Yet again, a disaster hits while we have a moron in the white house. As with gwb, the pino was asleep at the wheel, and now we’re going to pay for it.
Had to get that off my chest.
In retrospect, all travel in the US should have been closed until they could get the tests working. But we were blithely traveling around, fully aware of what was going on in China. Before heading to Austin for a short trip, I went to visit dad in Santa Cruz. It was a beautiful day — we played Frisbee on the beach.
AIDS/Lifecycle was still in the plans at the beginning of February, so I went on a training ride. I did not plan to ride this year, so I’ve volunteered as a training ride leader. The ride has been cancelled this year, so now the SF AIDS foundation is scrambling to find funding.
In February I ran my first marathon: Supported by mole, my brother, his girlfriend (and my coach!) and her family I ran the Austin marathon. This was the culmination of a year of training. Here are are exploring Austin and enjoying one of the public sculptures.
Austin is a strange town: It has many very beautiful things, and great vegan food options, but it is also so heavily dominated by cars, that it manages to also be quite ugly. I loved this mural, but why is there a shopping cart abandoned on the sidewalk, far from any shops?
The river through the center of town is the major beauty of Austin. I love how they have put pedestrian walkways on both sides of the river. Clearly everyone there loves it too – it was constantly full of people walking and running. Not pictured: The river is full of garbage!
Marathon Day! Misha and Aja both ran the half marathon, but we all dressed fluorescent. Team Highlighter: If you don’t see us, you ain’t lookin’.
Misha had already finished his race when I eventually got to close to the finish line, so he ran the last half mile with me! This is one of my favorite photos ever:
Aja coached me long distance: I started out a cyclist who kept getting injured running, through two colds and a flu, to finish my first marathon 3:39:02 – twenty minutes faster than my goal!
I just had to include this photo: Mole posing in a mask at the Burning Man exhibit in Oakland.
I’ve lived in the US for 33 years, have barely spent more than a couple of weeks back in England, yet I’m still a British citizen. After watching “Fahrenheit 11/9” I decided that had to change. I applied for US citizenship in September, and at the beginning of March, right as Covid-19 started showing up in the US, I had my immigration interview. So I went, and passed the test.
To celebrate, I had raspberries, vanilla and blueberries. One day, when things calm down again, maybe they will reschedule my naturalization ceremony and I’ll be a US Citizen; then I can add one more vote to throw the pino out of office.
OK, enough reminiscing to days before Covid-19 lockdown. Since the beginning of March, we’ve been pretty much confined to the house. So I decided to try to get more finished.
The day before the lockdown, I ran out and bought plaster. Here I’ve put the base coat on one wall.
Here I’ve got the base coat on the wall up the stairs. It’s really awkward plastering a wall next to the stairs, because setting a ladder up is difficult, there’s not space for me and the ladder, but also I need to reach high up.
Here’s the wall after the veneer plaster coat. It’s still a bit grey as the plaster dries.
Looking down from the top after the plaster is dry: This wall is starting to look nice!
I didn’t stay in the house every day: I went out for a run a couple of times in the last two weeks. Here I snapped a photo looking east on the bay from heron’s point park – about 3 miles from the house.
And no post is complete without:
Here’s Arwen after she decided to jump into one of the kitchen closets (still painted pink from when Po-po lived here).
