Kimmers was out early again this morning for a solitary walk in the semi-dark where he listens for the whispers of Mass Street. And again with the frigid fingers on my neck when he got back – from Zen to zing!
I’m way out of practice corralling my thoughts. I no sooner decided yesterday that I was tuning the world out for the weekend than I found myself posting stuff all over Facebook – gurl, what ARE YOU DOING? Much like breathing, it just happens, and it takes vigilance to keep from absorbing all the vibes.
Ignoring reality leaves me two primary options: escapism and introspection. Relative to the latter, I like this analysis of friendship styles:
SPOILER ALERT: I am most definitely the alien, minus the “very charming” part.
So yeah, just enjoying the season… having a Saturday, doing Saturday things… moving on from introspection to escapism now…
My t-shirt, a gift from Joy, says OPTIMIST across the back so I should at least try to uphold truth-in-advertising today and I’m off to a good Saturday start…
I slept through the sun’s bold appearance this morning and by the time I opened my eyes everything had faded to gray – early bird gets the pageantry. Kim came in after his walk and threatened me with icy fingers but this lump of Zen was not having it. He played PickleBall outdoors at SPL yesterday and they’d planned to do that again today, but the wind’s coming up so he might be trapped… yikes. We may be forced to have another nice soak just to put the day on track.
It’s Friday, which is always fairly stunning now… the days are sometimes endless but the weeks and months disappear like smoke. So… the weekend. All the same stupid, scary shit that was out there yesterday is still there today, only more so, having bred and multiplied overnight… but I’m deciding to subtract it from my conscious existence until Monday morning. I’ll see things, I’ll read things, they’ll simply be none my bidness ’til I say so.
The Jayhawks won last night… by 1 point. They’ll forever be the Heart Attack Kids – they’re like Mr. Patrick Mahomes, who undoubtedly did ALL his book reports on Sunday night before the school quarter ended. Energizing, to say the least.
We finished The Queen’s Gambit… reluctantly… last week, and I’m ready to watch it all over again NEXT week. Stellar production, best overall series in a long time, just too brief.
In the interest of strengthening my resolve to keep on the sunny side, I raided my California-by-way-of-North-Dakota friend Steve’s timeline again…
**************************************
**************************************
**************************************
**************************************
**************************************
**************************************
**************************************
Hello, #lfk weekend… let’s do this.
Photo Credit: Kim Smith, Kaw River, 12/18/2020, no editing
It was just as cold early this morning as yesterday, but Kim geared up and went walking anyway, bringing back this totally #lfk pic snapped in South Park, and a bagel. Quiet morning… he’s been playing guitar for the last hour or so… I’m spaced off reading and drinking coffee. It’s a Tuesday in December, pre-Christmas, pre-New Year’s, pre-resolution, a gray, cold, breezy day that calls for telling myself “Nothing’s really going to happen today, so just roll with it some more.”
The 2020 election has been certified by the votes of the electoral college, but unlike in any presidential race that I know of, other than Bush/Gore, that fact hasn’t settled the matter. While we wait and hope civil war won’t break out, I’m trying hard to peer through the windows on the other side and arrive at some state of comprehension. As usual, my Twitter friends are helping with that…
The Proud Boys were out on Saturday night, terrorizing Washington, D.C., but they met with a police force determined to protect the city, raising the obvious question, “What are the Proud Boys proud of? Being Meal-Team Six in skirts?”
His mama must be proud, but what time does he have to be home before she locks the basement entrance?That catchy motto clearly means with EACH OTHER.
Then there’s this. People really believe these things and it takes my breath away…
So yeah, I wouldn’t want Uncle Joe either if I thought he was all about THAT shit. A serious problem I see in all this is that the average American can’t define and delineate among the concepts of communism, socialism, fascism, and capitalism. It’s a fuzzy jumble in their brains and “the only possible right answer is capitalism, so just shut up about the rest and stop scaring us. Give us what we think we want.” Fortunately, it looks like they won’t get that, but we do know one thing…
All I want today is peace – from the knowledge that the nation is righting its course, the people I love are safe and well, and the future still holds possibilities for healing. That would be entirely enough for now.
It was 16º out when Kim got up so he postponed his walk and turned the heat on for the first time – the fireplace has been handling it okay ’til now but the cold made it all the way inside overnight. It’s the height of privilege to sit here in my little world with a silent space heater keeping my toes warm while I commune with friends online, read the latest news long enough to raise my heart rate, sip my coffee, and stay outta everybody’s face while Kim fills the spa tub. My self-orbit affirms that we humans really aren’t worth all the effort.
Sweet surprise this morning – Katie (cousin) called to wish me a Merry Christmas, catch up a little, and ask for directions. Emily & Savannah (daughter & granddaughter) are in Dodge City, America, of all places, on their way west and want to find the farm where Katie’s and my grandparents homesteaded and where I grew up, along with the family cemetery. Confusion and hilarity ensued for 15 minutes as Katie, in Florida, typed directions into her phone while I reconstructed the miles in my head. I think we ended up with a usable map but I’m also pretty sure Savannah will Google Earth it and they’ll be golden. Can’t wait to hear the………. rest of the story. And hopefully see some pics – I don’t know when I last saw the old neighborhood.
A cool find this morning – we had relatives in Sheboygan, and after visiting there when I was 3 or 4 years old the name became a treasured part of my vocabulary. Sheboygan… so delicious to say.
Strong waves at the lakefront, Saturday, December 12, 2020, in Sheboygan, Wis.
Routine used to be a four-letter word to me but with only upheaval everywhere I’m seeing its better side, which is comfort. Today’s Monday so I know what we’re having for lunch and that The Voice 2020 wraps up tonight and tomorrow, which is Tuesday so I know what we’re having for lunch then, too. The Amazing Race finale happens Wednesday night, and I’m not bothered by the fact that I have no idea what food I’ll be stuffing into my face that day. Space… options… comfort.
Comfort… that would be this man right here. I posted his picture the other day holding an elderly patient who was crying for his wife. Everyday heroes taking it to the stratosphere.
This is my 274th day isolating, starting in mid-March. For every one of those days I’ve spent in my perfectly great space whining and fretting, with tiny forays to see Rita or keep a doctor’s appointment, this human being has been at the hospital. His license plate reads CVD HNTR. Dr. Joseph Varon, a 58-year-old physician and chief of staff at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, has been hunting covid-19 for 270 days straight. He has not had a single day off since March. “I was meant to do this,” he says.
From The Washington Post: “Born and raised in Mexico City, and with specialties in pneumonology, intensive care, internal medicine and geriatrics, Varon was particularly well-equipped to wage war against a virus that has killed more than 290,000 Americans.” [Now over 300,000, post-WP publication.] His personal experiences, he said, prepared him for this moment.
In 1985, he was working as an intern in one of Mexico City’s largest hospitals when an 8.1-magnitude earthquake leveled the building. He watched many of his colleagues die that day. “I have seen disaster up front all of my life,” he said. “The only thing that scares me is corona” — a disease he calls “short-term AIDS” — and its unpredictability.
Mid-interview, Varon had to duck out. He followed up with a text: “I just admitted 6 covid patients in the past 60 minutes,” he wrote. “It is absolute madness.”
As the medical staff at UMCC witnessed the psychological effects of isolation in patients, Varon instructed staff to wear large photographs of their faces hung around their necks, so that patients could recognize the person who was caring for them behind those “space suits.” One day, he went in to see patients with a picture of Brad Pitt attached to his personal protective equipment suit, eliciting laughter from even those who were the sickest.
“Other doctors stay behind the lines, they do not get their hands dirty,” said Tanna Ingraham, an ICU nurse at UMCC hospital, who was also hospitalized with covid-19 for 12 days. “He is totally hands-on and treats every single one of his patients as if they were his family members.”
Everyday heroes… 💙
Today, December 14, 2020, clusters of everyday heroes are gathering in State Houses across the country to do the right thing on behalf of democracy, speaking in the prevailing voice of the American people. We will owe them our future and our lives.
As of 3:30pm I’d moved just enough today to let Kim know I was still alive. He walked early this morning, made Saturday breakfast for Sunday, we both spaced off via the internet, and watched Mahomes & Company whoop up on Miami, although we were none too sure for a while there. Kim’s making a grocery and On The Rocks run and then we’ll be tucked in until tomorrow. Sundays in #lfk are quiet as the prairie.
Yesterday he made a loaf of banana-salted-almond-chocolate bread and glazed it with powdered sugar mixed with pineapple juice. Oh my. Tasty. Good thing I can leave it alone once it cools off.
Texted with John for a bit this morning, a dependable day-maker. Nobody makes me laugh harder or cry sweeter tears… and what we don’t talk about stays with me more than anything I read or hear anywhere.
This resonates with me, even though I don’t have students:
One grandma was born in 1889, a grandpa in 1899. Late 1900s sounds just like that. Yikes.
With dark happening by 5pm we never mind being in where it’s cozy before then. Kimmers is back, groceries stowed, and I’m ready to rest from the day’s strenuous labors.
Photo Credits: Kim Smith12/13/2020
Top photo: Current occupant of Sunflower Bike Shop’s front window
Our weather change has arrived in temporarily-benign form… high of 45º today, in the 30s tomorrow, and 20s on Sunday, with chances of rain and maybe snow throughout. The good-idea man decided that on a wet chilly morning, making the Saturday breakfast on Friday would be just the ticket, and that man was so right. It was perfect, and he knows how to keep me quiet for a while…
Last night we watched the 2010 remake of “True Grit” with Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld, et.al., which neither of us had ever seen. Wow, what fun. Can’t go wrong with Coen Brothers! And Kim thought he’d seen ALL their stuff. Hailee Steinfeld was luminescent in this one, the writing is stellar, and, well… that cast.
After my usual foray into Facebook and Twitter this morning, and catching up on the headlines, I’m already taking evasive measures against the Blue Meanies, lest they crash my day for me. Cousin Michael passed this along…
Helpful…
The asparagus ferns on the balcony finally succumbed to cold temps and the fact that we forgot to water them, so we cut the planters free this morning and Kim hauled them down to the bin. They went above and beyond this year, and the balcony looks naked without them. Don’t think we’ll be spending a lot of time out there in the immediate future, though, so we’ll get over it.
Borrowing some inspiration from my North Dakota friend Steve Gelder this morning because despite what I’ve seen and read in my first hours awake, I can’t afford to spend today crying.
I went to bed last night thinking the weather was slated to change overnight, but instead we get a BONUS day. By the time Kim comes home around 3:00 or so, he’ll have played four hours of outdoor PickleBall, which will likely have to last him for a couple of weeks or more. So while he’s out storing up endorphins, I’ve been rattling around here unsupervised and I’ve actually made a bit of productive headway.
We’re into double digits for December already, which used to be the signal to panic. I haven’t sent out Christmas cards in decades, but if I were to ratchet that up again I’d probably choose this design:
Searching my psyche, looking for why THIS year I would feel my skeptical heart opening to Christmas magic. I think it’s the sweetness, the gentle spirit about the whole thing, the sense of kindness under it all. I’m hungry for purity and human caring, which is why anything containing those ingredients breaks me now. Like this performance by Carter Rubin on The Voice. He recently turned 15 and is one amazing soul… this is exquisite with headphones.
Keeping an eye out for the sweetness and the humor…
Yup, if you’ve eaten hot dogs, SPAM, Cheez Whiz, chicken nuggets, or any number of other weird American fare choices, you’ve put plenty of foreign matter into your carcass without asking a single question. Too late, friends and neighbors.
This little video is the only thing out there that could keep up with Carter today… it’s everything.
Woke up to a gentle sunrise, feeling grateful… just a quiet knowing that good finally wins out.
I’m thankful for the sunshine. This is our fifth day in a row of fair skies and milder temps, and that helps with absolutely everything. After today it’s winter again for a while, as is to be expected in December, but this has been good.
Kim took the photo above on his walk this morning of a window on Mass Street, and brought me a bagel, both of which made me smile and feel the thankfulness.
I just read through some of the comments on my blog and was teary-eyed grateful for so many genuine human beings who talk to me, here and on other social media. You’ve been my steady friends through all the crises, and I hope I’ve been yours.
I’m deeply grateful for writers, here and everywhere, who take me through the days in boxes filled with brilliantly-organized words. When you sit at your keyboard, and open a vein and bleed, it lets me into your world and all those beyond and I see you. You should feel seen.
I’m grateful always for Kim, in all things. His commitment to this household, formed from the two of us, goes above and beyond. I don’t deserve him but if he weren’t here I’m not sure I’d be ANYwhere.
I’m very thankful that Rita lives just across town, listens to my rants, loves me unconditionally, and is THERE. I’m undeserving of that after all the crap I pulled on her when we were growing up.
My gratitude, appreciation, and love for John know no limits. I can’t find words for the magnitude of my respect for him, and my deep thankfulness for his caring. Best. Ever.
I’m thankful, grateful, indebted to the people out there who’ve been fighting both coronavirus and their fellow citizens for nine months, with no good end in sight until truly effective vaccines can be delivered and administered in such numbers as to slow the roll and finally stop it. We don’t deserve those people at all, and without them we mos def would not be around much longer.
Kim’s psychic photo reached out and grabbed me this morning. Some people call melancholy souls *feelers* and on occasion feelers have been known to know things. You don’t really know… you just KNOW. It’s a curse because when you feel in your bones that something’s going to happen and nobody believes you, what are you supposed to do with that?
So you write, you spill all of that between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place angst onto the page and leave it screeching in its death throes while you walk away… and pity the poor soul who happens upon the steaming pile. For an anxiety-ridden little lump of flesh, practically from birth, it’s possibly odd that I prefer to deal in nothing less than truth. Hit me with it straight on, I’ll sort it, and I’ll do what has to be done. And having put it out there that way, I see that dealing with life head-on is how I handle my built-in anxiety – just do it. There are facts hitting us in the face every day now that we can’t run from and they aren’t going away, so I look, absorb, adjust, and carry it ’til bedtime. Thank the universe I sleep like the proverbial dead.
Since this was created the events of 9/11 have dropped at least two places and within a week will no longer be on the graph at all.
Sunshine again today and we’re soaking it in. Kim gets to play at Lyons Park this morning, and he’ll probably pick up Mexican food on his way home. Meanwhile, maybe the light pouring through the blinds will inspire me to great heights of… cleaning off my desk? … writing something? … doing laundry? … anything could happen.
A couple of people have asked me why my staying in does any good if Kim does things outside the house, and I’ve been giving it some thought…
It automatically cuts our risk of contracting COVID-19 in half
Kim is swift in his rounds, always masked near people, and instinctively careful
Anything that gets him outside adds to his overall good health
Circumstances keep me from being similarly active, and home is the well I draw from
Since I’m privileged to be able to stay home, this is what I can do to help the cause
Somebody has to go out and do the things
We knew this pandemic for what it was early on and made a conscious decision to follow the protocols
*Safe Zones* are like a peeing section in a swimming pool – we’re all still floating in the same atmosphere
It’s far from over, so if anything our resolve to help beat it has been magnified
And at this point I’m sufficiently disillusioned with the idea of human kindness to stay in my cave forever
For the record, it’s not me I’m concerned about.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the current administration has blood on its hands, is in fact up to its neck in it. If ALL LIVES MATTER, then an obscene number of them have been sacrificed to ignorance, incompetence, denial, hubris, arrogance, and greed. It didn’t have to be this way…
Pollyanna always has to end on an up note or surrender her Optimist card…
Another nice day so Kim played at Lyons Park and I went over to Rita’s for a few hours. Fun time and good to catch up again – she’s still sorting out from the events of the summer and fall but making terrific headway. Preston and Jade both slept the whole time I was there and her cozy house was welcoming and Zen – just what the doctor ordered.
Home now, settling into the evening groove, watching the cars and foot traffic below my window, wishing it wasn’t going to be dark in an hour, tiptoeing through the dusky limbo, waiting for something to pierce the shell and present itself as real life. Kim’s here and he’s real. His 49ers are playing the Bills tonight and that’s real stuff. Life gradually breaks through again.
Reality is sometimes overrated, but I vastly prefer it to delusion even when it hurts. Today we mark the 79th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, where almost 2500 Americans died in a single day. For each single December day leading up to this commemoration, U.S. coronavirus deaths looked like this:
Reality intrudes despite all efforts to drown it out, and sweetness and light can’t exist without it, so when there’s no way back to what was, you go with what is – the good stuff – and the lights start to come on again. A steady hand to hold is a sweet gift while you wait.
Sweet Sunday. I slept straight through for 12 hours and woke up to sunlight behind the blinds. Great breakfast, nice long becoming-conscious time, and Kim made Orange Creamsicle bread and iced it. Now he’s headed over the bridge to play PickleBall in NoLaw.
I finished a deeply-affecting book yesterday… SHE COME BY IT NATURAL by Sarah Smarsh, an honest telling of Dolly Parton’s life, or key parts of it. Sarah’s a Kansas girl who commands my respect in every way. This from Wikipedia:
“Smarsh was born in rural Kansas and grew up on farms and in small towns. Her family moved frequently and she attended eight schools before she reached ninth grade.[7] She attended the University of Kansas starting in 1998, and received her MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University.[8][9]
Sarah takes us into Dolly’s psyche in an almost first-person voice, thanks to how much of the same story she lived and her uncanny ability to translate that into such a compelling narrative. As a consequence, Dolly Parton, a woman I’ve always instinctively liked but never taken the time to know, has joined my Most Admired Females list, near the top. As with most memorable stories, I laughed and cried in equal measure, learned much, and was sorry to reach the last page.
I’ve immediately started another called THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING by Richard Flanagan. One chapter in, I think I guessed right again.
Too comfortable to get dressed and go see Rita while Kim’s playing, although we’ve talked about it extensively since Thursday. I distinguish weekends from week days by totally pulling the plug, and once the battery has run down the catatonic state is hard to overcome. It’s all about state of mind and what I’m up against is the sorry state of mine. Don’t care, sun’s shining, somebody’s sportsing on TV in the other room, and I’m surviving in style.
Passivity has taken me to a severely rudderless point… how ever will I right the ship again and head for true north? Some days it simply isn’t worth chewing through the restraints, and that’s not even a whine, just a fact. So I’ve been on a hunt this morning for things that take me outside my ridiculous self and break the ennui, this first of all for its x-ray vision:
This from an Australian beach. Wha… ?
Mothballed cruise ships and other vessels, in Greece I think. Some look quite longterm.
Whoa, gotta go!
Christmas joy in the U.K.
HOUSTON, TX – NOVEMBER 26: Dr. Joseph Varon hugs and comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) during Thanksgiving at the United Memorial Medical Center on November 26, 2020 in Houston, Texas. According to reports, Texas has reached over 1,220,000 cases, including over 21,500 deaths. (Photo by Go Nakamura/Getty Images)
The year 2019 was dicey and 2020 has broken me. So grateful that music and its people still heal us.
Good weekend, chilly with sunshine. The Chiefs and 49ers both won, and Rita came by for a while on Saturday.
Idle curiosity… we had stir-fry, but wondering how many people smoked a turkey for Thanksgiving?
A recipe I saved for Kim a while back, and you could substitute turkey for chicken…
I’d ask Kim to substitute thin crispy bacon for the thick cut, and less of it, but the rest of it sounds like… crack. Speaking of which, I should get cracking on something, like folding the laundry in the other room…
Kim went over to the barbershop at 7:00 this morning for a haircut and brought me a bagel from Einstein’s, always a happy surprise. Everything bagel with veggie cream cheese. Pretty heavenly. Cold gray day but sunnier in here for whatever reasons. Gonna try to keep it that way. This week’s reminder to give thanks is right on time.
PLAYING FOR TIME claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are the property of their respective owners. If there is an image on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it to appear on this site, please E-mail me with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed. Thank you.
Welcome to my weekly blog on life's happiness. We are all human and we all deserve to smile. Click a blog title or scroll down. Thanks for stopping by.
Creative humour, satire and other bad ideas by Ross Murray, an author living in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Is it truth or fiction? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
Playing for Time 
Join the conversation …