Discovery Park

At the base of a substantial hill in west central Seattle and right on Puget Sound across from Bainbridge Island is a beach park that feels surprisingly remote for a place just 6 miles from downtown. The other week, we took a masked, distanced park walk with old friends and their beautiful, well-trained border collie.

Seattle Solitude

It’s been a weird few weeks of profound solitude in Seattle. But the sounds of the city are slowly flooding back: the rush of traffic, the occasional siren, screeching tires, people chattering on sidewalks.

We’ve been passing some of our time taking slow, aimless walks in neighborhoods, encountering sculptures, rose gardens, and surprise views of the Space Needle. More commonly, though, we’ve been marathoning more HBO & Netflix than anyone has any business doing. (Watch Big Little Lies and Dead To Me. Right away.)

Today a number of Washington counties were approved to move to phase 2 of reopening operations. Recovery is underway but I’m of the view that we are so much better off safe than sorry. Can’t go wrong with an abundance of caution.

Saturday (and Every) Night (Cabin) Fever

My consultant fiancé is something of a superforecaster, so when the first COVID-19 rumors began trickling out of China, he and I equipped our home accordingly and started self-isolating very early on. We haven’t been out and about since late February — and the cabin fever is getting real.

So far in quarantine I have:

Binge-watched Ozark, Tiger King, Kim’s Convenience, and the final season of Schitt’s Creek.

Started filling in a coloring book of drinking animals.

Put together a coffee table book draft.

Wine-skyped a lineup of equally bored-out-of-their-minds friends.

Vacuumed the apartment with a small handheld vacuum just so it would take more time.

Made a PowerPoint presentation of my cat’s many different yoga poses.

And been bored enough to look up what TikTok is.