Well. Let’s hope it’s the light, not a will o’the wisp.
Ever have a moment of Insight when you realize holy sh!t of course that’s IT!???
So I’d made an appointment at the Mayo for 1:15 this afternoon, after calling one of their redoubtable RNs and describing this weird tingling in my hands and on the soles of my feet. It’s been going on for a while and…and…well…tingling hands can be a sign of multiple sclerosis. Years ago, after an episode that was almost certainly an ocular migraine (but has never been proven to be or not to be, one way or the other), an overenthusiastic ophthalmologist told me he thought it could be a symptom of impending MS.
Shee-utt.
This was the same quack who later announced that I had a melanoma inside my eye. This led to about a months’ worth of frantic worrying, rewriting my will, figuring out how my kid would be cared for and on and hysterically on. The ocular oncologist he sent me to took one look, snorted, and said “That’s not cancer! that’s a congenital thing and it’s harmless. Get outta my office!”
So I’m thinking how MUCH, how very much I do NOT want to make that hour-long trek out to the Mayo Clinic and once again explain myself to a skeptical doctor and what’m-i-gunna-do-if-this-is-MS-holy-shit when…yeah…a moth-like thought flutters past:
Hey, stupid…Yeah, you, that one! What have you had your hands in that might have irritated your dainty skin?
Uhm. Well.
Every time I drive around in the car — like, say, trudging out to the dermatologist’s office yesterday and over to the QT Monday buying gasoline — I pull a wet Lysol wipe out of the plastic canister that resides on the passenger seat and scrub down the steering wheel, the gear shift knob, the keys, the this, the that. Monday I wrapped the gas pump handle in wet Lysol wipes and then scrubbed my credit card with another one of them. If I go into a grocery store, I carry a couple of those wipes and wipe off the handle and kiddy seat on the grocery cart. And o’course, every time that happens I get this Lysol disinfectant stuff all over my hands and forearms. And…and…what’s IN that stuff? A fine product called alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride. And what is that, you ask? That is something that the EPA recommends you not use. It causes…yep…contact dermatitis.
Hello? Could it be?
As for the feet? I walk around barefoot on broiling hot pavement two or three times a day. Is there some reason, d’you suppose, that the calluses on the bottom of my paws hurt? Duh!
So I call the Mayo (i really don’t want to traipse out there!!!), reach a nurse and explain my theory. I suggest that even if it is MS or diabetes, I’m not gonna die from it very soon. How’s about we postpone today’s appointment for a week and see what happens?
Amazingly, she thought that made sense! So, ô hallelujah, that little bit of misery is postponed.
So…what have you learned from your experience with the Covid Confinement and Overall Hysteria? Hereabouts, I have learned a lot these past couple of months, locked up in my house as though I were in Leavenworth’s solitary confinement row. Other than to walk the dog, I’ve been out of my house…what? twice? maybe three times since the first of April.
You wouldn’t think an inmate would gain much insight from just sitting around for day after day after day. But…to the contrary: a number of revelations have dawned, some small but a few large enough to make significant lifestyle changes.
For example…
Very possibly we gad around a lot more than we need to. I’ve bought a third of a tank of gas since the first of March. We’re eight days into June — more than three months later! — and my car does not need a refill.
Normally I buy gas about once every 10 days to two weeks.
The prepper strategy of storing up to a year’s worth of food and household supplies is not so crazy, after all.
As things get back to normal (if they ever do), I intend to store up at least three months’ worth and preferably more like six months’ to a year’s worth of nonperishable and frozen food, wine, and cleaning supplies.
Also, buy a case of your favorite wine, beer, soda pop, bottled water, or whatever. Keep it full: as you use one bottle, buy another to replace it.
Delivery services such as Instacart are awesomely wonderful, despite occasional lapses. If you plan your shopping carefully, these folks could help you to avoid boring trudges to grocery stores and Costco altogether once life returns to normal.
Their main drawback, for people who like to cook and to eat healthy foods, is that their runners apparently eat like most Americans do — out of boxes, cans, bags, and jars, or largely at restaurants — and so they have no clue how to select fresh produce.
A secondary drawback is that Instacart charges you more than in-store prices. Thus the privilege of having someone trudge through a store and then drive your purchases to your front door costs you a whole lot more than just the cost of Instacart’s chintzy tip to employees. There are times when this cost is richly worth it: if entering a grocery store entails risking your life, obviously a few extra bucks is not a barrier. And when you reach your dotage and are in no condition to traipse around a store that covers more than an acre — such as Costco — you would be well served by spending a bit more to get someone else to do the chore. It’s still a lot cheaper than selling everything you own to buy into a life-care community… But do be prepared to slip the runner an extra tip: they are not paid enough!
Use caution with Amazon.
Many of the vendors on Amazon gouge during a panicky period, even when the products they’re selling are plentiful and easy enough to buy in brick-and-mortar stores.
In a prolonged shopping panic, your pet’s favorite food is likely to be in short supply.
Especially if you have a picky cat, always have a substantial store of your pet’s food on hand.
So are basic products needed for at-home cooking, such as flour, yeast, salt, coffee, tea, chicken or beef broth, and the like.
Always have an ample supply of these on hand. Keep flour and yeast in the freezer. If you usually have one box, bag, or package of these, you should have two on hand.
Keep twice as much of any given staple as you would ordinarily buy.
For example, your pantry should have two boxes of salt, not one; two bags of flour, not one; two packages of pasta, not one…and so on to infinity. As soon as you run out of the first box and open the second box of, say, salt, buy a new second box next time you run to the store…so that you always have an extra supply of any staple product.
Same is true for household maintenance supplies.
Keep an ample supply of paper towels, toilet paper, dish detergent, laundry detergent, dishwasher tabs, window cleaner, toilet cleaner, and hand soap on hand at all times. Do not wait for these things to run out before restocking.
Keep your car’s gas tank topped up at all times, emergency or no emergency.
Never let it get below about 1/3 full.
If you cook on a propane grill, always have on hand at least three bottles of propane, and keep them full. Remember that if power fails, a backyard grill or hibachi may be the only way to cook food.
Don’t leave a bottle sitting around empty waiting to be refilled whenever you get around to it. Schlep it to the propane place as soon as it’s empty.
Keep fit with regular exercise, whether it’s walking, running, in-home workouts, or yoga.
If you’re allowed out of the house, bicycling and roller-skating are good strategies, too.
Be sure to keep adequate supplies of OTC meds on hand, as well as bandages, antiseptics, and antibiotic ointments. Same with medicaments for your pet.
You don’t want to run out of aspirin, Band-Aids, antacids, or allergy pills during a time of shortage.
You really should have a vegetable garden, no matter how minimal.
This does not have to be a big production. A few medium-sized pots on an apartment balcony will allow you to grow tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, and chard. If you have room, a two- or three-foot deep box will accommodate carrots, beets, turnips, even potatoes.
Have a hair style that doesn’t have to be trimmed frequently.
How can I count the ways that that I’m glad I let my hair grow long? When shoulder-length hair grows halfway down your back, what happens is…nothing. You just have long, spectacular hair.
There are going to be some serious changes in the way day-to-day business is done here at the Funny Farm. None of them, on its own, will be earth-changing. But taken together, they should add security and make life a lot simpler the next time a crisis lands on us.
What changes are you making, long-term, based on your covid-19 adventures?
Nope, I haven’t croaked over from covid-19 yet (though the accursed ragweed allergy was so exuberant this spring I came within an inch of running to the doc to get tested). Haven’t been killed in any protests — yet (though the temptation to riot in the streets is great: see b’low…)
The past couple weeks have rendered me incommunicado with…gasp!…work. A large and interesting project from a client is in-house. I should have turned it back to her before this, but a few other small distractions arose. And I’m nuthin’ if not easily distracted.
Three typical distractions this morning:
Her Majesty
The current battle in the Ant Queen Wars is in full sway. Her Majesty’s soldiers took possession of the kitchen counter, a matter complicated by the fact that I supposedly am not going into grocery stores and Home Depot…and I have no ant traps. Ordered up a package of bait that seemed to be highly reviewed.
Junk! The Queen’s minions recognized that stuff for what it is. So now we have another brand on order from Amazon, one that I’ve used before and…why didn’t I order that in the first place? Ohhhh well.
I thought the troops were entering the field of battle through some opening in the Cave of the Dishwasher, and so this ayem planned to call the handyman to pull the washer out from under the counter so I could sprinkle some DE under there. But by the light of dawn, the laydeez trail became visible: they had discovered an entry beneath the security screen on the side door to the garage. From there they marched across the floor to the kitchen door, where they managed to penetrate to the battlefield despite a thick piece of insulation along the doorjamb.
This was good. DE is not something you want to sprinkle liberally around a kitchen, and especially not on a counter — not unless it’s food-grade DE. This is swimming-pool DE, not something you’d normally choose to play with. But in the garage? WGAS!
So I bombed the trails across both entryways, handily repelling that battalion.
***
Earlier, it was out the door with the hound. We got out at 5 a.m. — hot and muggy even at that hour. The weather we’re enjoying is what I would call July weather. Usually in June it does not reach 112, and June is normally quite dry, so that the mornings and evenings are highly tolerable.
Not so, now: an hour’s walk through whatever that is out there turns into an uncomfortable traipse.
As we’re trotting homeward, a crazy lady hauls up behind us, yapping away as loud as she can yap.
I hate that. Most women do not know how far their voices carry outdoors, and so even normal conversation can be annoying from quite a distance. But this wasn’t conversation — she was alone. Finally I realized she was talking to herself in a loud voice…. But no…she wasn’t talking, she was singing. Sort of. More like squawking. She was moving faster than the dog and I were walking (which was as fast as I could chug along), and so instead of falling back, she was gaining on us.
At the corner of Neighborhood Lane and Feeder Street NW is a house where I often stop to chat with the residents. Butch is usually out puttering in the yard or the garage, with his wife Marge coming and going. If I can get to them there’ll be some safety in numbers, and if we have to we can go inside their house until the lunatic moves on. I don’t see him in his usual domain, but expect he’s in the garage.
As we come abreast of their house, the garage door opens and out comes Marge. I ask if I can hang around for awhile, and we wait together until the Loony Tune goes around the corner and heads south on Feeder Street. By way of polite small talk, I ask how they’re doing, and SHE says she just got back from taking Butch to the hospital for brain surgery.
Say what? She’s pretty upset, and I can tell you that she’s one tough lady.
She says that several years ago, Butch had three small tumors called meningiomas removed from the tissue that surrounds the brain (the meninges…hence meningioma). She said two of them were benign but one was ambiguous — not quite cancer, but not NOT cancer, either. As a result, he went through forty roundsof radiation therapy!
Holy crap!
What had her most upset right this minute was that because of the covid terror, they wouldn’t let her go in with him, and they will not let her visit him.
***
And in other news of how national events touch our lives… When Ruby and I got home, I picked up yesterday’s mail delivery as we walked past the mailbox. What do I find in the day’s catch but a pretty little check-sized envelope from the Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service.
Hot DAYUM, think I: this must be the ballyhooed second stimulus check! Must drive this thing up to the CU the minute they open, since the money bin is running dry.
No.
Not so much.
Rip open the envelope and find A CAMPAIGN LETTER FROM THAT BASTARD TRUMP RAVING ON ABOUT HOW WONDERFULLY HE AND HIS FELLOW REPUBLICANS (who, yes, dear fellow Republicans, do carry around his mud on their shoes) HAVE WANGLED THIS MUNIFICENT $1200 PAYMENT FOR US.
Holy goddamn shit. Excuse my language but it’s mild compared to the phrases passing through my mind.
Yes. That Bastard used taxpayer dollars — that would be your money and my money — to crow on and on about the CARES Act “which I proudly signed into law.” He personally loves you so much that he is “pleased to notify you” that your $1,200 payment (which, BTW, arrived here two weeks ago) is on its way.
Well. Does that mean he’s sending another $1200? Or is he just so stump-dump unaware he doesn’t know the money has already been sent out? Or so goddamned outrageously corrupt that he figures he can get away with sending out campaign mail on the taxpayer dime?
How is it possible to express my rage with the present State of our Union? If it were not 104 degrees at 9:00 p.m., I would cheerfully join the rioting mobs. Only be sure to wear a football helmet. Did you see where a couple of cops shoved a 75-year-old man off his feet and busted his head on the pavement? They were about to walk away and leave him there, as you can tell by a bystander’s video, when several onlookers told them they’d better call an ambulance.
And how did you like Der Wannabe Führer waving a Holy Bible around (upside down, aptly enough) on the steps of a church whose clergy and members could not agree less with his bastardry?
Oh, dear God. No wonder I’m not getting anything done. Back to work!
So…as all of us already knew (except apparently the eager beavers intent on turning a few bucks by lifting the quarantine before it made sense to do so), we’re being told that by this fall we can expect a second wave of the covid-19 plague. From the git-go, epidemiologists have been predicting this — and suggesting it’s likely to be even worse than what we’ve seen so far.
While the dust is partly settled, anyone with half a brain should be preparing for this. A new flare-up will entail even more frantic stockpiling and hoarding, and even worse shortages of food and household goods than we’re already seeing. Now is the time to learn some lessons from the Mormons and build a stash of frozen and nonperishable foods to last at least three and preferably six months.
Basically, what they suggest is that you build up your cache a little at a time: when you go to the grocery store, buy what your family needs…and then some. In other words, if you would normally buy one week’s worth of food, buy two weeks’ worth. That is, buy an extra month’s worth of storeable rations every 30 days. Once you have enough to cover a year, keep it fresh by using a little and then replacing it with each shopping trip.
I think this is a good idea, but…we don’t have that much time.
What we here at the Funny Farm do have is $1200 stuffed in our pocket from Uncle Sam. I propose to use that money to begin building a store of food and necessaries that will last at least six months.
First off, it seems to me we have two categories of goods in this department: one is household items, and one is food items.
We know that when the panic buying began a couple months ago, the first thing people ran for was paper towels and toilet paper. Soooo…. Now that those things are available again, clearly they should be at the top of the list of things to stash in the storage closet. To that I would add batteries, propane, laundry detergent, dish detergent, window cleaner, soap, shampoo, disinfectant.
So, calculate how much you use over, say, a month, and buy six times that much. I personally don’t use all that much of these goods, so a single Costco junket could fill up the garage storage closet with enough to last for half a year. If something is being rationed, then it’s a matter of visiting several stores a number of times, accruing as much as you can and stashing it in storage.
Don’t have enough room in your home to hold a six- to twelve-month supply of household goods? Well…what’s to stop you from renting a storage unit? Paper towels don’t have to be refrigerated, and neither do foods that are not fresh or frozen — that is, canned goods and dried foods such as rice, pasta, and beans. Find the space to keep the stuff you know you’re going to need in the near- and middling future, and get it now, while things are relatively quiet.
Now…food is somewhat more problematic. I have a chest freezer that, organized properly, will hold a fair amount of stuff, and of course the refrigerator in the kitchen also has a small freezer. I would be surprised if these two, together, would hold six months worth of meat, vegetables, and other perishables. But I sure intend to try. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll buy another freezer. Better to spend a chunk of your government dole on food ahead of time than have to thrash around to get your hands on enough to provide a decent diet. Or enough toilet paper… 😀
Too, consider that you don’t need perishable foods to create meals that provide protein and nutrients to keep you healthy, especially if you supplement your stores with some salad greens & veggies from the garden. A combination of legumes (such as beans or lentils) with rice produces the complete protein that you get from meat, chicken, or fish. My plan is to continue doing exactly what I’m doing now: alternate vegetarian days with meat-eating days. This means that instead of having to buy 180 days’ worth of meat and fish, I’ll only need 60 days’ worth, which even my small trunk freezer will hold. Creative vegetarian dishes are good to eat and usually cost a fraction of a meal with a meat entrée.
Especially now that the cost of meat has gone through the roof. At one local grocer here, I saw beefsteak on offer for $22 a pound!
Pet food would also need to be stashed. Early on in the covid panic, I made a grocery-store run for friends who were in their 90s. They were concerned, among other things, about getting their cat’s preferred chow.
Couldn’t find even a tiny can of it on the shelves of two supermarkets. Had to substitute…and with cats, heaven only knows if the critter will eat it. Soo…. In the course of stockpiling human food, it would be wise to build a store of pet food, too.
To feed the corgi for six months (she eats just under 1/2 pound a day), I’d need 13 or 14 large rolls of fancy commercial dog food….or 6 to 12 packages of Costco pork shoulder (depending on the package size) and 12 packages of boneless chicken thighs. If you feed your dog kibble, you’d need to extrapolate 6 months’ worth from the amount you feed per day. I use kibble as treats, and so would probably need only one small bag.
So. This is going to be a project. Obviously I can’t bring that much stuff into the house in one swell foop. I’ll have to buy a little at a time over the next few weeks. Costco is rationing meat, so I may have to put my son up to buying pork shoulder and chicken thighs for the dog food.
A-n-n-n-d….just as I get this all figured out and a long-term list organized, Excel goes into a Spinning Mandala of Death! Dayum. I hate computers!
😀
Recovered most of it.
This is a project I need to start very soon. Step one, though, will be to clean out and organize the freezers!
To Choir or Not to Choir…that is the question. It’s not all that many weeks till choir season resumes. If the covid epidemic hasn’t passed by then…well…???? Then what?
Our church has been closed for weeks, and with it the wonderful, exceptional music program. This is a huge loss to our community…not just the religious types, but parents who avail themselves of the outstanding youth music training programs, open to all kids in our city, not just those of our co-religionists. And indeed, before I became a co-religionist, occasionally I would attend a Sunday service just to listen to the music: a typical Sunday morning service amounted to a free chamber music program. Still does, come to think of it.
For me, the prospect of an extended closure for the program, even if religious services resume, is difficult to contemplate. Choir is my main source of social interaction. As a hermit, I don’t really need human interaction to chug along happily enough. But…I’ve come to like it. I’ve gotten used to it. And I’m already missing it.
Meanwhile, I remain hunkered down at the Funny Farm, avoiding human contact as much as possible. This is not much of a problem for me, because I’m a solitary being that, weirdly (from what one can tell), enjoys solitude. I’m not going out until a vaccine is developed — and that’s likely to be a couple of years, pace our moronic excuse for a President.
Even if the present wave of infection subsides, in the absence of a vaccine the disease will certainly resurge, very likely with a vengeance. And a likely source of vengeful resurgence is a choir. Obviously, any interaction in public places will put you at risk. But choir groups, in particular, are high-risk environments during a contagion. This is because when you are singing and projecting and socializing and sharing snacks and generally carrying on in a group, you are also sharing your microbes.
Welp, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve picked up colds and the flu from fellow choir members. Choir practice requires close contact with your fellow singers, and often people show up whether they’re sick or not. This habit, it appears, is a part of American culture: gotta keep on going no matter what.
The state of Arizona is busily “re-opening” — prematurely, in the view of many experts. This will mean a lot more of the virus will be circulating than we had during our half-baked “quarantine,” when plenty of disease has been on the float. One of the risk factors that ups your chances of severe disease and death is simply having survived to age 65 and beyond. I am 75. And though I have no (zero, none) underlying conditions, just the fact that I’ve managed to cling to life this long puts me in the high-risk category.
Well, wait: we do have one underlying issue: I am exceptionally, irrationally susceptible to respiratory infections. If there’s a bug on the float, it’s not a question of whether I will catch it but when I will catch it. One doctor I had, noticing this predilection, ran a series of tests — just out of curiosity. And what did he come up with? Turns out there’s a small factor in my immune system that is essentially missing, so weak is it. And that, he hypothesized, explains why I pick up every bug that comes down the pike.
It is, as a matter of fact, surprising that I haven’t caught the covid thing yet. That probably is because a) I don’t live in a nursing home or life-care community; b) I rarely socialize; c) my son has been trying the best he can to keep me supplied so as to persuade me not to leave the house; and d) Arizona’s covid figures are relatively modest compared to other parts of the country.
Returning to choir in the fall, before a vaccine comes available, will almost guarantee that I catch it. And since there’s no such thing as “just the flu” for me — the flu is a serious thing when I catch it — that means I would be most foolhardy to go back to singing until such time as I can get a shot for covid.
I dunno. Maybe I’d druther be dead than linger on indefinitely without human company.
So I’m sitting here, as usual, like some unrepentant murderer in solitary confinement at San Quentin when…. DING DONG!!!!
Amazon dude.
He has the flour I ordered. And failed to notice was not 5 pounds but a piddling 2 pounds. This package would have been overpriced at 5# but at 2# it is the ripoff from Hell. But that’s neither here nor there.
The delivery dude is this kind of adorable Hobbit of a character. Within five minutes we learn he is Bosnian, he adores dogs (Ruby is attempting to love him into submission), he has German shepherds, here lookit the pictures of them on my phone, they’re Czech and German pedigree, and his wife is working at home, which sure saves a lot on the commute time, and he loves dogs, and he madly rubs his hands all over Ruby’s fur (uhmmm…Dude…did you realize that face mask is supposed to go OVER your mouth, not over the beard on your chin?) and as I’m thinking i’ll have to wash the damn dog and dry her before she can be allowed on the bed tonight and won’t that be fun goddamit!, he picks her up and PLANTS A BIG SLOPPY KISS ON HER ON THE HEAD.
Ho. Lee. Shee-ut!
’Bye! He finally leaves.
I drag Ruby into the backyard, grabbing a bottle of shampoo on the way — therewith to launder her.
Have you ever tried to wash the top of a dog’s head without getting soap in her eyes, while the dog squirms like an angry octopus?
Ruby puts up the Battle of the Titans. We fight and we struggle and we struggle and we fight and the minute I get the top of her head wet she goes SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE and splatters dirty, very likely virus-laden water into my face, my eyes, and my mouth.
Meanwhile, I’m late to go pick up the home-made face masks my neighbor has made.
I finally get the soap out of the frantic dog’s fur (I hope) and dry her off, perfunctorily. Race to the bathroom, scrub my hands and face with soap but there’s not much I can do about the dirty water that’s been sprayed into my eyes and mouth so try sloshing horrid mouthwash around in the maw. It has enough alcohol in it to burn like Hell, so maybe it will kill whatever viruses I haven’t swallowed. As for the ones that have made their way into my gut, the alcohol in a glass of wine is gunna hafta do the job.
Now I fly out of the house, leaving the confused dog standing in the middle of the kitchen, leap into the car, and charge down to the neighbor’s place. Discover this part of the ’Hood has become considerably eccentric since the last time i walked through that little cul-de-sac. Weird. Grab the face masks out of the mailbox, leave some bucks for the artisan, fly back to the house. Throw my clothes in the washer, jump in the shower, scrub my hair, scrub my face again, scorch my mouth with mouthwash again, curse one WHOLE helluva lot. Dry the dog off some more (corgis have thick fur, even when they’re not the long-haired variety).
F**kkkk! We havean interesting article reporting that by far the largest number of covid cases requiring hospitalization in downstate New York has occurred among people who dutifully self-isolated, a report we had just begun to read when Amazon Moron showed up at the door.
So I’d made an appointment at the Mayo for 1:15 this afternoon, after calling one of their redoubtable RNs and describing this weird tingling in my hands and on the soles of my feet. It’s been going on for a while and…and…well…tingling hands can be a sign of multiple sclerosis. Years ago, after an episode that was almost certainly an ocular migraine (but has never been proven to be or not to be, one way or the other), an overenthusiastic ophthalmologist told me he thought it could be a symptom of impending MS.
Every time I drive around in the car — like, say, trudging out to the dermatologist’s office yesterday and over to the QT Monday buying gasoline — I pull a wet Lysol wipe out of the plastic canister that resides on the passenger seat and scrub down the steering wheel, the gear shift knob, the keys, the this, the that. Monday I wrapped the gas pump handle in wet Lysol wipes and then scrubbed my credit card with another one of them. If I go into a grocery store, I carry a couple of those wipes and wipe off the handle and kiddy seat on the grocery cart. And o’course, every time that happens I get this Lysol disinfectant stuff all over my hands and forearms. And…and…what’s IN that stuff? A fine product called alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride. And what is that, you ask? That is something that the EPA recommends you not use. It causes…yep…contact dermatitis.
