So, I Have a Suggestion for Mask-Wearers

Oh, trust me, I am among you.  I have multiple masks which get regularly washed and worn.  You can protest all you want how it takes away your freedom to be told to wear one.  Go and have that argument with someone who has a loved one in the hospital trying to survive COVID-19.

Sorry - this was supposed to be a short and slightly humorous.  Here's the thing.  We all find masks and face coverings  warm, acne promoting, eyeglass steaming, restrictive, annoying, can't wait to get them off our face apparel.  But for the moment, this is where we are in our existence.  However, I firmly believe that there will come a day in the not so distant future (not this year - sorry) that SARS-CoV-2 will be controlled and we will be given the all clear to take off our masks and leave them off and we won't be sorry we did.  Take a moment to think about that day to come and smile.  

Now, what the heck are we going to do with all the masks we've accumulated.  Toss them all out?    Aren't the landfills and trash barges overcrowded enough as it is?  But the reality is that that's likely what the majority of people will do.  Oh, some will hold onto them for the next pandemic or "just in case".  Some will donate them for use for something else somewhere else.  Some will try to recycle them a bit, wash them one last time and then use them as dusting cloths, piece them into post-COVID quilts, or turn them into fashion that isn't worn on the face for a change.  There is no perfect answer as to what to do with them all.

Yet, I have this suggestion for one of your masks.  Just one.  Burn it.  

I know this has already been done in protest by anti-mask wearers, a STUPID gesture if ever there was one.  I also realize this is an untimely suggestion in the face of wildfires burning on the West Coast of the U.S., and I mean no disrespect to those who fight the fires and those who have sadly been impacted by any loss as a result of that devastation.  However, I'm talking controlled, celebratory ignition of a single face mask that wouldn't be happening right away, and by the time we get there, we might be ready to do more than just toss them all in a trash can.

Although I'm old enough to have burned my bra during the early days of the feminist movement, I never did.  It was symbolism, pure and simple, and not really necessary.  But, the liberating aspect of the action does have some appeal, especially after all these months of being compliant in covering  noses and mouths with paper or fabric protection.  

Again, I don't think the final day of wearing masks against COVID-19 is happening in the immediate future.  But it will happen soon enough, and when it does, even if it's just me, a mask and a match in my driveway, there's gonna be a celebration.

Summer Wonderland - Silly Poetry for a Sunday Afternoon

 This is what happens when it's 93°F outside and 86°F inside (except in the air conditioned bedroom).

Note, this can be sung to the tune of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland'".  Just follow the bouncing ice cube.

Enjoy.

Summer Wonderland

A/Cs run, are you listening

In the sun, the heat is blistering

You hope for a storm

Cause it’s just too damn warm

For walking in a summer wonderland

 

It’s July, expect a heat wave

That makes you want to find a deep cave

Or a lake or a pool

Where you hope the water’s cool

For swimming in a summer wonderland

 

Hopefully by midnight, it will cool off

To 70 or 80 degrees

Then maybe you can get some decent snooze time

And not have it be a sleep tease

 

Later on, we’ll conspire

To find some fun before we tire

Of humidity and heat

That just can’t be beat

And move to a winter wonderland

Depression Versus Personal Evolution

In the social isolation state we presently are still in, there have been many times of too much time on my hands and surfing the internet trying to relieve the boredom.  Trust me - it doesn't work all that well.  Get outside and take a walk.

So many tests online which are based in psychology or pseudo-psychology and so little time to explore them all.  But one I've taken in the past pre-COVID-19 is the Goldberg Depression Test.  It's a series of statements that you agree or disagree with with regard to your mental state.  Not surprisingly, I've ended up getting scores which show I might be "mildly depressed" lately, and I wouldn't disagree.  It's hard to be a perpetual optimist in our present situations (yes, plural).

I bring up the test for depression for a reason, though.  One of the statements on it, paraphrasing here, is that you've lost interest in something that you used to enjoy.  This one always bothers me.  Yes, I've lost interest in things which I used to enjoy.  I used to love gory horror movies.  I used to love fried foods.  I used to love Baroque styled anything, the gaudier the better.  I had a fascination with tempting fate and police and going above the speed limit when I had a car that could that.  I used to love fast and crazy amusement park rides, although anything that turned me upside down was never a personal favorite..

Now, there are those who would ask what's wrong with any of that.  Nothing.  But for me, they've lost their appeal.  But is it depression or personal evolution that has caused this turning away?  Am I teetering on being depressed a point or so more as a result, or is it merely a result of time and experience having their way with how I think?

Tastes change.  That which we loved as kids and young adults many times goes to the wayside as we "grow up."  How do you tell the difference?  If something that you did and enjoyed, but no longer do makes you wonder, "What was I thinking?" like buying green and pink horizontally striped palazzo pants might do, then it's personal evolution.  To those who might like that clothing style, apologies (but what are you thinking?????)

I've found that my taste in things has become simpler and I'm good with it.  I still like things that others would consider nuts – ask me sometime how often I challenge my stomach and colon with spicy food that rates a 6 out of 10 or better on the kick-ass heat scale.   Perhaps it's age, a slowing down and not taking as many risks, of finding joy in less complicated moments.  

But is it depression to lose interest in things?  The answer is not always.

Back Again

So, let's see.  I posted once and only once this year for my infamously inane "Countdown to Spring" series.  It was a year before that for the last post, also for that series.  As deconditioned as I became physically, especially in the last three months (thank you COVID-19), I became similarly out of shape creatively.  Not just in not posting anything here, but in general.  It wasn't that life got in the way, but more that I let it get in the way and let things slide.  There's always a reason to not do something that's good for you, right?  Too tired, too busy, too stressed and the biggee, too lazy.

Well, just as I started eating properly and exercising again, I'll start getting reacquainted with my creative side, both here and in general.  I don't have much of an audience for this blog anymore because I haven't been posting.  It's now mostly made up of spammers looking to hawk their product in the comments section.  Bad news for them, the comments section is moderated.  But maybe, with time, folks will come back.  We'll see.  Even if they don't, I'll still be writing here.

And to my muse, which likely took an extended vacation in idyllic locations that I always wanted to go to, it's time to punch the clock.

Landfill Versus Petri Dish - The Return of the Plastic Shopping Bag

Throughout the country, municipalities had been enacting laws banning the business practice of one-time use plastic bags.  Those ever so convenient bags that proudly bore the store's logo and were readily available at each checkout that you'd just pull open, fill, take off the holders, put in your cart and repeat until done were going away, becoming obsolete one city or county at a time.  In their place, reusable bags made of various materials that consumers would purchase, fill, take home, then bring back and use again were to become the norm.  No longer would consumers collect the one-timers and reuse them for trash, or just toss them out after one use.  No longer would these bags clog our landfills, streams, etc. and become the bane of our ecologically-conscious existence.  That was the plan.

Then along came COVID-19.

The thing about those reusable bags is that we weren't always treating them with the respect we should have been.  Specifically, they weren't always being cleaned.  Some of the materials used didn't handle the washing too well, while others simply never saw the interior of a laundry room too often.  We'd reuse them until they were visibly less than spiffy, then clean them, retire them to other duties, or toss them like the one-timer plastic bags before them.  They became transfer points of grocery store germs to home and back again, now with our house germs included, and each time they were used without being washed and/or sanitized in some way just compounded the problem.  Most, but not all of those little micro-buggers that were being carted back and forth were harmless.  However, our latest coronavirus visitor which has caused a pandemic in its wake has also made us aware of our bad habits with regard to those lovely reusable bags, and the outcry against their use has been getting louder and louder.

In response, stores have started to bring back their one-time use plastic bags, with some not allowing customers to use the bags they brought with them. The holders for the one-time use bags were still there because they were convenient to hang the reusuable bags on to fill. Local lawmakers who had seen fit to try and save the planet one piece of molded plastic at a time now had to agree that, for the moment, one-time use bags are the more sanitary option.

So, they're back, folks, likely for the duration of this health emergency, slowly making a comeback to a store near you.  One-time use bags once again have their place in our lives.  We will use them and toss them and repeat that process the next time we buy goods to go in them.  Reusable grocery carriers will eventually regain their status as our beloved food transporters.  But until then, do us a favor and wash them.

Where in the World is COVID-19 and Why Do I Care?

There are ads on the internet and links on government sites for the public to track this latest coronavirus threat, COVID-19.  You get to know where it's been diagnosed and how many deaths have occurred as a result of it.  Numbers and pictures, data in colorful graphs.

So, here's my question – why do I want to track it, get a breakdown of where it is country by country, state by state, county by county, town by town?  Why is it necessary for me to know the most up-to-date numbers on the subject?  It doesn't raise my awareness that there is a pandemic.  I'm already there, thank you, perhaps more knowledgeably than others on the subject.  It doesn't make me wash my hands any more frequently than I already do - they look like Death Valley in summer, by the way. and that's with using a moisturizer.  It doesn't scare me into compliance – with the exception of wearing a mask (that's another entry), I am as compliant as remote working, socially distancing, shopping cart wiping, donation making and hand washing allows me to be.  It doesn't make me want to move to a place where the numbers are less, either. I like where I am, and that would be unnecessary travel, anyway.

Normally, I'm a stats person, craving info like a good Reuben sandwich.  But knowing how many people have been diagnosed (not as many as have or have had it - that's another entry, too), how many have been hospitalized and, sadly, how many have died as a result of it holds no interest for me.  If it had a purpose in my life to know, then I would be all over it.  But it doesn't. It is more purposeful to me to hear and see how it's impacting us, to know how to help and, if need be, how to get help.

My life goes on in blissful ignorance that is the result of avoiding the number-crunching of COVID-19.  I can't get away from it completely, of course.  But like the virus itself, I can limit the possibility of exposure.

Countdown to Spring - Okay, So I'm Late

I normally watch Punxsutawney Phil on live feed getting dragged out what is likely not his den on Groundhog's Day to predict what the next 45 or so days will bring with regard to weather.  I was a little late trying to get on the official website  on February 2nd and therefore didn't get to watch live as Phil predicted an early spring.

I have on more than one occasion called Phil a "stupid woodchuck".  I'll do it when he predicts a continuation of winter-like conditions and has been right, and also when he's predicted early spring-like conditions and been wrong.  There's just no making me happy in February when all I want are warmer temperatures and nothing coming out of the sky that's frozen or freezes on contact with my deck, walkway, car, roads – well, you get the idea.  By this time, I'm tired of shoveling snow – even more so with the bum shoulder I'm nursing that really doesn't like the action of lift the snow/chuck the snow out of the way.  I'm tired of having to bundle up to go to my car and scrape the frost off and/or sit there with it to let it warm up before heading to work.  I've gotten tired of cats that won't even venture outside until the temperature's above freezing (they have a cat door - there is no excuse).  I am tired of houseplants that shed in the winter, get luxurious when put outside in warm weather, then return to shedding within a week of being inside.  I like it when Mother Nature waters them and I don't have to, too.  I wistfully peruse seed catalogs, thinking about how beautiful all of it will look on the deck and balcony of my apartment, knowing full well that you can't really grow much of anything on a deck under a tree canopy that only allows full sunlight for maybe two hours a day and a balcony that can't handle a full blown sun-loving garden.

Yes, indeed, by February, my spring fever is more than apparent.  So when Phil predicts an early spring and it doesn't happen, I want to call for his removal as a meteorological prognosticator.  But except for a few days of chilliness and a day or so of mixed precipitation that disappeared within a day each time, Phil has been on the money this year.  Temperatures in the 40s and 50s, rain instead of snow.  I can take it.  Yes, I know there's a downside to having early warm temperatures, including early and increased insect populations, an increase in allergies, etc.  But this year, I just don't care. 

So, I sincerely hope it stays nice right up until spring and beyond.  Let Punxsutawney Phil be right in his prediction right up until March 19th and beyond.  After all, I hear woodchuck stew is kind of fatty and gamey.

Only 25 days until Spring.