This terrible year is closing down fast. I am very sad that google locked me out of my former blog this month aftercare than 13 years and over 1400 posts. December and January are times to sum it all up. (An early morning austere parkland scene in February.)
One movie seen in a movie house, Parasite. One trip outside of a narrow swath of area bounded by the Capitol to the east and Merrifield to the west, perhaps a dozen miles long and two or three miles deep. Countless, endless days spent in my house reading (13 books so far) or just living, on my property planting perennials or digging a trench to drain the water from my yard that new city-certified construction a half-mile uphill from me has caused to sit in my yard after each rainfall killing my mature trees, and on my porch watching the birds in my yard and the persons passing by on the sidewalk. Since March my living area, my lebensraum, has been reduced to about 24 square miles. When necessary I drive to: Safeway (2 miles), Giant (1/2 mile), Staples (across the street), the Post Office (3.5 miles), Home Depot (3 miles), the gas station (2 miles) or the bank (1 mile). A couple of times I drove to the District (7 miles) to park and sightsee in the open air, seeing BLM Plaza and the police riot aftermath in June, and the holiday lights on the Mall this month. To do my Christmas shopping I drove to Trader Joe's (1 mile). I drove to a four restaurants with outdoor seating, all within 4 miles, to meet a single close friend or other a half dozen times. (An occupying army in the District in June keeping the masses away from the People's House.)
That's it in pandemic times except for a trip I took to North Carolina to visit my college roommate, who lives alone, for three days after he suffered a compound fracture of his leg and underwent surgery. I considered that my "vacation." (A serene scene in Vandemere, NC in August.)
Plus I have previously described two salient memories of this year, attending a wedding on the new DC waterfront in January and seeing a small fleet of restored WW2 planes fly directly over my house on July 4th. Also, before the Great Lockdown I did view the nascent Cherry Blossoms late in February and of course, I voted the very first hour that I was able to, in September. I had previously driven to City Hall (1 mile) to research exactly how, when and where I could vote early. And though it seems a receding, dim memory, I watched the entire impeachment trial last winter when we had our best chance to oust this crass, corrupt, inept president before the nation suffered over 330,000 largely unnecessary deaths to the pandemic due to him. There are a few other things I did this year, before I got dreadfully sick with a respiratory illness plus GI issues for two weeks in February which aftereffects I still feel (hmm, I wonder what I had), I was returning to running and up to about 12-15 miles per week but I haven't run since I got sick. There are a few things I haven't done in this Year That Wasn't, like drive the Skyline Ridge, use my senior pass at any National Park or see anyone on Thanksgiving, and a few things I did do such as see the early burgeoning Cherry Blossoms (before they bloomed fully, when Tidal Basin access was shut down by the District), attend 16 church services before all the (sane) church services went virtual, donate blood four times, and take many walks around the 'hood and one in the District where I walked by Ivanka and Jared's house. 2021, we're all waiting on you! (Attending a wedding in the District in January.)
No comments:
Post a Comment