Mid summer 2021 Back to office

   So, this transition from work from home to back to work from on grounds office. A lot of stuff. I'm in a little bit of an argument with my supervisor - when I suggested our University of Virginia might help in configuring our home computers for fast, easy, and safe use, I got back a comment "I would strongly recommend using work equipment for work, and personal equipment for personal tasks."

   There's lots I could say back, especially about the fussiness between work/personal, when you use your home system and monitor to view your work work laptop. But that can be a huge discussion, which I'm backing away from. 

 

 

 

      I try to keep walking daily about 30 or more minutes. It has become a little strange and maybe dangerous since Deej has become ill with severe stomach problems and doesn't always walk with me anymore. Yesterday I was walking in the Sunset Trail and decided to take a little video of Moores Creek as the radio was playing classical river music. The video went fine,I put away my camera, but then I slipped, fell down and hit my left knew and was almost totally wet in the shallow water. I tried to get up, but my balance was horrible from speed walking 25 minutes, and I slipped two more times into the water, until I finally stood up, dizzy. It took another half minute before I carefully walked out of the creek and back onto the path. 

   Scary though - and Deej and I have discussed how I can safely walk alone - with cell phone and phoning her an estimate of when I will be back home. 

  Ah, adjustments as one ages. 

  The Azalea garden is going well, though we have not grown as much as we usually to. 4 rows of corn are coming fine, 2 rows of bush beans are doing well though the heat delayed the flowers turning to seed for a while, our annual glads look well - beautiful yellows and orange so far. Sunflowers in the corners are coming along though the deer seem to like chewing of the tops in the SW corner. Late plantings of okra, cucumber, pole beans, watermelon, and squash are coming along. Tomatoes have some nice green fruit on them. Peppers, hot or mild, are not at all doing well, almost seem like dwarf plants (same with the ones in the back yard). Some recently planted flowers (zenia, cosmos, etc) are coming along. With this drought, I go and water some about every other day. Deej has gone and picked two sets of bush beans, which we've loved. 

  The back yard is doing okay- the moon flower vines are slowly growing to one foot and some five feet. Vegetables are miserable and have not produced fruit. Lotuses blossomed lovely. Deer have eaten everywhere: Deej is disappointed with them eating her lilies. The ground hogs (we may have two new teenagers and one about a month old) love the tops of various plants. Flowers doing okay with humming birds enjoying a month of tubular flowers. Birds are all over the bird feeders and around the yard. 

  We took down the two huge maple trees - front and side yard, giving the roof more sun - enough for solar? The evergreen is limping along, while the dogwood and mulberry (fruited in April/May) are doing well. With the drought, our Pollock creek is very low. 

    So another summer goes along - we've still not settle on some place for some days at the beach - places are very popular and rare to find and prices have gone up 20-30%. Maybe some beach in late September?

Events, logging in - mid Nov 2021

 Events. logging in.

Phone - left it on the bus Wed evening, bus driver sent me an email, picked it up Thursday morning

No ice cream Wed night. Ran out of mango juice Wed too - Deej might get some today (Friday)

Rained hard or 1.5 inches Thursday/Friday

Figured out and doing some scanning, eg Dad's Alzheimer pamphlet trying to make it into a digital book

Solomon last night, egg toasted sandwiches Wed night 

Zooms, zooms, zooms. Disaster art this noon; Damon and Fox's Indonesian and before then Art Hair zooms Thurs night. David Scott's memorial service zoom over a two day period. SA art books zoom too intellectual for me. Lucie's zoom on her Am Indian roots - really good.

Figuring out how to re-connect to order Cairo titles

Tour the Library under construction and then moon over TJ and Rotunda

A log each day! March 2021

Activities. TV. 

On Sunday. 21 March 2021. Got up late. No usual shower since going to  garden. Full brunch - 2 fried eggs, home made coffee, toast with mango jam, 3 strips bacon. Dropped my smaller pill, but found it and took it. Sunny day. Made McCalk zoom invite and sent. Jimmy responded to my email last night of photos of the 1990s Florida Calkins reunion at Betty - thanks for some photos, but they were only or mainly just the Pryors. Set up India 2010 TB Robert's tour group - showed our photo at the Taj and other ones. Shared the Pepperpot photo with Jim R.

Garden mulch

Garden: around 4:15, 7 wheelbarrow loads of mulch on each side of the onions and peas planted last week. knocking off dirt clods of corn. Clear cool (50s) day day. Mexican couple also getting mulch. Mehr stopped by with dog, asking about why she hasn't gotten library titles she requested and needs for conference. At Druid garden, forked the rest of the pepper plot, in about an hour before McCalk Zoom.  

 

 

 

 

Druid plot for peppers

Supper: Asparagus, potato and shrimp warmed for left over supper. Also got food out for Deej and made ice for her.   

Zoom was fun - Arlene told stories, shared Jimmy's 1990s photos, we tried to help Robert Z figure out the Calkins children's names and their kids and when Margaret and Claude died, etc. 

TV: Mid-Somers Mystery episode, 11-5 

Deej: not feeling well, pains from yesterday's 2nd Covid shot, bed early. on couch most of the day.

2021 Day to Day, really?

Written on the 15th Jan 2020.

Item 1: migraine headaches. For some reason, I've had 3 or 4 episodes of migraines in the last month - really debilitating. Have used (expensive) peppermint drops and Ibuprofen one pill, which takes about 5 hours to work. Thought one might be coming on two days ago (13 Jan 2020) so took a pill and by noon there was no small sensation. Whew! 

     2. Took Kali to the Old Dominion vet yesterday because of an infected bite, whole near the back of her back, near her tail. Flushed her wound, shot with antibiotics and a shot of pain killer. Got rabies, distemper vaccine, Leukemia booster. And put on a collar. Kali doesn't like it, and stumbles around, disorientated some, hard to walk without stepping on collar.

    3. We had a lot of rain during the last 2 weeks, 5 inches in one day. 

    4. Working from home, going to Kroger 2-3 times a week; walking daily for 30 or more minutes, mostly around Druid area; Deej does almost all of the cooking, making sure to cook food which won't upset her Crohn's disease. I need often to sneak in tomatoes, onions, garlic, spices, but it is limiting.

    5. Big deal - loosing UVa's hosting my person Legacy website today and haven't figured out where I might put it. ITS was not much help, but we will try one of their hosting suggestions.

    6. I weekly do three zooms - at an hour each. 1. Woodstock alumni noon on Saturdays, which Dierdre set up before she moved to Australia, works fine on its own. 2. Class of 1959 Parker Hall at 1:45 pm Saturday with about 10 people coming for a good time each week. 3, McCalk family and friends, mainly Calkinses at 7:30 pm Sunday. Mostly Arlene, Marilyn, and Margaret are there, plus often Jimmy.  Occasionally Scot joins for a few minutes, or Betty, or Julie.  But hardly no one else of the 25 invited each week. We have a nice friendly, warm time. And 4. every other week the Class of 1960 has a 3:30 pm Saturday zoom and about 13 or so join in that. Jim Rugh sets it up and Carol Rugh makes a fantastic list of discussed topics and people at the zooms.     

    Well, I hope to continue, but need to go see what more I can learn of what I did at work in the past year and see if I can develop my annual report, probably not get it in for today, but we have MLK off on Monday, so extra time to write it up and send it in late on Tuesday,

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.