So happy I could cry

 

I have written several posts about crying at the self-proclaimed Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland. So after going there yet again last week to celebrate my son's 14th birthday, I decided to do a photo series I call, "Crying at the Happiest Place on Earth." This is me crying on the first day in the park after walking about 30 miles in sandals and rubbing my feet raw.

This is me crying in the hallway outside our room in Disney's Grand Californian. It is a beautiful hotel decorated in Mission style furniture on a grand scale that awes you when you walk into the lobby. It also features premium priced (but not premium quality) food that will bring tears to your eyes (like $20 chicken strips and a $25 dollar pepperoni pizza).

One cool aspect of staying at the Disney Grand Californian is that you have your own entrance into the California Adventure Theme Park. This is me crying in line waiting to go on the Grizzly Bear River Run where they promise you will get wet and probably soaked. There is also a huge probability that you will get queasy on the spinning river raft and another huge probability that the ride will break down after you have waited in line 45 minutes to get on it.

One of the more exciting rides in California Adventure is the Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout ride. It used to be the Tower of Terror Ride with a spooky Twilight Zone theme. They switched it over to Guardians of the Galaxy when they bought the franchise. This is me crying in front of the tower after losing control of several bodily functions during the third or fourth free fall elevator drop. That is me in the back row left.

You stream, we stream, we all stream...

I finally cut the cable and rely completely on streaming content for my television consumption. I got sick of paying for cable that kept increasing in cost without increasing the number of channels I had access to. I was down to basic cable that was basically useless. Other than allowing me to access a few local channels (which I rarely watched anyway) it offered me nothing.

So now my cable bill only includes high-speed Internet and phone land lines. I would get rid of the phone, but my wife insists we need it for emergencies and to receive countless robo calls offering me extended warranties on my car and alerting me that someone is buying expensive things with my Amazon account.

The only down side to streaming versus cable is the number of apps I end up paying for to get premium content. I have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Apple TV, Disney +, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount, Showtime and PBS.  It still is cheaper than basic cable and I only have to watch commercials on Peacock.

Unlike cable, which was a cultural desert of crap channels, I find myself with almost unlimited choices of things to watch. I have binge watch tons of great original content. The downside in discovering some new series and watching all of the available episodes is waiting for a new season. And sometimes they never come because Netflix or Amazon decides not to continue with the series. But even when they do come, it is sometimes after so long that I forget the plot line of the previous seasons.

What I really like is that, unlike watching premium channels on cable, I can watch a movie or series from the beginning anytime I want. I'm not at the mercy of tuning in at a specific time. And who needs a DVR? DVD's have also become obsolete. Everything is in the cloud waiting to waft down to your on demand.

I remember writing posts in the past about the marvels of DVRs and being able to pause live television. And I remember bitching about having too many cable channels and not enough good content. Who would have dreamed we would eventually be able to stream just about anything we want and any time we want. 

I can't even imagine what and how we will be watching content five or ten years from now. Maybe all we will have to do is close our eyes and content is streamed into our brains.

If that happens I know what I'll be doing at staff meetings in the future.

Picture me, if you will...

 

I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time experimenting with filters on Snapchat. I don't ever actually send any messages on Snapchat. I don't have a clue how it works. But I do know how to capture photos of my face with odd filter effects. It takes less time than Photoshop.

If you don't know me (which applies to just about everyone), you'd think I like my face. On the contrary, I am appalled by it, especially as it ages. I struggle with selfies to try and hide the double chin and sagging flesh. Filters at least hide some of the flaws.

Ironically, I hate having photos taken of myself. Inevitably, I look huge. And photographs always seem to capture me in the most unflattering poses with my mouth have open. Selfies with filters remedy some of that.

They also help me indulge in role playing fantasies. For example I think I would have made a pretty good cowboy.

Though I don't think I could pull off being a clown.

I find it quite horrifying, actually.

But overall filters makes me smile (in a genuine way, of course).

Old man, look at my life

 

Old man, look at my life

I'm a lot like you were

Old man, look at my life

I'm a lot like you were

Lullabies, look in your eyes

Run around the same old town

Doesn't mean that much to me

To mean that much to you

I've been first and last

Look at how the time goes past

But I'm all alone at last

Rolling home to you 

--Neil Young 

 I have always liked the song, Old Man by Neil Young. I can't say the lyrics ever made sense to me other than a young man telling an old man that he was young like him at some point in his life.

Duh.

Actually Neil Young was writing the song to an old man who was the caretaker of a ranch he bought in Northern California when he was 25. Apparently the old man had lived on the ranch for a long time and couldn't believe a 25 year old could afford to buy it. So Neil Young wrote the song to rub his face in it.

Well he said he wrote it to tell the man that they weren't that different than each other. He just had got rich young by playing a guitar, smoking weed and singing in a weird falsetto voice. The old man on the other hand was taking care of the young man's cows and mending fences for what I imagine was minimum wage. 

I'm a lot like you were....NOT.

I can tell you that when I was 25, I wasn't imagining I was anything like old men. I didn't want to think about getting old. And at that age I was thinking 40 was old. Now 40 seems pretty young to me. I do remember being depressed when I turned 25 because I'd let a quarter of a century go by with out much to show for it. I'd like to go back in time and slap my 25 year old self a few times.

 Speaking of getting old, I've been watching Virgin River on Netflix (don't judge). In addition to young, attractive actors, the cast includes Tim Matheson and Annette O'Toole as an aging couple. If you don't remember who they are, Tim Matheson starred in the 1978 movie Animal Shack. If you really want some trivia, he was also the voice of Johnny Quest in the 1964 cartoon. Annette O'Toole was in lots of movies and series in the 1980s and 1990s. She was Lana Lane in Superman III. She was also in a 1982 remake of Cat People that I panned in a review in my college newspaper. My review headline was "Cat People belongs in the litter box." Anyway she was pretty hot back then.

But Virgin River shows what happens to all of us when we age. Matheson, once a heartthrob, plays a crotchity old country doctor. O'Toole plays his very unlikeable wife. Even when the doctor begins losing his eyesight and his wife suffers a brain injury, it is difficult to like either character. And the challenge for me is that I keep picturing them the way they looked in the early 1980s. 

Time is not kind to any of us. 

Now lest you think I am age shaming I must remind you that I am pretty much in the same boat (which could desperately use a new coat of paint). It is just a bit jarring to see these actors who I picture in their iconic young roles, growing old. It's like going to your 40th or 50th high school reunion and wondering who all the old people are.

Now that I am in this hole, I am going to stop digging.

Oh man, look at my life.

Going to town

 

My wife and I took our daughter to see a performance of Hades Town at the Paramount Theater in downtown Seattle last Saturday. It was the first major performance I've seen since the pandemic. And I have to say it was one hell of a show. 

The place was packed and while most people wore masks, it was kind of freaky being in a crowd. COVID has made me hyperaware of things like that. Not that I've ever liked crowds. But I never used to worry about crowds of people making me sick.

It is amazing how the pandemic changed our lives. And it is amazing how we've changed how we respond to it. In the beginning we were washing our hands several times a day and using hand sanitizer like it was holy water protecting us from the devil. Masks went from a novelty to a necessity. And god forbid we were ever within six feet of another person. Gone was shaking hands and hugging.

But now no one cares about hand sanitizer, social distancing and for the most part masks. Even so, reports are increasing of yet another surge in COVID cases and health officials telling us we should wear masks and avoid crowds. No one really listens.

I enjoyed Hadestown immensely. But that night we got a message that they cancelled the evening performance due to illness and COVID affecting the cast. I was a bit surprised though the understudy had been playing the role of Orpheus in the show we saw. So I wonder who else got sick between the matinee and the evening performance.

In case you've never heard of Hadestown, it is a musical based loosely on the Greek myth of Orpheus travelling to the underworld to bring back his wife Eurydice. Spoiler alert: he fails. The music from Hadestown is amazing. The audience gave the show a major standing ovation (not always a given in Seattle). And it was well deserved. I highly recommend you catch a show if you can. Or at least listen to the soundtrack. It is pretty haunting.

Don't Pandemic II

 

I thought I was yet again being too clever by half when I thought of turning Douglas Adam's "Don't Panic" from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into "Don't Pandemic." But of course, Google showed me I wasn't the first clever person to use the phrase. And ironically I was looking over some of my past posts and discovered I'd titled post "Don't Pandemic" earlier in the pandemic. Once again I am repeating myself without being aware of it.

But this time I put my face on the "Don't Pandemic" character so at least that is something original. 

I don't know what to think about the pandemic now. After about two years of hourly headlines describing the onslaught of new variants sweeping through the world Covid has been pushed to page five of the virtual news pages behind classified ads for lost pets. Occasionally a click bait headline pops up promising that Covid isn't dead yet and the next one is going to be the mother of all strains that will wag it's behind at your boosters.

But the price of gas and groceries seems to be more frightening.

Now that my kids are out of school for the summer and I no longer have to shuttle them to and from school and play practice, I have returned to the office several days a week. I have to tell you, it actually feels pretty good to ride the train to work again and sit at a desk that isn't in a basement surrounded by boxes, dog beds and meowing cats. 

And being in downtown Seattle isn't as scary as I thought it would be. Now granted I am exposed to a narrow part of downtown each day. I have a two minute walk from the train station to my office building and I don't venture out much. Me and the pigeons are above it all on the fourth floor of my building. And next month I move to the 11th floor of another building. I will be in a much smaller interior office so I'll be even more insulated from the real world.

Although I wear a mask on the train, very few people seem to care anymore. The train isn't full, but it rarely was before the pandemic. I also don't wear a mask in the office. There are only a hand full of people here. It is kind of nice. 

Most of my meetings are still virtual. That is also nice. The only difference from remote is that I am wearing slacks and a dress shirt instead of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. I also don't have a dog scratching at my leg for attention.

It's almost like the world is back to normal for me.

Almost.

Old dog

 

I try to avoid commenting about work in my blog. But I've spent the last three Fridays and finally my birthday in an all day leading with purpose workshop. This is not a training I've sought out. It is not a training I would have sought out. There is nothing that involves four full days of psycho babble that I would purposedly seek out.

It's not that I don't want to learn new things, but these consultant led trainings, on Zoom not in person complete with virtual break out rooms aren't learning opportunities. They are mindnumbing wastes of time. I am not a stupid person, but the language of consultants and management training is incomprehensible. 

Things like "generous listening." It translates to paying attention to what someone is saying to you even though it is stupid. There are 360 surveys that give you feedback from peers, direct reports and your manager. They are all over the map --say more, say less, listen more, act more, stop rolling your eyes.

I don't like feedback. I can dissect myself with a blunt tool without someone else's opinion. But providing feedback that I don't like feedback is not socially acceptable. I must drink the Koolaid and adopt the lingo, at least until I actually retire or expire.

At my age I am set in my ways and I don't think making lists and personal goals is going to change that. I can't even remember half of the crap I've "learned" in trainings anyway. 

This dog don't want to hunt no more.

Gray and white

 

I live in a gray and white world, literally and figurative. At times it seems like there is never sunshine in the Pacific Northwest. The sky always seems gray and blotched with drizzle. It seems worse than it was when I first moved here more than 40 years ago. Maybe it is climate change. Maybe it is just me aging, graying and whiting.

My hair is gray and white. I am like a printer running out of ink. I am fading.

Maybe it's the pandemic or social unrest or the economy or the war in the Ukraine that making me gray. Or should that be blue? 

Was it a coincidence that Oscar Wilde's character was Dorian Gray? But I suppose his portrait grayed while he stayed black and white. Though I wish I had a portrait that grayed and aged while I stayed the way my mind sees me -- young and strong. The mirror, however, betrays me.

Which is why I try to avoid mirrors. But there are times, like when I am getting my hair cut, that I can't avoid the mirror. Even on the endless video meetings I am forced to stare at my gray face and double chins. More than two years of this has taken its toll.

And speaking of being invisible (there's one of those old digressions) there is nothing like being in a video meeting with about a hundred people that makes you actually invisible. No one really sees you. If they did see me, I wonder if they would think they are tuning in an old black and white television show.

Free as a bird

So I think I've set a new record for not blogging. Something about a pandemic that just keeps my muse from musing. It's difficult to be motivated to write when nothing seems too amusing.

I did go into the office a couple of weeks ago for the first time in almost two years. I was greeted by a stack of mail a foot high on my desk.

The monkey playing cymbals was watching over it for me. He hasn't changed. He did seem a bit more skitterish than I remember.

I also noted my desk calendar was open to March 2020, the month when it all seemed to go to hell. It was like something right out of the Twilight Zone. This whole scenario is like a bad dystopian novel.

Speaking of dystopian plots, I began watching this series on HBO Max called Station Eleven. It is about a future world where many of the people were killed off by a deadly flu. 

Sound familiar?

It's odd, but the pandemic seems to be losing steam, not because COVID had gone away but because people are just sick of it (pun intended). The intensity of the first year was replaced by hope that vaccines would end it last year. But the endless variants threw a wet blanket on hope towards the second part of 2021. And now people just seem to say WTF. Lots of mask mandates are being lifted.  

I've never liked wearing masks, but I've done it. The biggest pain is remembering to put them on. And I have never found a good solution for keeping my glasses from fogging up. Plus they make my ears pull down and look even bigger than they are. And they really draw attention to my double chin.

Not that my looks matter. I've become even more invisible during the pandemic. I still walk every day. And my wife gave us a family gym membership for Christmas. But working out in a mask sucks. And I'm really sick of walking the same routes for almost two years.

Anyway, why, you ask, is this post called "Free as a bird?" Because it strikes me how ironic that phrase is, especially now that we are all more or less captives in our homes and communities.

Finding my niche

 

Here's one niche I'm not looking to fill.

As I mentioned, I have walked every day for exercise during the pandemic. I have walked ad nauseum. I try to change routes daily so I don't get too bored. I generally walk in two-mile segments. I have a Fitbit to keep track of the steps. I've walked miles and miles.

I walked by the Edmonds Cemetery yesterday. I've walked an driven by it hundreds of times. And I've even noticed this sign before. But this time it struck me as funny. We always seem to be looking for our niche to fill. This helped me put it in context. Maybe it is better to be a generalist than to fill this niche.

Teenage mutant viruses

Just when you think you are safe, they bring you
COVID Variants.
Don't go near your unvaccinated neighbor.

It is all like a bad movie sequel that you don't really want to watch. After all you were glad the first one ended. But the monster keeps coming back to life and chases the hero or heroine. But in this case, the good guys wear masks.

When we were all fully vaccinated, we were briefly relieved. I stopped wearing masks in most places. Tess booked a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios. It was like we were finally waking up from the nightmare.

And then the Delta Variant reared it's ugly viral head. Good news was it was hitting the unvaccinated the hardest. My first thought was serves them right. Then they started speculating the fully vaccinated were getting sick, too. Just not as sick.

We went on our trip to Disneyland anyway. It was supposedly operating at reduced capacity, but you could have fooled me. They required masks inside on rides, but most of the time you were jammed next to thousands of people without masks.  We were staying at the Disneyland Hotel and they used COVID as an excuse for not cleaning the rooms every day. 

We came home from the vacation more stressed than when we left.

We'd started dining inside our favorite restaurant. We could see the servers' faces for the first time. That quickly changed. We are now back on the patio and servers are masked again. 

I was supposed to return to my downtown office three days a week beginning September 7. That has been moved to November 1 at the earliest. My work is now requiring everyone to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment. I am glad. People shouldn't have a choice when it comes to keeping the damned virus from spreading and mutating. 

Now they are talking about booster shots for everyone. My wife and I have already had one because of various health reasons. But part of me wonders if it is enough.

I tell you I am sick of masks. I'll wear them, but the novelty has worn off. The brief time when the vaccinated could be free of them was too much of a tease. I want to be free of this all.

Oh well. Once more into the breach.

Like a moth to fame

 

I watched a documentary on Amazon Prime the other day about the actor Val Kilmer. It was created using lots of random footage actually filmed by the actor over his life. First with film cameras and later with video, many from the sets of movies he was starring in.

So why would I watch a documentary about Val Kilmer? We kind of have some things in common. He is about the same age as me. We were both raised Christian Scientists. We both have one son and a daughter. We were both wildly successful in our careers and became quite famous....well, he did. I really thought he played an amazing Jim Morrison in the Doors movie and I will never forget his Doc Holiday in Tombstone.

Oh, and my wife took my children to see his one man performance of Mark Twain several years back. 

What struck me most about the documentary of Val Kilmer was how he no longer resembles the Val Kilmer I remember from all of his films. He has had throat cancer and had his trachea removed. He no longer acts. He attends comic conventions and signs autographs. He does art.

He doesn't look happy. 

I was also amazed that he was able to capture so much of his own life on film. I have absolutely no film or video of my life prior to my late 20s and then very little. You would be hard pressed to make a documentary about my life. But that is also what struck me so hard. There would be nothing to make a documentary of my life about. I've never been famous. No one would care.

That in itself is depressing. But I try and comfort myself with the knowledge that, although I didn't achieve fame in my life, I also didn't lose it. No one watches movies I've made and then gasps at what I look like now in my 60s. I've also had a relatively healthy life.

But still, I never starred in a movie. I never published a book. No one recognizes me on the street. No one even really sees me. And when I die, very few people will remember me or for very long.

Now granted, I could live another 20-30 years. I could still write a book. But writing a book isn't what it used to be. Pretty much anyone can these days. 

I used to naively believe my blog was my road to fame. I thought I'd be discovered and my genius recognized. But a couple of decades go by and you realize that isn't going to happen. 

Part of it is age. It isn't a world for old people. No one wants to hear our stories. They aren't relevant anymore. Layer COVID over everything and my opportunities for being famous are pretty much nil.

Oh well. It's time to blow out the candles on this pity party's cake and get on with life. At least I still have a sense of humor.

Good Bidet mate!

 

I honestly had never used a bidet until we stayed at an AirBNB cabin a few months ago that had a bidet attachment installed. It was a fancy electronic one that allowed you to pick a water temperature. I was skeptical at first, but after one use I wondered how I'd ever lived without a bidet.

The pandemic inspired many shortages, including toilet paper. So a bidet naturally addresses that concern directly. The only thing you need toilet paper for after using a bidet is using a few squares to dab the water off from your tushy.

When I got home I began researching how I could install a bidet attachment in my own bathroom. I discovered there were many affordable options. I chose a model from a company called Zen. I ordered it and installed it without too much trouble.

Without getting too gross and graphic, this is the only toilet I will use now. We've gone camping and then on a trip to Disneyland since and both times I missed my bidet dearly. You don't know how much pain toilet paper causes until you start using a bidet. 

I'm flushed with pride over my discovery.

Walking out of things to say

 I haven't been any more prolific in 2021 than I was in 2020. Something about a pandemic kind of dampens down your sense of humor. Not that mine was particularly keen before COVID 19. I've been running out of steam when it comes to blogging.

Or I've been walking out of steam. Why should running get all the credit? And I've been walking more in that past year and a half than I probably have my entire life.

I need to pace myself (ba da boom).

You would think that I would want to blog more during a pandemic. But once you talk about masks and social distancing ad nauseum, what else is there to say? 

I did find it kind of weird how we went from constant mask wearing and running away from people to now being able to walk around without masks and just frowning at people instead of crossing the street when you encounter them on a walk. It just seemed to happen. 

Though I think vaccinations had something to do with it. My stupid right wing brothers still haven't got their shots. You'd think this is natures chance to really give natural selection another chance. Because not getting vaccinated in the face of a virus that has killed thousands of people is kind of like not wearing a seat belt, a bike helmet or a life preserver on a sinking ship. You certainly shouldn't be dipping those toes in the gene pool any longer.

I suppose a few good things have come out of the pandemic. I did clear out all of my bins of crap out of the garage and made a few bucks on eBay. And I've tried not to turn around an use those bucks to accumulate more crap (though my wife thinks I have too many guitars). 

Speaking of guitars, I've gotten back into playing almost ever day. I've discovered you can find the chords for just about every song ever recorded on line now without having to pay a cent for sheet music. 

We had been prepping our house to sell and upgrade. But I think we've given up on that. We missed the sweet spot in the market where you could sell your house at a highly inflated price and actually find a better house that you could afford to buy. So now were are just thinking of remodeling. We'll see how that goes.

Oh well, it's almost time for my after work walk with my son and my dog. Got to get those 10,000 steps a day in somehow.

Hit me with your best shot

 My wife and I had our second COVID-19 vaccine shot last Friday. So I figured that was worth noting on a blog that I've woefully neglected since the pandemic began more than a year ago. 

I couldn't tell you why the pandemic squashed my muse (or at least put a face mask on it so it is hard to make out). I suppose there is only so much you can write about walking, face masks, socially distancing and my right wing brothers. 

I spend most of each day in my basement office staring at video meetings and forgetting to unmute myself when someone says something to me. I wear t-shirts and jeans. I shower maybe once a week. 

Maybe being fully vaccinated will change things a bit. But for the most part not. At least until a bulk of the population is also fully vaccinated.

My older right wing Christian brothers aren't getting vaccinated. I think it has something to do with the will of god, liberal conspiracies and the fact that Biden is the President. Neither seems convinced that COVID-19 exists. 

Regardless, I have been fully vaccinated and leave my brothers to their own misguided beliefs and assinine opinions. After all, you can't fix stupid. 

So I started writing this post on March 29th and it is now April 26th. Can't seem to get into the blog groove. But I am fully vaccinated and it seems the rest of the country is starting to catch up. I actually took my son to a movie theater on Saturday. Other than wearing masks and not having to worry about anyone sitting next to us or in front of us, it was pretty normal. I actual enjoy going to restaurants and movies and not having to deal with crowds. 

I am getting sick of walking every day and masking and unmasking when someone approaches on the sidewalk. I've read articles that say we really don't need masks if we are outside. 

But then again I've read articles that contradict that as well. That part of COVID hasn't changed with vaccinations. What we need is to administer everyone with truth serum. 

Isn't it ironic

 I was going to call this post, "Don't let the old year hit you on the way out," but discovered that is the title of a post I wrote around this time of year last year. And ironically I hoped 2020 would be a better year than 2019. 

Well that didn't happen. 

I won't rehash how sucky of a year it was. Suffice it to say, it was worst year in recent history. The only good thing that happened was that piece of crap in the White House is on his way out. I won't feel any true relief until President Biden is sworn in and Trump is back in Trump Tower whining about how the election was stolen from him.

Spoke with my right wing, nutjob brother on Thanksgiving and he told me he had manned phones during the election. I thanked him for helping Biden win and he started yelling about him not winning. 

I can only hope that there was a mix up at the hospital when one of us was born and we are not truly related.

If anything good came out of the pandemic it was that we didn't have to visit any of my family in person for the holidays. 

I'd like to say that I am posting again out of popular demand, but no one but Baggy in England seemed to have noticed I wasn't writing in my blog. Normally a lack of readers wouldn't stop me from blogging, but it is difficult to write a point-of-view humor blog when the civilization seems to be collapsing around you.

Though I did manage to muster up enough humor to send silly e-mails to my staff at work each Friday in an attempt to boost morale. The general response was not unlike that to most of my blog posts: crickets.

The world wide web

 

It is spider season where I live. There seem to be webs everywhere. And although spiders used to freak me out as a kid, now I've come to terms with them. 

My family, on the other hand, have not. My son is afraid of them and will holler for me if he enters a room and sees a spider. It has become one of my responsibilities along with garbage, recycling and picking up dog poop.

I don't kill spiders any more. There is too much suffering in the world. I try now to gently catch them in a cup and release them outside if they are inside the house. I respect that they are more afraid of me than I am of them and they can do me little harm. And they catch pests such as mosquitoes and sometimes other spiders.

I didn't realize until doing a Google search that spiders can live for several years. So it makes me feel even better about not killing them randomly out of fear. Somehow longevity makes their lives seem even more valuable. 

Maybe it is my age and having less mortality left in my existence that makes me more sensitive to the right to all things to occupy space as long as they are intended. 

This, of course, doesn't apply to the thing squatting in the White House and his throngs of followers. They can move on anytime now.

It's as easy as A, eBay, C....

 Can't believe almost three months have gone by since I posted. Time means little during a pandemic. But in that time I worked my way through all the bins in the garage and sold or purged most of it. I opened my own store on eBay as well as listed stuff on Facebook Marketplace and Craig's List. It has been an exercise in marketing and psychology.

I have learned a great deal about selling. First, I was right, Elvis memorabilia does not sell. You practically have to pay people to buy it. It took almost three months to sell all but two of the Velvet Elvis paintings (though the last one sold for $200).  I also learned that it is a pain to pack and ship large items.

I also learned that cleverly written item descriptions are hit and miss when it comes to selling. So there goes my long held theory about that humor (especially my humor) sells. Sometimes people just want you to cut to the chase.

I also learned that people will buy just about anything. I sold an old laminated Blockbuster Video Card for $14. And I sold a Warthog skull, a baboon skull, a badger skull, a beaver skull, a snapping turtle skull, a deer skull, a buffalo skull, a cow skull and my beloved horse skull from the Nevada desert outside of Reno. I even finally sold a goose skull despite the fact it was banned from eBay and Facebook due to some obscure policy about migratory skulls. And I sold one of four coyote skulls. The remaining three don't seem too popular because of missing teeth.

Why did I have all of those skulls? There was a time before I was married (18 years to be exact) that I spent way too much time browsing eBay and thrift stores snapping up curiosities. I thought of the skulls as more sculptures than dead animals. But once I got married, the curiosities no longer seemed so curious. So I packed them away in bins that sat for fifteen years untouched until I began my saga to empty out my past.

The long and winding road

It is hard to believe how long this thing has lasted and is still lasting. And the same swirl of debate floats around about what to do or not to do. Masks have become the lightning rod of controversy. Most of us have donned them. But the fringe of non-believers still resist.

I still walk every day. I walk miles a week. I walk in straight lines. I walk in circles. I walk with my children and my wife. I walk with the dog. I walk alone. I walk the long and winding roads.

I just don't ever seem to get anywhere. 

That is the bugaboo about this pandemic. Everything and everyone goes in circles. Nothing is real and everything is real. Everytime I see something on line about a celebrity dying or someone on Facebook noting a classmate or relative has died, everyone flashes to COVID-19. Even if it is of old age, or a brain aneurysm everyone still thinks it is the virus.

The fourth came and went with a whimper and a bang. No 5k race. No parade. No sponsored fireworks. We had a fire in the fire pit and set off a few tame noise makers (and a few that weren't). I didn't miss any of the patriotic BS. I am not feeling very patriotic these days.  We did watch a broadcast of Hamilton on Disney Plus. It was entertaining.

I attacked the wild hill side behind my house with a weed whacker. It was a temporary assault on the weeds. But they always come back. If only things I actually planted would be so healthy.

If there wasn't enough chaos, we are thinking about selling our house and buying a new one. This will require prepping our house to make it attractive to sell. So much clutter. I still have stuff in plastic bins that were tucked away two moves ago and haven't seen the light of day for 15 years. You would think that if I haven't looked at them for 15 years I should just let it all go, but it is still hard for me.

Part of the issue is that the stuff in bins is stuff I had with me for years before I got married and had children. I used to collect eclectic stuff like warthog skulls and velvet Elvis paintings. There is no space for it in my home or life anymore, but I hate to just trash it. So I may turn to eBay to at least feel my former life had some value.

I just wish Elvis memorabilia would have appreciated in value more than I had expected.

Happily hair after

After three months with a stay at home order and getting haircuts out of the question (unless you find a rebel hairdresser), my hair was starting to remind me of the 1980s without the style. If I was a character from Scooby Doo, I would be Shaggy. It wasn't a good look for me.

The week before last our county went into Phase II of the recovery and things have started to open up including places that cut hair. I had hopes of losing the less than manageable mop for a more groomed look. But the place I usually get my hair cut (I hate to admit it, but it is one of those nasty chain hair cutting franchises that give assembly line cuts cheaply) was only accepting walk ins with an estimated wait of three hours.

At first I thought I'd just wait it out, but the thought of resorting to a man bun was weighing heavily on me. So I found a local salon that actually had online booking and an appointment available yesterday. I snagged it.

The place was within walking distance. It was a salon I'd tried to use a couple of years ago but I ended up boycotting them after arriving for an appointment and being told the stylist was running behind and I would need to reschedule. But swallowed my pride and decided now was the time to live and let live. 

I arrived a few minutes before my appointment and followed the salon instructions to call when I arrived and they would let me know if I could come in. I called and they seemed surprised that I was actually following directions and told me I could wait inside or outside until my stylist was ready. 

I entered and was told to was my hands and then have a seat. Everyone, including myself, was wearing masks. My stylist came and got me and showed me where to sit. We chatted a bit about my hair and then she started cutting.

Masks aside, I can't tell you how wonderfully normal the experience was. She cut a bit and then took me to a hair washing station and washed my hair. This was a pleasure I'd forgotten since I started having cheap haircuts that didn't include shampooing. Then she took me back to the chair and I watch hair falling everywhere like a sheep being shorn. I almost cried, it felt so good and normal.

Finally, it was done and I was a bit sad, but I marvelled at my closely cropped hair.

 

If nothing else comes out of this nightmare of a year, I have grown to greatly appreciate the little things.

Mask wars

“Be careful not to choke on your aspirations.”

--Darth Vader

I am amazed at the amount of  energy (an money) spent on finding a face covering that isn't a pain in the butt to wear. The pandemic has spawned a whole industry of face coverings from the practical to novel. And none of them are cheap or comfortable. To further complicate things, except for the hand made ones, most come from China and take a long time to get. 

Part of the problem for me is that I have a big head, big ears, a big nose and a double chin. So most face coverings simply don't fit right. Plus I wear glasses and most masks fog them up. So I need to choose between walking around in a fog with glasses or walking around in a fog without glasses.

Face coverings also create socially awkward situations. If you go on a walk and don't wear one, you feel guilty when you pass someone wearing one. And if you wear one, you feel silly when you walk by someone not wearing one. Or annoyed that they aren't wearing one.

Does anyone really know what time it is?

Living in quarantine involves the loss of time and days.  Living and working in the same place turns holidays and weekends into just another day waiting. Waiting for the next phase. Waiting for a vaccine. Waiting for a return to what?

I can't say it was better before we were shuffled off to our homes to work.  The days were pretty much blurred as well. And I was still waiting. Waiting for the day to be over. Waiting for retirement.

Now I'm worried I'm getting a taste of what retirement would be like. I just wouldn't be tied to electronics all day and blurry eyed from back to back video meetings. But I'm afraid I still wouldn't know what day or time it is.

So the pessimist in me thinks this whole thing is just a wash. Different paths, just the same destination. Only difference is that I need to wear a mask.

I am going to the dentist tomorrow morning to hopefully begin restoring a crown that broke off several weeks ago when I was eating popcorn. And oddly enough I am looking forward to it despite my dentist being in downtown Seattle and the potential risks of leaving my hidey hole here at home.

But at least I will be doing something different if not fun. At least I'll be out of my cage and doing something different, but ordinary.  Then again, I'm not looking forward to the idle chit chat about how bad things are and how the economy has tanked.  At least my dentist will get some insurance payments. I just hope it won't be a prolonged thing that requires several visits to resolve.

I'm also going to swing by my office for the first time in two months and bring home one of my big monitores so I don't have to do all my work on this postage stamp of a laptop anymore. That will be weird seeing my office again. 

I had planned on taking the train in and light rail to the dentist. But my wife thought it would be safer to drive and avoid the risks. And since I work for a public transit agency, I feel guilty buying into the perception that the train isn't safe.  Then again, I didn't like the idea of being downtown all day and spending an hour commuting.

But what is time anymore anyway?

Predictions

I am getting a bit tired of dire predictions, especially those bearing the phrase "new normal" (and the word "dire" for that matter). Even the New York Times has written semi-parody pieces about the conflicting information coming out every day. I wish just one expert would come out and say, "We really don't know shit about any of this. You'd be better off consulting a psychic."

And while I'm on a rant, I am pretty tired of statements about "trusting science." Science is pretty much about trial and error. So they are winging it as well, just in a more orderly way. In a perverse sort of way, Trump is trusting science when he announced that he is scarfing down malaria medication to ward off the COVID-19 spirits. Perhaps the medication's risk of increasing heart failure combined with his morbid obesity will up his belief in science and my belief in a god.

Bottom line, I don't want to hear about COVID-19, pandemics, financial crisis, social distancing, phased recovery or why we should or shouldn't wear face coverings.  I want to walk down the street and not feel my stress level rise if I see someone approaching me on the same side of the street.  I want to go on a vacation to a tropical environment and have the toughest decision I make be where to have dinner and what to drink.

Instead, I get my joy out of buying stuff on Amazon (mainly face coverings) and waiting excitedly for it to arrive only to find out it is yet another face covering that doesn't really fit or prevent my glasses from fogging up. I've ordered five masks and filters from China through eBay. From the ad they look kind of like something Darth Vader would wear. But since they are from China I probably won't get them until the pandemic is over.

But who can predict when that will be.

I wonder if even Tom Robbins gets the blues?

I ordered a copy of Tom Robbins memoir, Tibetan Peach Pie and even started reading it (I stopped reading most books that didn't rhyme when I had kids).  It is reminding me why he is my favorite author and why reading his books in the first place inspired me to want to be a writer.

For the record, I still want to be a writer.

I imagine Tom Robbins is locked away in his home in LaConner, Washington staring at the Puget Sound and thanking his lucky stars he doesn't live in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle anymore. It is hard to know what Tom Robbins would be doing.

I actually have seen Tom Robbins in person twice in my lackluster life. The first time was at a lecture at the University of Washington where he was asked to speak about love. Someone asked him how to make love last and his response was, "Make love first." I thought that was genius.

The second time I saw him was at the Blue Moon Tavern in the University District. He was one of the judges of the Darrell Bob Houston Literary Award in honor of one of his friends he'd worked with during his years working for newspapers. I didn't interact with him. I was just another barfly on the wall so to speak observing from afar. It took him awhile to show up. 

While I waited I recognized one of his friends, Walt Crowley, a Seattle writer. I had met Crowley through my job. He was always pitching local agencies to pay for vanity press books that he would author. Crowley always wore a bow tie and I found him pompous and condescending. I watched him approach the bar and order a beer, "Bar keep, tre ordinare please."

I told you he was pompous and condescending.

Eventually Tom Robbins showed up with a young woman on his arm. I didn't get close enough to meet him or even hear what he said. It was getting late and I had to get home.

So that is as close as I ever got to greatness. But as I read his memoir, I feel like I know him. But then again as I read each of his books, I felt like I knew him. That's what makes him a great writer.

Bubble man

Walking now is like a strange, sinister ballet. You never know what the other person is going to do when they approach. It's like a social distancing game of chicken. Who is going to veer off before you reach the six-foot buffer zone. 

I've noted joggers are the worst.  They inevitably come too close and are usually huffing and puffing and splattering spittle without a mask. People with little kids and strollers are pretty bad, too. But I can't blame them. Toddlers are like cats and difficult to herd.

Picking up take out is stressful, too. Some restaurants are very organized and everyone knows where to stand or hover waiting for the sanitized pen to sign or the iPad with plastic wrap to insert your debit card. But last night this woman came in behind us and just stood in the doorway so you couldn't possibly keep six-feet between us and her when we exited. I find myself feeling very nasty towards my fellow humans in all of this.

Warm weather makes it worse. People want out of their houses and they flock to the waterfront to marvel in its expanse. We see them standing like zombies staring at the sun while it sets and then shuffling off into the dark when it has melted into the Puget Sound.

While walking, I have noticed how wildlife has become emboldened by all of this. There are rabbits everywhere. And I swear we saw a couple of feral love birds in the trees a few days ago. A owl has been frequenting the wild hillside behind our house and pairs of crows are strutting around on every corner. It's as if they are all waiting for us to leave and give them back the planet. Though the sea gulls will miss the french fries. But they'll adapt.

No news is good news

Literally. I am convinced that all of the reporters working remotely rehash even the slightest utterance about COVID-19 into upteen stories that usually contains the pronouncement, "No one knows why..." Which confirms that no one knows anything about COVID-19. 

And I am also convinced that the term "medical expert" is an oxymoron. I've never been to a doctor who was sure about anything. All of the information you receive is conjecture based on conjecture. First they say not to wear masks. Then they insist you wear masks. They say if you get the virus than you are immune. Then they say that having the virus doesn't make you immune. 

The truth could set you free, if, there was any truth. But the constant bombardment of "facts" simply feeds the fear. And NPR, the self-proclaimed bastion of unbiased Journalism, is just as bad as the rest of them. It parades expert after expert through interviews asking if this safe or is that safe. And the experts hem and haw about unknowns and other factors beyond their control or knowledge. So why bother asking?

It's like everything else that I hear since Trump, the true disease, was thrust upon on us. I have been constantly filled with false hope that he will be forced out of office, but he is like a cockroach constantly surviving scandals that would have toppled any other political figure in the past. It is the same with COVID-19. I hate listening to the news because I don't want to get sucked up with some false hope that they have developed a vaccine or that the danger is past. 

So I continue to live in uncertainty acknowledging that life has always been uncertain. We never know what the next second will bring let alone the next day, week, month or year. So nothing I hear is news to me.

Still invisible

I spend almost eight hours some days on video meetings. And I still feel as if no one sees me. Still, it is sometimes nice to turn off my camera and be invisible because no one notices. I was in a meeting yesterday afternoon with a bunch of Web developers and none had their cameras on. Apparently it is an IT thing. But as they jabbered on about techno stuff that didn't mean anything, I didn't say a word and I was invisible.

Even when I take one of my many walks, some people approach you as if you are not there and I inevitably am the one to step off into the road to let them pass. I don't wear a mask much when I walk because it seems to be unnecessary. I never come within six feet of anyone but my wife or children. But I think I actually think I would prefer wearing a mask. Because then, although not truly invisible, I become faceless. And then it doesn't matter whether I smile at the passing people or not.

We made fun of the people who wore masks in the beginning. Now it is becoming more common to glare at the ones who don't. Because, locked up in our homes with NPR and constant digital news about the latest on COVID-19 is creating a paranoid nation. Hell there was news of two cats testing positive for the virus yesterday (but on the positive side the news said both are recovering nicely). But I wonder how many people are now avoiding their pets.

The sadly ironic thing is that we are all afraid of something that is also invisible. It is everywhere and no where. You can even have it and not know it. It is the ultimate bogeyman. 

I walked through a park with my daughter the other day and a mother was sitting in front of a sign saying the playground equipment was closed to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The woman was watching her two children as they climbed all over the equipment.  

Maybe the woman has never heard of the bogeyman.

Walking the walk

I walk a lot these days. There isn't much else to do in the way of exercise. I see a great deal of people jogging. I hate to run. There are no gyms open to go to. I'm not standing in front of the television and doing yoga or aerobics. So I walk.

I have an app that tracks my walks and tells me how far I've gone and how many calories I've burned. You have to walk a long time to burn many calories. So I walk about four times a day.

You see a lot when you walk versus when you drive. You notice more. Like I live in a community that has a great deal of wealth and not lots of diversity. And some people weed more than others.

I generally walk with my wife. It is a time for her to talk about her work. We take our first walk at noon. I then walk with my son at 5 p.m. We walk the the dog. My son doesn't talk much. When he does, it is about YouTube influencers and gamers. The dog doesn't talk at all. She just sniffs at spots I assume other dogs have peed on and poops a great deal. I carry a bag of dog poop on most of those walks.

When I return from walking my dog and my son, I then go on a walk with my daughter. We often go to a nearby large park that is more of a forest preserve with lots of trails. She has been in day camps there during the summer and knows it well. She talks much more than my son. She points out skunk cabbage and other plants she has learned about. 

After walking with my daughter, we usually have dinner. After dinner my wife and I walk again. 

It is a surreal world we walk in. All of the businesses are closed except for several restaurants who have figured out ways to sell take out food and cocktails. Apparently liquor laws have been relaxed in the era of COVID-19. We have kept to our routine of going out to eat every Friday night. Except now we take out and eat in. It's not the same. The food is usually cold by the time we get it home and it loses much appeal once it has been thrown together in a box. But still it is a break from the quarantine we have been forced into.

Other than not having to get up at 6 a.m. and commute to downtown, nothing much has changed for me other than walking all the time. I spend all day in meetings. I end my nights binge watching programs on Amazon or Netflix. And each day it starts all over again. 

A pandemic is a bit like I imagine purgatory would be.

Week five

I was going to call this post, "Week five and still alive," but I thought it might be too morbid and it would force me into a challenge of finding something to rhyme each week. Week six, I pick up sticks sounds stupid. Though I did spend lots of time Sunday cutting out a dead Rhodie on my wild hillside and picking up sticks. 

It was Easter weekend and other than having to work for five hours Saturday morning, it was a fairly normal Easter (given the circumstances). We ordered take out from a greasy bar food type of place on Friday night and learned a lesson as to why you don't order take out bar food during a pandemic (or any time for that matter). By the time we got it home, it was pretty cold and fried food loses its appeal once it reaches room temperature.

I am still walking about three times a day. And I still struggle to find a good mask that doesn't cut off oxygen or pull my ears off. Since I don't go in many stores anyway, a mask seems pointless most of the time. 

I made the mistake of reading a New York Times article about the top ten symptoms of you having the COVID-19 virus other than fever and dry cough. Pretty much it read like the side effects list from most prescriptions and I am sure fueled the paranoia most people feel already about anything out of the ordinary about your body. I question the wisdom of publishing such an article. It just seems to panic more than inform. But there seems to be a lot of this going on.

My wife and I were out walking and stopped at a Gelato shop that is apparently an essential business because they are still open. We purchased a pint of gelato for my son and I noted the girl scooping out gelato didn't have gloves or a mask. She exchanged pleasantries with us as I paid and we walked home. Later that afternoon I took my daughter for a walk and we returned to the same gelato shop. The same girl was working. She didn't recall selling me a pint of gelato about an hour earlier and she exchanged the exact same pleasantries. She still wasn't wearing gloves or a mask.

So I am still invisible, pandemic or no pandemic. Some things never change.

Social distancing down the bunny trail

I was tempted to post an image of Jesus on the cross wearing a face mask, but I figured that might be too much for any nut job that wandered in here by mistake. It has been quite awhile since I had any trolls flame me, but I'm just not in the mood. 

I have stated unequivocally stated on many occasions that I am not a religious person and do not believe in a god. The current pandemic has confirmed my disbelief in one. I have considered the current state a wake up call from nature that we haven't heeded any other signs including global warming, hurricanes, tornadoes or Donald Trump so maybe we'll pay attention to a killer virus.

Though I can't help believe that once this has more or less passed, people will talk big about how they've changed, then shrug and get back to mass consumption and ignoring their neighbors. Even pandemics don't seem to be able to change most people's inherent natures.

We plan to dye Easter eggs on Saturday and try to keep some semblance of normalcy for the kids. They are past the age where they want to attend mass Easter egg hunts and get their photos taken with the Easter Bunny anyway. And not being church going people, not being able to go to a Sunday service has absolutely no impact on us. 

I remember the congregation at church when I was a kid singing, "Every day will be an Easter" (a Christian Scientist hymn) and thinking if every day was an Easter we'd get sick of all the candy. I'm not sure that's what the author intended, but it was basically what Easter meant to me, dyeing Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. These days I don't even eat chocolate so dyeing eggs will be the highlight.

Other than walks, I don't really go out anymore. I went with my wife to the grocery store last weekend and got stressed out by all the people going the wrong way in one way aisles that I agreed to stop going.  My wife reminds me that I am over 60 and take medication for high blood pressure so I shouldn't be taking any chances. I even broke my tooth on an unpopped popcorn kernel the other night and chose to forgo a dentist visit until late in May just to avoid the risk of going to downtown Seattle. Fortunately the tooth was a crown and doesn't hurt.

How does that relate to Easter? Well I broke a crown and Jesus wore a crown of thorns. 

Thought you had me there, didn't you? 

Masked man

There has been a lot of debate lately about whether or not a face mask can help protect you from the COVID-19 virus and that the whoop de do filtered masks should be reserved for medical staff. Most of it is a moot point because, like toilet paper, most of the masks were swooped up early in the frenzy. You can order disposable masks on Amazon, but they all seem to come from China and won't arrive for a month and a half. Plus they are the ones that only filter out dust and pollen anyway.

So the do it yourself versions have become popular. Most are fashioned from bandanas and people basically look like they are going to rob a train or bank. fortunately very few trains are running and no banks are open so there haven't been any misunderstandings that I know of. 

The first mask I wore in public was a prop from a surgeon costume I'd worn in a skit at work many years ago (don't ask). It seemed like a legitimate enough mask, but I think it is actually made of paper that looks like cloth, so I don't think it will make it through many washings. Next I just tied an old Seahawks bandana around my face cowboy style. Works in a pinch, but it kept sliding off my nose, so not sure how much good it does.

I tried another mask using a method from the web where you fold the bandana around hair ties that slip over your ears and keep the mask over your face. The hair ties unfortunately folded my ears down and made me look like something out of Lord of the Rings. And they kept popping off. So I finally just found some cotton fabric with a pirate print and hand sewed cloth ties onto. The result is a crude but effective face mask. By effective, I mean it covers my nose and mouth and, if nothing else, keeps me from sneezing and coughing on people. 

Not that I have been within six feet from anyone but my wife and kids for weeks. I have ventured to the store with my wife a few times and it is almost comical to see people try and stay distant from each other while trying to find canned goods. Our store even created one-way aisles (that most people ignore) to keep people from trying pass each other in the tight space.  But Americans can't seem to self regulate. Just as people ignore speed limits and don't use blinkers, we encounter people who just push up the wrong way in the grocery aisles and seem oblivious to the six-foot rule. I want to get a t-shirt made that reads, "Better six feet away than six feet under." But someone would probably take it the wrong way.

I think having a sense of humor during these times puts me in the higher risk category.