Goodwill Maybe Not So Full of Good Will --- Days 11/74--78

Walk: 1 - 5: Back and Forth between Places, Up and Down

Distance: 1. 5.4 miles  2. 2.4 miles  3. 2 miles  4. 2 miles 5. 2 miles

Every day at least 6 bags of (i Ciwt'ho)good stuff to Goodwill.  At first the attendants used to thank Ciwt for her support.  Now she notices some of them darting inside so they won't have to deal with all her heavy bags.  At least they don't have to navigate her stairs like she does.......Onward!

New Home Alone --- Days 11/72 & 73

Walk: 1. Up and Down, Up and Down, Repeat 2. Same

Distance: 1. 4.7 miles  2. 2 miles

Today Ciwt was suddenly spent from packing up closets filled with objects of numerous types, sizes, shapes, weight - not to mention personal history.  It's tricky and takes creativity and concentration getting all those things and memories organized and into to some containable and portable form. Also stamina to go up and down the many stairs in her soon to be former place. 

So for the first time in a little over 40 years, she just sat alone in her almost empty new home. 

At some point in her trips back and forth she'd brought a padded stadiuim seat. She had also brought a book to hold down the paper cut outs of her coming furniture.  Turned out the book was about Matisse. The simple seat was comfortable.  Her new place was quiet. The sun was pouring in her large filtered glass sliding doors. And with no planning at all, Ciwt was surrounded with her most treasured life elements -  Sun, Light, Home, a Book, Matisse, Stillness, Solitude - and nothing to do but just savor them for a few precious hours.  

New Place, No Thanks --- Day 11/71

Walk: You Know Where and Hood Errands

Distance: 4.5 miles

So Ciwt's cats were "Thanks, but no thanks" about their first visit to what will be their new home in a month.  Of course, she didn't tell them that as they hid in their carriers.....

At Every Turn --- Days 11/67, 68, 69, 70

Walk: 1. SF Ballet, 2. usual T. Joe's and new place 3. Back and Forth goes Ciwt 4. Loading boxes

Distance: 1. 2.6 miles lope, 3.1 walk= 5.7  2. 4 miles 3. 5 miles  4. 2.2 miles  

Ciwt stopped for moment in her 8-hour packing/moving/unpacking days to take heart from this Trader Joe's card.  (They have some good ones at a great price!)

White Knuckling the Drive --- Day 11/66

Walk: New Place 9of course0 and Trader Joe's

Distance: 4.4 miles

So here's the loaner car the dealer gave Ciwt while hers was going through a recall service.  When given to her it had 20 miles on it, and they were very clear that it had just come in and Ciwt would be the first driver.  They were also very clear that if there was even as much as a smudge on a tire when Ciwt returned it, she would be responsible for a $250+ damage charge.

Ciwt drove it to her garage very carefully.  It is now sitting there where it will stay until her car is ready and she can drive the loaner back to the dealer very, very carefully.  

"C" is Not For Covid --- Days 11/64 & 65

Walk: 1, Haircut, Doc Annual, Booster #2  2. No, Rain & Taxes

Distance: 1. 3 miles  2. 2. 1 mile, yoga

So, this week a couple of Ciwt's friends, including her realtor, called to say they had Covid.  She hadn't seen any of them for quite a while, but, to be on the safe side Ciwt gave herself a home test.

Well it went straight to a definite, dark line at "C."  Covid!!!  She was devastated.  To be absolutely sure she grabbed the test tray with the definite "C" and went to a nearby free testing clinic.  

When she got there and one of the doctors asked why she had come, Ciwt took out the "C" tray and showed it to her. "Oh," she said, "Control."  Turns out that's what "C" is for - Control, not Covid.  And you have to have two! lines showing, not just the definite "C" one.

Ciwt was embarrassed, they were nice, tested her again since she was there.  And 15 minutes later Ciwt left with an official "Negative" result.  The next day she went to get her second booster shot.

Getting There ---Day 11/63

Walk: 1. ?   2. The usual, back and forth between places

Distance: 1. 2.8 miles  2. 5 miles

Still feels a bit like a fantasy, but Ciwt is actually starting to feel more like her contemporary when she goes over to her new home.  Transitions....

Legs Up --- Day 11/62

Walk: No

Distance: Not far (but finally did that laundry)

No good for weeding out stuff today... 

Laundry Or....? --- Day 11/61

Walk: SF Ballet (Program 6)

Distance: 6 miles

As usual Ciwt went through her "I have a ticket, but should I go to the ballet today?  I could always pack, move some stuff, do laundry and other dreary day-to-day stuff.  But, luckily, her answer is always "Just put on your walking shoes and get there."  

Thank goodness.  Program after program SF Ballet is perfection! They dance as one, no matter what the style.  Very, very exhilarating and special to watch. (Unless you prefer laundry or packing things up....)

Ah, Yes, Closets --- Day 11/60

Walk: Around closets full of 40 years of Ciwt stuff

Distance: 1.3 miles, small yoga

Seemed so important to stockpile these things at the time........

1.3 mile

Once Upon A Bay --- Days 11/58 & 59

Walk: 1 & 2. The usual, back and forth several times

Distance: 1. 6 miles  2. 8 miles

Gray Whale Seen in San Francisco Bay, March 6, 2022

Isn't this photo wonderful?  It is what makes living in the Bay Area so special for Ciwt.  All the technology being developed here catapulting us into the future, and then this.  A whale, a creature from the ancient of days swimming in our bay.  (According to Wikipedia, Cetaceans - whales, dolphins and porpoises - are an order of mammals that originated about 50 million years ago in the Eocene epoch).

And the photo is totally real.  Kat Nazar took it.  She has been leading whale-watching tours in the San Francisco waters for nearly two decades, and also keeps in touch with our Ferry skippers and the Marine Mammal Center's cetacean field research team.  She shares all of her photographs from her tours with the center as well as the GPS coordinates of where she finds the whales.

Last Sunday afternoon, Nazar may have had one of her closest encounters yet.  She was steering a 65-foot catamaran - aptly named the Kitty Kat - near the Golden Gate Bridge and Crissy Field when she had to slow down for windsurfers.  Suddenly a large gray whale popped up so close to her boat, she just screamed "Whale!"  She stopped and her passengers had the lifetime experience of watching it do its thing.  She and they also spotted what appered to be a mother whale and her baby swimming between Alcatraz and Angel Island.

According to Nazar, encountering a whale is the most unique experience in San Francisco, a city that specializes in them.  It never gets old she says when she sees a spout briefly skim the surface followed by a tiny puff of steam.  Then there is that tail that touched Ciwt's heart in the photograph.

Home Relay --- Day 11/57

Walk: Back and Forth, Back and Forth between new and sort of soon to be old 

Distance: 6.2 miles

 

One place, then the other, then back again, etc, etc.   But but the exercise and miles covered hardly compare with the movement in Ciwt's head between unbearable sadness to leave her beloved home of 40 years to excitement, some fun and hope.  

Where is Ciwt/CIWT? Days 11/52, 53, 54, 55 & 56

Walk: All walks in hood and in connection with Ciwt's moves out and in to her old/new homes

Distance: 1. 3.3 miles 2. 2 miles (drove back and forth) 3. 4 miles  4. 3.2 miles  5.2 miles, 1 hr. yoga (at last!)

This is Ciwt these days.  No husband and kids to 'help', but her new place does have an elevator! and shopping carts she can borrow to wheel her things to it and up.