Medicine for the Mind
I am a survivor.
In multiple ways, not just life with it's trials and tribulations, but even now, again, just recently, in spades. I suppose others presumably like myself have fared differently: some better, some worse, and such is life. And death. As to those present day spades, the kind that digs graves will not be required, thank you. At least for yours truly.
Yes, I caught a Covid. I think. I didn't get tested, because I was perfectly fine hunkered down at home and my symptoms were mild: sore throat, dry cough, headache, and a weird rash or two. Granted it may have just been another mild flu, which is entirely possible, because many people who have proven positive with Covid19 had mild symptoms like mine (there is quite a grab bag to choose from). But coincidence or not, I had four of the latest, surprisingly varied, list of symptoms. And now I feel fine. It lasted four days, three less than a common cold. So there! I hereby wash my hands of this Covid. 19 or any number.
In this, the age of pandemic, the old blues song Trouble in Mind, does come to mind. But, despite the efforts of the polarizing misery media not just America, but in fact the entire world is holding hands (in the proverbial sense, since the actuality is remote, and at present forbidden presumably everywhere).
That's what makes this human tragedy so strange, and yet wonderful, in a way.
Every morning I arise to the tune of NPR, and of course, the news is mostly bad, although apparently improving in the sense that the number of new Covid19 patients does, in fact, seem to be declining, with or without me. But it's definitely way too soon to celebrate, and I personally have no issue with wearing masks and also surgical gloves, given we have to touch things while shopping, or getting gas, or at an ATM. All of which are definite necessities, now that bank lobbies are now closed, at least in Washington State, where I live. The worst offenders, it seems are keypads, which I've read are the primary source for spreading 'germs' as we used to call them, as kids.
Covid-free or otherwise, I remain on voluntary lock-down in a small studio apartment. Fortunately, it has everything I need: a comfortably well equipped kitchen, ditto a roomy bath with tub, shower and the other necessities bathrooms provide when well designed and stocked, with a year's supply of toilet paper (basically a roll a month would be max for me).
I was amused by the recent run on toilet paper. Was that the most important thing in the whole friggin' world?
Back in the 19th Century when I became a single parent I bought a house in St. Petersburg. Florida, not Russia. (Same saint, though). It was 1999, and nobody was sure what was going to happen to all those computers out there in the world, when midnight struck (did anyone even figure which midnight?). So everyone was worried that when the century rolled over, would the world's electronics--and therefore economy--crash and burn? And as it happened, my closing date was December 31, 1999.
The seller, a single woman I did not meet, was among the End of the Worlders, and while the furniture was all gone, one of the two bedrooms in the house was stacked--I mean stacked, floor to ceiling--with toilet paper. What is it about toilet paper? Why notIn most of the Third World they don't even have it. And it wasn't like all the forests and paper mills were suddenly going to burn down. Was it? It was actually a remarkable accomplishment in itself, purchasing (obviously in increments, over time, to avoid the rush, as it were that she imagined was coming) and then neatly stacking them in what would be my son's room. He was rightly worried, being a middle schooler: "Dad, what am I gonna do with all that TP?" He couldn't quite bring himself to say 'toilet paper,' I guess.
Well, as we all now know, when the clock counted down, and all the fireworks were lit, and the bubble on the NY Times building dropped, and all the now-inebriated celebrants sang and danced, nothing happened!
I do have a roommate now, I'm happy to say: a very cute little stuffed dolphin, who resides on top of my fridge. His name is Dolphy. I was going to call him Adolph, but then, for some reason, thought the better of it. Apparently some child of a neighbor had outgrown him (or her, it's hard to tell). I found him stranded in the lobby of my building, along with a carload of other stuffed animals, some quite large. All the usual donation centers were now closed. I didn't have much use for a teddy bear half my size, but for Dolphy and me was love at first sight. No, not that kind of love. What's wrong with you? It's like when you adopt a shelter dog (which my son and I did, once upon a time--a super black lab puppy). Dolphy even has his own face mask, just in case. And unlike our shelter dog he eats almost nothing.
In a way, this global pandemic is actually a good thing (bear with me now): it has, fact, for the first time in history or pre-history, brought the human race together. Everyone is vulnerable. Even our Fearless Leader and his mask-less VP. Viruses don't play favorites. They don't care about your bank balance, or how many shares you control at Goldman Sachs or how many cars in your garage. For the first time ever, we are all in this together. You see and hear it everywhere. When I go out for groceries (pretty much the only times) people are remarkably friendly. We are all in this together.
I was recently besieged by Facebook Friend requests. Hundreds, then thousands of them. Was it something I said or wrote? Who knows, but it telegraphed, until I hit my limit of 5,000 with a huge sigh of relief, because even if I was not working on blogs or books, there was no way I could vet seven or eight hundred people per day. It's much easier to simply start weeding (and becoming picky) after the fact, and weeds I'll find and have found aplenty. But many of them were from Third World nations, and few if any were the nephews of rich dictators in Nigeria yearning to give me their millions in return for all my account information. I might even find them (or some of them) worth knowing. But the constant barrage of hi's and hello's is getting pretty annoying.
Facebook aside, (hopefully) we are, like it or not, all in this together (to repeat a cliche I may even have started) and everyone in the world now knows it.
So what to do, besides read and write books and blogs and Tweets, hunkered down as I am in my studio?
Listen to music, for starters. Per my most recent blog I am a lover of music, and apart from the news on NPR, I listen all day long. Jazz mid-day while I read. Then classical in the afternoon, intermixed with a contemporary station run by the local University of Washington. I am fortunate that all three stations are listener-supported. Apart from NPR news, from the jazz station, I listen to music for my reading time(s) before my hour of exercise then again after lunch. Starting at 4:00 p.m. I do two hours of writing: either on a new book (I've already finished one since the pandemic began), or on a blog such as this (medicine for the mind).
I've actually begun to enjoy cooking. I've even gotten creative, to a point. I have a salad recipe that changes only with the choice of dressing. I prefer 'lite' or lowfat. It seems that at my local Fred Meyer's they only have two 'lites' that I like: chunky bleu cheese and ranch. I'd love a Caesar lite but it's not to be found, for some reason. Was Caesar a fat guy? Anyway, I use fresh red lettuce (I've graduated from romaine). I use an organic fruit and vegetable wash always. That's more economical than organic fruits and veggies.
Next ingredient is tomatoes. I like the big vine tomatoes, and 1/2 a tomato suffices for each salad. I chop the half into pinkie nail size pieces. Then I get a ripe avocado (this is tricky, but I've learned to ripen avocados and tomatoes in brown paper bags, the right size of which I get from Chipotle's (my one dining out indulgence. I mean, take-out. My bad). Then the piece de resistence: a whole avocado pitted and sliced into bite-size pieces.
Stir, serve, and enjoy.
I confess to laziness in regards to the entre. But hey, that salad takes a while to make! So frozen stuff, nuked or toaster-ovenized (a new verb?), for the most part. Always accompanied, however, by a good glass of wine.
Then I can light a pipe, and settle back for a relaxing evening with Netflix, with a glass of wine, well earned. And of course I will be watching some of those shows I've blogged about, while always finding new ones to add to my list. I do start to lose track of all the multiple plots and characters, though. There are so many to choose from, some even quite good.
Have a safe and pleasant evening!
E. C.
In multiple ways, not just life with it's trials and tribulations, but even now, again, just recently, in spades. I suppose others presumably like myself have fared differently: some better, some worse, and such is life. And death. As to those present day spades, the kind that digs graves will not be required, thank you. At least for yours truly.
Yes, I caught a Covid. I think. I didn't get tested, because I was perfectly fine hunkered down at home and my symptoms were mild: sore throat, dry cough, headache, and a weird rash or two. Granted it may have just been another mild flu, which is entirely possible, because many people who have proven positive with Covid19 had mild symptoms like mine (there is quite a grab bag to choose from). But coincidence or not, I had four of the latest, surprisingly varied, list of symptoms. And now I feel fine. It lasted four days, three less than a common cold. So there! I hereby wash my hands of this Covid. 19 or any number.
In this, the age of pandemic, the old blues song Trouble in Mind, does come to mind. But, despite the efforts of the polarizing misery media not just America, but in fact the entire world is holding hands (in the proverbial sense, since the actuality is remote, and at present forbidden presumably everywhere).
That's what makes this human tragedy so strange, and yet wonderful, in a way.
Every morning I arise to the tune of NPR, and of course, the news is mostly bad, although apparently improving in the sense that the number of new Covid19 patients does, in fact, seem to be declining, with or without me. But it's definitely way too soon to celebrate, and I personally have no issue with wearing masks and also surgical gloves, given we have to touch things while shopping, or getting gas, or at an ATM. All of which are definite necessities, now that bank lobbies are now closed, at least in Washington State, where I live. The worst offenders, it seems are keypads, which I've read are the primary source for spreading 'germs' as we used to call them, as kids.
Covid-free or otherwise, I remain on voluntary lock-down in a small studio apartment. Fortunately, it has everything I need: a comfortably well equipped kitchen, ditto a roomy bath with tub, shower and the other necessities bathrooms provide when well designed and stocked, with a year's supply of toilet paper (basically a roll a month would be max for me).
I was amused by the recent run on toilet paper. Was that the most important thing in the whole friggin' world?
Back in the 19th Century when I became a single parent I bought a house in St. Petersburg. Florida, not Russia. (Same saint, though). It was 1999, and nobody was sure what was going to happen to all those computers out there in the world, when midnight struck (did anyone even figure which midnight?). So everyone was worried that when the century rolled over, would the world's electronics--and therefore economy--crash and burn? And as it happened, my closing date was December 31, 1999.
The seller, a single woman I did not meet, was among the End of the Worlders, and while the furniture was all gone, one of the two bedrooms in the house was stacked--I mean stacked, floor to ceiling--with toilet paper. What is it about toilet paper? Why notIn most of the Third World they don't even have it. And it wasn't like all the forests and paper mills were suddenly going to burn down. Was it? It was actually a remarkable accomplishment in itself, purchasing (obviously in increments, over time, to avoid the rush, as it were that she imagined was coming) and then neatly stacking them in what would be my son's room. He was rightly worried, being a middle schooler: "Dad, what am I gonna do with all that TP?" He couldn't quite bring himself to say 'toilet paper,' I guess.
I do have a roommate now, I'm happy to say: a very cute little stuffed dolphin, who resides on top of my fridge. His name is Dolphy. I was going to call him Adolph, but then, for some reason, thought the better of it. Apparently some child of a neighbor had outgrown him (or her, it's hard to tell). I found him stranded in the lobby of my building, along with a carload of other stuffed animals, some quite large. All the usual donation centers were now closed. I didn't have much use for a teddy bear half my size, but for Dolphy and me was love at first sight. No, not that kind of love. What's wrong with you? It's like when you adopt a shelter dog (which my son and I did, once upon a time--a super black lab puppy). Dolphy even has his own face mask, just in case. And unlike our shelter dog he eats almost nothing.
I was recently besieged by Facebook Friend requests. Hundreds, then thousands of them. Was it something I said or wrote? Who knows, but it telegraphed, until I hit my limit of 5,000 with a huge sigh of relief, because even if I was not working on blogs or books, there was no way I could vet seven or eight hundred people per day. It's much easier to simply start weeding (and becoming picky) after the fact, and weeds I'll find and have found aplenty. But many of them were from Third World nations, and few if any were the nephews of rich dictators in Nigeria yearning to give me their millions in return for all my account information. I might even find them (or some of them) worth knowing. But the constant barrage of hi's and hello's is getting pretty annoying.
Facebook aside, (hopefully) we are, like it or not, all in this together (to repeat a cliche I may even have started) and everyone in the world now knows it.
So what to do, besides read and write books and blogs and Tweets, hunkered down as I am in my studio?
Listen to music, for starters. Per my most recent blog I am a lover of music, and apart from the news on NPR, I listen all day long. Jazz mid-day while I read. Then classical in the afternoon, intermixed with a contemporary station run by the local University of Washington. I am fortunate that all three stations are listener-supported. Apart from NPR news, from the jazz station, I listen to music for my reading time(s) before my hour of exercise then again after lunch. Starting at 4:00 p.m. I do two hours of writing: either on a new book (I've already finished one since the pandemic began), or on a blog such as this (medicine for the mind).
I've actually begun to enjoy cooking. I've even gotten creative, to a point. I have a salad recipe that changes only with the choice of dressing. I prefer 'lite' or lowfat. It seems that at my local Fred Meyer's they only have two 'lites' that I like: chunky bleu cheese and ranch. I'd love a Caesar lite but it's not to be found, for some reason. Was Caesar a fat guy? Anyway, I use fresh red lettuce (I've graduated from romaine). I use an organic fruit and vegetable wash always. That's more economical than organic fruits and veggies.
Next ingredient is tomatoes. I like the big vine tomatoes, and 1/2 a tomato suffices for each salad. I chop the half into pinkie nail size pieces. Then I get a ripe avocado (this is tricky, but I've learned to ripen avocados and tomatoes in brown paper bags, the right size of which I get from Chipotle's (my one dining out indulgence. I mean, take-out. My bad). Then the piece de resistence: a whole avocado pitted and sliced into bite-size pieces.
Stir, serve, and enjoy.I confess to laziness in regards to the entre. But hey, that salad takes a while to make! So frozen stuff, nuked or toaster-ovenized (a new verb?), for the most part. Always accompanied, however, by a good glass of wine.
Then I can light a pipe, and settle back for a relaxing evening with Netflix, with a glass of wine, well earned. And of course I will be watching some of those shows I've blogged about, while always finding new ones to add to my list. I do start to lose track of all the multiple plots and characters, though. There are so many to choose from, some even quite good.
Have a safe and pleasant evening!
E. C.
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