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Christmas & Boxing (& Training)
Dec. 26th, 2021 04:13 pmSo Christmas was great. We played lots of games (More Boomerang; my Bay Area Christmas acquisition, Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra; and Dixit), we watched another movie (The Trial of the Chicago 7, and at the end I was surprised and pleased to see it was by Aaron Sorkin). I got to take Joy out on a walk on the loop with my mom (and Zeke). We ate lots of good food (a shrimp dinner, a ham dinner, pancakes and crescent rolls and eggs and bacon for various breakfasts).
It was good family time, with family that we hadn't seen in two years. Hopefully, never that long again.
Unfortunately, we didn't see Jason and Lisa and their family. There were supposed to come over Christmas afternoon, but little J. has been quite sick and though he seemed to be getting better, L. was getting sick by Christmas.
So, it was a little kid disease, and thus not likely a threat to us, but if there was any chance that we got sick in the current environment, we could end up (1) not being able to see anyone while in California; (2) maybe be denied boarding on our plane home; and (3) almost definitely have to quarantine for 10 days when we got home because we couldn't answer the Safe Travels questionnaire properly.
So we very sadly said that we probably shouldn't get together with them even if J. and L. were both well enough to do so. (This hard decision was made easier by the fact that we'll probably see them all in February in Oahu, unless the pandemic gets even worse again.)
I haven't written much about Zeke. He's mom's new pup. And he's soexcitedandeverythingisamazingandyou'reapersonI'veneverseenandcanIlikeyouandcanIjumponyouandisn'tlifegreat. He's very friendly, very happy to interact with people, very clumsy, pretty big, and made me flinch frequently when he came charging at me across the couch.
A real sweetheart. Glad that we got to see him as a pup.
Meanwhile, I've been getting daily updates on my Lucy kit from my dad. He's been kind enough to go over to our house and give her wet food every day and also spend some time with her because she truly has no companions now. He sends us pictures and reports every day, in part because he's paranoid about forgetting to do so, because he did that once on our first trip to Oahu, back in the summer of 2020.
She seems to be doing well, being increasingly friendly with him, which is great, because I've been worried about how lonely she might be. So, fingers cross that she's not too upset before we head home.
But the reports are a weird crossover of Hawaii life and California life. But at the moment we kind of are too.
Our three days in San Martin ended today with Bob taking us north. We'd negotiated for him to take us to the new Berryessa BART station, that I'd thought I could use to visit D. & M. during our last year in the Bay Area, but ended up opening last summer, a year and a half late.
We had Google Maps plot out directions to the BART station, and somehow it took us into the parking lot of the Flea Market, which is the worst wrong directions I've ever seen from Google Maps (except maybe some times it pointed me at private roads).
Anyway, we eventually made it to BART. The Berryessa station looks about the same as most other raised BART stations, but I thought the other new station, in Milpitas, was nice when we went through. Some nice and distinctive tile work (or painting or something) on the columns.
BART was a horrific cesspool.
Which is very funny, because as we waited for the train I was telling Kimberly how much quieter and less stressful I often found taking BART rather than driving that hour in a car.
But It was getting bad in the last few years I was here, in large part because they were getting worse and worse about keeping the homeless off the trains, and so I could regularly expect about one homeless in each car at some point during the ride, sometimes very sick, sometimes very threatening, some very smelly. Yes, I understand their need for shelter, but BART isn't doing anyone favors by putting the rest of their ridership in danger. It's their job to keep riders safe, not to house the homeless.
During the ride from Berryessa to Rockridge there were maybe half-a-dozen homeless in our car at various times. They were more than half-a-dozen people either not wearing masks or wearing them as chinstraps. One of the unmasked was a young man who screamed into his phone the whole time (fortunately pointing his spittle-spewing mouth away from us). Another was a black man who literally chased an unmasked white man out of the car, shouting at him the whole time, and then as he strode back afterward was mumbling how he was going to kill a white guy sometime.
There is clearly no one maintaining order on BART any more, whether because of the pandemic or because of staffing problems or just the slow deterioration from what I saw two years ago. It's dangerous physically and healthwise. I'm not even sure it should be running because it felt like a moving asylum with COVID on top.
Bleh.
(Taking BART again tomorrow into Pleasant Hill. Hoping Rockridge to Pleasant Hill isn't as bad, but actually one of the most threatening homeless encounters I ever had was at the Pleasant Hill BART station, I think, definitely something on that side of the hills.)
Arriving in Rockridge, it was a half-mile walk up to our Air B&B, which I did despite the sprinkling rain. I made it hauling suitcase, backpack, and box now half-full of Christmas presents. That was the most strenuous part of our travel in some ways. (But calling for an Uber and waiting for a half-mile trip just seemed like so much more work.) I told Kimberly we're definitely grabbing an Uber to the airport, rather than walking back to BART (with me hauling all our luggage, which had been the other option, but Kimberly was certainly just humoring me when I mentioned it as an option).
The Air B&B seems nice. It's unfortunately a second-floor place, which is a problem for Kimberly who still can't get around on her foot. I have no idea what it was originally, though it's clearly old (somewhere in the first half of the 20th century), and the bottom is now storage.
Relatively spacious, though with some tight corners for Kimberly's scooter. Warm. We'll see how it sleeps: that's always the question with an Air B&B, as I've had more than one with loud squeaking doors that woke me up and at least a few with loud banging on the ceiling from people walking around. I have good hopes for this one, especially since Kimberly and I just figured out how to deal with the loud bathroom door.
Tonight was my first day of meeting with gamers, but I expect I'll write on all the gaming tomorrow, as it's getting late and I need to spaz down.
It was good family time, with family that we hadn't seen in two years. Hopefully, never that long again.
Unfortunately, we didn't see Jason and Lisa and their family. There were supposed to come over Christmas afternoon, but little J. has been quite sick and though he seemed to be getting better, L. was getting sick by Christmas.
So, it was a little kid disease, and thus not likely a threat to us, but if there was any chance that we got sick in the current environment, we could end up (1) not being able to see anyone while in California; (2) maybe be denied boarding on our plane home; and (3) almost definitely have to quarantine for 10 days when we got home because we couldn't answer the Safe Travels questionnaire properly.
So we very sadly said that we probably shouldn't get together with them even if J. and L. were both well enough to do so. (This hard decision was made easier by the fact that we'll probably see them all in February in Oahu, unless the pandemic gets even worse again.)
I haven't written much about Zeke. He's mom's new pup. And he's soexcitedandeverythingisamazingandyou'reapersonI'veneverseenandcanIlikeyouandcanIjumponyouandisn'tlifegreat. He's very friendly, very happy to interact with people, very clumsy, pretty big, and made me flinch frequently when he came charging at me across the couch.
A real sweetheart. Glad that we got to see him as a pup.
Meanwhile, I've been getting daily updates on my Lucy kit from my dad. He's been kind enough to go over to our house and give her wet food every day and also spend some time with her because she truly has no companions now. He sends us pictures and reports every day, in part because he's paranoid about forgetting to do so, because he did that once on our first trip to Oahu, back in the summer of 2020.
She seems to be doing well, being increasingly friendly with him, which is great, because I've been worried about how lonely she might be. So, fingers cross that she's not too upset before we head home.
But the reports are a weird crossover of Hawaii life and California life. But at the moment we kind of are too.
Our three days in San Martin ended today with Bob taking us north. We'd negotiated for him to take us to the new Berryessa BART station, that I'd thought I could use to visit D. & M. during our last year in the Bay Area, but ended up opening last summer, a year and a half late.
We had Google Maps plot out directions to the BART station, and somehow it took us into the parking lot of the Flea Market, which is the worst wrong directions I've ever seen from Google Maps (except maybe some times it pointed me at private roads).
Anyway, we eventually made it to BART. The Berryessa station looks about the same as most other raised BART stations, but I thought the other new station, in Milpitas, was nice when we went through. Some nice and distinctive tile work (or painting or something) on the columns.
BART was a horrific cesspool.
Which is very funny, because as we waited for the train I was telling Kimberly how much quieter and less stressful I often found taking BART rather than driving that hour in a car.
But It was getting bad in the last few years I was here, in large part because they were getting worse and worse about keeping the homeless off the trains, and so I could regularly expect about one homeless in each car at some point during the ride, sometimes very sick, sometimes very threatening, some very smelly. Yes, I understand their need for shelter, but BART isn't doing anyone favors by putting the rest of their ridership in danger. It's their job to keep riders safe, not to house the homeless.
During the ride from Berryessa to Rockridge there were maybe half-a-dozen homeless in our car at various times. They were more than half-a-dozen people either not wearing masks or wearing them as chinstraps. One of the unmasked was a young man who screamed into his phone the whole time (fortunately pointing his spittle-spewing mouth away from us). Another was a black man who literally chased an unmasked white man out of the car, shouting at him the whole time, and then as he strode back afterward was mumbling how he was going to kill a white guy sometime.
There is clearly no one maintaining order on BART any more, whether because of the pandemic or because of staffing problems or just the slow deterioration from what I saw two years ago. It's dangerous physically and healthwise. I'm not even sure it should be running because it felt like a moving asylum with COVID on top.
Bleh.
(Taking BART again tomorrow into Pleasant Hill. Hoping Rockridge to Pleasant Hill isn't as bad, but actually one of the most threatening homeless encounters I ever had was at the Pleasant Hill BART station, I think, definitely something on that side of the hills.)
Arriving in Rockridge, it was a half-mile walk up to our Air B&B, which I did despite the sprinkling rain. I made it hauling suitcase, backpack, and box now half-full of Christmas presents. That was the most strenuous part of our travel in some ways. (But calling for an Uber and waiting for a half-mile trip just seemed like so much more work.) I told Kimberly we're definitely grabbing an Uber to the airport, rather than walking back to BART (with me hauling all our luggage, which had been the other option, but Kimberly was certainly just humoring me when I mentioned it as an option).
The Air B&B seems nice. It's unfortunately a second-floor place, which is a problem for Kimberly who still can't get around on her foot. I have no idea what it was originally, though it's clearly old (somewhere in the first half of the 20th century), and the bottom is now storage.
Relatively spacious, though with some tight corners for Kimberly's scooter. Warm. We'll see how it sleeps: that's always the question with an Air B&B, as I've had more than one with loud squeaking doors that woke me up and at least a few with loud banging on the ceiling from people walking around. I have good hopes for this one, especially since Kimberly and I just figured out how to deal with the loud bathroom door.
Tonight was my first day of meeting with gamers, but I expect I'll write on all the gaming tomorrow, as it's getting late and I need to spaz down.