The One With a Six Foot "Hello"

Saturday is my go to the grocery store day. Except, I didn't. My initial "shelter in place" plan was to learn to cook. Or at least start to cook. You can guess that I'm not cooking today. I did cook last weekend though. I had thin slices of roast beef in the freezer to cook up for some version of a Philly Cheesesteak Sub. I've been out of bread for maybe two weeks, so I had to improvise. Luckily I have texas toast in the freezer. It is three-cheese toast, a nice hearty bread.  I cooked up the meat and at first, it was tasteless. So I added a little beef bullion as it cooked. It helped. The sandwich was okay. Really not bad.

Today I drove to Durham to pick up my prescriptions. I know I need to move them to a pharmacy closer to me, but it's a pain. The last time I did that only some of the Rx came over and it was so painful to go pick up my prescriptions to find that only one was filled "here" and the others were at the "old" pharmacy. I just can't get excited about trying to make that switch. Most of my meds are on a 90-day cycle, so it's not bad. When I'm in Durham I'm already really close to my Dad's house, so I swing by there for a 6-foot distance "hello".

I brought my camera. There are a few old weathered barns and houses that I have wanted to get pictures of for years. Today I got a few of this beauty.

This may look like a barn, but it really is not. This was an auto mechanic's garage. Not a commercial garage but where the owner took his car for oil changes. The garage has an oil pit (on the left side). I know about the oil pit because I've driven by the garage for the last ten years. When I first got back to town, it was in better shape. Not good shape, mind you, but better shape. I could see the oil pits more clearly then. I took this shot with my new DSLR. The one that I finally got set up for my walk the other week.

The camera feels so good in my hand. I love to be able to put my eye up to the viewfinder. I love the experience of shooting with what I think of as a real camera.  Don't get me wrong, I really dig the cameras in our smartphones. I just find that my pics are more thought out when I use the SLR. More meditative.

I loved how it felt while I was out today. This garage is across the street from a restaurant and a post office. I was able to take the photos from across the road. The land with the garage used to be in a somewhat rural area. Suburbia just grew up around it.

It's important that I get out there with my camera again. It's the only way to disarm my feelings of being an imposter. I really am a photographer. I need to become comfortable carrying my camera into the world. My camera needs to come with me on my urban hikes, and not just on mountain retreats.

You may remember when I took my camera out on my walk a couple of weeks ago, I was disappointed I could not get better photos of the eagle. I do need a more powerful telephoto lens for that type of photography. Looking closely at the images you can see the eagle. You can sort of see that it is an eagle. I am sharing it with you here just so you can be in awe that I was this close to an eagle. The only way I could really see the eagle was by expanding the image on my PC screen. I know that cropping it down for you makes for a crap pic...but today, it's the thought that counts.

Weekend 5? of COVID (I think)

Sidewalk Art Outside My Apartment

Is this the 5th weekend? It has to be. Though, like everyone, for me, the days are running together.  I think when we look back at this "Time of COVID" we will have some interesting anecdotes for some sort of sociological or anthropological study. Though I'm not sure what the appetite for such a study will be. 

I'm trying to be a good citizen and "Shelter in Place". I've stayed home each of the last five weekends. I did go out to the pharmacy a couple of times but did drive-thru. But otherwise, a homebody I have been. 

On Facebook, I've seen several Memes saying, "Check on your extroverted friends...they are not okay with this". And for just a  moment I am evaluating if the word is "extrovert" or "extroverted".  That's the kind of rabbit hole my mind takes me. I went down another rabbit hole at the very beginning of this post. You probably wouldn't notice a rabbit hole trip if I didn't pause to tell you about it. So today, because I'm in just that kind of mood, I will tell you about one of the rabbit holes. 

As I typed the word "COVID", my Grammarly application corrected it from "Covid" to "COVID". And my thought was "Really?" Has it been long enough that a grammar app should know what the naming convention for the illness is? Turns out the answer is "yes", it has been long enough. Our diligent grammar first responders have created a guide to make it more clear how we are to describe "The Covid".  [Note: They would hate how I'm doing it here.  So don't do as I do...or even as I say.] 

For your reading pleasure, and further research opportunities, I give you the answers to these burning questions below.

Link to AP Stylebook

But wait, there's more! I have so much more to tell you about. 

[Side Note: You have to be of a certain age to want to share a smile about the idiom.]

Okay...where were we... "But Wait, There's More!"

All kidding aside, I'm so interested in how others are coping and entertaining themselves during this time. Before the Shelter-In-Place orders were announced, my girlfriend approached the strange times with the words, "In these uncertain times..." or something like that. She was way ahead of me in seeing where this was all going. 

Television is, of course, an easy answer to fill one's time. And, as long as the TV is either entertaining or informative,  I wouldn't consider that a poor use of time. I, myself, value entertainment very much. 

But one can only watch so much TV I guess. Although, we are lucky to have so many choices. In my mother's day, isolation would have simply meant more time on phone calls. The old fashioned kind of phone which was tethered to the wall for connection. In the '70s, many of us had different versions of these devices. Mine was a green princess phone. Back in the day, though, your sisters wanted their turn to talk to their friends, which would mean you had to "get off the phone" with your friends. If one of us refused to hang up, then we were forced to hear lots of pickups from other extensions. Sometimes just a huff and then a hangup. Often a phrase like, "GET OFF THE PHONE" was heard. The worst was when one of the parents got on the phone. That meant your phone time was truly over.

Anyway, back in those days, you had to share phone time with others. Worse yet, you could never really be sure one of your sisters wasn't secretly, stealthily, listening. Today, I guess that is more likely to be our own government listening...so, yeah, no problem.

Long-distance calling was "a thing". Your phone bill actually tallied how long you were on a long-distance call and charged extra for those minutes. That put the hurting on talking with relatives who were out of town, like as far as Raleigh (from Durham). It was cheaper to drive to see them than to call. 

But, today we have so many choices of communication, like video chats. I've been on several. I prefer the phone...that way I'm not so self-conscious about how I look. We get to see video messages from celebrities telling us that we are "all in this together". Which, I don't know, maybe we are. I know illness does not discriminate. 

My favorite thing we have today, that we didn't have in my Mom's day, is the ability to share pictures instantly. Pictures and even videos! I haven't talked about it on here, but I became a Nona just before Christmas. My daughter has the most beautiful baby girl. She does not live in the same town as I do, which makes seeing her in person, during these times, impossible. But we don't have to pay long-distance charges for phone calls, of which there are many. I've been lucky to have gotten to see my granddaughter several times before the whole "troubled times" started, and I'm so grateful for that. But I miss being able to go visit anytime I want. Baby Girl was just two months old the last time I saw her in real life. Next Tuesday, she will be four months old. But to get my Baby Girl fix, my daughter sends pictures and videos every day. It's not the same, but it's something!

Cameras and Walking Trails

I used to see myself as an avid amateur/hobbyist photographer.  I sort of held that idea of myself even after losing Jordan to the Nursing Home. I bought the new camera Jordan had been encouraging me to get for over a year. I took the camera on the trip to Costa Rica, and then....nothing. Both my new camera and my old trusty Nikon sat on a shelf (where I could see them). When someone asked, I would tell them, "Yes, I'm a photographer."

But, more time passed and all I was using was my cell phone. Truthfully, my photos have gotten worse and worse. Some of that is because I can't really see the LCD screen to shoot a good pic. Some of it is also the phone camera is going to have limited quality. But, a lot of it is likely because I've fallen out of practice. 

Jordan and I used to "do" our photography as a planned thing. Jordan made sure to charge all batteries the night before and made sure the memory cards were ready. On the day of our shoot, we would take our cameras and go. Sometimes we were in the mountains, just for photographing waterfalls and forests. Sometimes we were in a town, like Asheville or Brevard, and we were little tourists. On those days, a camera was nice because there is so much charm that can be caught. Some of our last shoots were NYC, Brevard, Asheville, and Wilmington. 

Two weeks ago I took a walk. A three-mile walk in Duke Forest. It was the same trail that I hurt myself when I was training to become a runner. (Side note: I did not become a runner.) I consciously set out to walk three miles to try to reclaim some physical activity that I had been building over the last year. In 2019 I made it a goal to workout 3 times a week. At first, my workout was the treadmill, and I was doing interval running and walking for an hour. My goal was to always get 3 miles. I really wanted to get my cardio and legs in shape to run the entire way. By midyear, I was doing hot yoga two times a week and sometimes three. I lost weight. I've been feeling stronger. And then, COVID 19 caused studio closings and workout room closings at work and at the apartment. Closing the gyms and studios is exactly the right thing to do. But, I don't want to accidentally go backward in my weight. So I took a walk. 

Friday I took another walk on another trail and walked a little over 7 miles. Sunday I took a short 2-mile walk, and yesterday I had a 6.5-mile walk. The difference is that yesterday I took my camera. I charged the battery and made sure I had enough space on the memory card and went out on my walk. 

On the trail, there is a bald eagle is watching her nest. I've seen her both times on my walk. Yesterday I took pics. There was also a blue heron on the lake. I took pictures Friday with the phone, but they are simply the worst pictures. Yesterday I got some good shots of the heron. --I say good shots. They were good except for one thing. Too far away. I don't have a sufficient telephoto lens. 

The good news is I'm not feeling defeated. I'm feeling stronger. I will simply need to buy a telephoto lens. I'm determined. I'm determined to keep walking and to keep taking pictures. I am determined to keep reclaiming myself.