381. Way of all Fish and Ukraine War

     

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Pandemic continues 

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?

333. Birthdays and death

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Birthday part 1

Today (when I wrote this, but it's been sitting for weeks) would be my father's 99th birthday. It would also have been the 20th anniversary of his easy death in his sleep. But that didn't quite happen. Instead of "going gentle into that good night" he had to struggle in hospital as the light too slowly faded.

I wish he had had the easier death, though if he had, I would not have had a chance to observe it and would have lost that very educational, if uncomfortable, experience. What I learned is that, at the end, you have very little control over events. Or at least you can't count on having much control. It will be what it will be. And as with illness in general, you just have to ride it out as best you can.

This evening I was in my neighborhood bar having a martini in my dad's honor, and caught the very end of the Duke basketball game. And I mean the very end, as I sat down they were just running out the clock so I didn't get to see a single play. As a Louisville boy, my dad must have been distressed by dying just as March Madness was getting started. Meanwhile I only watch the highlights of the Warrior's victories. I'm a pathetic sports fan.

Europa

Leaving the gym today there was a guy just outside the gym playing an acoustic version of Carlos Santana's Europa. It wasn't an electric guitar, but it was amplified, so I could still hear the song as I crossed Sutter and walked down Trinity Place. Covering Santana is dangerous, but this guy was doing a good job. He was just to my favorite part of the song, the four rising, sustained notes that take it up into the stratosphere, and I was wondering how he was going to negotiate this with a conventional guitar. Wisely, he didn't even try. Though that is a frustrating way to end the song.

Birthday part 2

The other day I was reading an interesting piece from Medium about our relationship with death -- can't find it now. The author was probably around thirty and his doctors thought he might have a serious problem, though by the end of the piece the tests has come back favorably. Still, he had been forced to confront his own mortality... to see the elephant, to reinterpret a phrase from the Great War.

Some people spend their entire lives obsessed with death, some never seem to notice death until something unexpected, like this health diagnosis, comes up later in their lives. This author spoke of the immortality of children and teens who never seem to think of death. Of course there are always the exceptions to this. And he also spoke of seeing his own death in the mirror, of being aware that it was always with him. This is an idea that I believe Phillip Pullman also played with in His Dark Materials. 

An aspect of being in what must now be considered my late sixties, is that you can't get away from death and aging. Recently I learned that my boss from thirty years ago, who was a couple years younger than me, suddenly died in his sleep. Yesterday I was watching a PBS Space Time episode I had previously missed featuring Richard Branson (both Branson and Pullman are, "Sirs") and couldn't help noticing that he was only a year older than me and that the sun had not been kind to him.

I think I look a bit younger than my age because I've done a good job of avoiding the sun because I was aware of that danger. I'm out in the sun a lot during event greening season, but the sun rarely touches my skin. I could almost be a vampire. 

But sixty-seven is sixty-seven regardless of how well you're holding up. You notice the gaps in your cohort even if you don't attend the funerals. You know that your death is with you, even if it's likely that it remains twenty years off. For my birthday I'm slowly hitting all of my favorite places to eat, but I'm not overdoing it. Mission Pie is still on my list, so there will be at least one desert, but I'm also ramping up at the gym, so things aren't getting out of hand. Thanks to being a veggie, my most decadent eating is actually quite healthy. I'll probably die of some strange interaction of brown rice and tofu.

147. Certifiably a geezer

Previous - 146. Virginia Woolf

Birthday

It has occurred to me that I should be celebrating today -- the last day I'm 64 -- rather than tomorrow, when I'm definitively a senior citizen. 

TV

Growing up, my mother (the mystery reader) could always figure the killer early in the show, and I almost never could. Partly this is because I like to be told a story -- taken along for the ride. (The same reason I don't like to see "making of" and "behind the scenes of" features.) But now I could probably beat her in guessing the killer, though not because I'm better at solving mysteries. I just look for the most recognizable face around the murder. They usually give the juiciest part to the most experienced or talented actor, and that person has usually been around. 

I think I've even written about this before, but I'm finishing the 7th season of Castle and it keeps happening. The good thing about this is that I can pay attention to the murderer throughout the show and don't have to re-watch to see how she played the earlier scenes. It does feel like cheating though.
 

Birthday

You can't say I don't know how to celebrate a birthday, for lunch I had my favorite Vietnamese tofu sandwich, then I walked up Market to my usual Peet's were I ordered both my usual iced tea and a cookie. And now I'm reviewing an Advanced Health Care Directive a friend gave me. (No coupons for adult diapers, I checked.)

I hate these things. They are like a test with no right answers. Plus, selecting an "agent" to represent you is a nightmare. Who would you trust to do this? Who is likely to be around (or still be alive) when you need to surrender your agency? I have the same problem picking an executor for a will.

3. Life would no longer be worth living if I were not able to: Well, I can't really know that in advance, can I? I would like to say, "Survive a migration across the Serengeti with basic survival supplies." But I have reason to believe I could adapt to living in a less robust state. I even have reason to believe that I could learn something by living in that state.

I could drop down a gear to, "Use the bathroom without assistance." But, again, who can know for sure what I would be willing to put up with if I were in a blissed-out, semi-mystical, near-death state? 

How about, "Put me down if I need a bone-marrow transplant or the services of a Burn Treatment Center." But then, they can't do that.

Even the CPR question is a stumper. I still have problems with a minor rib injury from the early '80s, so CPR sounds like it would almost certainly be a bad idea, but I can imagine strange situations where -- nothing else major being wrong with me -- it might be worth the risk. This would be easier to answer in another 20 years. By that time I expect my answer to all these questions will be, "Just run me over with the ambulance."

My thoughts and feelings about where I would prefer to die: I put, "In my sleep... Probably." Again, who knows? This is contingent on what death is like. Would I rather die in the middle of a particularly irritating dream or while normally conscious? Don't know? Can't know. 

One answer to this is, "At home." But even that is not necessarily true. "At hospice or a good hotel," could be a better option for me.

I want my loved ones to know that if I am nearing my death, I would appreciate the following for comfort and support (prayers, rituals, music, etc.) "Strippers!" was the first thought that came to me, so maybe I should go with that. Would "rituals" include human sacrifice? Asking for a friend.

Religious or spiritual affiliation: "It's complicated." Chanting Tibetan monks might be a delight to have around while you're dying... or not. 

There is no conclusion here, at least not now. I don't even know if I would choose death by complete surprise (like being blind-sided by a bus) to a contemplative death in my own bed -- or a bed in a nice hotel. If given a choice, I would have to go with "surprise me," though quick bus death sounds like a lot less work.  


And now I've cleaned out my webmail folders for March. All ready for my next year of life.

Day after

Wrapped up my birthday last night at my favorite Burmese restaurant. We had all our favorite dishes. There are even a few left-overs for tonight. 

Today I went to the SFMTA office to get my Senior Clipper card so I get the senior discount when riding public transit... this is my big payoff for being a geezer. Turned into the ultimate MUNI experience. It was like taking the worst aspects of riding their buses and putting them indoors. 

I walked in and was assigned a number. As I was sitting down the number before mine was called so I figured this would go quickly. A half hour later I was still waiting. Here's what I think happened: I was not waiting for any window, but for window 10 which apparently was the only one dealing with my issue. The person before me took quite a long time to resolve their business. When they finally left I was poised to jump up and respond to my number being called... but it never was. Either the woman at 10 took a break, or she simply forgot to inform the system that she was free. After a half hour I went back to the guy who assigned me the number, who said my number was still in the cue and he didn't know why it hadn't been called. I finally just walked over to window 10 to see what was happening and the woman was doing something on her phone. When I said I'd been waiting 30 minutes she said my number had been called (no). We completed our business in a minute or two. So MUNI.

Next - 148. Kafka and memory