Coronavirus Chronicles – November

The month started off on Sunday, November 1 with a slightly crazy Revolution 4-3 victory over D.C. United and cooking the first pound of my buy-1-get-1-free beef roasts (I’ve got four more pounds hanging out in the freezer). The following week, like a lot of the northeast, Ann Arbor experienced much warmer weather than usual for November, so I went out for walks/hikes multiple times during the week in between dealing with email, my manuscript, and other assorted research. Election Day was Tuesday, November 4, and I followed along with the results throughout the night though the media did not announce their projected overall winner until the weekend, as people were forewarned might happen.

On Saturday, November 7 I baked a batch of molasses cookies that turned out well and Sunday, November 8 after internet church, I picked up my library summer game rewards¹, did a load of laundry, and watched the Revolution finish their regular season by losing 0-2 to the Philadelphia Union. I attended my first Zoom thesis defense on Monday, November 9, which went impressively smoothly. For the first time in a while, I crossed North Campus on Tuesday, November 10 to get to a park and enjoy perhaps the last mild weather day of the year. There were a good number of people out, but at least almost everybody was correctly wearing a mask and distancing, as required by the Wolverine Culture of Care^TM. The week’s #2020 moment is brought to you by the power outage in my apartment right when I was supposed to be meeting virtually with my advisor, leading to me using my phone as a phone for the third time this year (the other two times were getting my appointment reminder call from the dentist and calling my advisor because the internet kept dropping out during our meeting).

Sunset on the river

Throughout the week, I also continued working my way through Star Trek: The Next Generation. According to the internet, seasons 3-5 are peak Star Trek, and midway through season 4 that seems to be proving true. Another square to check off in Coronavirus Bingo – I “attended” a livestreamed wedding on Saturday, November 14. Directly afterwards, I baked a batch of cranberry orange scones. I doubled the amount² of cranberries the recipe called for and used whole milk instead of heavy cream. The dough was initially pretty wet, but it smelled really good. After baking, I can say that the scones also tasted really good. I maybe overbaked them slightly, and I’d reduce the sugar next time, but for what might be the first time ever, I don’t think I overworked the dough when I cut the butter in. This was also the first pants day of the season, as it was only in the 30s when I went grocery shopping in the morning.

Scones

I worked on my manuscript throughout the week of Monday, November 16, and went out a couple times during the week for a quick hike and bike ride. Even though the sun sets about an hour later than it does in New England, it’s still starting to set pretty early, so I may need to reorganize my schedule if I don’t want to invest in night vision goggles. The Revolution had their play-in game against the Montreal Impact on Friday, November 20, and it took a last-minute-of-second-half-stoppage-time goal, but they got the win and moved into the actual bracket.

Four days later, on Tuesday, November 24, the Revolution were back at it with their new BFFs (Best Foes Forever), the Philadelphia Union, also the number 1 seed in the eastern conference. To the surprise of basically everyone, they won. The next day, Wednesday, November 25, I got a late birthday/early Christmas/Thanksgiving present in the form of my paper, at long last, being accepted. In an act of rebellion against a tyrannical government, I refused to live in fear of a silly little virus and celebrated Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26) in the exact same way as I did last year . . . alone in my apartment. I found a mini ham at the grocery store, made cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, and heated up some frozen vegetables for single grad student Thanksgiving dinner 2020. I had Thanksgiving leftovers on Friday, November 27 and finished some pretzels and chocolate hummus that I got on sale at the grocery store – would recommend.

Thanksgiving dinner

Over the weekend (Saturday, November 28 and Sunday, November 29), the temperature got up into the high 40s (hello, shorts weather), so I went out for what may be my last bike ride and hike of the year without wearing sixteen layers of clothing. The Revolution took on Orlando on Sunday for their next playoff game . . . and won again, so they’re heading to the Eastern Conference Final. I finished out the month on Monday, November 30 with breakfast for dinner – fried(/steamed) apples, scrambled eggs, and a freezer pancake.

So, it looks like the country survived the election, minus the people who died unnecessarily from the coronavirus. News of vaccine efficacy has been interesting and cause for cautious optimism. Hopefully hospitals can hang in there and Thanksgiving doesn’t push them over the top even before Christmas happens. In-person classes at the university are done for the year, so I’m guessing campus has quieted down, though I haven’t been by to check. I’ll be sticking around in Ann Arbor through the New Year. Still waiting for the first big snowfall. No real plans for Christmas, but maybe I’ll look for a Chinese turkey for the occasion.

¹A t-shirt to wear to all the places I’m not going, a lunchbox for all the lunches I’m not packing, and a travel mug for all the drinks I don’t need to keep hot/cold.

²Microsoft Word wants this to be number, which is technically correct, because cranberries are countable, but I refuse to say it’s really correct, because recipes ask for a quarter or half cup of cranberries, not one hundred and twenty-seven cranberries.

Winter is Coming

Before winter arrives, whether on the calendar or with snow and freezing temperatures, I’ve been enjoying the outdoors. I’ll still enjoy the outdoors when it’s covered in a foot of snow and everything’s grey, but the fall colors are nice while they last. I closed out October with a couple last bike rides/walks to some of the parks I’ve been frequenting. As it turned out, on the very first day of November, Ann Arbor got its first snowflakes of the season. The ground and air temperature were too warm for anything that could even be called a coating to stick, but winter is coming.

As we headed into the second half of October, I biked over to the Barton Nature Area to check on the colors by the river. The Border to Border was still well-trafficked by exercisers, but the number of people just hanging around at the parks along it was on its way down. I was hoping for blue skies and bright colors over the Huron, but got a grey sky and a scattering of yellow and brown trees instead. Oh, well. It was still nice in person.

Kayakers on the Huron River

By the end of the month the temperatures started dropping from pleasantly cool to uncomfortably cool without a jacket. So I put on a jacket, but held off on pants. I made the rounds through some of the parks that I’ve been circling through for the past nine months, for which I have coronavirus to thank, in more ways than one. Firstly, for being the reason that I’ve been wandering through the woods unaccompanied instead of going to band rehearsals, church events, and seminars. Secondly, for being the reason I discovered the parks in the first place and ended up exploring large portions of Ann Arbor.

Fall colors

There was a good mix of color when I was out at the end of the month. Some of the trees were past peak and turning brown or dropping their leaves, but enough of them still had leaves on their branches to make it feel fall-ish and not dead and winter-ish. From the pond, I made my way to some beech woods, which were very yellow. On the way back to my apartment, I encountered a mushroom growing out of a tree. I’m pretty sure it was real, but this is Ann Arbor so it could be an open-air art installation contemplating the decay of civilization juxtaposed with the endurance of humanity. Or something like that. I also met what looked like a really fat, round bird that was actually a hawk. The picture below is blurry because it’s extremely zoomed up. Guess who still doesn’t have a telephoto lens?

Beech forest

Mushroom growing out of a tree

It’s either a Cooper’s hawk or a sharp-shinned hawk, which even birdwatching sites will admit look very, very similar (see what I mean?). The Cooper’s hawk is bigger, but a male Cooper’s hawk can be about the same size as a female sharp-shinned hawk. Plus, you try figuring out what “bigger” is when you’re hiding in the bushes thirty feet away. The tails of the two species differ in shape; the Cooper’s hawk has a rounded tail while the sharp-shinned hawk has a squarer or notched tail. The Cooper’s hawk also has a bigger head that can look a bit block-like, and the sharp-shinned hawk has thin, “stick-like” legs. Both have reddish barring on their bellies and black and white striped tails, and can be found in Michigan. My bird has a rounded tail, but I can’t say it looks particularly block-headed, and I don’t know if I would or wouldn’t call those legs stick-like either. If I had to say, I’d go with Cooper’s hawk, but I wouldn’t bet any money on that. So far during coronavirus I’ve identified (okay, attempted to identify) wildflowers, wildlife, fungus, and now birds. Why not trees, you ask? Already did that in seventh grade science. (And we did rocks in eighth grade science.)

Either a Cooper's hawk or sharp-shinned hawk

Bound for the Playoffs Land

Well, MLS made it to the end of the regular season. Kind of. All fourteen teams in the eastern conference played their planned twenty-three games, in contrast to the western conference where only four of twelve teams did. Most western conference teams did only miss one or two games, but Colorado played a league-low eighteen games. As people suspected, when it became impossible for Colorado to fit in all their coronavirus-cancelled games before the last day of the season without playing, like, every day, MLS announced that playoff seeding would be based on points per game. Nothing changed in the eastern conference, but some western conference fans were (probably rightfully) annoyed that a team that missed close to a quarter of the season ended up with a pretty high playoff seed.

Wednesday, October 28 at New York Red Bulls – 0-1 L – In this classic Revolution performance, they played reasonably well, and outplayed New York by certain metrics, but failed to put quality shots on goal and gave up an 89th minute goal off a corner kick. Again. With the season winding down, it feels like Bruce Arena is trying to manage minutes while figuring out who he wants to play during the playoffs but also getting the team to score consistently without giving up stupid goals. It’s something I don’t think he’s quite worked out yet. Through most of the season, they weren’t scoring, but they also weren’t letting opposing teams score, so there were a lot of 1-0/0-1 wins and losses and 0-0/1-1 ties. Then when the scoring picked up a bit, they also started letting in more goals – see Montreal on October 14th and the next game against D.C. But even with the loss, because of other results in the league, the Revolution clinched their playoff spot.

Sunday, November 1 vs. D.C. United – 4-3 W – To close out the home slate at Gillette, the Revolution and D.C. met on a very wet and rainy afternoon in Foxborough. The defense did not have a great game, as the scoreline suggests. They looked to be struggling with the slipperiness of the ball and didn’t want to commit too hard to plays, allowing D.C. two early goals. Adam Buksa got one back for New England after Carles Gil’s penalty attempt hit the post and rebounded into the penalty box. (Second time Gil’s been rescued by a teammate after an unconverted penalty kick, the first being in the insane 4-4 Kansas City draw last season that led into the losses that culminated in Brad Friedel’s dismissal.) After the halftime break, Tajon Buchanan, who was looking pretty good on the right wing, put in a cross that a United player kicked into his own goal very unnecessarily. We’ll take it. The Revolution went ahead on a Teal Bunbury goal thanks to another Buchanan cross, but D.C. leveled the score with a third goal of their own because apparently the game wasn’t enough of a mess yet. New England almost scored after Gustavo Bou, on a breakaway, got the ball to Buksa, but the United goalkeeper made the save. He, however, gave up a rebound, and who else but Bunbury was there to get his second goal of the night and earn the Revolution the win. For about fifteen minutes in the second half of this game, New England had all three of their DPs (designated players) on the field for the first time since July and MLS is back.

Sunday, November 8 at Philadelphia Union – 0-2 L – Same song, second fourth/fifth verse. For the fourth time in the regular season (fifth overall including MLS is back), the Revolution and the Union faced each other. For the third time (fourth overall), the Revolution lost. Arena’s still messing with the lineup. He started all three DPs, but people were not on the same page. There were way too many passes behind players, out of bounds passes, confusion about who was going to take the ball, and nobody would shoot. It’s a little hard to score if you never shoot. No offence combined with questionable defense led to the loss. The defense has not had a good end to the season. They’re not closing down players outside the box to stop crosses, not closing down players inside the box to stop shots, and not marking second balls after set pieces. Let’s hope they get it together for the playoffs.

Now it’s on to the playoffs, though the Revolution managed to play themselves into a play-in game against the Montreal Impact. Hopefully they’ll at least win that, but this is the Revolution, so even if they do, they’ll probably lose the next actual playoff game, get sent home for postseason, and come back next year for another season of futility. But for now, we have at least one more night of Revolution-induced high blood pressure.

In the Home Stretch

As we approached the end of the season, the Revolution remained in good playoff position. There were some highlights, some lowlights, and some things that are best blamed on 2020.

Wednesday, October 14 at Montreal Impact – 3-2 W – File this under “2020 things” – the Revolution travelled to New Jersey to play the Montreal Impact at Red Bull Arena while the Red Bulls were in Connecticut playing Toronto FC. I believe the Revolution had never won at Red Bull Arena before, and now they have, so the statistic is now that they haven’t won at Red Bull Arena against the Red Bulls. It’s like how I haven’t seen American football in the Big House (the Michigan stadium). Good news is that they came away with the three points even with a heavily rotated squad, Adam Buksa got a goal and an assist, Kekuta Manneh got his first Revolution goal, and Teal Bunbury picked up his team-leading sixth goal. Bad news is that Antonio Delamea and Michael Mancienne got the start as the center backs and did not look good, and the team gave up a late second half stoppage time goal. Delamea is a decent center back who would be good if he didn’t often make one really bad decision per game that leads to a goal or red card. He also looks better when he’s the weaker center back, which is not the case when his partner is Mancienne. However well Mancienne played in England, he has not been good for New England.

Monday, October 19 vs. Philadelphia Union – 1-2 L – Continuing the apparent curse of Gillette Stadium this year, the Revolution racked up another loss to the Union at home. With the Revolution likely to make the playoffs, I suspect Bruce Arena opted to rest a lot of his starters against Montreal and push for a win against Philadelphia in preparation for having to play a top team in the eastern conference during the playoffs. They tried. They failed. The Revolution actually managed to put the ball in the net more times than the Union. Unfortunately, one of those times ended with the ball in their own net. After sustained pressure from the Union, a cross hit Andrew Farrell’s foot and rolled into the corner of a confused Matt Turner’s goal. They’re not completely to blame because the Union possession started after Scott Caldwell got caught standing on the ball too long, which is usually how he gets into trouble. The Union doubled their lead midway through the second half before Tajon Buchanan scored a really nice late goal from the corner of the box. Lee Nguyen had a great free kick on goal minutes later, but the Union’s Andre Blake spared his team from dropping points.

Friday, October 23 at Nashville SC – 1-1 T – On the Revolution’s first trip to Nashville, it started pouring minutes before kickoff. After an eighty-minute weather delay, the thunderstorm moved on and the teams took the field. Say what you will about Gillette Stadium and its turf, the grounds crew has been good the past few seasons about scrubbing the football lines off for the Revolution and the field doesn’t turn into a soggy mess. Which is to say the football lines, Tennessee Titans logo, etc., were well visible on the broadcast and the ball did not play right for the first 20-25 minutes. This was also the Revolution’s first game since the restart with fans. They were pretty well spaced out, and I would probably have been okay with attending a game like that – if the coronavirus numbers looked like they did in the MA/CT/NY area in the summer – but not in Tennessee, and not with cases rising in almost every state. The crowd sounded really strange at least on the broadcast, if not also in real life. Either the broadcast mike was not working right or the stadium was haunted, but not in a cool way. Haunted by like, knockoff dollar store ghosts. Or a hoard of pheasant coucals. Anyway, weird game even without it going until midnight in the eastern time zone. The Revolution conceded a 74th minute goal off a corner, which is starting to become a problem (again), but equalized thanks to a 77th minute goal from Adam Buksa, who made space for himself to score from the top of the box with four Nashville defenders around him. The other big news was that Carles Gil, back from injury and Spain, travelled with the team, and made a substitute appearance. Maybe not the best night for him to return to the field, but it was something else the Revolution could take away from the game along with their point.

With three games to go, the Revolution very likely were going to get a playoff spot. Thus began the scheming to bring about the convergence of good form, players coming back from injury, and strategic seeding that would position them for their best shot at a playoff run.

Birthday Weekend Wanderings

Over six months after coronavirus became a matter of global concern and social distancing and not showing your face anywhere became cool, the virus is still going strong, so a coronavirus birthday it was for me. I wanted to maybe see a couple friends outdoors, but apparently even that was too much to ask of 2020, because everyone was either busy or dealing with emergency situations. But the weather was too nice to stay inside, so I spent my birthday weekend wandering across Ann Arbor all by myself as usual. At least I had actual physical human contact for the first time in over half a year a few days before my birthday. One of us was wearing gloves the whole time, but at this point, I’ll take it. If you guessed I went to the dentist, you’d be right.

My so-called birthday weekend celebrations began on Friday after another enthralling day of research when I made my way to the Thurston Nature Center. The land, located behind Thurston Elementary School, is open to the public but co-owned by the Ann Arbor Public Schools and the neighborhood’s community pool association. There’s one main trail that circles the pond, and I often extend the walk/hike into the neighborhood behind the school to get to an Ann Arbor park. It’s another option for me to pick from when I’m deciding on the adventure of the day.

Thurston Nature Center

The previous month’s discovery of the shared-use trail through Parker Mill opened up the interesting possibility of an alternate route to the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. As it turns out, you can bike the Border to Border (B2B) Trail to the end of Gallup Park, then bike through Parker Mill, cut under the road, and connect to the Matthaei Botanical Gardens Trail (MBGT) which leads to (surprise) the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. This route is almost twice as long as Google’s suggested route, but it also doesn’t involve weirdly cutting through neighborhoods, making left turns across traffic, and getting over the highway, and it’s much nicer looking. I no longer have any weekend commitments, not that I’ve ever had many while at Michigan, so I have time to take the scenic routes. This was my plan for Saturday.

Fall on the Huron River

It was a lovely warm and grey afternoon for a bike ride, made even lovelier by the Huron River and the fall colors. The stretch of the B2B between the two playgrounds at Gallup was a pain in the neck, but the rest of the ride was smooth enough. The MBGT was nice, well paved, not too heavily trafficked, and set off from the main road. When I got to the botanical gardens, I was only planning to take a few pictures by the pond because the bike ride was a little longer than usual, but since I came all that way I gave in and walked some of the trails. The conservatory and gardens are closed (thanks, corona), but all the other trails are open. The trail right by the (unnamed) creek (which flows into Fleming Creek, which flows into the Huron River) was somewhat crowded, but further along the trail and away from the creek it was much quieter (except for, of course, the traffic noises). No rattlesnake sightings, but I did see some fall colors. This trip was my first to the botanical gardens this year and first in fall.

Matthaei Botanical Gardens

A very orange tree

By Sunday, I figured my legs would be pretty done; however, I was still entertaining the thought of going to the Barton Nature Area for lunch on the dam after church. I did go to church, which ended up feeling crowded, with varying levels of distancing and proper mask wearing, but wound up at the arboretum afterwards instead. It was not my first visit to the arboretum of the year – I went a couple times in February – but I had avoided it all spring and summer thanks to the roving bands of sunburnt, drunk, music-blasting tubers. By this point, things had calmed down considerably, and I got to enjoy the very tall grass mostly in peace. When I made it to my apartment after one last bike ride back to campus, me and my bike were glad to get a rest.

North Campus from the Arboretum

So that was my birthday weekend. Including my bike ride to campus to get to the dentist (still avoiding the buses at the expense of my legs, heart, and lungs; soon the uncovered portion of my face and hands will join the list), I covered close to forty miles in four days. I saw lots of trees, spent some time in nature, but did not get any cake.