I decided a few weeks ago, shortly after the start of my mandatory exile to my own private Elba in the Texas Hill Country, that the next few weeks or months of isolation will not be for naught. If I can’t emerge from the dank, darkness of my crib and into the relatively viral-free sunlight without some bonus smarts, then it will all have been por nada. People have died or lost loved ones or lost everything or worked their fingers to the bone amongst the huddled masses and all I did was stay home and watch TV??? Nu-uh. For me I suppose, this need is an existential thing with a soupçon of what’s left of my humanity.
Permit me to explain the obvious: this damned Covid virus has claimed so many lives, so many livelihoods and will no doubt impugn every one on the front lines of this unyielding battle, from garbage collectors to doctors to bus drivers with a hefty dose of PTSD once they have the time to digest just what they’ve been dealing with and the life and death decisions they’ve had to make in the process.
Hell yeah, that was a run on sentence….because this pandemic has been a run on catastrophe.
I can’t believe that in the later stage of the 60th year of my life, I am privy to witnessing world altering history. Me!!! My paternal grandmother was 12 when the Titanic sunk: an 18-year-old when the Spanish Flu-slash-juggernaut from pulmonary hell, claimed the lives of what…..50-million victims globally???? And a whopping 675-thousand Americans in one fell (but phlegmy) swoop.
She was a married woman with one daughter and my father on the way when Hitler was coming to power en das Vaterland. She was 59 when I was born and 83 when she died in 1983. I was 24 and crushed by the news. In addition to the Slavic DNA we share, we also survived a pandemic. When she was still able to talk about the memories of her life, I wasn’t evolved enough to ask her about any of the things she witnessed. I only hope the limited technology of the time—radio news reports and newspaper stories with grainy photos, gave her something of a front row view of history. And I hope she too was moved by everything she witnessed, even if that came in the form of second hand accounts.
As for me, I’ve been reading a lot. Please cease and desist with any mental image of me curled up in an alcove with a good book, sans dust jacket. I’m a self-described dove tail reader. IPad-style. I’ll happen across something that piques my interest and I’ll read about that, then something within the body of what I’m reading sends me in an entirely different direction. The next thing I know, seven hours have gone by and it’s 5:17 AM and I can’t feel anything below my wrists.
I’d like share a few things that I’ve learned, if I may:
Religion interests me. Rather, the religiosity of religion. That said, I always known that Shiva was a principle God in the Hindu triumvirate. Shiva is the one with all the arms. Like so:
And believers contend that HE (not SHE as I always thought) is the deity who creates, protects and transforms the universe. His four arms represent the cardinal directions, north, south, east and west.
Speaking of, I was watching the deer here in the Texas Hill Country eat the last vestiges of my professional landscaping and atop a neighboring home, I noticed a weather vane: a classic black wrought iron rooster perched atop an arrow that will point in four different directions depending on the direction from which the wind is blowing. N-E-W-S spells news.
You can die now.
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When I first learned what the Corona Virus looked like under a microscope,
With its spikes an all, the first thing. it reminded me of was the old naval mines used in the Pacific during World War ll. They were used as anti-warship and anti-submarine devices.
See the resemblance? Both have caused untold death and damages.
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I love various kinds of Asian food. Cantonese and Vietnamese (with a French infusion) are my favorites. It’s out of this appreciation that I’ve decided to look into a term we’ve been hearing a lot of over the past few weeks. “Wet markets”. When I first heard the term, one word popped into my mind: blood. Not sure why since I’m rather culturally ignorant in most things Chinoise. I’ve learned that a “wet market” is a rather gross term used for a marketplace that sells fresh meat, fish, vegetables and other perishable goods. “Dry markets” sell durable goods. Think: fabric, pots and pans, electronics, etc. Many “wet markets” sell live animals, but the term “wet market” is sometimes used to signify a live animal market in which vendors slaughter animals upon point of purchase. As in, right there on the spot. Well, slap me silly and call me Beijing’s favorite animated cartoon character, Mickey Maoist.
I was right—blood.
Uh, hey, what’s with the liquid paper/white high lighting effect???????
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Trevor something-or-the-other is the current host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central. I’ve never before watched his version of the show, nor will I. I caught a few minutes of the presentation recently and could stomach no more. The host is egregiously unfunny. It would be a fool’s errand to try to change my mind. The child isn’t funny. Maybe he killed when attempting standup at Open Mic Night at the bars in Capetown, but here, he’s lacking ‘bigly’. How did he get the same TV hosting gig that helped hone the comedic skills of a one Mr. Stephen Colbert? It’s either a hipster thing that I don’t get or he’s gotten where he is because he’s in possession of filthy, dirty, compromising photos.
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TV is really quite the yawn fest. It’s okay if you have the freedom to find entertainment elsewhere, but when you can’t leave your home and it’s all you have visually, you realize how dreary TV and movies have become. If this doesn’t end soon, we risk being bored to death. But all joking aside, I see the unrest in Lansing, Michigan. The governor there is acting like an authoritarian and the Michagonians are livid.
Let’s be honest, when almost ten-thousand white people protest en mass in the middle of a snow storm, the situation has to be bad.
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For weeks, I’ve had an insatiable desire to eat nothing but low-carb Ruben sandwiches. Shredded Corned Beef (or pastrami in a pinch), with Swiss cheese and Bavarian sauerkraut with Ken’s Steak House brand Thousand Island dressing, but no rye bread. Just the innards. You grill it or microwave it until the cheese has melted, making it hard to discern between the kraut and the cheese. Stab a warm, gooey bite with your fork, dip it in the reservoir of cold dressing and prepare to speak in tongues. Transmogrification with a high sodium content.
These days, I can only get corned beef on occasion. The deli in my neighborhood grocery store can hardly keep it in stock. Odd as this may sound, I feel better on nekkid Ruben days. Maybe it’s the fiber in the pickled sauerkraut. That wouldn’t surprise me. I mean, hey…I’ll turn 61 next week. Guess that’ll be my cue to get a hearing aid, watch Wheel Of Fortune with the volume way passed 11 and confuse Pat Sajak with Vanna White.
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Moisturize. Look down at your hands. See? Frequent hand-washing will save your life, but will also dry the hell out of your hands. Castor oil is a cheap moisturizing godsend. Plus, is a little goes a long way. It has natural anti-bacterial properties. Acne hates it. I slather it on my my hands, face and neck. And it’s great for sunburn, too. For skin in general. Google it. Castor oil is good to have on hand…
and arms…
and legs.
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I’ve learned that my furry progeny, Bixby and Greer sleep a lot more than I realized they did.
Oh how I, the queen of insomnia, envy them.
In closing, please support your local food banks and say thank you to anyone deemed an essential worker, such as truck drivers, other delivery personnel, janitors, anyone in the medical community, bus drivers, distributors, Postal workers, all the brave first responders, farmers, dairy ranchers, construction workers, military personnel, butchers, pharmacy employees, mechanics, oil and gas refiners, field hands. grocery stockers and checkers. So very many people.
I hope this bleak period makes you appreciate the supply chain and the domino affect of negativity that can happen if there’s a kink anywhere along said chain. These people are literally putting their lives on the line to keep this country alive, fed and moving while the global gear shift is in “P” with the emergency brake on and zero gas in the tank. God love them all. So, help them help you by staying healthy. Or don gloves, a mask and volunteer to help distribute food or write a check. Use a credit card. Any amount will help.
Looking for some other ways to say thanks and give back? How about this: if you had plans to travel or attend a concert, sporting event, or performance of any kind that’s been canceled, consider donating the money that was returned to you as a refund or that which you would have spent, to a charitable organization to help people in these people in essential positions or those who’ve lost their jobs and livelihoods because of this dreadful scenario we find ourselves in.
You could also donate the ticket price from a canceled performance or event directly back to the artist, whose income has more than likely been impacted by the cancelation. If he or she isn’t working now, she or he or she won’t be working for a while.
If you’re like me and choose no contact grocery delivery because A) it’s a safer option for your health and the heath of others and B) General hygiene, coiffed hair, makeup and a bra are all options during a lengthy quarantine, tell the delivery person that the groceries he or she just shopped for are actually for him or her. Just make a generic list of basics, the staples: order only what you can afford and then before the food is delivered, call or text your delivery person, the groceries are theirs. Instruct him or her to just turn the car around and take the bags home. It’s a cool way to say thank you. And it would be a nice surprise.
Just please do something because if you’re reading this sad composition of tawdry decrepitude, that’s a dead giveaway you obviously need the karmic points.
