Resume again 3 June 2020

Opps, I'm really not doing well with this every day blog - oh, well.
      Unique today? I gave Deej a haircut which she is not happy about, but will accept, and Deej then gave me a haircut, which is fine with me - a much cooler neck. Maybe photos tomorrow if I remember . Also wonderful 2nd day of salmon for supper. And we saw first fire flies of the year this evening after supper.  There were bats again outside and the moon is almost full (June 5trh).
     At work we had an interesting library zoom about how much access there will be for books in about two weeks - also dealt with a Middle East vendor who sells ebooks, unfortunately UVa has no librarian who reads Arabic - what to do, get Arabic faculty to help us? Finished with one title request for a Braj manuscript; wrote another faculty member to wait until June 10th to figure out access to print books here, scanning, and from other libraries (interlibrary loan though they are closed too).
     A little Azalea gardening - mainly weeding. For the 2nd time it looks like our recently planted corn is being eaten and will not grown - yuck, all that work for nothing.
     Yesterday answered two flower questions - 1. Kathy asked where are the Kathy's question where are the poppie pollinators ?

and Kathie's question - do you have some photos of the allium I gave you?

You probably did not notice that Deej had her left eye cataract removed Monday, and here she is Tuesday seeing all sorts of brightness and colors she has missed for decades. 

 

    On the weekend I had 2 zooms on Saturday, the first with Woodstock Alumni (Diedre's) and the second with my Class of 1959. Then Sunday evening we had a great family/close friends zoom with only 5 of us - got to see Jackie for the first time in years - Marilyn, Arlene, and Julie added to the great conversations. 

       The biggest bad surprise was that Barbara was taken to a Richmond hospital last Tuesday and went into a coma. Daughter Ginny drove down to see her joined by Woody there also - but they could not actually see Barb until the next day when Barb was able to indicate she knew they were there with a thumbs up. Ginny has kept the family updated.  Barb has a sort of recovery on Thursday taken off the respirator, but then had a relapse back on the respirator and with a feeding tube - so we don't know what will happen with these ups and downs.  Not good. 

     I've been scanning some of the family's old photos and putting them in albums. Especially interesting are the ones of the Rughs family whom were were close to in India. There's also a cute one of Barb with her dolls.

     In writing and talking with my friends and others such as Sandy, Kathie, Sue, and others I made a list of some of my recent videos and photo albums, which I add below

Meanwhile, maybe have a little fun and watch these videos (okay, Kathy’s seen some already)

Our back yard 2020 May 28 https://youtu.be/kH9g83Knry0

Garden May 17 https://youtu.be/hLnLJY96qBw

Social Walk 2020 May early  https://youtu.be/Vrnzr4RZyDY

Walk with bandanitos 2020 April 19 https://youtu.be/sm-YIL_ZWks

In the Gardens 2020 March 31 https://youtu.be/ewnRpR2TUts

 

Also photos? (you can see captions to each photo if you click on the little “i” in the circle upper right)

Poppies 2020 May https://photos.app.goo.gl/1E19VHp1gahCZggu5 

May early 2020 (Piedmont) https://photos.app.goo.gl/KQyimL4hY2XJbsK29

(Another) Piedmont walk 2020 April 21 https://photos.app.goo.gl/w9KBftzFcidMz7E48

Trail Avon Quarry Home 2020 April 22 https://photos.app.goo.gl/3DvP6s62Kf4pSfyG6

Mowing by Deej 2020 April 16  https://photos.app.goo.gl/shGgSAR5PVVtzvev8

In the gardens 2020 March 31 https://photos.app.goo.gl/eHztw84d73EhYy5x7 photos of the above video of March 31

Walk Moore's 2020 March 29 https://photos.app.goo.gl/EVW1PVEtqCu4Ufqj7

Moore's Creek Walk 2020 March 28 https://photos.app.goo.gl/Wzn8wgGPktbYm8zg9

Spring walk 2020 March 14  https://photos.app.goo.gl/7AN67NmdoRenBP4c9

 

That’s all for now, folks. Let me know.

      

Resume again on Monday 18 May

   Wow, I'm a complete failure in keeping up this daily blog. So let's see some events
    Sunday (18 May 2020) - I couldn't get my Firefox to connect me to my home link at http://people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/ for about 40 minutes (a mystery), but got to the WS Zoom with two Woodstock alum women and listened to fascinating talk of Woodstock, dominance of men in organizations still (even at Amazon), not being treated as an American in America (3rd culture kid), gardens, Indian / Western clothing, and much more. Made Sunday brunch. Worked up an Anglo-Indian Worldcat bibliography stimulated by a wonderful long email by an Anglo-Indian classmate. Worked our asses off in the Azalea garden - preparing, digging, and planting 3 rows of corn, and bringing in two more wheelbarrows of mulch (ruined, bleeding my right hand on a metal stake guiding the barrow in). We had done work yesterday digging holes and planting 3 bell peppers, 2 basil, and 12 chili/cayenne peppers Deej's beans are up. Our main food crops are thus in.

The Home Work Station Room

        Then Sunday evening McCalk family and close friends Zoom at 7:30 - it didn't work for me for the first 3 minutes - then others came in - Jimmy, Arlene, Margaret. Marilyn (her birthday today at 83) kept trying to get in and finally did. Julie logged in for about 5 minutes, seeing Eliza briefly for her birthday. Margaret had to leave as the cell phone she was using was dying. Jimmy shared some Calkins screens including Claude's moves around SW Iowa in the first half of the 20th century and his Flicker Calkin's pages.  Then the usual 3 or 4 PBS Sunday night series.
     We've been on some walks this week. One around the Dell Pond as part of my returning Keith's power cord to our Kerchof Office. I dropped my blue SA bag somewhere, but because I did a GoPro recording, we could see where I dropped it near Ruffner Hall. So went back and retrieved it the next day. Also finished mowing the back yard on Thursday evening.
     I've been going to several coffee break work Zooms each day, though Todd was off and Rich / Arlyn took over this week. The SEL Zoom was sparcely attended also.  There were lots of folks at Mira's Library Zoom Wed afternoon. I zoom with her tomorrow after 5 as my chance to introduce myself.
       There was a fascinating Class of 1959 Zoom Saturday afternoon - not too many on (15+) but very interesting, mainly because Willie suggested we talk about our careers that we have had and about 5 of us took 10-15 minutes to describe our careers.  Some interesting Woodstock stories emerged too.
    I've been working with two other librarians to help prepare for the Summer Anthropology course on Film ethnographies.  Also working with two professors to see if we can get their research purchase requests, or retrieve a book from Clemons library and mail it to the professor in DC.
     Also worked on photos and videos - see the video called Social Walk 2020 Early May, with 36 photos And the video May Day 2020 Library and Lawn
    Biggest news for me working from home - I was successful in setting up my Dual Screens on Tues/Wed finding a missing power cord.

Console for dual screen work station

Tues thru Thurs 14-16 April 2020

    Oh, oh.  I have about given up trying to keep up.  This is hard trying to blog day-by-day.
    Most important - I keep working from home this 4th/5th week.  Joining a research team, examining multi-volume titles which got separated between two libraries (trying to re-unite them and keep them in a single library), our liaison team meeting discussing how we liaisons on the front line for this online university are not getting our fair worth of praise for our work, several work and 'coffee' zoom meetings which keep me somewhat connected.
    Also make an effort to keep up walking, some days at least one 1/2 hour walk and some two of those.
    The India Bazaar store said it would re-open on the 13th Apr so we could restock our supply of paers which one each which we have in the evening (Deej is running out of her plain papars, though I have a pretty good stash of cumin papars). Drove all the way up to the Indian store only to discover  that they had not reopened but will reopen on the 20th (we can always hope). Also it was a little frustrating as both Deej and I tried to deposit some checks before going to the store - the automated teller didn't accept her check so we lined up and both of us deposited our separate checks at a window.
     Deej went to the store yesterday and got our weekly (maybe enough) groceries. The Tuesday afternoon stores were crowded.
     Flowers, bushes, and trees are blossoming hugely - especially after our 3 inches of rain which fell over Sunday night and into Tuesday morning. Some places were surprised to see some early Tuesday morning snow!
     Deej also mowed our side and front yards today (Wed). Deej mowing 12 seconds

   








     My classmates have been reading several books and I've listed most of them in Worldcat.org.  I sent that list by email and one of my testy members complained - "why are you recommending I read these books, I have plenty of good books to read." Of course I never thought I was "recommending" books, just listing them as interesting - so, I replied, "never mind, just delete that list and any others."
Here's the list - no, I'm not insisting you read all of them. The list includes 'failed' books too (started but never read) Moby Dick, The Odyssey : the story of Ulysses, etc.

     The other very interesting video I received was of a 20 minute motor bike ride, "Lockdown in India" of a friend taking an American on a 4 mile trip to a police station in the Himalaya hill town of Mussorie so he could get permission to travel to Delhi and get a plane back to the States.  What was unusual was the very narrow streets up and down the hills - the streets were almost empty of people, but there were dogs laying around, and one place cows roaming around. I have not learned if he got back to the States or not, but Modi re-instated the India lockdown which ended the 13th and then almost immediately was re-instated until early May.  Have a look at the video

Click on Helping My Friend Escape LOCKDOWN in India

And here's a Map of route https://goo.gl/maps/m1UShVjnkqA3YPi68

      I'm having a disconnect with my sister Betty, as she wants to set up her own zoom with me and because she needs to be the Host of her reading club zoom session.  We've tried various things, but still haven't been able to figure out a good time over the phone and the Internet to figure this out.  Plus her laptop's video and sound seem some how turned off, as in a zoom session we tried with her and others over the week end.  Hope we can get that all fixed.  

      Extremely sad to hear that brothers of two of my good friends died (the friends - Anand and Wayde) - their families and friends will miss these amazing humans.

Thursday through Monday 2-6 April 2020

Worked Thursday and Friday, did Gardening stuff Saturday, Sunday, and Monday evening
     Work mainly consists of trying to find ebooks and access for online learning. That was also true Monday when I worked with an anthropology professor and our digital access librarian to try to find a Cambridge publication online - and at first it didn't allow access to both the professor and me. The librarian ordered the book which will come Wednesday - then we can see if we can get his Chapter 10 in that ebook. Cambridges problems was that they have opened up their books digitally for the next two months - but this book did not qualify since it was not designated as a 'textbook'!
    There were various library zooms, morning 1/2 hour coffee zoom and a Research and Learning zoom in the afternoon - they are thinking of ending all scanning soon.
     Garden plot. Spent much of Saturday afternoon working with Deej to clear off all the old and dead twigs, corn stocks, etc. and place the cages, stakes, bamboo poles, all in a section. Deej also is working on a fenced in patch, which she started to folk spade on Sunday.

    We loaded and brought in the mower on Sunday also, and mowed the whole garden area. It was in preparation for our Afghan's fellow gardener's offer to til the plot. Monday we went and checked, but it had not been tilled - one tiller broke down and another was a front tiller and would not dig into the hard ground. So now we are thinking we will need to hire someone again to till the plot ($40-60).

I forked up a long row and Deej helped me plant two types of peas. She's also been loading and taking (so far 4) buckets of mulch chips. She upset that some of our fellow gardeners have taken almost of of the large pile of rich mulch - not much sharing of that, like they have done in previous years. 

 

 There was a nice sunset and a full moon as we left the garden.

Deej baked another loaf of bread Sunday afternoon.









    While the dishwasher and new faucet got put in, only today did the dryer repairman come in to fix the heating on it He finished and we paid him $350, and then Deej did two washes, and the dryer didn't heat up - so called again and they're coming in tomorrow morning.  Whew, nuts.
      I had a nice zoom chat with my Class of 59 folks Saturday afternoon - the second week with them.  And I joined a Woodstock alumni management small group to try to figure out what ways we might make contacts and help out anyone during this time of virus.  Some actions were suggested, but most were vague and uncertain.
       And I joined another Woodstock alumni zoom on Sunday late morning, with a variety of about 15 Woodstockites - talking of a variety of our experiences during theses 'stay at home times.'
       We've been on some walks around Belmont park and to Moores creek this last week end.