Crashing to the End of a Strange Season

Here we are at the midpoint of December, hurtling towards the end of this very chaotic year.  Let me capture some thoughts, which may be random or may have similar threads.

--Yesterday, I couldn't get to the blog posting capability of this blog--I couldn't write a post.  I am going to assume it was a temporary blip--but once again, I was aware that so much of my writing these days is stored online, on servers that aren't mine.  Long ago, I periodically backed up every blog post, downloading them onto the hard drive of my computer.  These days, I trust Google, even as I realize that trust may be misplaced.

--Yesterday the first COVID-19 vaccine was put in the first arm of a U.S. citizen.  Hurrah!  The moment I am eligible, I will get this vaccine.  Maybe by then I will have gotten around to getting the shingles vaccine.

--I think of all the preventive maintenance I mean to be doing:  getting a will done, getting all the medical screenings done, being more serious about my car's needs.  I light the 3rd candle and assure myself there is still time.

--Yesterday the Electoral College met and certified the election results:  Joe Biden is now officially president-elect.  I have always said I wouldn't rest easy until the Electoral College met and did the job they were assigned to do.  And now they have.  Yet I was still awake at 1 a.m.

--Being awake at 1 a.m. means that I got all my grading done.  Maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight.

--Yesterday was a strange day at work.  Part of the morning was consumed by taking Financial Aid files to the Ft. Lauderdale campus.  When I got back, I noticed a lot of feathers which seemed to increase through the afternoon.  I wrote this blog post:  "At work, a trail of tiny feathers between the door to the building and the parking lot. What does it portend? There's no bird carcass, no grounded angel limping nearby."  The afternoon was very quiet once the last final exam was done--only 4 of us on campus all afternoon.

--When I got home, I sorted through the remaining apples from the bushel I bought back in October, about 18 of them.  I bought a bushel thinking we'd keep them in fridge in the cottage, where we could eat them all winter.  My grandmother had a fridge in her garage, and I remember her having a supply of apples that lasted until summer.  My experience was different.  Those last 18 apples were so mealy that I almost couldn't salvage any of them.  Sigh.  We did get our money's worth--18 apples are a very small portion of a bushel.  But I hate wasting food.

--As we crash to the end of this season, I reflect on what a strange autumn it has been.  I did get to the mountains, I did get apples, I did get to quilt--and then the rest of my travel plans fell apart.  It's been a time of recalibrating at work, as we adjusted to the lay offs and reorganizing.  It's been a strange time at church as we've tried to calculate both the weather and the pandemic as we weighed our various options for meeting.  I've held my breath in terms of politics, and I wonder if it will ever feel safe to exhale.