Christmas 2020

This Year’s Xmas Card Photo…

This is my neighbor, Frank. He lives next door with his parents Joy and Chao. He’s very personable little guy and likes to chat with his “Uncle Mike.” Since I couldn’t go visit family during this pandemic, I thought that Frank makes a good substitute nephew for my Christmas card.

Covid Front

The impact hasn’t been too bad. Here’s what I miss: travel (especially to see family), going out to restaurants & public events with friends, and seeing films in theaters.

My 2010 recovery from a shoulder fracture (3 months) and the close to five months in 2014/2015 recovery from pancreatitis prepared me for isolation. Every few days I go out for food and prescriptions and to check my post office box. When the weather was decent, I went out for biking and hiking. Fortunately, one of my bikes is on rollers:

Health

At a June follow-up visit to the Cleveland Clinic , my AFIB specialist recommended my getting a catheter ablation.  Thus in early August, I returned for the procedure which a couple of bicycling buddies  (Dan Stockwell and Bob Lovell) helped with the driving and being my patient advocate . So far, recovery has been good. I return on December 11 for a follow-up.

Of course, when one condition gets treated, another returns. My left shoulder which had surgery eleven years ago has become very arthritic. My range of movement  continually has become more and more restricted. To treat this, in mid-January I’m scheduled for shoulder replacement surgery. Assuming the surgical hospital I’m going to is still performing elective procedures.

My yoga class went to Zoom, so I now can do that twice a week.

Travel

The trip to Cleveland was the only out-of-state travel I did. I had planned on going to Talahasee in early March to see my niece Stephie and her husband. Nasty weather and COVID fears put the kibosh on that.

Bicycling

The only in-state trip was to pedal the West Bloomfield and Michigan Air Line Trails in the ritzy Detroit suburbs with a friend and her sister. (According to Merriam-Webster, one meaning of “air line” is “straight line through the air between two points.”) We did it on a glorious late September Sunday with perfect weather and some nice Fall color.

A major pre-COVID effort was to help with the renewal of my county’s Trails and Park Millage. My effort was to help assemble and distribute 100 yards signs.

That’s George Hayhoe on the right. I represented my bike club in the campaign;  he is with the Friends of the Lansing Regional Trails (FLRT) advocacy group. I would advise people to be careful in volunteering to assemble yard signs. They a devil to put together.

Based on my work with the Millage, I got elected to the FLRT Board. Which means another monthly Zoom meeting for me.

In February I decided to trade in my electric bike for a newer model (see above photo which Frank) which is easier to mount. I was darn lucky that I did that before COVID hit.

My cycling enabled me to go to hard-to-reach-places such as these MSU locations during flooding in May:

Homelife

Like many people, I had a project during isolation. The chandelier light in my dining room started to go on the fritz, so I decided to replace it with a ceiling fan. Since an electrician was going to have to come anyway, I had him install another fan in my bed room, a new lighting cover in the kitchen, and a new carriage lamp by my front door.

My condo association decided to embark on re-roofing the entire complex. My unit was the first one. We had a lot of shank, rattle, and roll as the crew dropped bundles of shingles on the roof. The end result was worth it.

 

Family

All branches have been coping fairly well during the pandemic; no one has been hit with the virus. There were a couple of cute Zoom meetings. In the summer my grand-niece Annie in California did a virtual art lesson on how to draw an ice cream cone. Relatives from all over the U.S. plus Luxembourg and England tuned in. My niece Suzanne in Phoenix last month set up a session for us to wish her daughter Aubree becoming a teenager.

Movies

I started out going greats guns this year: ten flicks by mid-February. Here’s what I managed to catch:

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker
1917
Just Mercy
Parasite
Little Women
Oscar Shorts: Live Action
Linda Ronstadt: A Life in Music
Oscar Shorts: Documentary
The Gentlemen
Oscar Shorts: Animated

Here’s hoping 2021 is way better than 2020!