Month: June 2020

On Hold Since March

Back in March, I made a special Friday trip to grab my holds. My weekend had cleared and I wanted to have books and movies to tide me over. There was one book that had arrived, but it wasn’t with the other books on the shelf.

“Oh well,” I said to myself. “I’ll grab it on Monday.” Monday was my usual hold pickup day.

I did not grab it on Monday.

The libraries shut down along with everything else and it was about three months before I could bring this book home.

To do that I had to make a phone call, sit on hold, and arrange a day and time for pickup.

Pandemic fun!

I enjoyed the book, by the way.

Pandemic Date Night: More Games

Aside from our usual frozen pizza, we also played two more games on our pandemic list. 10 Days in the USA was a fun trip. Because when you can’t actually tour the USA, you might as well play a board game about travel.

Guillotine was our second game. Because why not execute some nobles while passing the time at home?

History will (hopefully) soon forget, but Matt is aping the way a certain occupant of the White House awkwardly held up a Bible.

Book Return is Open

It’s been a long time since I could return books to the library. We’ve been stockpiling them in the house since March. It’s good to send them back and I look forward to getting more hardcopy books soon.

The book return on the back side of the building, however, is not open. I assume that’s for ease of processing. All returned books sit for a few days before being checked in.

Garden Check In: Early June. Plus a Visitor

My view from my desk. You can see the peas are doing their best and that I planted a few pole varieties that have grown past their supports. The raspberry bush (middle on the right) is producing and the contorted quince (front right) continues its poky journey.

From the other edge of the yard you can see the parsley that has gone to see (left front), my seed beds, a bit of the tree collards (left back) and some bits of green that are spinach and lettuce.

Over in Leo’s yard I have the supports in the ground for the pole beans and those white bits are eggshells around squash and collards that the slugs want to eat all of.

From another angle you can see better the pole beans.

This all feels like a very slow start.

In other news, this fella showed up. I’d not seen any rabbits in my yard before and was first quite excited and enchanted. Then I remembered all my lovely green starts and chased him off.

They are doing construction at the motel and I wonder if there was some bunny displacement.

Lions Wearing Masks? And Other Signs of the Times

I’ve been taking afternoon bike rides (which are lovely) and enjoyed finding these two figureheads setting a good example for the neighborhood.

I like how stylish their masks are.

The bridge on Willamette right before the turnoff to Fred Meyer has been a landing place for signs.

While every death like George Floyd’s is heartbreaking, Breonna Taylor’s murder hit me hard.

Unemployment Checks Arrive!

What I learned today: when the state needs to pay out seven weeks of unemployment at once it does not issue one check. It issues seven checks.

And when the state has to pay an additional $600 a week due to enhanced unemployment benefits, they do not issue one check for those seven weeks, or combine it with the normal unemployment.

No, when you get seven weeks of benefits, fourteen checks arrive in the mail on the same day.

And then, you get to take a very happy trip to the bank!

The checks wouldn’t have come on this day without the help of AmyBeth, Speaker Kotek’s legislative aide. She was invaluable at giving me information about the process, telling me about a trick (calling rural unemployment departments) and putting me on Speaker Kotek’s coronovirus-specific mailing list.

I really appreciate the help of my representative, her staff, and the people of the Canyon City unemployment department, especially Sunshine, who used the Big Post-It Method to ensure someone called me back.

After this first run of checks, my weekly benefit will be deposited electronically into my bank account.