Monday blahs and everyday idiots

Yup, it's Monday.  Somewhere somebody's happy.

That is, of course, a lie.

But let's act like it isn't and someone thinks Monday is just fine.  Rah rah. 

But it's not.

Weekends are hard to differentiate. 

And this week I have almost nothing on my schedule.  Not even a single Zoom meeting, after a bevy of them last week.  (I'm working on my vocabulary)

Speaking of bevy (you knew I'd find a way to use it again), there have been a bevy of idiots roaming state capitols recently. 

Why do they wave Confederate flags?  They know they lost, right?  And they know they are protesting against state rights (which was kind of a big deal to the Confederacy) by protesting at the capitol, right?  That it is governors who have been doing the work on the pandemic while Washington is fighting them for test that will actually allow us to go back to normal?

Why do they bring their guns?  Is it because some states have closed gun stores as non-essential?  Unless you're using it to get your meat every day (and if you are I bet you already have at least one gun to do that), it's NOT essential.  And, just in case you don't understand, it won't work on the virus.

Oh, that's right, the whole Covid-19 thing is just another flu. 

Uh huh.   Covid has killed 40,000 plus Americans already.  That's 10 years of flu.  The thing these people don't understand is when we talk about flu-related deaths is that we report everybody who had the flu and anything killed them.  For covid, we are only counting cases that we KNOW were the virus (had to be tested positive).  If you never got tested and died suddenly and you had COPE or some other condition that might have killed you anyway, you aren't one of the 40,000.

And Dr. Phil saying we kill more people with cars each year: yes, and we have laws to try to reduce that every year, too.  Seat belts, air bags, speed limits.  If everyone went around going as fast as they wanted with no seat belts, bumpers, or airbags, how many people would we kill.  And let's not forget little kids and their car seats.  We bear the risk and try to be careful and not kill people.

Going out without a mask and getting inside the 6' zone of people, not washing your hands, etc, is like driving at 100 in a car without a seatbelt, heck, maybe not even a windshield (we mandate those too) and hoping you will be all right if someone pulls out in front of you.

So, that's today's rant.  I feel only a little better.  Maybe we'll have more fun tomorrow.   It IS Monday! 😡

In SAH, WFH, how do you know it's Saturday?

Saturday.  You know it's Saturday, right?

For reasons that have been obscured with time, I have studied Daniel Defoe's Journal of a Plague Year.  Written in 1722 about the 1665 plague in London -- when Defoe was 5.  In other words, he fudged a lot of the contemporary feeling of the "journal."

I wonder what they'll think 57 years from now reading about our pandemic months.  I mean, they'll see pictures of crowds, not social distancing, carrying AR-15s, with signs with swastikas, protesting that they don't have the freedom to...to...I actually saw one tweet pushing the opening of golf courses (which are somewhat open in some states).

But it's Saturday.

It's getting to be a struggle to track that.

How do you know it's Saturday?

First, you sleep in.  There's no "I gotta be up" to...no alarm.  Alexa isn't playing that call to action it does other mornings.

Don't do that?  Okay, let's be more subtle.

1) you don't have the usual for breakfast.  Right? 
2) you watch something different on TV -- not Morning Joe, not Fox and Friends, but instead maybe CBS Weekend Saturday. 
3)  you listen to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell (it's Saturday) on NPR.  Clearly, this is for a certain artsy reader, OC.
4) You actually do that exercise you haven't had time to do.
5) You watch sports.   Okay, I lied.  You don't watch sports.  It's reruns.  Were they showing Ohio State-Michigan?  Why do we care to see Michigan lose (which it has the last X years)?
6)  There's no "briefing" from the White House or the Governor.  Oh.  Never mind.
7) The dog or cat acts like you are acting wrong and you've messed up their schedule.

It's really tricky, isn't it?  But it's not 1665 London.  It's not even 1918 USA.  We can do this.  We can stay in our sweatpants (see yesterday's blog), we can keep eating and putting on weight, we can keep using Zoom like it's no longer annoying more than interesting. 

Tomorrow will be Sunday.  It'll be so different, right?  Right?  Right? 

Pants pants Revolution!

TGIF!  Yes, I said I'd remind you, a la the camel in the Geico ads, of "what day is it?"

It's Friday.   Day ??? of quarantine/stay-at-home/boredom city.

So.  I got my check from the IRS.  What are we calling it?  My bro-law says it's his "Trump check."  I've seen it called the stimulus check, but also seen someone say there's nothing really to stimulate.  It's the "not-enough-for-ten-weeks-but-they-gave-us-something" check. 

Or something.

So, I got my check.  And decided it was time to go shopping.

Because I'm tired of everyone humble bragging about hanging out in their sweats.

I haven't been. 

Then there are people wondering if it's bad they talk about wearing their "good sweats" (the answer is YES!).

So, I went shopping for sweats.

You think this wouldn't be a BD, right?

Sure. 

I started with Bombas, because there was an email yesterday from them claiming some kind of sale (ICYMI there's almost ALWAYS an email saying there's a sale, but that's another issue). 

So, I went and looked.  Quick couple clicks to their sweatpants.

$78.

SEVENTY-EIGHT DOLLARS?!?!!?!?  WTF?!?!?!?!?

Okay.  I'm going to admit this.  Other than a blazer, I have never paid $78 for a piece of clothing in my life.  Yesterday wasn't the day, and today isn't either.  Even with the "live on it for ten weeks" check in the bank (and, if you missed it, you ain't living long on $1,200 if you pay $78 for your sweats.  At least I'd think they'd be your "good" sweats).

But,

This gets better.

I go to my next option.  I will not tell you who, but another clothing retailer that advertises a lot on Sirius XM and does that subscription kind of thing, too. 

$128.

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS!!!!!!  Now, admittedly, they didn't call theirs sweat pants.  No, no, no, no, no!   Loungewear. 

I'm wondering what $128 loungewear bottoms will do for...this thought is not a wholesome one. 😇

Okay.  I move on, immediately after restoring my heart beat.

Third webpage.  For members, $48.  Really?!?!?  And I'm not sure what they were made out of.  They have a funky name for the synthetic for their yoga/lounge wear.  Don't you want your sweats made out of something more like cotton??!?!?  Yes.

I ended up (I'll name them, since it's not bad pub) spending $25 on a fairly fancy (for me) pair from LandsEnd.  Actually cotton.  Basic, solid color.  They will be my "good" pair (not owning another pair makes this easier). 

But can you believe it?  $78?  $128?  Even $48? 

Sure not doing a lot of that for very long on your Ten Week Check.

Manana.

Check, please! And the desire to "open"

It's Thursday.  Hump day came and went.  I had multiple Zoom meetings.  I wish I had bought Zoom stock back in say January -- but not being a US Senator I had no inside info that shit was coming. :)

Yes, the magic check appeared in my bank account yesterday.  It was less than calculated here, but then no one has a copy of the 2018 1040 sitting around.  Do you? (I know people who read this who will be saying "yes, duh" but I ain't one of them 😀) 

I told my bro-law I was thinking of investing it in toilet paper futures.  I saw on Twitter a paper mill in Maine that makes toilet paper burned yesterday.  😔 (acc to the key, this is a "pensive face." Really?!)

But today's "thing" has to be the acceleration of people wanting to "open the economy."  There was a protest in Ohio yesterday for the governor to let up restrictions.  I am not the first one to say this: it looked like a Zombie movie.

Then there's the Pennsylvania legislature.  If you don't know this, it's been Republican since 2010.  And we have a Democratic governor now in the middle of his second term. 

So the Republicans decided the governor wasn't doing the whole stay at home thing right, that more businesses should be open, so they passed a bill (SB613) that opens more businesses.   The liquor store was one of the ones frequently cited (PA is the only state that has closed them, deeming them non-essential.  Talk about a mistake in definition!!!).  Also, and more questionably, construction.  They want to go back to building stuff. 

The Democrats tried in both the House and Senate to add worker protections to the bill -- making wearing masks in stores mandatory for workers, more unemployment coverage, that sort of thing -- but failed.

Felt a lot like politics.

No one likes this.  No one likes not going out.  Few (now) like not going to work. 

But we all recognize this virus is deadly and spreads easily.  Today's message from our lieutenant governor seems to be "let's get to <1 reproductive value on the virus" -- which means every person gives it to less than one person.  Then it dies. A good message.

But let me finish with this for those out there protesting or legislating to open things up: you can do that all you want, and governors can say "we're open for business," but a lot of people (it'll be interesting to see how many) aren't going anywhere other than the grocery store or work -- depending on the environment and leave time -- until there's either herd immunity or a vaccine.  A lot of people aren't going to run out to businesses and buy stuff if they can get the virus.  A lot of people aren't going to restaurants to eat until there's almost no chance of getting something that can kill people in hours. 

So, acting like you're just going back to "normal" with an edict and wishful thinking is you being a dumb ass.

Have a good one.  We've almost made it through week 10 zillion of "Stay at Home" -- TGIF !!! woo woo. 

Waiting for Godot, aka what's not coming

Yup, I took a couple of days off.  Sunday was a holiday (did it feel like one to you? because here it felt like most other days, other than we had ham [which we never have except for...] for dinner), then yesterday was so Monday -- I had nothing to say.

We are all waiting.  For something.

I keep checking my bank app to see if the deposit has come from the Feds for my pandemic relief.  No, I don't really need the money; I'm fortunate to have a job, and my wife has one, which has kept us both employed for the duration (fingers crossed), but I just want to see it.  I know others have gotten theirs already.

But that's where we all are: waiting.  Hoping.  The stimulus check is just a symbol of that: waiting and hope.

It's Tuesday.  I should have led with that for those of you who forgot, haven't looked, and need me to tell you.  This has been a sensation the last week, the weather guy on the Cleveland morning show, with the same thrill we all feel about the days these days:

Other than tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow, as Macbeth puts it), what are we waiting for?

The end of quarantine, right?  And we keep hearing varied possibilities on that.  The governors of a bunch of states, including mine, came out yesterday with a task force that would help decide when we should "reopen" -- but there was no hint when that might be.

The ubiquitous Dr. Fauci said on a Sunday news show it could be mid-May (groan!) but hedged that with "in some places."

It ain't gonna be soon people.

So, let's remind each other what day it is, toss a bit of confetti in daily celebration, and wash our hands.  And imagine it could be worse.  It could be...

Saturday. No park. No moving. No money.

I saw someone call this Saturwednesday.  Funny.  I get the point.  Do you?

I've already lamented the lack of live sports on TV on weekends.  It's the Saturday of Easter weekend.  The sun is out and there are places with decent weather.  But no golf, no baseball.  And there's not even the NBA, which plays till at least Flag Day most years.

I saw someone on Twitter was doing live betting on card races.  I didn't understand it either, but there was a while group of guys, violating social distancing, and laying bets on which card moved up the board the fastest, based on a draw of the deck.

We're in trouble here, folks.

But today I want to vent. 

I'm tired of people filling my Twitter feed with all these 9 point choices.  Or 3 choices.

Just stop with the "which 3...which 1...list 4..." 

I know you're bored, and so am I, to some extent (though I'm beginning to learn way too much about Oaklawn Park's track features; I also know Fox's picker sucks), but no.

Just no.

A 3x3 of 9 fast food restaurants I don't want to frequent and have never eaten in is NOT interesting.

A 3x3 of Pennsylvania foods that no one should eat doesn't appeal.

Which one of these 4 movies is best...when I've either seen none, or thought none were good, no!

We're all trying too hard.  This was clever before.  It's not clever when you're the 50th person to do it.

And, to make us all feel better, I see Dr. Fauci said it might be November before we are back to some kind of normal.  I would want to know how he was defining that, but by November I'm pretty sure this house will only have one inhabitant (instead of 3).  We'd have to change the census. :)

Good luck to you and happy Easter tomorrow.  I hear we're having ham.  Just because.

TGIF (Thank God Its Food)!

Yes, IT'S FRIDAY!  Rah rah.

I have friends who question whether it matters.  It does.  Not sure how much.

But it's Friday.

We struggle for another day.  Fighting time, boredom, and repetition.

But one thing to bring up here is that maybe that F should be "food," not Friday.

Because there is A LOT of food in my Twitter feed.

You have heard about the Covid 15, right?

Weeks ago someone postulated that we were going to be stuck at home for weeks, not getting enough exercise (in fairness, I see people in their Twitter feed talk about exercise programs while stuck at home, too, but not nearly as many as I'm about to recount about food), eating, and we'd all gain 15 lbs. 

Fifteen?!?!?!  I'd be in a place I've never been before (admission, I was not my slimmest when this started).

How? Why?

First, again in my Twitter feed, I keep seeing all these "you can only pick 3" options -- out of 9 pictures.  One of these was casual dining places (someone said "hard pass" to picking through these), but many others put out picks.

Then there were a whole series of the  9 picture thing with snack food: one may have been sponsored by Little Debbie!  I mean, with pictures, over and over, of Hostess chocolate cupcakes, honey buns, twinkies, hohos, and whole bunch of cookies.  Where's the gun GIF?

But I'm not done.  There are a whole series of feeds with recipes.  One had "fifteen meals you can make quickly with 5 ingredients."  Eight of them made me gag.  One, as I remember, was carved out butternut squash to make a kind of taco (gag, gag) -- lots of spaghetti.

I've seen a whole series of recipes from supposedly famous chefs.  I did recognize Bobby Flay, famed for hamburgers, who surprisingly didn't just pitch two weeks worth of different burgers (and shakes, don't forget) but put out a series of meals that would be easy to prepare -- starting with a couple chickens that you then turn into chicken soup and chicken salad. 

Are you beginning to see the issue here? 

I won't go into all the people on twitter baking -- either desserts or various kinds of bread.

Just the pictures would put on 5 of the alleged 15 pounds.

So, today, as you sludge through another work day, or another just dreadful day, just think of food. 

Twitter will help.  A lot!

Chin up, we'll make it, it looks like New York's curve is flattening, rah effin' rah.