Here’s the next in the “Outside My Window” series, chronicling life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joni Mitchell – The River
Walking in the Dark
My routine has changed a bit. I’m usually an early riser, a habit of decades of teaching, but my recent mornings were coffee, dishes (from the night before) and then onto the keyboard. But with our “rehab” dog addition, there’s now a thirty-minute or so walk added in. It brings back memories of “dawn-thirty” workouts over the years, but I can’t get moving that fast anymore. I’ll work out later, when my sixty-four year old muscles get a little warmer.
So “Louisiana” and I wander the quiet streets of Pataskala. We start by starlight, but things brighten as we get through our journey, and it’s almost dawn when we return home. “Lou” feels the early morning stiffness too. As he gets stronger we’re letting him do more. He’s playing with Atticus and Keelie, two of our other dogs, and Lou’s sore and stiff in the mornings like me.
But we warm along the way. Lou’s getting the hang of things, no matter which direction I take him, he recognizes when we’re back on our street. He stops sniffing around, and the pace quickens to a light jog. Lou knows the way home.
Decorations
The fall leaves are gone and there’s frost on the grass now. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get our first snow. I look forward to Lou encountering that; after all, he’s a Louisiana dog. All the dogs get excited with the first real snowfall, but for him, it’ll be a whole new experience. And the political season has changed as well: it took Christmas decorations going up to get some of the Trump signs down.
There are a lot more Christmas decorations up than usual in our little neighborhood. It used to be just a couple of us decorated, but this year, most of the houses have lights or inflatable figures. This was already a “short” Christmas season. Thanksgiving was late this year; it’s less than a month before Christmas Day. And it’s the Christmas of COVID, the end of the Trump Administration: there are lots of reasons to get decorations up. We can’t “Gather Together” like the old Thanksgiving song, but we can demonstrate our togetherness by decorating.
But I am still working on the motivation to break out Christmas lights. Usually I am a traditionalist: Friday after Thanksgiving, rain or shine, I’ve got the boxes down from the rafters, plugging in to find out which strings of lights somehow were “healed” over the past eleven months. It’s such a clockwork thing, that the next-door neighbor checked up on me yesterday, wondering where the lights were.
They’re still in the boxes.
We won’t pull the “big tree” out of the rafters either this year. It doesn’t feel like a “big tree” year, and with more dogs there’s more dog “crates” – not much room for a “big tree”. So for this year we purchased a smaller one. The “traditional” schedule says that will go up sometime after next week.
Sad Christmas Songs
It’s easy to get in the “sad Christmas song” mood. After last week, when it seemed like our world “forgot” about COVID, I anticipate that our Thanksgiving “dessert” will be even greater spikes in the disease. And I watch as Donald Trump seems to be doing everything he can to sabotage the Biden administration.
Israel assassinated Iran’s premier nuclear scientist yesterday. It’s not something they would do without clearance from the United States, and it certainly won’t help when Biden tries to reinstitute the Iranian Nuclear Accord. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu going to get everything he can before his friend Trump leaves. And as for Trump: he can check one more box for future Evangelical Christian support, and mess with Biden in the process.
A small Christmas, walking in the pre-dawn darkness – you’d think Donald Trump is the NEXT President of the United States. He’s not – and Joe Biden will be the man to lead us through what may be our darkest hours – but just before the dawn (yep – CSNY reference).
So I’m going to finish this essay – and get the ladder out. It’s a short Christmas season – and it’s going to snow tomorrow – so the lights have to go up today!!
Out My Front Window – Part One (4/21/20)
Outside My Window – Part Two (4/23/20)
Outside My Window – Part Three (4/26/20)
Outside My Window – Part Four (5/13/20)
Outside My Window – Part Five (6/3/20)
Outside My Window – Part Six (7/3/20)
Outside My Window – Part Seven (7/31/20)
Outside My Window – Inshallah (8/13/20)
Outside My Window – Part Eight (9/15/20)
Outside My Window – Part Nine (9/25/20)
Outside My Window – Part Ten (10/9/20)
Outside My Window – Part 11 (11/29/20)
