Belarus is still open for business, and everything
else. We’re at about 28k cases as I
write this but jumping up by about 1k daily. Plus, we had a parade last
weekend.
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| Not another soul in sight |
Yep,
you read that right. Victory Day parade, not that I was anywhere near it. And
although it was sparsely attended compared to years past, there were still
thousands of people watching as well as many elderly people in it. Just not
smart.
As far as work goes, my office isn’t going to open back up
for probably months. It’s rather dejecting. I am getting into the office here
and there but mostly working from home, like anyone else. And right now, I have
plenty to do; I’ve got a recurring project I’m doing for the third time and then
there is Russian – I need every minute.
Already I feel Russian is hopeless. I am OK reading and understanding;
it’s very slow but I know what the printed words mean once I figure them out.
But I just cannot speak or understand. I had my first lesson with the teacher
and it went about like I expected. He probably thinks I am nincompoop but I
haven’t landed on how to learn. There’s got to be a way. I don’t know how people do this. I just don’t
have an aptitude for it, but there’s got to be something I can to that will help.
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| Copyright infringement? |
Meanwhile, since there is absolutely no commute involved in
working from home, I have what seems like a couple more hours a day and no purpose
to go anywhere. And as bad as getting dark so early was, it being light out from
5 a.m. to 9 p.m. makes you want to go outside.
Well, when the weather is decent. Oddly, it snowed last
week. Not much, but enough to remind me why I don’t like winter. We keep having
brilliantly sunny days at or near 60 and then it goes back to cloudy in the low
50s.
But I am trying to get outside anyway, even if it’s chilly. We’re
not locked down, and Minsk is blessed with green spaces. The Svislac rives
twists through the city, and along both sides in many places people can find paths,
parks and trails. Minsk’s version of Gorky Park is a couple kilometers from me
and encompasses a pretty big area. There’s an amusement park, ice rink, planetarium
and probably lots of other things over a series of long blocks on one side of
the river.
In the mornings, I’ve started walking through it now that
the weather is OK, or mostly OK. This morning it was 46 and overcast with a
little wind; not ideal but if I wait until the afternoon more people come out. One
day last week, I went in the morning and in the afternoon and the afternoon had
far more joggers, walkers, fishermen, pets on excursion and people on roller
blades, bikes and scooters going by. There’s still enough space to feel safe,
though, but I prefer the solitude in the morning.
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| Ferris wheel at Gorky Park |
My path this week has taken me on the main road, just past
the circus and over the bridge to the park, where I pop off the road and wander
through to the end of the park, then I switch sides of the river and go by the
opera house and continue to the area with the stadium, which is close to my
house. It’s really a nice walk; water just sucks me in. I found a place with a
really big rock under a willowy tree and it’s just lovely to sit and pray. Despite
the wanna-be fishermen sitting around with poles, the river doesn’t seem to
have fish, or at least I haven’t seen evidence of any. But there are ducks,
pigeons and occasional geese to watch, so there’s a nice calming effect.
The loop I’ve done this week is about 5-6k, so it’s
something in light of our gym being shut down. I need to motivate myself to run
outside but it’s just not my thing. I love walking outside; running is a
treadmill thing to me. But maybe when it gets warmer in the mornings.
If I make it into the office this week, I plan on walking
back by way of the river, which would lengthen the commute from about 2k to
probably 8k. I went in two days last week and intended to do that, but bad luck
struck and one was the snow day and the other was also gloomy, plus our mail
came and my bag was a bit heavy to lug that far.
Our mail comes to Lithuania instead of directly here and
someone normally goes to get it. However, we can’t be doing that right now, so last
week was our first load in over a month; we had to have a contractor bring it
to us. It was so nice to be reunited with stuff we’d all ordered back in February
or so. My voting information came for the primary. That’s how far behind we
are.
And there’s no end in sight. We’re so far behind everyone
has pretty much lapped us.
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