Day 725/270 - 2/12/22
The Pandemic - At the moment the latest surge has peaked and crashed but the new cases numbers seem to have flattened at just under 100 per day. I suspect this reflects the transmissibility of the current variants. I was hoping to see the numbers fall to around 50, but it looks like this is the best we can expect.
Life is largely returning to normal regardless. This too is a little concerning, but I feel the same way. Two years isn’t that long but there’s no assurance things are going to change drastically in the near future, so we may as well try to resume our lives while some of our favorite businesses are still hanging on. There is talk of an even better vaccine that may counter all variants, but that is just talk so far. So at this point I’m with all the idiots who just want to return to the way things were. With reservations, of course. I’m writing this at my office, the Bank Cafe, and I seem to be the only one here wearing a mask. And I’m thinking about buying pull-up equipment rather than returning to my gym.
My Birthday
This week would have been my father’s Birthday -- 102nd, to be precise. And just past the end of the week is his death day -- now 23 years in the past. I’m thinking about that because my birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I will be nine years shy of the age my dad died. My health is much better than my dad’s, but I also don’t have my mother around to call 911 if something dire happens. My point is, it wouldn’t be at all shocking if I were to die in my seventies. This is a thought to give one pause. No previous decade came with this fine print.
I continue trying to balance taking care of myself -- working on my fitness and improving my diet in small ways -- with seizing the day. One of the main perks of our being past this latest COVID surge is that I’ve returned to my favorite breakfast place on a weekly basis -- though I try to hit them during the week when they are less busy instead of my previous preference for visiting on the weekend when they are the most crowded. It’s going to be a while before sitting elbow to elbow at a crowded counter is going to be an attractive option. And I’ve returned to my favorite Burmese restaurant, where I will be on my dad’s Birthday and Deathday.
The week of my birthday I will hit a number of other favorite places that I have been avoiding the past two years. There is still only one of my favorites that I know to have gone out of business... I just checked and their other location is still open! So I may go there as well.
Day 735/280 - 3/22/22
In my review of my blogs I’ve made it to the start of the pandemic... and Proust. Almost exactly two years ago but it seems like longer, or only yesterday. And the new case numbers seem to have found a floor around 80, which is a little worrying. My hardware store was having a big sale and I stocked up on 3M N95 masks, both the good ones and the kind with the valve. I’m now thinking I may try going to the gym while wearing an N95 with a valve. My guess is that most people aren’t wearing masks there, so I really don’t need to be concerned about protecting them. And if I don’t do this I really should give up and buy pull-up bars for the building. But after two years, I need some months on the Gravetron machine to get back to where I can pull-up my own weight.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned the war in Ukraine. I’m so happy to say this has nothing to do with the USA for once. (According to Chomsky, that statement isn't true. He claims the USA tricked the Russians and Ukrainians into the war. Maybe. There are so many conflicting views about the "real" reason for the war. My theory is actually cheating, but I think also true. The war is the result of Ukraine agreeing to give up their nuclear weapons.) It is so odd that the YouTube history channels are all covering the Battle of Stalingrad and even the 2nd German conquest of Kharkiv just as the Russians are battering the place to ruins yet again. Given how frequently Ukraine gets destroyed, it’s a wonder everyone still thinks they want to possess it. Given that everything gets destroyed every few generations anyway, maybe they should try rebuilding with paper or cardboard.
Over this past weekend I got together with my old brunch club for what has become our annual gathering at someone’s house instead of out at a restaurant. And I’ve eaten out at actual restaurants with two other friends.Trying to seize the day -- or the dip -- before case numbers start rising again.
Day 742/287 - 3/29/22
I’ve now progressed in rereading my blog from less than a year ago. It’s actually fun to read about those early heady days after I was first fully vaccinated... before we knew there were still more surges and variants to come.
Some things have not returned to normal, I still can’t use my reusable cups at the Bank Cafe -- I tried today and was told that Peet’s was allowing this but the bank still wasn’t. (As of this week, 4/17/22, I can!)
I’ve been cleaning out the electronic mess of my home desk. Removing my old desktop computer for recycling forced me to finally clean and reorganize everything. I’m using regular office butterfly clips to control the cables. It is still a bit of a mess, I would need easy access to the back of the desk to really get things the way I want them, but it’s much better than it was. My laptop, speakers, and printer can all be powered individually so they are only “on” when I need them. I was hoping to do the same thing with my router, but that is powered by my back-up battery. I would have to manually disconnect and reconnect it every day -- probably not a good idea and it would also prevent my using my computer during the night or first thing in the morning. Like the egg I’ve decided to eat once every three months, this will just have to be the rare unnecessary electrical excess I allow myself. Similarly, I still haven’t taken the final water saving step of turning off my shower head when I’m lathering up. That’s probably coming soon, but tends to involve also keeping my bathroom a little warmer.
The Way of All Fish by Martha Grimes
This is the first book I’ve checked out from the Mechanics Institute Library. I adore Martha Grimes and I loved Foul Matter, the first novel in this series, but I hadn’t bothered to pick up the new one until now. While I’m having fun reading it... and I’m reading it as slowly as possible to extend the pleasure... I can’t say it’s her best work. There seems to be a randomly flailing around aspect to many of her mysteries, but this one seems even worse than usual. On the other hand, she’s managed to toss in her beloved Tamiami Trail (from the Emma Graham novels) and references to both George Gissing and The Magic Mountain. The first was surprising enough and I still don’t know where she’s going with the latter. A seance is coming up, but I’m not sure if the character is even aware of the seance sequence in the book. If not, this would be even stranger, so I’m going to assume that’s where Grimes is heading. (No, still a mystery.)
Mostly she has her characters smoking, drinking, and eating. (They also love expensive clothes) And one of them, of course, is having a hard time writing... almost identical to a similar character in Foul Matter. Perhaps Grimes likes to play with writer characters who are having more trouble than she is. Her character in one of the Jury mysteries who literally chained herself to her desk to write, is my favorite example of this. And in a mystery this is killing two birds with one stone as you know how that’s going to turn out.
As 3/12/22 now seems to have been the low point after our recent winter COVID surge, I am really tempted to seize the day now rather than later. But my birthday is coming up in less than a week, so it seems like opening your Christmas presents early. So, I’m considering celebrating my final fetal days instead of my birthday. When you think about it, from the perspective of the fetus the birthday was when life started going downhill. This new way of looking at things works especially well this year as I’m also celebrating the final days of my sixties. Why would I celebrate entering a decade my chances of surviving are only fair?
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