Staying Home vs. "Staying Home"

I like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, but I wish he had never mentioned the "shocking" 66% of people who contracted Covid-19 while staying home. The lunatic fringe has jumped on this, and now we have protesters carrying signs that read COVID IS A LIE.

What they don't seem to have thought through (do they think through anything?)  is that "staying home" doesn't necessarily mean staying safe. I'm pretty strict about my isolation because I don't dare get the virus, But  some people, while staying home from work, shop at Walmart and  Home Depot, and who knows where else. They don't bother to sanitize what they bring home from the stores, and they don't pay attention to their mail and UPS packages either.

And they have visitors. "It's only family," I've heard more than once online. They let their daughter in because she's their daughter--even though she goes to work every day or lives with someone who goes to work every day or gathers with her friends on weekends "because it's hard not to socialize when you're  young." Or their grandkids get dropped off at their house every morning because they've always watched them and they're just little kids. Or they invited the whole extended family over for Easter dinner because they always get together for Easter and they're not about to give that up because some stupid governor issued an order.

So I don't find the 66% shocking, and I wish the protesters would get off the street and back in their houses where they belong.

Home Sweet Home

I've been self-isolating since March 6, and up to now I've had it relatively easy as my son and his family (my only visible neighbors) have been isolating too, so we've been in the same isolation circle.My son has stopped in every day, and the boys (8 and 6) are in and out of my house. I get to see the baby (4 months) too. But now my son has been called back to the office once a week, and that changes everything. Because of my age (77 in a few weeks) I have to be extra cautious. So now my isolation really is isolated! Good thing I'm pretty good at solitary confinement. Also, being an only child means I'm never bored.

My rural county has 10 Covid cases, but an hour to the east--closer to NYC--another county has 236. Both counties are under a stay-at-home order. I have a good supply of food and other things, and we've picked up a couple of online Walmart orders when we got low on fresh produce and other perishables. Not everything is always available, but we're flexible.

I do worry, though, about the magnitude of the crisis and how it's going to play out. I've heard experts state firmly that we will have a resurgence in the fall. It's hard not to envision an endless loop. But as much as I've bad-mouthed pharmaceuticals, the companies are working hard on a vaccine (whether from altruism or the profit motive, it doesn't much matter), and the same goes for treatments.

And I'm grateful for technology! Imagine doing this in the years when I was growing up when my parents had one phone (squat and black) and one small TV. Or before that, with no phone and no TV. Like the 1918 Spanish Flu. Or the 1800's, when diphtheria ravaged communities. Be grateful for the internet, and stay safe, everyone!

The Upside of Self-Isolating (Single Woman Version)

Let your hair air-dry! It doesn't matter now that part of it is wavy and part straight.

Eyebrows looking a little sparse? Who cares?

Hunt up your singleton socks and get some wear out of them. More fun if the colors clash!

Leggings getting a little baggy? Not a problem!

Yes, your hands feel like sandpaper from all this washing. But it's your secret.

You're saving wear and tear on your car.

And adding lots of steps (maybe) on your Fitbit.

Dried beans . . . rice . . . pasta . . . crackers . . . carbs without guilt!

And finally, you know those people you'd like to avoid? Now you can!

Adventures in Gravestone Photography

I've mentioned before that I volunteer as a gravestone photographer.  I received three photo requests this morning and decided today would be a good day to fill them. So I ventured out to a little cemetery I'd never seen before. It was next to a church, but the church hasn't been used in 10 years. I don't know how the parishioners accessed the church even then because there's nowhere to park--not by the church, nor anywhere else within reasonable walking distance. 

I was determined not to leave without taking pictures, so I turned into the closest road and pulled as far over as I could, and left my car there. I then set out on an uphill hike to the cemetery. I didn't realize right away how dangerous this was. The road isn't heavily traveled, but when a car or truck comes by, it's flying. With the road's hills and twists, visibility isn't always the best. And the shoulder, if we can call it that, was just a tangle of poison ivy and tall weeds--some as tall as my face.

I don't normally get a lot of exercise. (My daughter once gave me a mug that reads, "Typing fast is my cardio.") I have back issues, and I don't remember the last time I walked that far--and certainly not uphill! I had to stop twice to catch my breath and ease my burning calves. But I made it, and had photographed about 2/3 of the stones when my camera battery died. Oy. I'd left the spare battery in the car, along with the list of photo requests.

I haven't gone through all the pics yet, so I don't yet know if I actually fulfilled the requests. I do know I made it back down the hill without getting killed, and I also know there's no way I'm doing that particular adventure again. Maybe another volunteer photographer can arrive in a helicopter, although that does seem unlikely.

Maybe I Should Have Remained a Republican.

When I first registered to vote, my dad explained the process and said I could choose Republican or Conservative. I chose Conservative, thinking at the time I might learn something about politics and get involved. I couldn't have been more wrong, and at some point I switched my party affiliation to Republican, so I could at least vote in primaries.

This was the pre-Fox Republican party. This was a time when Democrats and Republicans could talk politics and remain friends . . . when Congress members on both sides of the aisle discussed issues, compromised, and voted with their hearts and brains rather than out of some misguided knee-jerk sense of party loyalty. A time when they attended the same functions and actually socialized together.

I married a Republican who never watched TV and got his news from The Wall Street Journal and NPR. Yes, NPR. To those who are surprised because you assume NPR leans left, Joe felt "All Things Considered" offered the best in-depth, balanced news reporting. I agree.

Over the years I voted more like an Independent. Contrary to what a Social Studies teacher taught my high school class, I voted for the person, not the party. I didn't vote for Clinton. I did vote for Obama. Twice. But I was still a registered Republican, and one reason was that I could have lots of fun wearing my "Republicans for Obama" button.

But when a lying, cheating, stealing egomaniac moved into the White House last year I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take him, I couldn't take his handlers, and I couldn't take the state of the Republican party. During the years when I hadn't been paying attention, many Republican members of Congress had turned into a bunch of self-serving suck-up lemmings. I wanted to distance myself from all of them, and all of it, as best I could, so I changed my party affiliation again and became a Democrat.

But now, when it's more important than ever to keep pressure on our elected officials, I have the feeling my new voting status will eliminate any possibility of a Republican Congressman taking my opinion seriously. I think they'll very likely say, "Oh. She's a Democrat. She's not going to vote for me anyway, so I don't care what she thinks." Or they'll think I'm stating the Democratic party line. Since they don't think for themselves, but parrot their party line, they probably think everyone else operates this way too.

Life was a great deal more pleasant when I never thought about politics and related issues. But once your eyes have been opened, it's hard to close them again.

So Much Fun

A bon voyage party for Ernest aboard the QEII, c. 1967 (see post below)

A Thrilling Place to Be

The letter begins: "My memories of Louise and the time we all spent together at Lincoln Center remain vivid, and I suspect they always will. I close my eyes and I m sitting in front of Louise's desk in her beautiful office with the Navajo White walls and all that brilliant light."

I wrote the letter yesterday to Ernest, Louise's recently widowed husband. Fifty years ago they weren't married yet. Louise was my boss, and we all worked at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. It's hard for me to imagine a more thrilling place to be than Lincoln Center in New York in the 1960's.

"I'm so glad I had the opportunity to meet you both, to work with you, and to have had so much fun with you."

So much fun. Part of my job was being in charge of house seats for what was then Philharmonic Hall. It later became Avery Fisher Hall. I don't know what it's called now; to me it will always be Philharmonic Hall. My fingers still fly over the keys at top speed when I type it.  Being in charge of the house seats made me a very popular person. This was especially evident at Christmas, when the gifts poured in--gifts from very nice people with very deep pockets.

My employers were generous too. My friendship with Lee, which I've written about here, started at Philharmonic Hall, and her boss managed the venue. I remember one birthday when he gave me a standing rib roast and one perfect garlic. The bunch of us talked about food all the time. Constantly. We shared recipes and cookbook recommendations. I learned to make Julia Child's Soup au Pistou from Lee's boss. Sometimes I ate lunch at my desk while I embroidered. This was referred to as "The Hearth Hour."

We read a lot of the same books. Addicted to John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee mysteries, we posted a chart on the bulletin board to keep track of them all. And we lunched. Boy, did we lunch. The famous Madison Avenue lunches had nothing on our upper West Side lunches. Caracalla and the Cafe des Artistes were two of my favorite spots--the latter with the famous Howard Chandler Christy murals. I don't think either restaurant is still there. Much of the time I stayed in a luscious rut: Sole Meuniere at Cafe des Artistes and sweetbreads at Caracalla. I haven't eaten sweetbreads since.  I have no idea what these lunches cost. My lack of attention to prices was so very different from my present frugal life in the country. Our food was usually accompanied by alcohol--martinis or scotch. I don't know how we got anything done in the afternoon.

Under my desk you might find my dog, Poppy, who became the official mascot of the Philharmonic's softball team. People could tell she was there when they heard her tail thump as they walked by. Imagine spending a "work" morning in Central Park in the sun with your dog, watching your friends and musicians from the New York Philharmonic play softball. Opposing teams included the Playboy Bunnies.

Music, of course, was everywhere: pianos in some of the offices, random musicians in the hall outside my open door, rehearsals and performances piped in from the stage if we wanted. So heady to have access to all the events in all the buildings. I attended the Metropolitan Opera and dropped in on rehearsals. We attended stage productions and film festivals. I remember being told one of those films, "French Lunch," was extremely sexy. Of course Lee and I showed up, leaving the office that afternoon and slipping into theater seats in the dark. The opening scene showed a large knife cleaving an orange. "Mm," we murmured, nodding, acknowledging the symbolism. The film turned out to be about a chef making lunch. In France.

We were surrounded by the talented and famous, on the stage and in our offices. I wrote in my 40-words-a-day blog about my amusing encounter with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Somewhere exists a photo of me with Leonard Bernstein. Performers abounded in other genres too. Like Peter, Paul & Mary,  the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and Tony Bennett. In 1966 I received the "Annie Get Your Gun" soundtrack from Ethel Merman herself. And I once got a kiss on the cheek from Harry Belafonte, but that was because a cousin of mine is a good friend of his.

The events! The gowns. The buildings, the marble, the architecture. The elegance. The clouds of Jean Patou's "Joy" perfume competing with Chanel No. 5. Somewhere exists a photo of the audience at a stellar gala concert. If you scan the faces you'll see Jacqueline Kennedy and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And Louise and Ernest. And me.

I left NYC around 1970, and sometime after that Louise and Ernest married and moved to his home in England. We stayed in touch.

"I'm happy we've remained friends even when a lot of time and distance have separated us."

I've searched for community over and over in my life, with varying degrees of success. I found it in spades at Lincoln Center. It was so hard to leave. When I heard that Louise had died, my first thought was to call Lee to tell her. But of course I couldn't. And of course she already knew.

Tradition (written 25 or so years ago)

We always dressed up
for Thanksgiving:
hairs in place, eyeglasses
sparkling like the ice
in their scotch, pants creased,
slips ironed for the big
turkey in the little
city kitchen.

Here the dirt road
penetrates the old house,
sifting on our sweatshirts,
mingling with turkey grease
on my jeans. I dish up cranberry
sauce with the sterling silver
jelly spoon, aware that if I spin
fast on my sneakers I will see
my mother, poised to help
in her apron and her heels.

A Little Fiction

I wrote this in 2004 and never finished it. It was written as fiction, but only the names were changed.

            When Elinor came downstairs in the morning, Grandpere was stretched out on the kitchen floor, lying in a pool of urine.  The cat had received his name in infancy 16 years earlier, his patriarchal bearing obvious even then. 

            “Damn,” Elinor whispered, lifting him under his front legs and reaching for a rag.  She cleaned him and set him down gently. His hind legs slid out from under him, confirming her fear that this was the beginning of the end. 

            “Oh, Perie,” she crooned, moving the long black length of him to his favorite spot, a square of quilt on the kitchen floor.  His paws and whiskers still glowed white; the pads of his feet still the pink of youth.  Grandpere and his mistress sighed together.

            Sixteen years.  He’d been the family’s first shelter adoption.  Elinor had gone to the humane society alone, leaving her excited children and unashamedly equally excited husband at home to await the arrival of what would become the first of many cats.  Remembering the cats of her childhood, she had in mind a longhair in a ginger color, or smoky shades of grey, perhaps—maybe even a pastel calico if such a beauty could actually find itself homeless.  She was unprepared for the sheer numbers of cats at the shelter, the cold steel of their cages, the desperate cries of some and the withdrawn hopelessness of others.

            Elinor passed an hour at the shelter, no closer to choosing a cat than when she’d arrived.  A sign she hadn’t noticed before warned against touching the cats and spreading disease.  She realized she had touched dozens of cats, going from cage to cage and spreading who knows what.  She spotted an attendant and opened her mouth to ask where she might wash her hands.  But what came out was, “Could you please open that cage?”  The attendant did so, and out flew a sleek black cat with white feet and the longest white whiskers.  Her first impression was that he was so incredibly clean.  Overshadowing that in a split second was the connection he had created between them.  In her arms was every cat she had ever wanted.

            Wiping up the puddle on the floor, Elinor remembered how she had brought the cat carrier up to Keith’s office in the attic that day, for what he’d called “the unveiling.”  Keith opened the carrier’s door, and smiled as the cat stepped out confidently, aware of Keith’s approval even before he spoke.  “You’re a handsome fellow,” he said in the British accent that clung even after all the years in Massachusetts.  “Welcome to the family.”

            The attic.  Elinor dropped the paper towel into the garbage and stood at the sink, letting warm water run over her hands as she thought about the daunting task ahead of her.  It was an old thought.  She had noticed Keith’s first symptoms of memory loss in that office, and had tried to talk to him about it there, so many times.  Later, she had looked over his shoulder at his unintelligible writings, had watched, tearful, his frustrated efforts to remember how to boot up the computer he’d once programmed. 

            As Keith’s condition deteriorated, he spent more and more time in the attic.  He was gone now, laundered and sanitized in the pink-and-white nursing home, but the attic, still untouched eight months later, reflected the state of a mind in pieces.

For Wayne and his Beth

Prerequisite

Good grief: an oxymoron come to life
from pages drawn and quartered, inked and dyed,
where readers sought themselves and, laughing, sighed
as their frustrations, phobias, and strife
played out in miniature before their eyes.
Can grief be other than completely bad?
Can that which sears the heart from all it had
be partly good? There is no compromise.
There is,  however, one redeeming grace,
a balm to place upon the sorest spot,
one truth pain cannot weave into its knot.
When mourning comes, it stands upon this base:
Endearment is our bedrock, our relief.
Only those who love are granted grief.

                                                                   SLJ
                                             

Lee, part III

Luckily for me, Corinne Conti is a relatively unusual name. Had her name been something like Kathy Smith, a whole chapter would be missing from my story. I started with Googling, of course. I didn't have to do any more than that because Google brought a bunch of hits. One of them--for Blaine Conti--came with a phone number in Washington state. I figured Blaine might be Corinne's husband's name, but no. It was her name, her legal name.

I called, and she couldn't have been nicer. She sympathized with my plight. She hadn't been in contact with Lee for years, and she felt bad about that. Corinne had a young voice filled with warmth and enthusiasm, and I didn't realize until she told me that she was 85 years old. Her age, coupled with recent heart surgery, explained why she repeated questions several times. She suggested I contact the police and ask them to make a welfare check on Lee. I was reluctant to do this, knowing Lee's feelings about privacy. Corinne said she was quite familiar with Lee's feelings about privacy, and understood why I said I'd leave that option for last. But I realized the only address I had for Lee was a rented mailbox in a storefront. I asked Corinne if she knew Lee's physical address. No, but she knew the street Lee lived on. If only she could remember it.

A day or so later she did remember it, and called to tell me. With some creative Googling I got the name of another tenant in Lee's apartment building. A little more digging revealed that he worked in a restaurant--so one morning I called the restaurant. What a thoroughly nice guy! It turned out he no longer lived in Lee's building, but his brother did. He would ask his brother about Lee, and one of them would get back to me.

By this time my son had jokingly called me a stalker. It does make you think about how easily we (and our neighbors) can be found.

Lee's upstairs neighbor emailed me to say he and his wife had knocked on her door, but she didn't respond. However, he said another neighbor noticed Lee's car going out regularly. So she must still be working.  I felt enormous relief, as this was not the news I'd expected to hear. But after a few days the relief was tinged with hurt, puzzlement, and even a bit of anger. How could my dear friend, who knows me so well, who means so much to me and always said she felt the same, ignore my pleas and leave me hanging like this?

An answer--the only one I'm going to get--came weeks later, when Lee's therapist called to tell me she had died. She said as Lee's cancer had progressed and she had to quit her job she withdrew more and more, shunning contact with anyone. Her car had been used by the caretaker she'd hired.

I've always said if I were sick in the hospital I wouldn't want visitors other than my family. One might say Lee took this to extremes, but then her need for privacy was always somewhat beyond the norm. If we'd talked, we would have talked about her illness. We'd have had to. She was probably tired of talking about it, tired of thinking about it, tired of trying to accept the inevitable end. But would she not have drawn any comfort from me? Have I been through so much that I used up all my comfort on myself? I always made Lee laugh. Does that not count at some point? 

In the end, I was able to do one thing: I wrote Lee's obituary. I was glad no one else wanted to take it on because I wanted to do this for her, and I knew I could do it well. In the process, she and I connected with every word.

Lee, part II

I eventually located Lee, and left the phone message that made her cry. And then we picked up where we left off. There was some serious catching up to do. She had to absorb the news that my husband and daughter Gillian had died, and I learned about her bout with breast cancer.

We were no longer Manhattanites working in the rarefied atmosphere of Lincoln Center: Lee was a psych nurse in Alaska, and I was home in rural Pennsylvania. But our connection remained the same. We had much to share, much we needed to share. I changed my phone plan to give me unlimited minutes. We also emailed a lot.

As we got older, the topic of our health came up more frequently. We were both rather compulsive researchers, and learned quite a bit as we compared notes. We had our DNA tested at the same time. We got into genealogy and shared our discoveries. We read books together and discussed them.

Then Lee's cancer came back. That was scary, but it became less frightening as Lee's doctor assured her she could continue working and could even go to Europe, which she'd been thinking of doing. Soon after the diagnosis she had another scary experience: skidding on ice and crashing her pickup truck, totaling it. She bought a new Jeep, but after the accident she felt as though the other shoe was bound to drop.

In April 2016 she emailed that she was scheduled for another PET scan. She was depressed about that, but said Alaska was beautiful in spring and she hoped Mother Nature would work some magic on her. She ended the email with, "Thanks for hanging in with me.  You are always in my heart. Love, Lee."

I emailed back, and at some point called her as usual, and then called again. Emailed again. But she didn't return my calls, and the emails had stopped with that one in April. I persisted, asking--later begging--for even just a line to let me know she was all right. Nothing. This went on for months. At Christmas I sent her a card and a letter. As with other letters I'd mailed, they were not returned to me. I felt that was good. But Lee's mailing address was a UPS mailbox, and for all I knew they could have been throwing them out.

A few years earlier we had talked about the possibility of something happening--illness or death--and I said she knew how to get in touch with my kids, but I didn't have the name of anyone I could contact if I were worried about her. Lee said, "I guess you could call Corinne Conti." I wrote the name down on a Rolodex card. It felt like half ace in the hole, half last resort. But of course I had no idea who Corinne Conti was, or where she was.

To be continued (last time) . . .

Lee, part I

I still have her phone number on my night table. With a four-hour time difference between her home and mine, our conversations would often take place at my bedtime. I would have had more energy to talk at other times, would have been less brain-fogged, but I knew I'd get her voice mail.

At bedtime, I often got her voice mail anyway. I never knew if she was out or simply not answering the phone. Because we were such close friends, most of the time I assumed she was out. But it was never the safest assumption.

We met in our twenties, both living in Manhattan and working at one of the most glamorous music venues in the world. It's wonderful when you have a dream job and you're aware of it. I was aware. The atmosphere could be casual (I sometimes brought my dog to work) or beyond sophisticated. I took piano lessons in an office down the hall. My co-workers and I lunched at some of NYC's finest restaurants, and lunch almost always included scotch or a martini. I honestly don't know how we got any work done in the afternoon. Because this was the 1960's, many of the offices, mine included, were filled with cigarette smoke. We had free tickets to just about everything.

On our lunch hours, when we weren't eating and drinking, Lee and I would walk the streets (yes, in our heels), exploring little exotic shops. Sometimes we explored the building in which we worked. Thanks to a shared (if somewhat unbalanced) sense of adventure and my overdeveloped sense of mischief, we went places Lee wouldn't have gone on her own (and neither, perhaps, would I). I don't know if this was good or bad, but we had lots of memorable fun.

I was married and living in midtown. Lee was single and had her own apartment near our jobs. I took a bus to work, and one morning I got off a few blocks before my stop and dropped in on Lee. I knew she'd be just about ready to leave for work, and we could walk together. She was, and we did. But she was clearly thrown by my unexpected appearance, and asked me not to do it again. I would never have predicted that reaction. We were such close friends. Growing up in an apartment building where my best friends lived as well, I had never encountered an intensely private person, and I couldn't relate. I don't think I even heard the word territorial in those days. But I never dropped in on Lee again.

Lee's reaction was all the more surprising given her remarkable intuition and sensitivity in interpreting human behavior. She taught me more than I could ever write about here. Looking back, I was often more than a little dense in comparison. I remember my response when Lee said family patterns tend to repeat through generations: I thought that sounded silly. Silly me.

When Lee got married I was her matron of honor ("female witness" is more accurate), and shortly after that my husband and I left Manhattan and moved to New Jersey, then to our weekend house in Pennsylvania, then to a more permanent home in PA. Lee, whose marriage didn't last long, visited me in all these places before deciding to go back to school to become a nurse. After graduation, she began her journey west. We kept in touch while she worked in several states, but after she sent a post card from Alaska I stopped hearing from her.

"I cried when I heard your voice." Lee was talking about a message I left on her answering machine. By now it was years after she sent that post card, and months after I first started trying to find her. It wasn't easy, but I was like a dog with a bone. I missed my friend and wanted to know how she was. In the process, I found her ex-husband and called him. I scared the poor man, who figured if I was calling him it must be because Lee had died. But no, he didn't know where she was.

To be continued . . .

Anti-Trump People, How's Your Health?

My tension level was high during most of the presidential campaign. Even though I thought Trump wouldn't win, I couldn't believe someone like him could actually run for the office and be taken seriously. It was wildly frustrating to hear people (some of them friends of mine) talk about how he was going to make America great again, while I saw him in a completely different light--someone I wouldn't even want to have dinner with.

Now that he's the President-Elect, my blood pressure is almost as high as my tension level, and the fibromyalgia I've had for decades has kicked into high gear. I was awakened several times last night with hip and knee pain, and it was a tough job persuading myself to get out of bed this morning. It's time to get proactive about my health, even though it seems there isn't much I can do about the White House.

My blog post today comes to you from Dear Prudence, a.k.a. Mallory Ortberg, who writes the advice column for Slate. I hope it's okay to post an excerpt here, crediting both Ortberg (I mean Prudie!) and Slate. I have the feeling lots of us can use her advice right now.

Dear Prudence,
Do you have any advice for we who opposed a Trump presidency? Now that we fear seeing Roe v. Wade overturned, worsening climate change, hatred and bigotry stirred up? Discovering that our neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances voted for this racist, xenophobic madman? How can we cope, and what can we do in our own small part to resist this? I for one feel gobsmacked. Do you have any suggestions for taking back our power? (Please don’t say, “Just give him a chance”—because we don’t want him to get a chance to implement all his vitriol.)

—How to Cope in the Post-Trump World

I do not think “give Donald Trump a chance” is a useful piece of advice, although plenty of people who ought to know better have suggested it over the last week. I think Donald Trump has had a more than adequate chance to demonstrate his values over the decades of his life as a public figure; we have all the information we need to make an informed assessment of his character. I think he did not initially disavow his endorsement by David Duke and other white nationalists because he did not wish to, because his very political existence depends upon their support, and to suggest otherwise is disingenuous. I think he chose a running mate who supports LGBT conversion therapy because he does not care about the safety or well-being of queer people, and I think he called for a national database of Muslim people because he doesn’t care about religious freedom and is happy to profit from Islamophobia. I think he mocked a disabled reporter because he doesn’t care about people with disabilities. I think he is exactly the person he has presented himself as. I think there is no reason to expect him to suddenly display restraint after being given presidential power.

As for what you can do as an individual right now, a few suggestions:

Donate whatever time or money you have available to organizations like the ACLU, the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Campaign Zero, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, the Trevor Project, the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Contact your local mosque or Muslim Community Center and offer your services as a volunteer and tell them you support them. Contact your congressperson/representative/state legislators and offer specific calls to action, whether that be that they vote for or against a proposed legislation, whether you want them to sponsor a bill, or make a public statement. (In many locations, representative’s offices are required to read all physical mail; consider calling or writing an old-fashioned letter before sending an email.) Offer support to the people in your life whose safety and well-being are particularly threatened by this white nationalist wave. Challenge racism and obfuscation of motives when you see it (“I’m so economically anxious I had no choice but to vote for a misogynist bigot”); do not use euphemisms and gentler language for the sake of comity to describe the ugly things you know to be true.

The Information Age Sucks.

If you know me, you know I've embraced parts of cyberspace with enthusiasm. I enjoyed CompuServe back in the 1980s. I've been on Facebook for some years (thank you, Maureen) and have posted many hundreds of my dad's photographs and my own. I don't text often, but email is my favorite form of communication. I've been in online writing groups, and I'm a devotee of GardenWeb (now Houzz). And on and on. But I wish we'd never been given any of it.

When I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s, we had Democrats and Republicans as we do today, but there the resemblance ends. I remember when no one had television, and I remember when we got our first one. (My dad gave me a choice of a TV or a puppy. I chose the puppy, but somehow he morphed the dog into a 12" Admiral console.) The news was broadcast on TV, but most people got their news from the newspapers.

My dad read one paper in the subway on his way to work in the morning, and another (the New York Herald Tribume) in the evening on his way home. People communicated with each other in person, or on the phone, or by letter. This is how we got our information. All of these methods allow for error, of course. Newspapers have never been 100% accurate 100% of the time, and as for talking to each other, do you remember the children's game "Telephone"? We all have our internal filters, some more . . . um . . . interesting than others, and what goes in doesn't always come out the same way.

But most of the time informational errors back then were relatively minor ones, and differences were subtle. The contrast with today is dramatic. And disturbing.

Today we are swamped with information, and depending on who you are, a great deal of it may be completely untrue. Crazy fiction. Dangerous stuff. We've heard quite a bit of it in recent months, but the fact is even in non-election years the emails go round and round, spreading stories most of my friends would never believe, but there are people who believe every word. President Obama wants to change the National Anthem to "Kumbaya"? Syrians punish their children by pouring boiling water on them? I read both of those things in forwarded-many-times emails sent to a friend.

And then there are the websites. NPR interviewed a woman who used to run a website devoted to challenging the "conspiracy theory" websites and their like, but she gave it up when she could no longer keep up with the huge number of them.

People pick up what they read on these websites, what they get in forwarded emails, what they hear on "hate radio," and they post it on social media, where it goes "viral." Wonderful. Never in the history of the world have we experienced this. Where it will lead, I have no idea. But I'm not optimistic. On "All Things Considered" this afternoon, there was a feature on an organization that talks to people around the country about Islam. We heard one of their speakers address a group in Montana. He spoke like a reasonable person, but the NPR reporter had to point out over and over that what he was saying about Islam wasn't true. Building on what the speaker said, a woman in his audience stated with conviction that Muslim refugees want to come here to convert us or kill us. Others in the audience agreed with her.

I Need a New Relationship

I broke up with Doxycycline last night. We'd been together nearly four months—this time. We've had an on-and-off relationship for years. He swore he could help me get over my painful experience with Lyme, and for a while it seemed that he did. But he was so controlling . . . dictating what I could eat and when . . . and abusive too! My gut bacteria hasn't been the same since we met.

So last night I decided that I'd had it with him. (He took it surprisingly well.) But you know me . . . I'm not about to sit home alone with only Lyme, Babesiosis and Bartonella for company. I'm going to get in touch with Herb. Actually Herbs, plural. (Why settle for just one?) And that handsome hunk, Homeopathy. He's been good to me in the past.

Balls (said the Queen, "If I had 'em I'd be King.")

It was a rite of spring in the Queens neighborhood where I grew up—and in every other NYC neighborhood, I suspect: The annual trip to the corner store to get a pink Spalding (often pronounced "Spaldeen") Hi-Bounce rubber ball.

In this ritual, you didn't just pick up a ball and pay for it; you had to test them first. Trying several, we'd bounce them on the wood floor of the store to see which one bounced the highest. Some of us tested them by dropping two of them at the same time from the same height. The judging criteria was always the same: highest is best. Once that was determined, we'd plunk down our 25¢, and spring would begin.

I still think think about this, maybe even every year, although it's been a very long time since I ventured out to buy myself a pink rubber ball. I went looking for one today though. My older grandson is four, and I am itching to play catch with him. The way I see it, he will reap the rewards of all the ball games I played as a kid. I hope he'll see it that way too. Thanks mostly to my dad, I love having a ball in my hands.

Because of age and the damage done to my shoulder from pulling a lawnmower cord, I can no longer attempt the perfect football spirals of my youth, or indeed any overhand pitch, but I can lob a gentle underhand to a 4-year-old. And I can still pluck balls out of the air a fair percentage of the time.

My shopping expedition was limited to Walmart and Dollartree this morning, and there was not a Spalding to be found. Walmart had a couple of glitzy looking supercharged balls, infused with helium in some fashion, guaranteed to travel farther by kick and higher by bounce, confirming that "simple and basic" just doesn't appeal to the masses anymore. Or at least the marketing geniuses don't think so.

Dollartree had a Spalding wannabe called Pinky Hi-Bounce. I bought one for a dollar, but it doesn't have the same feel. And it doesn't have the same smell. We always sniffed our brand-new Spaldings. It was the only time they would have their distinctive smell—no surprise when you consider how often we bounced them on the city sidewalks, gutters, and vacant lots.

When I got home I looked online and found that Amazon sells the Spaldings for $6.20 apiece. One of the commenters said they cost 25¢ back when he was a kid in his NYC neighborhood. Someone else said they're available in sporting goods and toy stores for a lot less than Amazon's price. I see a trip to Dick's and Toys R Us in my future.

Tick Tock . . .

I just scanned this slide of me (I'm the big one) with my cousins today and my first thought was, the good old days, when we didn't have any ticks to worry about. Then I saw an article about a study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine this morning. It found that long-term (12 weeks) antibiotic therapy doesn't help Lyme symptoms. I can't say I'm surprised, as so few people on Lyme message boards ever seem to get completely well. The study concluded:

"On one side of the schism stands the evidence, which grows stronger by the day, that persistent symptoms attributed to Lyme disease are not amenable to longer antibiotic therapy; and on the other, there is a multitude of patients suffering from debiliating neurologic, cognitive, musculoskeletal or even multisystemic symptoms. Standing witness at the tug of war between these two sides, we still do not have an answer."

I'm on long-term antibiotics, and I hate it. They mess with my good bacteria, despite taking probiotics, and deplete my serotonin, draining my energy and enthusiasm. No fun. And I haven't noticed any improvement in my symptoms, which are mostly neurological (thanks to being bitten in the back of my neck). So I won't be sorry to stop, but I wish there were an answer to "Now what?"

The outdoors has always called to me this time of year. I love living close to nature, and I love growing things. But after six bites last year, despite all sorts of precautions, and numerous bites in previous years, my beautiful property no longer welcomes me. It has become a threat.

Two Days at the Dodge, 14 Years Ago

In 2002 I spent two days at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey. Two years earlier I attended for all four days, but this time I was distracted by my flooded basement. I carried a notebook in 2002, and jotted down notes. Here they are:

Trying to estimate how many bales of hay it took to cover all the acres of mud.

Moans from new arrivals as they read that Billy Collins is absent.

Sharon Olds radiant as she described the “beautiful, healthy spiders” that thrive on Duke Farms, and calling the main tent “a temple to Ariadne.”

Shuttled 10 minutes to our parked cars.  Getting off the shuttle bus, and then getting back on when we realize we have no idea which parking lot our car is in, but this one isn’t it.

An attractive middle-aged woman, normal enough in her jeans, sporting a black cardboard mustache.

The annoying reality that in every panel discussion there will be those in the audience who use the occasion to mount a soapbox of their own, taking up valuable time—usually to describe an epiphany we experienced 20 years ago.

Ceclia Vicuña’s accent so strong, and her voice so soft, that it is many minutes before we realize she is saying, “Clit, clit.  Growing.”

The food tent:  $8.00 for a little package of eight sushi.

A drink at the Marriott:  One pinot noir and a Virgin Mary = $18.00.

A massive undertaking:  the basement/foundation for a Duke mansion that was never built.  Room after subterranean room.  A maze, really.  And then the owner died.  Covered now with mud and moss, and the remains of trees that fell in.  I stare and stare, unable to turn away.

Staring, too, at the simultaneous readout of the poets’ words in the main tent.  It is there for the hearing impaired, but I am fascinated by its creativity.  It must be done with a voice recognition program, monitored by someone scrambling to correct its mistakes.  When Vicuña speaks of mist being “the semen of the mountain,” it comes out seaman.  “Burlap” is burr lap. My dog sometimes has a burr lap.  A mother with a burr lap would have unhappy children. 

Franz Wright giving new meaning to insufferable, Pulitzer or no Pulitzer. 

Two “church ladies” clutching each other for support as they scuttle out of the “Sacred and Profane” panel discussion, faces rigid with the realization that Mark Doty is reading a blow job poem.

Big soft dog asleep in the grass next to our workshop tent on the river.  Sun glinting on the water.  Sun soaking into the long, golden brown fur of the dog.

Sharon Olds saying she had a desire to give everyone in the room a cookie.  C. K. Williams quipping, “Give ‘em a car.”

Port-a-Potties that flush and sport mini-sinks with foot-pumped running water.

Being blown away by a poet we’d never heard of (Aahron Shabtai).  Telling him later, “You must have a very happy wife.”

Marilyn Chin reading a poem about a bad date, explaining that displaying the mangled sword of Hirohito is not a strategically good thing to do if you want to impress your Chinese girlfriend.

Two blind men with their dogs.

Friends raving about Jane Hirschfield, whom we didn’t hear.

New Jersey:  More near misses on the highways in two days than I had in the past five years.  Fast food restaurants that ask, “Cash or credit?”  Waiting in the middle of a line of 12 cars at a Wendy’s drive-through at midnight.

Yusef Komunyakaa reading his poem about the mice that died of fright at the sight of an owl:  “…the shadow of its wings was like a god passing over the grass.”

Mark Doty reading his poem, “Migratory:”  “Only animals make me believe in God now…so little between spirit and skin.”

The long, long line at the coffee concession.

The even longer lines at the book signing tent, spilling out the door onto the grounds.

Komunyakaa softly saying if a poem contains too much information “the passion of participation is denied.”

Mark Doty describing 99-year-old Stanley Kunitz as “constantly open to change and transformation.”

Wiping away tears as Joyce Carol Oates read her prose poem about her mother’s heartbreaking childhood.

Olds quoting Langston Hughes:  “To some people, love is given—to others, only Heaven.”

Have a pill . . . or not.

It's so widely known now that overuse of antibiotics has created a scary situation. More than one scary situation, actually: Not only has it led to drug-resistant superbugs, but it could permanently destroy a person's good bacteria.

Still, so many doctors keep prescribing them for viral infections--or, more accurately, infections that are far more likely to be viral in nature than bacterial. Antibiotics do nothing for viral infections. Why do they persist in doing this?

The most common excuse I've read is that patients expect a pill, usually an antibiotic. So what? Is there something in the Hippocratic Oath that says "Give 'em what they want?"

Sick all week with a sore throat and sinus infection, and beginning to develop a cough, I woke up feeling so thoroughly infected yesterday morning that I visited an urgent care center to have my lungs listened to and get an opinion on whether or not to go to my daughter's for our family Thanksgiving dinner.

The Physician's Assistant, who looked all of 18 and sounded so cheerful she practically chirped, offered me an antibiotic. If she'd given me a good reason why I should take it, I might have. But she didn't. She said, "Well, you came here, so that means you want to take something, right?" Wrong.

Later, I remembered she was the one who offered me an antibiotic for a rash on my eyelid that turned out to be shingles.

It bothers me that this obviously goes on all the time there, and probably in countless other facilities across the country. Perhaps the only way to stop it, or at least slow it down, is for the medical consumers to speak up. Of course we don't want to turn down antibiotics when we really need them. But when they're offered, it wouldn't hurt to ask why.