Jan. 3 plus New Year's Day Run/Walk: Sunday: zoom at 8 am; Friday at 7:30 meet outside Squirrel Hill Starbucks and brave the elements

Next runs/walks will take place in 2021 - Hallelujah!! 

Traditional New Year's Day Holiday Run/Walk will start at 7:30 am at Starbucks in Squirrel Hill, head over to the Cemmie (aka Homewood Cemetery), and return to sit outside safely wherever we can.  

Sunday will be Your Choice at 7, zoom at 8 - here's the link: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/97642356094?from=addon

Nothing else to say except TWO WEEKS worth of endorsements from lots of zooming:

• Watching:
• Let Them All Talk (Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest stuck on a boat)
• The Prom
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, plus interview with Viola Davis
• Bridgerton (Jane Austen with sex)
• Get On Up (James Brown biopic - best seen directly after the Jane Austen)
• The Comey Rule
• Giving Voice (August Wilson Monologue competition)
• Handmaid's Tale, SNLversion
• Eating:
• The original Moosewood cookbook - and the Silver Palate's famous wild rice dish.
• Cooking holiday meals for your kids to pick up: "I felt like I was running a take-out."
• You can make cake flour by adding cornstarch to regular flour, and oat flour from pulverizing oats
• The disassociated world of Jewish cooking:  A Russian Jew Cooks in Peru, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York.
• Outdoors:
• Beavers have been sighted at 9 mile run (check Next Door.)  Also foxes.
• The Nine Mile Run Watershed Association
• Iron Gate Trail in Frick Park (look out!) or Lowrie's Run Trail in the North Hills
• Cross country skiing on Schenley golf course, also North Park, and somewhere near McKnight Elementary school
• Other:
• Carnegie Library has curbside pickup and book return
• Cashmere muffs. Mink hats. Little lace caps for church. But Vatican II - it changed everything!
• An Advent Calendar for counting days to Jan. 20.
• Tracking packages - shop app will do it but looks too complicated to me
• The late lamented Pussycat
• Target Epiphany - they actually do have everything, and they will bring it out to your car in the parking garage.
• Bernedoodles

Dec. 27 Run/Walk: Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide (thank you Martha) - but let's zoom and talk about it at 8 am

As 2020 FINALLY wraps up, time has become meaningless - that's my excuse.  But let's zoom in and talk about it on Sunday. Hopefully Lainy will read this and agree to let us in.

Link to join is:  https://pitt.zoom.us/j/97642356094?from=addon

Hope to see you all!

P.S. Virginia has created the perfect metaphor in her backyard: 

Dec. 20 Run/Walk: we are still in the COVID universe, so go anywhere and then zoom together at 8

Despite the blessed first appearance of vaccines, we still have a long way to go in the Covidverse, so let's all be safe, maybe jump up and down a few times at 7:45, and then come together to zoomingly kibitz at 8.  Here's the link, thanks to Lainy (same one as last week):  

https://pitt.zoom.us/j/97642356094?from=addon

Still waiting for those expats!

Because I have waited so long (Is it Friday already???) and there is a long list of endorsements from our last rendezvous, I'll just list them and forget the clever repartee.

• Harvie Farms CSA  (this looked so good I signed up after I found the link) 
  
  
  
• Bananas and their history podcast - which brought us to Bananas, the movie.  Woody Allen is awful, but can we go back just sometimes to the innocent days?  Also, Banana Republic, also not acceptable!  But maybe the clothes were OK?
• Bad inflatables (see photo)
• the Hip Hop Nutcracker
• The Crown - and all the things that aren't true in it
• Watch:  Movies with Helena Bonham Carter:  The King's Speech, Harry Potter, Les Mis, Room with a View
• Doulas - where were they in 1982?
• Rachel Carson Trail
• the Nine Allegheny County Parks - esp. Harrison Hills
• Vaccines again!  Dr. Pam will be the first of us to get one.  Dr. Sharon says there are at least 6 major ones and we will need them all.
• Firepits - wood? propane?
• Kamala and Fauci mugs available at Center for Contemporary Craft
• Sending postcards to Georgia voters
• Costco - everything but esp. the website where you can make photo gifts
• Sockclub.com subscription
• Xmas tree delivery from Shadyside Nursery
• The time for cashmere mittens is back!

Dec. 13 Run/Walk/Whatever: Back to COVID schedule - find some way to exercise and then meet up on Zoom at 8

On Sunday, you can take a run, do jumping jacks, practice breathing - and then find us on Zoom - here's the link, courtesy of Lainy:

https://pitt.zoom.us/j/97642356094?from=addon

One advantage of Zoom - you can join from Boston, or anywhere.  Hey, expats!

Last week was the same - and I was late so have no information on where anyone went. The convo was intense:  we shared some quarantine experiences - really no fun.  In terms of stress and fear, as the (real) Queen famously said in the 90's, we are having an Annus Horribilis.  But we have each other!

Related endorsements:

• Finding testing - complicated!  I know someone who has been several times to the Squirrel Hill Health Center clinic and says its pretty easy and you can go without a reservation (you can register on your phone when in line.)  A lot of people go to McKeesport.  Curative.com is good for registering ahead of time.  
• Find where you stand in the line for vaccines - from the NYT

Lighter topics:

• Curlers!  Used to great effect by Kamala, and Wendy.  Also, memories of orange-juice-can rollers - for those of us who can recall what orange juice cans were - but now much improved.  
• Pond's Face Cream - used by Elizabeth Warren, also to great effect.  Yay! for women who have the courage to talk about life's vital details.
• the BBQ Beer guy - characterizing at least one common feature of the election season - and also the profound cool of election officials.
• Get food in peace and quiet at the Bryant Street Market in Highland Park
• Lettuce (and other fresh things) delivered from Fifth Season
• Trader Joe's at 8 am - get in and out quickly - clean and efficient
• Read:  Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me and anything else.
• Watch: The Tunnel
• No photos, so...

Dec. 6 Run/Walk: NEW PLAN: everyone do your own thing and then we meet online at 8 - zoom link below

NEWS FLASH: 

A few RG members are quarantining (though all are OK!) - and because we want to take all precautions right now, for tomorrow and beyond, we're going to go back to our COVID origins and do our runs/walks solo at 7 and then meet for a group zoom at 8. 

A sad time but we have each other!  And.... a new president to look forward to!

We'll discuss - 

Lainy set up the meeting and here is the link:

Join Zoom Meeting
https://pitt.zoom.us/j/97642356094?from=addon

See you there!

Prudently but looking ahead,

Roye

PREVIOUSLY:

We're returning to the yard outside Waterfront Starbucks - perhaps we're stalking the Lt. Gov. (whose van was sighted!) but it's also pretty handy re sunny space, nearby coffee, and the pièce de résistance, a perfect bathroom.  Do bring a chair (though some were there) and a blanket.  Last Sunday walkers took the trail by the river, and runners discovered a staircase into Hays Woods.  

• 
  WindStax (photo at right) - witnessed near the labyrinth - what is it?  A vertical wind turbine!  (from a Pittsburgh company)
• the Mediterranean Grill, still available for takeout: Moussaka and the Creamy Garlic Dressing.  Missing the belly dancers though.
• What to get for presents?  a socks subscription!  Shop at Black-owned businesses! The Handmade Arcade, now virtual!
• And here is a shameless promotion of my advice-columnist daughter's article with 79 sustainable gifts.
• Three of us know how to pose for photos (hint: bent knees, below)
• The magnificently eerie Carrie Furnace (also below)
• The Great British Baking Show (often endorsed) is melting!
  
• Watch:  Rick Steve's Europe, Season 2, The Alps
• When your phone battery lasts for 8 days, it's Phonakkah.