The Odyssey Begins

I want to start off with a disclaimer -- some people think that because of who is included in my family unit that I have some special or inside knowledge about local healthcare facilities and what’s happening. Well, I don’t. Anything I learn comes from the same places as the rest of you – the newspaper, local and national television and radio or Social Media. Just like those with whom I live don’t know the inner workings of my law office, I have no idea what’s happening in healthcare. The rules are very specific and there is no “sharing” of information. In normal times, neither of us wants to talk about work in our off time, anyhow.

So back in early January, E, who is adept at monitoring Twitter and assortment of other social media, insisted that I find the password to my Twitter (which I had never used) and at least become halfway proficient with it. He’d embraced it fully and was getting lots of information from healthcare providers in China and other countries about this new coronavirus that seemed to be much worse than anything that had been seen in a while. Even back then, there were rumblings that this could become a pandemic.

Note that back in January 2020, healthcare providers in China and around the world were beginning to sit up and take note that this new bug could be something substantial. It is interesting that our own leaders either were caught off guard, were in denial or were intentionally deceptive about the coming tidal wave of a plague about to overtake us.

Of course, some, like NC’s Congressional Representative Richard Burr took notice enough to (a) warn big donors that this could be problematic and (b) sell off about $1.7 million in stocks before everybody else took a bath as the market crashed.

In our house, as in many others, I’m sure, there is a division of duties based on what each of the parties is either good at, which one despises it the least or who lost the argument. In this regard, logistics normally fall to me.

I get the oil changed in the cars and see that they are repaired. I notice which faucets are dripping, what gutter has come loose and what doorknob is going to come off and lock someone in the bathroom at an inopportune time. I’m also in charge of groceries and provisions.

For those that are interested, E deals with technology – both repair and replacement – seeing that the bills are paid online and on time and talking me in off the ledge when something is frustrating me (usually technology). It’s a solid system that has served us for over two decades now, and neither is inclined to change it. He also has a very strong sixth sense and perceives when we ought to pay attention to something and when it isn’t such a big deal, and he (and I) have learned to pay attention to that gut feeling whenever it happens. This was one of those times.

I’m not a “Prepper” in the sense that I have a bug-out bag available at all times, 15 semi-automatic weapons and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. We do not have cases of MRE’s stacked in the closet in case of zombie apocalypse. I did learn from my grandmothers, though, the advantages of a well provisioned freezer and pantry. Nothing like they had, of course – there is no cellar full of home canned goods and the freezer is limited to that which comes attached to the refrigerator – but most of the time we could ride out your average blizzard or hurricane in North Carolina without having to alter our palates too much.

This, though, seemed to be something to listen to, so I went to the grocery store to get something beyond “bread and milk”. Not to hoard, mind you – but to make sure that we had what we would normally use in a couple of weeks on hand if we couldn’t get to the store as normal.

The problem is that unlike for my Grandma B – the “grocery store” was 15 miles of dirt road each direction – the grocery store for us is roughly a quarter mile away. I’ve gone to the store 3 times in a single meal before. It’s not at all unusual to say, “I have to go to the store and figure out what we are having for dinner”. Shopping to buy a “bill of groceries” like I grew up with is not our norm, and to be honest, calling in an order for delivery or take-out is probably our most dominant meal plan.

Planning extended meals and menus is harder than it looks and requires a level of planning that’s not in my nature – I’m more of a “pick off the menu in front of you” instead of a “What do you want for dinner next Thursday”?

Something about the situation, though, seemed to warrant not only advanced planning, but actual implementation of some type of plan, just in case.

Assignment #2 – Something a bit easier. Towels and linens are sometimes a mess. They don’t stack up very well, and when you pull one out they all come so it’s easy to end up wadding them back into the closet / drawer. What’s your organizational system? Any good ideas here?

Everyone needs to be held accountable, so like a 5th grade teacher, I’m asking for your homework. Where’s the evidence that you’ve cleaned out the kitchen junk drawer (you only have to do one – but you get extra credit if you have multiples and attacked them all. Let’s see those before and after pics in the comments!

Incidentally, those of you who live in a house that looks like Martha Stewart’s crew maintains it daily – post your pictures, too. Give us something to which we can aspire!

On the Corner at 8th – Revisited -- Pandemic

These are strange times in which we live. That’s not news to anyone who is sitting at home in their pajamas and bunny slippers at 10:00 a.m. on a random Thursday drinking coffee from a chipped mug that they got at a professional conference 3 years ago when they would usually be in “office attire” and participating in their employment.

The world began changing for lots of us in mid-February, 2020, and since then many of us have realized that the ski slope we are on isn’t those little green circles of the bunny slope but is instead a couple of double black diamonds and we seem to have lost at least one of our poles (not to mention that most of us don’t know how to ski)!

So while things are moving at a bit of a slower pace, I’ve decided to once again try my hand at blogging. At first, I was going to start a new blog but coming up with a name wasn’t working – it can’t be too flip but I also don’t want to be entirely morose despite the gravity of the situation we all find ourselves in. In the end, I’m just going to try to pick up my old blog – “On the Corner at 8th” and move forward with it.

So we all start a new chapter of our lives. Not one that most of us anticipated, and probably not one that most of us wanted. My goal here is to look at a bit of history / interesting factoids about disease generally and the Covid19 virus specifically and maybe help put things in perspective a bit as well as provide some perspective on how society is suddenly changing.

Nobody should kid themselves – this is going to be BAD. This could crumble the economy not only in the US but around the world in a way equivalent to the Great Depression in 1929 and through the decade following, and believe it or not, we are not set up to address those issues presented as well now as we were then. Anybody who tries to argue this is a hoax or made up by the media is a fool and will be publicly called out as such, although I’ll try to keep that at a minimum.

I want to try one communal project with this – we all have lots of time on our hands while we are home on lockdown, and if most of you are like me, there are literally dozens of little projects around the house that I’m going to take care of, “ . . . when I get around to it”. Well, now’s that time, so I’ll pick one project every day or so that ought to take no more than 30 minutes to complete and suggest that we all do it together. Please send your suggestions, too, since it is entirely possible that we could run out of projects before we run out of plague days.

Today’s project – Go to your kitchen and open the “junk drawer”. Don’t try to deny it, everyone has some version of this. It’s full of all kinds of stuff – pliers, a screwdriver, about 15 half-used bottles of hand sanitizer, random screws from projects long forgotten and at least a dozen ballpoint pens pilfered from a variety of businesses, none of which write. We don’t need most of it. We kept it “. . . just in case” and, well, “just in case” isn’t going to happen. It is time to participate in “Swedish Death Cleaning” (more on that later) so clean out the drawer. Throw out all the superfluous stuff – not just move it to another drawer or the closet or something, but THROW IT OUT. See how much better you feel being able to open that drawer when you need something that is stored there? Send before and after pics. Share your progress.

IMMIGRATION

Last week was a tough one for me as a lawyer, but moreso for my client.

Immigration and the Department of Homeland Security is incredibly bureaucratic with more rules to follow than an Orthodox religion.  Tons of them are written down, but even more are not.  Or there’s a “local exception” that they only tell you about when you’ve either showed up to do something or have just committed a major faux pax.

So to get around this, the lawyer talks to everyone he can about the situation to get tips, take their best guess and go forward.  As anyone who’s ever dealt with a bureaucracy realizes, you can be technically right and still lose just because the person on the other side of the desk has decided that you will lose.

So last week we had an appointment to go for a citizenship interview.  These are normally pretty routine.  You need to be able to speak and understand English, to read and write simple sentences in English, and to pass a history / civics test that is somewhat complicated but not impossible.

There’s a “Medical Waiver” exception if you have a legitimate reason that you can’t do the exam or the English proficiency stuff.  You fill out the appropriate form, get a doctor with actual knowledge of the patient to attach their opinion and records, and submit it. 

Sounds easy, right?  Other lawyers and the instructions were all clear – be as detailed as possible, attach supporting documents, etc.  So that’s what I did, only to be met with an officer who denied the application because (paraphrasing) “the supporting stuff is too complicated.  I just need one sentence that says your client can’t learn English or history.”

Oh, and he considered the Spanglish that he observed us using to communicate – lots of gestures and facial expressions included – to be sufficiently proficient in English.

The problem with this, of course, is that we were counting on approval of this routine request.  As a result, the client didn’t prepare for any of the tests.  A “Pop Quiz” is never fun.  When it’s thrown into an already stressful situation with such tremendous importance to the individual, it can be overwhelming.

He actually did pretty well, passing the reading and writing, and about half of the interview (which essentially amounts to going through the Citizenship Application and confirming the answers in English), but 3 out of 10 on the civics and history questions won’t do it. 

So it was a very long and somber ride from Charlotte to Hickory.  And then a lot of days in  bed with the blankets over his head for my client. 

And in two months we get to go back and try again.  Assuming I can convince him to get out of bed and study in the meantime.

Eagle Project

One never realizes how much working at a desk has softened him until called upon to do actual hard, physical labor.  This message was brought home last weekend as Mr. Caleb needed assistance completing his Eagle Scout Project.

It sounds simple and benefits one of his favorite groups – the Newton-Conover football team.  Specifically, the project called for him to clean out the big ornamental flower bed in front of the football field, trim the bushes that had been ignored for the last 2 decades and become overgrown, and stain the concrete red (one of the school colors).

While we’re at it, let’s cure cancer and bring about peace in the Middle East, too.

We are very “hands-off” with regard to these projects.  The whole point of an Eagle Project – the culmination of one’s scouting career – is for the young man to learn to coordinate and supervise a project, line up the labor and materials needed, and pull it off before turning 18.

As with many projects, though, the paper projections are much easier than the actual implementation.  We were willing to help, though, especially as the deadline is looming.

So one (fortunately) cloudy Saturday morning we showed up promptly at 8 to begin work, tools in hand.

All tools except my bolt cutters, which would have been handy in cutting the lock off the gate because the Coach forgot to leave a key or otherwise make the space available.  The wait was only about 15 minutes, though.

With every project, there are unanticipated issues.  In this case, it was that the shrubs – Chinese holly – were so tough that the electric hedge trimmers we bought just kind of curled up and whimpered.  Fortunately, one of the dads out of the troop (there were lots of scouts helping by this time) went home and got (a) a chain saw and (b) a gas powered hedge trimmer.

Once again, we see that the right tools make a job possible.  There was a bit of artistic difference in just how much should be trimmed from the hedge – some of us advocating for a simple trim, whereas the guy with the chainsaw thinking more along the lines of “slasher flick”.  Of course, trimming a hedge is a lot like a haircut.   Once you’ve started trimming, you can’t change your mind.  Just like a haircut, though, a short cut will eventually grow out.

We hope.

Apparently Coach wasn’t all that thrilled with the outcome, to which I say “Tough bananas.   You should have had the gate unlocked on time.”

Karma has a way of working out.

So for the next few hours the clouds stayed in place but held off the rain and a group of dedicated volunteers chopped, hacked, dug and dragged the debris off to the ditch at the back of the school property for deposit to allow it to organically return to the earth.

And then, at the end of the day when we’d all gone home, we felt the impact of this type of foreign labor on our 50+ year old bodies. 

Fortunately, Ibuprophen comes in 500 count bottles and we had a new one.

But an Eagle project is almost done.  It’ll be something of which the school can be proud and will last for years, until it’s time for some other Eagle Scout to jump in and refurbish.

Absence

It’s amazing sometimes how you go along and life just takes over, so when you look up you realize that you forgot – or just didn’t make time – and something got left behind.

So it is with this Blog.  A year ago today I did my last entry – and, incidentally, thanks to those of you who asked – I did not succumb to shellfish allergies.  For those of you who didn’t ask – well, I’ll remember that!

The last few weeks before I stopped writing were kind of chaotic (more than normal) and the Muse chose to visit others.  When I write and “hit the groove” (undoubtedly an ancient reference to when music came on plastic or Bakelite disks and an actual needle touched it to transfer the sound to the speaker) it flows.  I sit down, begin to type and all sense of time is lost.  When I look up it’s either been minutes or hours and I have some content – usually enough that I need to cut it down.  I feel relaxed and satisfied with what I’ve accomplished.

When the Muse doesn’t come, though, these sessions are pure torture.  Words are elusive and avoid falling into place.  Grammar and punctuation rules that I routinely follow sit just out of reach, available, but it takes an effort to get them like a television remote that has been magically transported across the room sometime after you have tucked your blanket around your feet.  Spelling becomes phonetic and occasionally devolves to chaotic.

Part of the reason for the delay is that I just wasn’t in a happy place in my mind for a while.  The topics which were inspiring weren’t light and entertaining, they were tending toward the dark and disappointing.  Someone commented that “CornerAt8th” seemed to have become the “CurmudgeonAt8th”, and that’s not what I wanted.

The other problem with that is that it’s exhausting to always be in a rage.  You can’t concentrate, and when you finish instead of being invigorated you’re drained.  My way of coping with this is avoidance.  It’s not a perfect way to deal with things, but it’s worked a lot of times.  There truly are many things that, like an annoying little brother, will go away if you ignore them.

Overall, I’d rather turn an average event sideways and laugh at it.  There’s enough dreary news in the world and I think we need to laugh at ourselves – and others, because heaven knows that there are people that sorely need to be called out and laughed at in public – to try to keep some sense of sanity.

The other thing is that a person can only stare at a computer screen for so long before you go “snow blind”.  Prior to the break, my real job has entailed lots of document drafting.   Not the kind where you can build on earlier projects, change the names and move on, but the kind where you have to slog through each and every sentence in every paragraph to make sure that you’re consistent throughout and that you’ve covered all the points you need to address.

During the 4^th of July week in 2012, I generated about 48 pages of that kind of content on three different projects, so by the time I quit each day the thought of looking at the computer again kind of made me queezy.

It’s been a year, though, and it’s time to suck it up and start again.

Besides, I have all these opinions saved up to share.

Experimenting -- Am I or Am I Not?

A week with a holiday on Wednesday is a complete waste of both a holiday and a work week.

During the first part, nobody gets too enthused about doing anything, because, after all, . . . “we’re off on Wednesday.”  When you come back on Thursday, the same reasoning prevents starting any new projects. 

Besides, half of your coworkers have taken off either the first or last half of the week, or both, so essential personnel aren’t available.  It is a week of piddling without breaking a sweat (metaphorically speaking; it’s 102 degrees out there this afternoon).

It’s also too hot to even think about cooking, which means that we had the “where you wanna eat” discussion along about 5:00. 

Red Lobster won.

It won for a couple of reasons, not the least of which that we wanted to try an experiment to see if I really had acquired a shellfish allergy. 

Where better to test this theory than a seafood restaurant.

Besides, we know that my doc is in town, the hospital is less than 10 minutes away from the restaurant, and I had my epi-pen, which is a real pain to have to remember, with me.

A shrimp lover’s feast awaited.

The lobby to Red Lobster is my favorite part of the restaurant, especially if there are little kids.   The lobster tank is both fascinating and within reach unless the parental units are really on their guard.  I learned this early on when Caleb, upon seeing a similar tank in the grocery store, promptly ran up to it and asked in his loudest 7 year old voice, “WHY DO THEY HAVE THEM BIG BUGS IN THE GROCERY STORE?”

Today, an even younger child noted that the entrees on the hoof at Red Lobster were, “. . . taking a shower before dinner,” a reference to the recirculating pump that kept the water aerated in the tank.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

So anyhow, we ordered (a beer first; if there was going to be a hospital stay involved, I wanted to get a bit of early relaxation going) and then our food.

It was very systematic – take a bite, check for symptoms.  Take a bite, check for symptoms.

At least, that’s what I was doing.  About halfway through the meal, I observed that there didn’t seem to be any adverse reaction. 

Sweating?  Yeah – it was still triple-digits outside.  I defy anyone my age and size NOT to sweat, despite air conditioning.  Not clammy, though (at least not that I could tell from the inside of my skin) and the sweat wasn’t such that it seemed to be shellfish-related.

Not being the one with the medical expertise in our family unit, though, I turned to the in-house expert for a second opinion only to realize that he had forgotten that we weren’t just at dinner but were engaged in a serious experiment to see whether I "swole up" and was gonna die or not.

The only thing on my first-responder’s mind by then was whether or not I was going to eat those last 3 shrimp on my plate, once again proving that it is imperative that the patient be involved in his own healthcare plan.

In the end, the experiment was successful.  It confirmed that I continue to get significant indigestion when eating deep-fried anything, which is unfortunate given my dietary preferences, but concerns about a shellfish allergy seem to have been misdiagnosed.  

I wish I'd known that before we went to Maui on vacation.  

But now instead of an epi-pen, I get to carry Prilosec, which is preferable.  

Dawg Days of Summer

July 5.  Vacation’s over, and it’s time to return to the real world.

Well, almost.  Jet lag is still kickin’ in a bit so there’s a need to keep moving in the evening because the minute we sit down we tend to fall asleep.

Like about 7:00 in the evening.

And that wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that it leads to waking up even earlier than we normally do.

Like about 11:30 in the evening. 

You see the circle.  Eventually we’re going to be getting up when other people haven’t even gone to bed yet.  At some point, either we or the world is going to be out of sync for an entire day.  That can’t be good.

Add to that the fact that it’s hot.  Not just “warmish” or even “a might uncomfortable.”  It’s HOT. 

As in record-breaking, triple-digit, too-hot-to-wear-many-clothes hot that makes you feel like you need a shower from the second you walk out the door in the morning and keeps you inside close to the air conditioning wishing you’d bought stock in Duke Power in the afternoon.

Too hot to either cook OR light the grill.

There has to be a good reason to go out.  Today it was the need to stay awake, and to do that we decided to engage in that age-old summertime ritual and take the kids for ice cream.

The fuzzy kids, that is.  The others all have drivers’ licenses.  They can get their own ice cream.

We didn’t realize that it’s Thursday night, which means that there’s a “rod run” at the old Dairy Queen, the one that we patronize over by the concrete plant.

Complete with Elvis singing on the sidewalk out front.  

There’s no inside seating.

No seating at all, in fact, unless you bring a lawn chair or stay in your car.

Just as we were leaving the house, EM came along and joined us. After all, everyone likes ice cream.

So we joined the show in the parking lot at the DQ, with the boys getting theirs first (they split a small cone in a cup usually), and after they’d eaten theirs the adults got to enjoy their treats.

One of the advantages of doing it this way is we get to learn exactly how long the dog's tongue is.  This is useful, because they'll want to share ours even though they already had theirs.

While that was happening, the manager came out to visit with us.  At first I thought she was going to tell us that dogs weren’t allowed.

That rarely happens, although it has a couple of times – CVS, Target and Best Buy apparently have rules, but c'mon!  We were in the parking lot!

She actually was just coming out to tell us about their “Dog Days of Summer” special.

It seems if your furry four-legged friend brings you on Tuesdays, they get a free “pup cup” if their human makes a purchase.

And free ice cream is almost as sweet as a snitched melon.  So I suspect we’ll be going back on Tuesdays for a while.

Because it looks like it’s going to be a long, hot summer.