several friends before, I won’t believe it unless it actually happens. I think we’re doomed for another four years.

And guys? This is not because I’m anti-Republican. Sure, I’m on the more liberal side of the fence in most things, but like I said in the post I linked out to, there are Republicans that I respect and even ones that I’ve voted for in rare elections. (Not presidential – but I vote during all the times I can, on all the local and national races.) I can also see that there is some good coming out of this election. In 2016, Clinton won the popular vote 65.8 million to 62.9 million. As of when I’m writing this (7:30am on the 4th), the current popular vote stands at 69.1 million (Biden) to 66.8 million (Trump). Without even all the ballots counted, 7.2 million more votes came in this year compared to 2016 – and more voter turnout is always a good thing!! I do wish that I could see Biden’s current 2.3-million lead as a good sign, especially with so much left to count being mail-in ballots (which trend more Democrat), but I can’t. Clinton won by 3mil, and still lost the election.

The Electoral College: the thing that makes it so our votes don’t count. The idea is that the EC and popular vote almost always go the same direction. But over the last twenty years, this is no longer true. Two of the five elections between 2000 and 2016 had the EC go opposite of popular vote. When it was down to something like 1000 votes in 2000, I could accept the fluke. When it came down to three million votes in 2016…that’s a dangerously-disenfranchising system. It’s not fair that a state can be split almost 50/50 and have all the points go to one candidate. This is true in red states, blue states, and swing states alike. If a candidate wins a state with 60% of the vote, he/she should get 60% of the electoral votes. To do otherwise strips the power away from the losing party’s voters. It means that 45% of Virginians this year have no voice in their vote for Trump, just as 45% of Texans (me included!) have no voice in their vote for Biden. It’s no wonder we have such low voter turnout under these conditions.

Of course, the electoral college has a long history of Bad Stuff, including its use to basically disqualify the “uneducated” from voting because “they wouldn’t be properly informed,” and the bolstering of votes given to slave-holding states as slaves could count toward the population (on a 3/5ths level) without being able to vote. There is literally no reason to keep up this antiquated and broken system. There’s a movement toward states agreeing to put all their electoral votes toward whichever candidate wins the popular vote, but until enough states agree, it won’t happen. In any case, it seems like it would just be a better choice to abolish the electoral college altogether. This CAN be done, and SHOULD be done, and everyone always forgets after the dust settles post-election. Sigh.

Anyway.

There’s not much more to say. I don’t know where we’ll be in a few days or a few weeks. I don’t see much changing for the next four years, and I feel much as I did in 2016, like hunkering down and staying very, very small. Only this year, there’s not so much fear as numb resignation, not so much heartbreak as “yeah I figured.” Even if Biden DOES end up winning, the appalling actions we’ve seen in our country these last few weeks just make me so tired and so sad. I miss logic and reason and kindness.

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October 2020 in Review

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Thistle

I feel like all my months have been reversed and thrown off this year. Likely due to the incessant everyone-is-always-home bit. (I have this funny story about how people were showing first-snowfall-of-the-year photos on Instagram, with captions groaning and saying things like “here we go again,” and it took me about a week to realize they were new-season snow and not late-spring-snowing-again photos. That’s how far OFF I am this year.) Anyway, for as pleasant as September was, with many good moments and lots of unseasonably nice weather, October tried to dive straight into the toilet on Day 1, when I woke to a data breach and ransomware on my computer. Sigh. Weeks of (unrelated) family issues and anxiety followed, as well as persistent 90+ degree temps, until the last week of the month. Sheesh.

Trying to look on the bright side, though. Ash has had some improvements, and we’ve now passed the 11 year mark with him in our home, rather than losing him early in the month as we suspected. Jason and I were able to vote early and safely. Laurence’s wisdom teeth surgery went well. I’ve had a lot of very lovely hikes with my friends, and I was able to safely visit with another old friend twice this month. I ended the month with a spooky nighttime hike to a local park thought to be haunted, which was just so awesome!

Reading and Watching
Like last month, my reading has focused on RIP-related books, and 7 of my 8 books were from that category. Ironically, my favorite book of the month wasn’t one I even put on the blog or toward that count. It was My Last Duchess by Eloisa James, a short prequel to her Wildes of Lindow Castle series, a silly romance series that I’ve found very fun to listen to over the years. Back in the day, I was all embarrassed about putting romance novels on my blog reading list so I just skipped over them. I really don’t care anymore, but I do care about consistency and so I’ve continued to just ignore them in my book counts. Shrug. It’s not like I’d have anything to say about each of them as a review – they’re just fun to read! In any case, since most of what I read this month was just okay, and I really enjoyed My Last Duchess, I’m claiming it as my favorite.

The family has continued to watch the newest episodes of the Great British Bake Off (of course!), and I quite enjoyed the next round of Unsolved Mysteries through Netflix. I hope to see the new remake/sequel/?? of The Craft once the cost comes down a bit, even though it would’ve been nice to see it during spooky-month. But the only Halloween-y movie my family watched was our traditional viewing of Hocus Pocus.

Goals
Meh. Not much to say here. I did spend about a month sitting down to write every day, starting in late September, but all I learned was that at present, I no longer even enjoy writing, which is not a feeling I’ve ever had before in my life. Maybe that’ll come back again one day. I hope. I’d like something of my longterm-self to have not been smashed to smithereens in 2014. (And oh the irony – Jason ordered an Astrohaus Freewrite Traveler several years ago for my birthday, and it finally came this month…right after I gave up daily writing sessions.) That’s really all I can say about my 2020 goals, which have been highly impacted by covid. As for my autumn bucket list, I’m doing quite well and on track to finish all 27 little tasks I set up for myself!

Health
My health suffered quite badly this month in a lot of ways. I mentioned in my September in Review post that I began taking a new injection medication that’s supposed to help regulate certain hormones. It’s a medication normally taken by people with diabetes, but is helpful for insulin-stabilization and weight loss in women with PCOS (me!). By the end of September, I was still on a very tiny dose that’s not even considered beneficial, but suddenly I was able to sleep again on my own for the first time in nine years. In October, I moved up to a slightly higher dose. Because I transitioned very slowly, I didn’t have the major side effects you normally get with increases in this med, but I did have a few negative impacts of my health.

First, I could hardly eat anything. Frankly, that’s what this med is supposed to do – curb your appetite by controlling hunger hormones and keeping food in your stomach for a prolonged period of time. The thought is that you’ll lose weight that way. Only that doesn’t work for me – if my calories drop below a certain threshold, I start gaining weight. Which I did. I was eating about a third of my normal daily diet (example: I only managed about a quarter of what’s on my plate in that picture), and gained about 3 lbs this month. Second, because I couldn’t eat enough, both my exercise and my sleep suffered. I’d lose steam partway through exercise, and I’d wake up in the middle of the night starving. It was the only time I ever felt any hunger at all. Third, if I ate anything with a lot of fiber – say, a small side salad – my stomach would go into full-on cramps for hours afterwards, as if it just couldn’t handle complex foods. Just like the last time I was on this medication, I began to crave processed food as a way of avoiding stomach pain. Not good! So I’ve dropped back to that lower dose of the medicine, and we’ll see what happens next.

Then there was my daily coffee consumptions, which nearly tripled for about 10 days mid-month when all the anxiety crashed down on me together, and I’m sure that also contributed to the weight gain, medicine issues, etc. Sigh.

Otherwise, I further overcomplicated my month by doing a whole hell of a lot more exercise than I should have (24 days, for over 24 hours total exercise, including 58 miles walked, run, or hiked). I’ve tired myself out (especially on the decreased calories), injured my formerly-broken foot, and pretty much felt like crap all month between the combo of extra coffee, reduced food, and increased exercise. The family-related anxiety and insomnia issues didn’t help, either. I’m aiming for a more moderate, controlled November, especially with my weight loss anniversary coming up on the 27th. I’m always a bit hyperaware of the date.

House
Most of the construction we were doing on the house got finished last month. Other than one issue with our month-old dishwasher breaking and needing the warranty people to come fix it, everything else we did was self-paced and done on our own. Jason has been working on building the deck, though it took until mid-month for him to get the wood for it. (We had to cancel three different orders from the first place because they kept saying the product was delivered when it hadn’t been, ugh.) The floor is mostly on now, and he’s currently trying to finish up the sides and stairs.

I’ve been working on the front yard landscaping. Costs haven’t been friendly the last few months, so I had to settle for just doing the path up the yard rather than both the path and seating area like originally intended. We managed to find a landscaping tool similar enough to a grub-hoe that I could remove the sod and break up the caliche ground mostly on my own. Jason put down landscaping fabric, and I laid out edging stone, gravel, and a stepping-stone path. It looks quite cute, and after Jason finishes the deck, he’s going to freehand paint some blossoms onto the stepping stones!

Things that worried me
The worrisome bits were the parts that made October difficult. Several members of my extended family came down with covid, and their exposure to other members of my family still hasn’t fully resolved, so we don’t know yet who all might get it, including some very vulnerable people. One of my best friends ended up in the hospital after her blood pressure soared to unimaginable heights just out of the blue (this pic –> is mere hours before the attack). Morrigan had some problems up in Kansas, though he seems to be doing well again. My grandfather has had major health problems including dangerous levels of edema and a fall that affected his pacemaker. Jason continues to get sick every few months (including October), likely a reaction to some of his medications, though his doctors have yet to figure it out despite many tests. (It’s quite unlike Jason, who used to never get sick.) Ash made some good progress in the early parts of the month, but then lapsed into eating very little again. There are speculations that the state won’t allow school districts the option of virtual schooling too much longer. That horrible woman got put on the Supreme Court through political manipulations of the GOP. Political crap is everywhere and I’m very, very worried about tomorrow’s election.

Highlights of October
It’s ironic that in a month with so many worries and frustrations, there’s also been a lot of nice moments. Here are some faves:

  • Halloween squishies!
  • getting together with Nat for the first time since March, and then a second gathering later in the month
  • Jason made the best hand pies with a stout-beef-and-veggie stew inside, mmm…
  • my Bridge Four poster arrived and it’s gorgeous
  • Ash actually playing and eating food!!!
  • “Orange is sus. Vote him out.” Ha!
  • the mayor’s safety guideline for Halloween, read with a completely straight face on air: “Avoid going into houses, especially if they are haunted.” Ha!
  • fun new crop top from Torrid
  • an amazing hike out at a near-ish State Natural Area, with a 400-ft climb into hills so misty we could see the fog blowing around us, and places deafeningly silent
  • the Pope endorsing same-sex civil unions – it’s not perfect by any means, but it’s far more than I ever thought I’d see the Catholic church do in my lifetime!
  • more foster kitten videos from my sister
  • a fireside night out with the family
  • first major cold front of the season, with temps in the 30s and 40s yay!
  • record voter turnout in SA, and many other places
  • a (safe, masked, small-group) girls’ night out to walk along the Riverwalk and then an outdoor dinner by an Ofrenda (see pic below); my dinner was SO good – if you’re ever in San Antonio, I highly recommend Mi Roti!
  • seriously, the meal was so good that it deserves its own bullet point: roti wrap with butter chicken, coconut rice, roasted Brussels sprouts, shredded cabbage, toasted corn, and avocado cream, with masala fries on the side. Mmmm…
  • Halloween Haunted Hike, complete with costumes, spooky ghost stories told on top of the hill, and running into multiple cold spots on the way down!

Coming up in November
You know, I thought I’d participate in NaNoWriMo this month, but given the way things have gone with my experiment in returning to writing, I don’t think I will. I haven’t participated since November 2015. Maybe next year, assuming my desire ever returns? Instead, I’m going to focus on moderation, getting back into regular running again, and cutting my coffee down to none by the 27th (!!!). Plus of course there’ll be Thanksgiving, likely celebrated with immediate family only, or with extended family via Zoom. Kinda sad times ahead in that. Stupid covid. Fingers crossed we can get a vaccine in the next few months!

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Sunday Coffee – Wrapping Up RIP XV

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Thistle

Well, I didn’t get to read as many books this year as I wanted to for RIP XV. A lot of books were delayed in library holds, and I’ve just been reading so slow and casual this year. Though I did read quite a number – more than a third of this year’s total has been from the last two months, and all but two of those were for RIP! Here’s what I read, in order of reading:

  • Death Notice by Todd Ritter
  • Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • The Haunting of Ashburn House by Darcy Coates
  • Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris (audio)
  • Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (audio)
  • The Whisper Man by Alex North
  • Bad Moon by Todd Ritter
  • Voices in the Snow by Darcy Coates
  • One by One by Ruth Ware
  • Forest of Souls by Lori Lee
  • The Night Swim by Megan Goldin
  • Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas (audio)
  • The Searcher by Tana French (audio)

Of these, there was one reread, four new-to-me authors, three continuations of pre-RIP series, two books set in blizzards, and three books involving cold-case investigations. Other than the reread – a long time favorite – I honestly would have difficulty in choosing a favorite book. There were quite a lot of good ones, and several that were good with disappointing bits to them, but none that stood out as superb. So instead of picking a favorite, I’d have to say the one that was the best-written was The Searcher, and the one with the most striking RIP-esque feel was Voices in the Snow.

Likely I’ll continue with my RIP reading in the months to come, despite the event being officially over. There are just too many books that I’ve been holding out to read and couldn’t get to, and I don’t want to wait all the way until next year to read them!

As always, thank you to the wonderful bloggers who continue to run this event over the years, no matter how formal or informal!

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Race Report: Dia de los Muertos (Virtual) 5K

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Thistle

When I signed up for the Dia de los Muertos Night Run 5K, it was still an in-person event. Of course, it had to go virtual as you might expect, and so back in September, they sent out our swag packages and changed the date from a specific day/time to “anytime from October 4 to November 4.” This really would’ve been a fun one to do in person – not least because I do not feel comfortable doing a run out at the park, alone, when it’s dark outside, and so I had to do it during the day instead. But also because many people dress up for this 5K (and others that the organizers host throughout the year), and it seems like a really awesome race environment. And, as I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of virtual races. They’re just all I can sign up for at the moment!

The swag package included a very soft, comfy shirt that sadly was WAY too small despite me sizing up! (see above) Sigh. It also included the race medal, and a bib that came with a dedication space. Being as this is a Day of the Dead run, it makes sense – running in honor of a loved one who has passed. I have quite a number of those now, sadly, but the person who came immediately to mind was my grandmother, who passed away in February 2018. She had been wheelchair-bound toward the end of her life, and had often been frustrated with her lack of mobility. She was also an amazing woman who taught me so much, and in many ways, I’m still reeling from her loss. I wanted to run this for her.

(2012 – 78th birthday party)

I meant to run this 5K early in October, but circumstances (mostly timing, family issues, and weather) kept intervening. Finally, I decided to just go get it done yesterday…which I admit, was probably a mistake. One of the circumstances holding me back was that I’d aggravated my formerly-broken left foot, and hadn’t had a chance to see my chiropractor to put my talus bone back in place. This affected my gait, which in turn gave me really severe calf pain in both legs from the very beginning of the run. The 5K route I have involves eight laps around my running park, and I was running roughly 2/3rds of each lap. By the time I finished the fourth lap, I literally had to stop the timer and stretch. (One good thing about virtual runs, eh? I don’t care if this is technically cheating.) Even the stretching didn’t help, and by the time I finished two miles, I decided to walk the rest of the way to avoid further injury. It took over five hours for the cramps in my left calf to fully dissipate post-run. Oy.

But here’s what I will say. Despite the leg pain, it was a beautiful day for a run, and I feel like now I have a really good baseline as I re-begin my running training. I literally haven’t run outdoors once since my 5K in September, and barefoot indoor running isn’t exactly the same. It’s time to get my strength back, and I plan to go through the Couch to 5K program again – not to learn to run this time, but to try to improve my speed/endurance. I was happy to see that many of my run segments had paces in the 14- and 15-something per mile range, even though my overall 5K time was 53:20 (a 17:06/mi pace).

Afterwards I got pictures with my now-earned medal, and filled out my Running Bingo for this race. It feels a little weird to cross out my “night/dark” themed run when I ran this thing in the daylight, but again, I’m not comfortable with running alone in the dark and I don’t see in-person events happening again any time soon. This will have to do!

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A Witch in Time, by Constance Sayers

Posted on October 29, 2020 by Thistle

Helen is miserable post-divorce, and her first blind date doesn’t go well. In fact, it goes so poorly that she ends up meeting a man who claims to have known her for over 100 years and four lifetimes of heartache. Helen could just write him off as crazy, except these past lives are encroaching on her dreams, and the man is strangely compelling…

I don’t know why I do this to myself. There is some part of me that desperately loves reincarnation stories, especially reincarnation stories with star-crossed lovers, but that same part of me is always disappointed by what I read. That holds true here, too. The story was definitely not what I craved, and beyond that, it felt weird and scattered and clunky in a lot of ways that would have put me off even without my bizarre love-hate relationship with reincarnation. There were just so many things that felt off: extraneous detail that unnecessarily padded out the book; a present-day timeline that wasn’t very fleshed out; a weird love triangle where Helen (and her past-selves) seemed to have no real opinion as to where her love should end up. The past-life stories were actually quite interesting, and maybe in another format and without the weird love triangle, I would have liked the book. But as it stands, I was disappointed. And also sad that it wasn’t spookier – I kinda expected a book about a witch and a curse to be RIP material, but the witch part was extremely minor (and not really important) and the curse wasn’t the spooky kind. Oh well.

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The Searcher, by Tana French (audio)

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Thistle

After his divorce and retirement from the police force, Cal buys up a dilapidated property in rural Ireland and dedicates himself to a quiet, peaceful life. But life in a small town is never the ideal people make it out to be. When a kid comes begging Cal to search for his missing older brother, he gets wrapped up in a web of secrets and violence that he never could have foreseen.

I don’t have much to say about this book. It’s unlike French’s crime series, and follows more in line with The Witch Elm as a thicker, more literary exploration of culture and secrets. However, unlike The Witch Elm (which I abandoned), the characters and story are quiet engaging. Slow and relaxed, but engaging. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d say that the end result had any real impact – I had times when I wondered what the purpose of the story was – but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was almost slice-of-life with a dash of intrigue and a little of changing-personal-codes along the way. There were definitely thematic elements, but they were subtle things, and I found myself listening more for the rhythm and flow than anything else. It helped that the audio narrator, Roger Clark, was brilliant. So would I recommend it? Unsure. I personally enjoyed it, but I think it would be hit or miss with many people. Interestingly, I do feel this one will stick with me over time, and that helps me to land on the “hit” side.

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