Foggy mornings, foggy nights

This week the county reports the total number of cases of Covid up 6121 (wow!) to 58,381, 4455 of the new ones confirmed. The number of active cases is 2816. There have been 15 new deaths, for a total of 623, and our rate of new cases per 100K population is up 963.9 to 1679.1. It was only about seven months ago that we were approaching returning to around 100 for that number. Luckily the number of hospital admissions per 100K is only 4.8.

Since this weekend, we’ve had lots of foggy mornings and evenings with a few foggy days as well (like yesterday). In fact, on Saturday I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to have some Indian food, something we have not eaten for more than two years, probably closer to three, as the nearest restaurant (Abhiruchi Indian Cuisine) is not very near. We tried calling the restaurant, but no one was answering. However, their internet presence seemed to indicate that they were still open. Wayne left a message with our order, and I set off to pick it up (Wayne not being able to drive until his next appointment with the eye doctor). I did not know that it was really foggy out, but I found out as soon as I got to our main road. In fact, I could barely see where I was going and contemplated turning right back around. However, I was under the impression (delusional as it turned out) that the restaurant would be sitting there with an order for me, so I kept on.

I finally realized that when our headlights are set on Automatic, the car is not smart enough to know to dim the brights when it is foggy. So, I turned them off, and I had a much better trip. When I arrived at the restaurant (45 minutes drive away), it was absolutely packed, much more full than it had ever been when we had eaten there, and I had to wait in line to get to the counter. There, I found that, even though they were answering the phone when I got there, they had never picked up their messages. Once I got to the counter (about 15 minutes after arriving), I only had to wait another 10 to get my order (I think because I made it obvious I was upset). It was worth the wait to eat Indian food again. Yum!

My puzzle and the paper showing what it looks like. You might be able to see how irregular the pieces are.

At home after Christmas, I was surprised to find that my husband helped me with one of the jigsaw puzzles I got for Christmas. It is much nicer to have some help. We finished that one a few weeks ago, so I decided to take out the other one I got for Christmas, and what a puzzle it is. It only has about 203 pieces, but it is wooden and has no straight edges and very irregular pieces. I found that it was pretty much impossible to identify the edge pieces, so I just tried to find large objects to put together to start with. It is quite a beautiful picture, reminding me of some Russian boxes I have, and the pieces fit together so exactly that there is little leeway. Wayne is not interested in helping this time, alas.

Here you can see how strangely shaped the pieces are. Believe it or not, the bottom edge of these pieces is part of the border.

I have completed two large objects now, most of the firebird and a large flower, but most of the other objects are small ones.

Aside from spending time driving Wayne around town, to an appointment with the eye doctor and to run errands, this week has been fairly normal. I went to exercise class on both Thursday and Tuesday. We have a new teacher who is making me ache a lot more but doing less cardio. Unfortunately, the Tuesday class has changed from 11 to noon, which makes it even more inconvenient than it was already. One of my classmates remarked that she thought others think seniors don’t have anything else to do, so they can schedule the class any time. Since a one-way drive there is 40-45 minutes, that means I have to leave around 11:15 and don’t get back until close to 2. Not enough time to do much before I leave or after I return, so my day is pretty much hosed. And of course, this schedule only applies if I am not driving with Maja, who likes to get there earlier and stays a long time talking to people. In fact, at least once when the class was an hour earlier, I got home close to 2 because I was with her.

On Monday afternoon, I had an appointment to do a blood draw in Vancouver. I took my iPad to read, allotting about a half hour for my appointment and planning to drive from there to art class and read in the parking lot until it started. I left a little early for my appointment because I was picking up some cookies I ordered. As a result, I ended up getting done with my appointment before it was even supposed to start, which left me with two hours before my class and only about 20 minutes time to drive there. I decided to pop over to Christine’s, even though it meant backtracking a bit, because I didn’t fancy spending more than an hour in the parking lot. She was free, so we had a nice visit, with coffee and cookies. I left some more cookies with her.

At art class I have been working on finishing touches for several weeks, and this time my instructor said I should finish my painting next week. I am not sure when I started it, but I have been working on it for a long while. Ah! I looked it up, and I finished my last painting July 7, so I have been working on this one for six months.

And that’s about it for this week.

The play’s the thing

After a week of cancellations, there was a big one on Friday. As I reported last week, first my husband said he wanted to go to Portland on Saturday, then he wanted to go to Harbor Freight instead. Then he wanted to go to Portland on Sunday, then he didn’t. Then he wanted to go to the movies on Tuesday, then he didn’t. Well, this was the pattern all week until we got to Friday.

Unfortunately, Friday was the day we planned to leave for Ashland, Oregon, to attend the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. My friend Deb and I have had tickets since January or February. I was initially surprised when my husband said he would go with us and visit his friend from Air Force days in Medford while we went to the plays. I should have known something was up on Thursday because he was mopey all day and at one point he asked me if we had already paid for the tickets. (Of course I had, and they were very expensive.) But I did not pay attention.

So, I got up on Friday and started to get ready to go, and he told me he wasn’t coming. I had some choice thoughts about that, as you can imagine, but I just packed up and left. In fact, I was able to leave early and tell my niece she didn’t need to worry about feeding Hillary. We didn’t get off to a good start. There was my husband’s cancellation and the rainy, dreary morning, and then we got a half hour away from Deb’s house when I realized my purse was sitting in her living room, so we had to go back. Thank goodness I realized then, though, rather than later, and after that things went fine.

We stopped for lunch on the way down and ate at a place called Addy’s Diner in Springfield. I was trying to behave myself for Weight Watchers and found we had picked a place where that was almost impossible. At one point we saw a guy receive a pancake that was served on a platter-sized plate, yet was too big to fit it without being folded in half. My guess is that the pancake was a good two feet in diameter! Deb said I should take a picture of the pancake, but I didn’t have the nerve to walk over and take a picture of his food.

We passed a huge accident on the north side of the freeway just outside Grant’s Pass. First, we saw the wreck. Then we both remembered, after the initial backup, a gap. But then we suddenly saw cars everywhere, parked all over the exits, parking up the freeway, and people getting out and walking around. The cars stretched back for miles and miles. We learned later that the traffic was stuck there for at least four hours.

We arrived in Ashland at about 4 PM and checked into our motel. It was the Bard’s Inn, an old-fashioned roadside motel that has been remodeled and is comfortable, clean, and quiet. Not fancy at all, but it was just fine for us. The Bard’s Inn has other, fancier accommodations, and we looked at a lot of B&B’s when we were trying to decide where to stay, but many of them were already booked, and most were expensive. Because we thought my husband would have the car, we were looking for something right near town, and this place was just a few blocks from the theaters.

The first thing we did was go to the box office to pick up our tickets. We had bought tickets for two plays on Saturday, Sense and Sensibility in the afternoon and Henry V at night. Deb suggested we see if there were any tickets left for Othello that night. Now, if you read my review of Othello, you’ll know it isn’t one of my favorite plays, because I don’t like the main character. However, we asked, and they had the last two seats together for $34 apiece (cheap), so we bought them.

The Elizabethan Theater on the hill behind Lithia Park

Then we had time to look around town and have something to eat. Ashland is a small town tucked into the side of foothills, with a mountain nearby. It isn’t super picturesque, but it is a nice town. It has a lovely park right next to the river downtown, with the Elizabethan theater on a hill behind it. The park offers lots of woodland walks, and is beautifully landscaped. It was a little rainy on Friday afternoon and evening, but most of the time we had perfect weather.

The pastry case at Mix. A little problematic for someone on a diet

We ate dinner at a nice restaurant called Greenleaf and then made our greatest culinary discovery of the trip—Mix, a bake and coffee shop. We split a lemon meringue tart, and it was delicious! We returned there several times during the course of the trip, buying bread, coffee, lunch, and delicious pastries.

In the evening we went to Othello. The town has three theaters devoted to the Shakespeare Festival, during which they perform all kinds of plays and musicals. Othello was in the middle-sized theater, which seats about 600 people. The play was performed in modern dress with most of the men in military uniforms, but it was otherwise done fairly traditionally. However, doing it in modern times provided some opportunities to use media. For example, instead of having servants deliver messages, the characters got calls on their cell phones, which raised a laugh.

I have to tell you, Othello was terrific! It was really dramatic at times, funnier than I thought it was when reading it, just a revelation. I was really glad I went. I have often had it demonstrated to me that theater so much depends on who is doing it and how they do it. I have had occasion to see the same play be, when done by one company, depressing, and by another company, hilarious, for example.

The Elizabethan Theater from the inside during our tour. That’s our guide’s hand on the left. The Elizabethan theater, which is an open-air reconstruction of a theater in England, is not open until June and only for evening performances.

In the morning we went on the backstage tour, which was very interesting. I heartily recommend it. Our guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable. He took us all through all three of the theaters, backstage and underneath, talked about the history of the festival, told us funny stories. It was a great tour. I told Deb that if I lived within an hour of Ashland, I’d be volunteering to work there.

Ashland on the way to downtown from our motel. Of course, it would have been nice if I’d found a shot without so many streetlights in it. I was trying to get the mountain, which is just barely visible in the middle of the picture. That hump with the clouds over it.

The play I was looking forward to the most was Sense and Sensibility, being a major Jane Austen fan. I had very mixed feelings about it, though. It was performed in the middle-sized theater again. The set and costumes were of the period, but they did the play as a farce! Now, if you like Austen, like I do, because she is funny while being very delicate, as reflects her culture, this is not the play for you. I think  that some viewers were shocked by it. I had to admit it made very good theater, though. The audience shouted when it was over. But was it Jane Austen? It was not. They just used her story. Still, I had a good time, so the whole issue was very complicated for me.

Our last play was Henry V, performed in the smaller theater, which was configured in a horseshoe. This theater seats 300 people. It was very intimate, and they tried a lot of symbolism in the performance, not all of which worked. For example, the play started with players turning this huge wall around and around for quite some time. It must have symbolized something, but we didn’t know what. The only scenery for this play was that wall and a bunch of boxes. For the fighting, since Henry V is mostly about a war with France, they had red undershirts that they flapped vigorously or wrapped around themselves to signify wounds. Hmm. The acting seemed a little less practiced than in the other plays, and Henry was uneven. Of course, he has all the best speeches. Still, we enjoyed the play very much, but we both decided that Othello was our favorite. In fact, after the first play, we were already talking about when we would come back and saying that we would like to see a play in the Elizabethan Theater.

After breakfast in the morning, we skipped down to Mix to buy bread to take home with us, and that bread was yummy. If you ever get to Ashland, do not miss going to Mix!

The carousel in Albany

On the way home, just as a topper to our great weekend, we stopped for lunch in Albany, Oregon. The lunch was fine, but on the way back out of town, we happened to notice a building with the word “Carousel” on it. That made us both remember that we had seen an article and program about a historic carousel that had been thought lost but had been discovered in pieces stored away. The town had raised money to restore it, and this was it! Needless to say, we had to stop and look at the carousel. I’m sorry I didn’t get good enough pictures to show you that the animals are very imaginative. Instead of just being colorfully painted, they have crazy touches. One horse has a mermaid tail, making it a seahorse. Another animal might have a monkey crawling on its neck or fish on its side. It is all beautifully done and restored.

So, that was the highlight of my week, and I’m champing at the bit to go back. We are already planning a trip back next June, and my friend from Denver said he would like to go with us. My sister has also expressed an interest and my husband says he’d like to go to the Elizabethan theater (I’ll believe that when I see it), so if we all go, we may have to caravan next year!

In other news, my neighbor and I found a beautiful trail last week. It’s in Whipple Creek Park, which is right jammed up next to Vancouver. It is very close to where I go for my art class. We didn’t expect much from it, but in fact found ourselves in a lovely oak forest. The trail had ups and downs and was mostly in very good condition. It is a park used by horses, and although we did not see any horses, we saw lots of things to walk around, if you get my drift, and lots of hoof prints. I got very tired in the 3.1 miles, because of all the ups and downs, but I’ll improve.

P. S. After I published this post the first time, Deb sent me the attached link to an article about the carousel with much better pictures than the one I posted.