May 31 Run: 10th COVID edition, Destination: Oakland! Anywhere you like, then on to the coffee zoom

This week we recommend roaming around Oakland, though unfortunately you can't get into the famous basement bathroom in the Cathedral of Learning.  However, it's possible that St. Paul's will be open in our new yellow state - June is bustin' out all over evidently!  Though not at my house.  Karen won last week's spotting contest with 2.5 views of fellow RG members in Schenley Park.  It wasn't clear which half that was.  Also spotted by Aimee:

Here's the zooming link:
Join East End Runners  for virtual coffee after your actual solo run!

https://pitt.zoom.us/j/819900089

Meeting ID: 819 900 089

2 weeks of endorsements:

• First up - the COVID-19 Blues!  Courtesy of David and Jules Coulson - really don't miss this.
• Also, for Disney fans - "If Disney Songs Were About Quarantine"
• Hugelkultur - something about planting in raised beds
• Transformative composting! Also - a good place to store it until it goes outside:  Stainless steel containers, good for 30+ years according to Pam's very effective infomercial.
• Moth virtual story SLAM based in Pittsburgh, zoom to next one June 22.
• Stephen Colbert keeping us sane and laughing, despite that impossibility.
• Barack and Michelle (sorry, can't write for a minute due to crying jag) reading a book to children together (more crying.)
• Books:  Radical Spirit: 12 ways to live a free and authentic life, and The Library Book (with a jaw-dropping description of a library conflagration in Los Angeles).
• Ticks - good ones (no Lyme Disease).  We hated them until we got the bad ones.
• Zoom meetings with judge's dogs, patients in their underwear, and attorneys in bed
• Haircuts without talking!
• New York Times No-Knead Bread - seriously astounding
• CSA's this summer  - there will be many but so far there is Kretschmann (been doing this for at least 20 years) and Harvie Farms (somehow related to Penn's Corner?)
• The Wednesday and Friday runs, leaving at 5:45 from Squirrel Hill Library corner, still going!! though described by attendees as "barely moving."

May 24 Run: 9th COVID edition - Anywhere in Schenley Park, then back to zoom

Just the facts today:

Run or walk anywhere in Schenley Park, and count how many others of us you see.  Then report back to our zoom at 8.  

Join East End Runners  for virtual coffee after your actual solo run!

https://pitt.zoom.us/j/819900089

Meeting ID: 819 900 089

See you there!

May 17 Run: 8th COVID edition - Everyone to Frick Park? See below for the idea. Then we discuss zoomwise.

OK, what if we all do some sort of individual run in Frick Park, and then see how many of each other we run into?  Whoever sees the most RG members wins!  It will be sort of like atoms careening around and occasionally colliding.  Or like those scary looking spiky virus particles.  I'll be wearing my VOTE DEMS mask.

Join East End Runners  for virtual coffee after your actual solo run!

https://pitt.zoom.us/j/819900089

Meeting ID: 819 900 089

Last Sunday we had 14 zoomers!  I tried to take a sneak screenshot but believe me, you wouldn't want to see it.  Many endorsements of course:

• The Horse Barn at Hartwood Acres, and nearby pond and trails.
• Seeing things in our neighborhoods that we never noticed before.  Maybe that was a good thing.
• The path to the Glenwood Bridge and the collapsed hole in the middle of it.
• The new staircase in Oakland behind Frick Fine Arts
• Gynecologist Dr. Katherine Scruggs at Magee.  It was also recommended that, if you have to go there for anything, try to make it before May 16.  Unfortunately that's tomorrow.
• Animals are really boldly going forth - deer on the porch, red fox in the cemetery.  Please see this video (with the music.)
• JCC virtual fitness classes are apparently free?  Linda Meacci's yoga classes may not be but they are so worth it.
• We knew Chris when - before he patented a $100 ventilator and may have gotten an intro. to Respironics from Gretchen.
• Pittsburgh restaurants giving needy and heroic people free meals
• Beth's psychic grandmother's ghost story
• The universal collective unconscious is now coronavirus-ized.

May 10 Run: 7th COVID edition, same drill, move around somehow and zoom in at 8

Our Internet stopped working this morning and I thought it was the end of civilization.  Then I thought it was the beginning of civilization.  Then it came back on.
For Sunday (tomorrow), here's the link for coffee - be there.  Still waiting for the surprise new face!

Join East End Runners  for virtual coffee after your actual solo run!

https://pitt.zoom.us/j/819900089

Meeting ID: 819 900 089

We had 14 RG members at the last zoom, and it was delightful.  Recently recommended:

• Purple haze hair color - looks fabulous on Aimee and Greta anyway.
• The 61C is still open for takeout
• Virtual Zumba - ask Wendy
• Hiking and biking - you CAN get out!  Places not too far away are wide open:  Ghost Town Trail, Wolf Creek Narrows, Sandy Creek Trail, Allegheny River Trail
• Mornings in the basketball court at Blue Slide Park - lots of davening going on.
• TV series:  Unorthodox
• Book: Educated
• Movie:  Bad education (is there a theme here?)
• Zoom breakout rooms (really?)
• GET YOUR MAIL-IN BALLOT NOW please!  Here is the application!  Joanne tells us there are only going to be 150 polling locations - down from 1300! - in all of Allegheny County.  
• Gretchen sent in this beautiful piece of music from her former choir in Italy which was recorded in honor of the victims of the pandemic (music starts about halfway through.)  Let Gretchen know if you want to learn more.
• Also on my list was the Disney Singalong. Perhaps this is a comment on Italian culture/US culture. No judging!
• Also, the Parks and Recreation special is adorable and harks back to the unimaginable days of the Obama administration.   SNL has also been pretty good lately.
• It must have been water guru Beth who told us about analyzing sewer samples to see where COVID-19 is spreading.
• The painfully early 5:45 am Wednesday and Friday Run is still going!  Meeting at corner of Murray and Forbes, and distancing is comme il faut.