2020 in review

Last year I was so very glad to see 2019 end. It had not been a great year for me, and I had high hopes for this year. I had some running goals, some health goals, work goals, etc. Yeah so that didn’t exactly go as planned, huh.

What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before? 

• In January, I was 35 miles away from a major volcano eruption in the Philippines. What I thought were little flies biting me were actually pieces of volcanic ash bouncing off my face. At the time, we had no idea if we would be able to fly back to the States as Taal kept rumbling. Hard to believe that was this year.
• I ran the furthest I’ve ever run as I trained for my first ever marathon (not quite 18 miles, more about that later).
• I ran two virtual half marathons. Ugh, virtual races are just not much fun.
• My third metatarsal in my right foot broke right up high in the neck while running. 
• And of course I’m living in a time of pandemic (or to use a more Biblical term, a pestilence). 

Did anyone close to you give birth? 

Grace Elizabeth was born January 25, 2020. I'm still incredibly honored that she shares a name with me, and I am so glad I’ve gotten to visit her and her parents twice this year. I wish it were more.

Did anyone close to you die? 

No. But I’m definitely affected by the COVID-related deaths this year. I don’t see how you can be a normal human being with any kind of heart and not be affected.

Did you suffer illness or injury? 

Yes. Once again I broke a bone while doing the sport I love. This thing has taken forever to heal, which is very annoying. I’ve also had nerve pain from the top of my right foot shooting down into my big toe since last March. None of the orthopedists I’ve seen are concerned so while I have a scheduled nerve conduction test in April, I’m continuing to work out. If the weather ever cooperates, I will bike and run, foot pain be damned. 

As with the broken pelvis, I’m using a bone growth stimulator and will be for another 130+ days.

What countries did you visit? 

In January, I spent three weeks in Manila for work. Volcano and the start of the pandemic aside, that was a really cool trip and I’m glad I got to see a part of the world I probably wouldn’t have gone to on my own dime.

What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020? 

A vaccine for COVID. 

I’d also like to break a pattern that seems to be emerging in my life:

• 2017—cancer diagnosis
• 2018—bone fracture
• 2019—cancer diagnosis
• 2020—bone fracture
• 2021—??

What dates from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 

• January 12: Taal erupted 
• January 25: Grace was born
• February 3: I turned 60
• February 14: we met Grace
• March 13: my city locked down for COVID and we began working from home (I will be working from home at least through the end of June 2021)
• May 6: third metatarsal broke
• August 22: got my hair cut short and went blonde 

There are other events but the dates aren’t etched—we got to see Grace and her family over Labor Day weekend but sadly have had to cancel all other trips. 

What was your biggest achievement of the year? 

In April, along with probably every other sewist in the country, I fired up my sewing machine and cranked out nearly 100 face masks for friends, family and in one case, the family of a friend (that family lives in Ireland so I can truthfully say my masks were international!).

One real bright spot this year, or I should more accurately say two bright spots are our COVID kittens. I'm so glad we got them. 

I also decided to give veganism a try. Originally I planned to try for about a month but here I am, nearly at the six month mark and I think I'll stick with it. Health-wise I already had great numbers for cholesterol but saw huge improvement there anyway. My LDL dropped from 70 to 35, which made me blink! 

And I busted through a big hang up of mine when SheFit asked me to send a photo of me wearing their bra to be used in a social media campaign. 

But honestly this year has felt like I’m just marking time. I’d planned to train and run my first full marathon this year both as a way to say screw you cancer and to celebrate turning 60. I was very disappointed when the race went virtual but of course on May 6, it was all moot anyway when my foot broke. 

I did run two virtual half marathons, and I don’t think I’ll do that again. It’s just a real slog. 

What was the best thing you bought? 

I wrote a very long post about things we bought this year to make our home comfy and cozy.

Where did most of your money go? 

And of course, that post also describes where our money went (as it sure didn’t go for traveling). We did have a lot of medical expenses but not nearly what we had in 2019.

What did you get really excited about? 

I didn't know it was going to happen, but my mother, sister and brother surprised me so much I staggered when they were all at a restaurant to celebrate my 60th birthday. That was absolutely surreal and wonderful.

I was so excited to be training to run that marathon. I’d done a lot of research to find one that was not horrible in terms of the route but also not hard to travel to, and Grandma’s seemed like the perfect one. Plus it’s in June so I knew I could get in a proper training schedule since I wouldn’t have to do most of the training in winter. And I’d found a running coach because I wanted to train safely and sanely.

So words are inadequate, I cannot tell you how heartsick I was when I broke my foot. I sat in that urgent orthopedic clinic and knew, I just knew that it was broken and that I would not be healed in time to run the marathon. I’m not much of a crier, but I teared up there in that office.

And in November when it looked like I had a non-union fracture, I was crushed. I’d already been researching bikes so that same day I got that news, I went to a local bike shop and ordered a bike. I’ve been able to ride a few times but I need it to be a little less windy and I also need shoe covers to be able to ride in the Kansas winter weather.

For the second year in a row, it’s been a really hard year. I sometimes feel as though I’m digging a hole in dry sand only of course the sand will not stay out of the hole so I keep digging, digging, digging, all for nothing.

What book(s) did you love this year? 

I continue to be an indiscriminate reader (escapism at its finest) and devour all sorts of fiction, especially science fiction, some fantasy (I’m very, very picky) and a fair amount of post-apocalyptic fiction. 

However I don’t advise reading Station Eleven when in a foreign country as a pandemic starts (yes, I thought I would re-read it when I was in Manila and COVID-19 was breaking loose in China and Southeast Asia—not my best plan). 

What song will always remind you of 2020? 

Once again, I’m boring. I’ve been listening to the Housewerks playlist on Spotify. This song cracked me up last spring.

A final post from Manila

Or at least I hope it's the last one. If Taal acts up, then it won't be.

I thought I'd end with a few photos of the Chinese New Year's decorations at the hotel. This is outside the lounge on the 40th floor.

This one is at the desk for the residences at the hotel (I can only imagine how expensive it is to live here in one of those).

This is in the lobby and is very tall, much taller than I am.

A close up of the rats.

Another display in the lobby:

And one last sunset here tonight:

Kitties in Manila

I’ve seen a ton of kitties here, they’re all wild but highly socialized toward humans. They’re also incredibly tiny and thin, I’m sure they don’t live easy lives. I haven't tried to pet any of them because although they don't run away from people, they're clearly not house cats.

As you might imagine, I’ve taken a lot of photos (I can’t resist cute cats) so here they are:

I saw these two at the Bonifacio High Street Mall area on January 11.

I'm pretty sure these are the same kitties plus another one; I saw them January 19.

This tiny kitty was eating something, what you don't see are the couple of workers sitting on a short landscaping wall taking their break. I'm pretty sure they were feeding the kitty.

This is a different cat, although she looks very similar to the previous one.

This is yet another cat, but this one's sitting on the landscaping light. It wasn't a cool night by any stretch of the imagination but cats do run hotter than we do. So I'm sure the warmth felt good.

And as I came back by on the same walk, that little kitty decided to curl up on the light.

Saint Vincent De Paul and Fort Santiago

Last Sunday, we got to see St. Vincent De Paul, a very old if not the oldest Catholic church in Manila. You can read about it here.

I didn’t take a lot of photos there as a wedding was going on and that seemed disrespectful. I will say I was in the minority, lots of people took photos of the wedding!

Then we walked a short distance to Fort Santiago and toured the fort. The fort is also quite old and is considered to be one of the most important historical sites in Manila. I can’t do justice to a write up so take a look at this link.

See the kitty? And the rooster on the right?

Then we made a stop at the Mall of Asia. At one point, it was supposed to be the biggest mall in the world. I don't think it is any more, but it's definitely large. I took this photo facing west toward Manila Bay. I do love the ocean.

After that, we went to Okada Casino, which is further south from the fort and the cathedral. I’m not a gambler and I don’t care for cigarette smoke, but two of the folks on my team really wanted to see it so off we went. And one of them won nearly 1000 PHP! This photo is at the entrance; I think some of these decorations were up in advance of the Chinese New Year. It was pretty amazing to see.

We stuck around for the light show, which according to the Okada is bigger than the Belagio in Las Vegas. I don’t know either way but I will say it was really cool.

At the same time we were there, one of the Filipino people with us showed us real time videos of Taal, and we realized we could see the ash plume from the casino. Not only that, but what we thought were bug bites were actually tiny pieces of ash hitting us.

I’ll say I’ve never been in a situation where Facebook prompted me to mark myself safe or not safe, which was just nutty.

The Year of the Rat

I was born in the year of the rat, and it’s now the year of the rat as I approach a milestone birthday. As it turns out, Starbucks has cups and mugs for the year of the rat, at least in Asia.

I was at a client site Wednesday and we stopped at Starbucks for coffee and I saw one of the mugs. I thought about getting it, said no, but kept thinking about it as we were in line. I realized that if I didn’t get it, I would always be a little sad that I didn’t. So I bought it.

Then yesterday at work, one of our vendor partners showed me other year of the rat cups from Starbucks. In Singapore, they have two mugs: the one I got and a smaller one. Good thing I’m not there or I’d be trying to pack two breakable mugs into my suitcase.

Then I looked at the Starbucks website here in the Philippines and I think I might just ditch the Block cup I brought and get one of the tall rat water bottles ones instead. The one on the far right in this photo is actually called a zodiac CNY coin bank.

No more running in Manila most likely

You may have heard about Taal, the smaller volcano in the Philippines that’s been rumbling and belching ash into the sky. I’m about 40 miles north of it, and in fact saw the ash column Sunday night when my team and I were out. In this picture, look at the vertical cloud near the roof line—that’s the ash plume and the bigger clouds above it are also ash, just more dispersed.

Air quality has definitely plummeted so I’m no longer running while I’m here. The hotel slipped a letter under all our doors Sunday night, and on Monday we picked up our masks. Safety over fashion, right?

You can read more about Taal here and here. I found the first article very informative, this is an unusual volcano.

I’ll post more later about the fun excursion we did on Sunday but for now, know that I’m fine. I know the news got more notice in the States yesterday, but honestly nothing’s changed since Sunday. The danger and the threat of another eruption remain the same. I think it was a slow news day in the US.

A quick post

I'm in Manila for work; I got here Monday evening and leave January 23. What's weird and different is that the vendors I'm here to see work US CST hours so I work at night and sleep during the day. You'd think that would eliminate jet lag but ah you would be wrong.

I'm staying in Taguig, which is very upscale. My hotel, the Shangri-la at the Fort, takes hotel service to a completely different level. Case in point, I get a daily laundry allowance and so sent out some things on Tuesday. When they came back, in addition to the hanging clothes being essentially perfect, my socks and undies were wrapped up and tied with a bow and a tiny subtle sachet.

I've shared the rest of these on Facebook but wanted to put them here too. If you click one of the photos, you should be able to see a larger version and then click through them.

This one is a panoramic day shot I took on Tuesday.

Here's a night panoramic photo. It's a little blurry, sorry.

Here's another night photo. I used the night setting on my Pixel 3XL.

This is looking out the window from the restaurant this morning (my breakfast/dinner).

And this is another panoramic photo I took about an hour ago. The sky was so much clearer in this one that I can see the Pusig river to the north and west of me and also what look like mountains further west and also north/north east.

I'd hoped to take a quick trip to one of the other islands this weekend but in light of current world events, and our current dumpster fire of a president's actions, I think I'd better not. It's odd, the first time I was in China on business in 2003, the US had bombed well honestly I don't remember if it was Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, but yet again we bombed another country. That was not a good time to be an American in Asia. So I think it will be better if I don't leave Manila.