The Fourth Week (April 6-12): Goats, Patio Party, SF Road Trip
Monday, April 6-Wednesday, April 8
The beginning of the dual holiday (Passover + Easter) week wasn't too remarkable. I got a yummy salmon salad for lunch from Fox & Goose on Monday, which was a nice discovery. Otherwise, Mr. E and I just worked in our respective offices during the day, I did my cardio workouts in the morning along with daily yoga and Pilates on Monday & Wednesday (trying to mimic my typical CAC class schedule), and Mr. E spent lots of time in the garden, sometimes grabbing takeout dinner on the way home from Burgers & Brew or Vito's.
A few fun sights during my morning outings included a big oyster shell perched atop the nose of the fox in the statue outside Fox & Goose on Tuesday; a circle of construction workers by the new Natural Resources Building site doing group stretches on Tuesday and Wednesday; and a herd of goats along the West Sac Riverfront during my run on Wednesday.
It's hard to feel motivated some times since everything is still just on hold and no one knows when we'll be able to start emerging from this situation. We both feel very fortunate to have jobs and family and good friends and a lovely home and the financial means to navigate through uncertainty. At the same time, it's hard to keep those thoughts of appreciation and gratitude at the forefront when each day brings new restrictions and discrepant information and extreme reactions from various leadership.
I've started to listen to Governor Newsom's daily updates at noon when I can, and I've gained such respect and admiration for how he's leading through this pandemic. The "Gavinor" is really stepping up to this unprecedented situation and striking a delicate balance between implementing public health orders and yet not utilizing the full extent of his authority to be too reactive.
Thursday, April 9-Sunday, April 12
The highlight of my Thursday was meeting up with S for takeout lunch from Mendocino Farms, which we enjoyed at the picnic table in the Fremont Community Garden. It's great to see the radishes sprouting up there already, and I've also been enjoying the strawberries and peas from the community plot. Our zucchini plants are looking quite healthy, but the beans and basil aren't doing as well. Must be something in the soil of our plot, so Mr. E is going to try some other items when he gets additional starters this weekend.
We celebrated the end of the week with a wonderful Patio Party on Friday evening with E & C. Mr. E cleaned up the patio, got rid of the old rusty non-working grill, and rearranged the plants and furniture so that we could have sufficient space in between sets of chairs for us to be at one end and E & C at the other. We put the table in the middle for our snacks (from Market 515 for all of us!) and beverages, and it was just so great to spend time in person with good friends rather than having the interaction and conversation mediated by Zoom and a web cam. Eventually, as the temperature dropped a bit, we moved inside to the living room to finish out the evening, choosing seats that still kept us somewhat physically distant. And we all agreed to repeat the experience soon. C is the only one of the four of us who continues to go to work and be around people during the day, and I can tell that the rest of us are starting to really yearn for more human interaction and contact.
On Saturday, we took a road trip to San Francisco to witness for ourselves the empty transformation of the city. I posted a separate entry just for the photos of the day. We started off with breakfast from the drive-through Starbucks in West Sac off of I-80 and stopped for gas (and a bathroom break) in Emeryville. For the rest of the journey, we just stayed in the car as we drove around different parts of the city -- Oracle Park, Market Street, Ferry Building, the Embarcadero, Pier 39, Fort Mason and Beach Street, Golden Gate Park, Legion of Honor, and finally departing via the Golden Gate Bridge. We spent about 4 1/2 hours on the journey, and it was quite sobering and surreal to see the vast changes, particularly since we had just had a weekend visit there in January that was the exact opposite -- major congestion due to the Women's March and lots of people around the Moscone Center and our hotel because of the Fancy Food Show. The empty streets we saw this week were such a stark contrast to the typical San Francisco experience.
Once we got home, Mr. E headed to the garden and I walked to Target to pick up a few items, including some books as I'm starting to run out of reading material! On the way back, I bumped into B, B, & M, who were strolling along 9th Street after leaving some Passover essentials by our door. They had also seen Mr. E, so we all got a chance to catch up a bit. B had texted me earlier with a link to the Saturday Night Seder, which was airing at 5pm PT. I'm so glad she let us know about the event, as it was amazing and funny and heartfelt and just so relevant and poignant during this very strange time. Mr. E missed out since he was still working in the garden. Later in the evening, he headed to Safeway for wine and Panda for his takeout dinner.
Sunday was Easter morning, and we had an 11am Zoom date with Mr. E's family. The timing worked out perfectly so that Mr. E could go the Farmer's Market for veggies and some garden starters before we had breakfast, and we then enjoyed our final coffee while visiting with the family. It was a wee bit chaotic with so many people connecting (or trying to connect) and then talking all at the same time but still fun to see everyone. I was so envious of the folks who were in the pool!!!
Mr. E spent lots of time in the garden today. I added some books to the Little Free Library by the Midtown Bark Park but was glad I had purchased two at Target as I didn't find much of interest to take in exchange. In the afternoon, we tried out our new tennis option by using the wall of the warehouse in a nearby alley as a backboard given that all of the public park tennis courts and other recreational facilities are now closed. The experiment was relatively successful until we lost all three of our balls! One bounced through the slats into the parking garage behind us, and the other two ended up on the warehouse roof and never rolled back down. Oops. Mr. E attempted to procure some fresh fish and meat for dinner at Market 515 and Safeway, but both had closed early for Easter, so we instead made do with what we had in the fridge and freezer.
The beginning of the dual holiday (Passover + Easter) week wasn't too remarkable. I got a yummy salmon salad for lunch from Fox & Goose on Monday, which was a nice discovery. Otherwise, Mr. E and I just worked in our respective offices during the day, I did my cardio workouts in the morning along with daily yoga and Pilates on Monday & Wednesday (trying to mimic my typical CAC class schedule), and Mr. E spent lots of time in the garden, sometimes grabbing takeout dinner on the way home from Burgers & Brew or Vito's.
A few fun sights during my morning outings included a big oyster shell perched atop the nose of the fox in the statue outside Fox & Goose on Tuesday; a circle of construction workers by the new Natural Resources Building site doing group stretches on Tuesday and Wednesday; and a herd of goats along the West Sac Riverfront during my run on Wednesday.
It's hard to feel motivated some times since everything is still just on hold and no one knows when we'll be able to start emerging from this situation. We both feel very fortunate to have jobs and family and good friends and a lovely home and the financial means to navigate through uncertainty. At the same time, it's hard to keep those thoughts of appreciation and gratitude at the forefront when each day brings new restrictions and discrepant information and extreme reactions from various leadership.
I've started to listen to Governor Newsom's daily updates at noon when I can, and I've gained such respect and admiration for how he's leading through this pandemic. The "Gavinor" is really stepping up to this unprecedented situation and striking a delicate balance between implementing public health orders and yet not utilizing the full extent of his authority to be too reactive.
Thursday, April 9-Sunday, April 12
The highlight of my Thursday was meeting up with S for takeout lunch from Mendocino Farms, which we enjoyed at the picnic table in the Fremont Community Garden. It's great to see the radishes sprouting up there already, and I've also been enjoying the strawberries and peas from the community plot. Our zucchini plants are looking quite healthy, but the beans and basil aren't doing as well. Must be something in the soil of our plot, so Mr. E is going to try some other items when he gets additional starters this weekend.
We celebrated the end of the week with a wonderful Patio Party on Friday evening with E & C. Mr. E cleaned up the patio, got rid of the old rusty non-working grill, and rearranged the plants and furniture so that we could have sufficient space in between sets of chairs for us to be at one end and E & C at the other. We put the table in the middle for our snacks (from Market 515 for all of us!) and beverages, and it was just so great to spend time in person with good friends rather than having the interaction and conversation mediated by Zoom and a web cam. Eventually, as the temperature dropped a bit, we moved inside to the living room to finish out the evening, choosing seats that still kept us somewhat physically distant. And we all agreed to repeat the experience soon. C is the only one of the four of us who continues to go to work and be around people during the day, and I can tell that the rest of us are starting to really yearn for more human interaction and contact.
On Saturday, we took a road trip to San Francisco to witness for ourselves the empty transformation of the city. I posted a separate entry just for the photos of the day. We started off with breakfast from the drive-through Starbucks in West Sac off of I-80 and stopped for gas (and a bathroom break) in Emeryville. For the rest of the journey, we just stayed in the car as we drove around different parts of the city -- Oracle Park, Market Street, Ferry Building, the Embarcadero, Pier 39, Fort Mason and Beach Street, Golden Gate Park, Legion of Honor, and finally departing via the Golden Gate Bridge. We spent about 4 1/2 hours on the journey, and it was quite sobering and surreal to see the vast changes, particularly since we had just had a weekend visit there in January that was the exact opposite -- major congestion due to the Women's March and lots of people around the Moscone Center and our hotel because of the Fancy Food Show. The empty streets we saw this week were such a stark contrast to the typical San Francisco experience.
Once we got home, Mr. E headed to the garden and I walked to Target to pick up a few items, including some books as I'm starting to run out of reading material! On the way back, I bumped into B, B, & M, who were strolling along 9th Street after leaving some Passover essentials by our door. They had also seen Mr. E, so we all got a chance to catch up a bit. B had texted me earlier with a link to the Saturday Night Seder, which was airing at 5pm PT. I'm so glad she let us know about the event, as it was amazing and funny and heartfelt and just so relevant and poignant during this very strange time. Mr. E missed out since he was still working in the garden. Later in the evening, he headed to Safeway for wine and Panda for his takeout dinner.
Sunday was Easter morning, and we had an 11am Zoom date with Mr. E's family. The timing worked out perfectly so that Mr. E could go the Farmer's Market for veggies and some garden starters before we had breakfast, and we then enjoyed our final coffee while visiting with the family. It was a wee bit chaotic with so many people connecting (or trying to connect) and then talking all at the same time but still fun to see everyone. I was so envious of the folks who were in the pool!!!
Mr. E spent lots of time in the garden today. I added some books to the Little Free Library by the Midtown Bark Park but was glad I had purchased two at Target as I didn't find much of interest to take in exchange. In the afternoon, we tried out our new tennis option by using the wall of the warehouse in a nearby alley as a backboard given that all of the public park tennis courts and other recreational facilities are now closed. The experiment was relatively successful until we lost all three of our balls! One bounced through the slats into the parking garage behind us, and the other two ended up on the warehouse roof and never rolled back down. Oops. Mr. E attempted to procure some fresh fish and meat for dinner at Market 515 and Safeway, but both had closed early for Easter, so we instead made do with what we had in the fridge and freezer.
posted by jms | 8:12 AM
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