Today’s photo reminds me that we would all be a lot better off if we spent more time listening instead of talking. Listening to good music through good headphones allows us to mind our own business and to not bother others.
We were scheduled to get haircuts today. Fortunately things haven’t gotten too shaggy yet. Another month, though, and we may need to take action.
Busy head this morning…that’s not always a good sign.
The headline in this morning’s Charlotte newspaper said “Coronavirus Claims Two More In Mecklenburg.” Two people out of a total county population of 1.1 million. If the paper reported daily deaths from heart disease and diabetes on the front page, would the number be more than two, and would it get the same level of attention? Nah.
And we have a “president” who says “hey, don’t look at me” when criticized, while a country is looking to him for leadership. It’s time to move on from that bozo.
Our local liquor store manager/philosopher publishes a weekly newsletter, and in yesterday’s newsletter he recounted an amusing story from a recent visit to the grocery store:
“Okay so I am the grocery store and I need some celery for Keith’s world famous chicken soup. It is all about the egg noodles folks. There is a woman that is touching every single head of lettuce for reasons that only she knows. I lean forward and swiftly grab my celery and she turns to me and says “do you mind keeping your distance? Just give me some space buddy.” I just smiled at her and continued my shopping because what kind of conversation are we going to have? Like why is the worried person touching every single lettuce without gloves? I didn’t see that going well so I just moved right along. I figured she had a long life and day ahead of her.”
What kind of conversation are we going to have? That’s something we could all think about before we try to make any witty comebacks. Reminds me of a recent encounter that Kathy & I had with the owner of a nearby fitness center. We used to walk through the parking lot there because it added a few hundred steps to our route and was generally pretty quiet, especially while the center is closed. One day last week, the owner – who all our neighbors don’t like anyway – came out and said that he couldn’t have us walking through his parking lot due to “insurance reasons.” He said a bunch of other impolite things but generally made it clear that he didn’t like the folks in our neighborhood because – he’s convinced – someone reported him when he didn’t close immediately the day after the order came out. We said we would pass the word to our neighborhood, and we did. But that was another case where there wasn’t anything I was going to say that would make him my friend. Not that I would want that anyway!
This stay at home time is a good opportunity to do important but easy to overlook things like confirming insurance coverages, reviewing wills, cleaning out old tax return documents, etc. Kathy & I have been doing that in earnest, and it’s amazing how much stuff can accumulate. And it’s interesting to see how much things have changed, even when you don’t think they have changed!
Public service announcement: The IRS has established a website (all the search engines know where it is) that you can use to find the status of your stimulus check (aka Trump Dividend). In typical government fashion, the website says that if you have filed a tax return in the last two years and have provided your banking information that you will receive your payment electronically. Of course, it takes a while to get to the page where you can check, and once I got there it told me that they didn’t have my information, even though they took my payment just yesterday! I read elsewhere that if you had only owed tax and haven’t gotten a refund they couldn’t use your info, but if you had gotten a refund they could. We’ve done both but they still didn’t have it, so that information may be false. I entered my information yesterday and this morning it says they have it, that my check will be sent electronically and that the page will be updated with a status once it has been scheduled. So check it out. We might as well get our dough sooner rather than later, and I don’t really need King Donald’s autograph on a check! 😉
One of our most recurring topics of conversation is “when will we be able to travel again?” Of course we could be stubborn and head off now, provided we were able to navigate the various states’ rules for entry from our of state, rules about quarantine, etc., and as long as we were willing to carry grocery store food in coolers and eat carryout. But nothing is open, so it would be “travel for travel’s sake.” Instead we’re making ourselves be content with sticking at home and taking care of all those endless things that we’ve been putting off until “some day.” It seems like “some day” might be here.
The cruise industry has gotten a lot of press recently because of all the reports of ships full of sick people, etc. The cruise lines are unfortunate symbols of what happens when you put a bunch of people from different places in one space for a week or more. All kinds of interesting things can happen, and the media loves reporting on cruise ships because when things go wrong they make for great headlines.
It’s no secret that Kathy & I love to cruise. We have a cruise booked for October to celebrate our 40th anniversary. The cruise lines say that they intend to sail again soon. And they might, provided they can convince the CDC and Coast Guard to allow the ships to dock. The big question is: when will the cruising public be confident enough to book a cruise? That’s the question we find ourselves asking: even if the ship sails, how do we feel about being on it? Certainly by October a lot of this will have blown over, we reason. And we don’t have to put the rest of our money down until early July. Will we know by then? We’re holding off until then to make a decision. It will be interesting to see how things look in another 3 months.
I read an article this morning about hair stylists doing “virtual haircuts” over video. Kathy & I were very fortunate to have gotten haircuts just before the shutdown, but our next appointments were supposed to be for this week. So far so good, but our next appointments aren’t until mid-May. Things may start looking a little shaggy by then! I’ve always wondered how I would look with a buzz cut, this might be the time! 😉 I’ve said many times that birthdays and haircuts are two things I won’t complain about, even I have to wait a while for the haircut!
A recent conversation with a very wise person inspired the following, so while I can’t take credit for all of it, I’ve tried to make the words my own:
One of the outcomes of this recent stay-at-home situation is that we have all been given a gift of time. It is up to each of us to determine how best to take advantage of this gift. If you are still working but working from home, instead of gazing out the office window or scrolling through Facebook during an idle moment, you can use that moment in another way. Connect with a friend by phone, water your plants, go for a walk. If you are out of work, you can use the time to learn a new skill or update your resume or LinkedIn profile. If you’ve been thinking about quitting your job and starting something new, the first (and often the hardest!) step may have already been done for you. Figure out what you want to do next and start preparing for it.
One of the most frequent things I hear from people is a statement that starts out with “when this is all over….” When what is all over? Life? No, this IS life. This is change. We’re probably not going to return to “Before” in terms of everything being exactly the same. We’re likely going to move on to “Next.” And Next will be different. I hear people talk about the “new normal” like it is some idyllic, static situation. It’s not. Many things will return to the way they were before, but many won’t. As an example, Kathy & I have found that cooking at home and not eating at restaurants is good for us. Maybe that’s our Next. It’s probably not a good idea to hop onto a cruise ship for a while. Maybe that’s our Next. We can’t wait to get in the car and drive 5 or 8 or 10 thousand miles on a road trip. We could do that now but it probably won’t be a lot of fun. Hopefully in another month or two that might be possible. Maybe that’s our Next.
I’ve got a whole list of projects and priorities that I’m working on. I hope I get a lot of them accomplished. I also hope that I don’t, because that will hopefully mean that we’re getting back to some of the things we’ve had to put off during this time. We’ll see. But in the meantime, we’ll take a day at a time and when it’s time to pack the car and head off, you can bet we’ll be ready!
I’ve been amused by people’s interpretation of “stay at home.” Conversations about going out seem to be punctuated by a lot of “excepts.” I’m only going to the grocery store “except” Lowe’s for tomato plants, Target for something, Walmart for something else, some restaurant for carry out. Every day! If “hunkered down” means behind the steering wheel, people are all over it! 🙂
I read an article this morning talking about how people have been turning to junk food for “comfort.” I guess some people will use any excuse to get into bad habits. So I go to the grocery store with my mask, my gloves and my hand sanitizer – and maybe a haz-mat suit – to buy Beefaroni and Cheetos? We avoid putting one kind of poison into our bodies just to buy a different kind of poison? Doesn’t make sense to me! But I promised not to judge, so I won’t. Unless you’re an idiot, then I’ll judge. 😉
Friday is trash day in our neighborhood, and once in a while on my morning walks I come across something that’s a little bit different or interesting. Since the Goodwill store is closed, I guess people are just throwing stuff in the trash. That’s a shame, although I suspect that a lot of stuff that Goodwill gets will eventually end up in the trash. This morning there was a set of golf clubs sticking out of someone’s can, I recently got rid of a set of my own (less a sentimental putter), but I took them to Goodwill. Not that I know, but the ones I saw this morning looked better than the ones I got rid of. No, I didn’t bring them home.
Later in my walk I passed an empty box from a 75″ television. 75″! Lordy that’s huge! The “recommended viewing distance” for a 75″ 4G TV is 8-12 feet. First of all, I only have maybe 3 walls in my entire house to hang a TV that size, and there is only one of them where I could get that far away! Yikes! We don’t even have a TV, although we’ve been contemplating buying one just to watch old movies. In the meantime we’ve watched a few on my 24″ computer monitor. That seems large enough!
Something else I wanted to mention. I know that a few people who read my blog might have something interesting to say in reply, but don’t feel comfortable posting a comment. That’s OK! If you are an email subscriber, replying to the email you receive will come directly to me and not post to the blog. If you subscribe via an RSS feed, you can send me an email directly at tomdills (at) tomdills.com. I welcome the dialog and feedback, and I don’t judge!
One of our local columnists wrote recently about an experience he had with some people wearing and some people not wearing masks. He described a situation where he was waiting for a carryout order outside a restaurant. He and the other two people in line were wearing masks. During this time, a person without a mask walked into the store, picked up his order and left. Those standing in line were apparently incensed by – not the idea of the guy cutting in line – the fact that the guy was not wearing a mask.
The writer opened his post by stating that “There are plenty of ways to divide us into two types of people. I think the newest way is this: Those who wear masks when they go out and about, and those who don’t.” He closes his article by stating: “if you’re wearing a mask, it shows that you’re thinking about others. And if you don’t, it feels like it’s all about you.”
My reaction to his statement is that we already have way too many ways to divide people like us and people who aren’t like us. The mask thing is just something else for people to be divided and self-righteous about. We were already harboring an overly-reactive state of suspicion and paranoia before the virus arrived. We don’t need to be thinking up new ways to judge people.
A month or so ago, the “experts” were telling us that masks weren’t necessary. But now, a different set of “experts” is telling us that wearing a mask “can’t hurt” or something to that effect. And yes, I understand that a small percentage of the population might be “carriers” and not know it. Both approaches are right, neither of them is wrong.
My concern with masks is that they give people a false sense of security. Just like someone taking a cholesterol medicine rationalizes that he/she can eat anything he/she wants, wearing masks makes people think they are “safe” when the safest thing to do is to stay the f*** home.
Because we are dealing with incompetent, ineffective and inconsistent leadership at all levels in this country, particularly at the national level, no one really knows who or what to believe. We as a society act like a flock of sheep. Where the crowd goes, we follow. When it comes to knowing what to do in a crisis, we tend to follow the one with the loudest voice. Right now that voice is hollering about masks.