Blog Archives

The Movie In My Mind

3/31/2020

Like thousands of our fellow Ohioans across he state, Tom and I can be be found every afternoon at 2 pm, seven days a week, in front of our television watching Ohio Governor Mike Dewine's daily press conference.

By way of these daily briefings Governor Dewine keeps the Ohio citizenry informed and updated on the latest news and developments in our state on the coronavirus pandemic, including what steps are being taken, what strides are being made, and what directives are being issued at the state level to mitigate the spread of the virus, flatten the curve, and offer some economic relief to Ohioans.
Every day the Governor is joined at his press conference by Dr. Amy Acton, Director of the Ohio Department of Health, who elucidates the medical and scientific aspects of the covid-19 pandemic;

...Ohio Lieutenant Governor John Husted, who tends to cover the economic matters;

...and a couple of energetic, mesmerizing deaf interpreters.

    Along with the latest updates, information and directives Governor Dewine, Dr. Acton and Lieutenant Governor Husted generally share with us some words of hope, inspiration, and always, always, always a plea to stay home and practice social distancing.
Last week Dr. Acton and Governor Dewine began talking about a new machine that had been developed by Battelle, a global scientific research and development company located in Columbus. It was reported that this machine could sterilize N95 hospital masks, up to 80,000 thousand at a time, so that these critically-needed masks could be reused by doctors, nurses and other health care providers who are putting their lives on the line by treating coronavirus patients without sufficient protective gear.
     Battelle had already produced three of the mask-sanitizing machines which were ready for use; in fact, according to Governor Dewine, one machine would be for use here in Columbus, one wold be sent to New York, and one would be sent to Washington, D.C. Several more were in production to be sent to other coronavirus hot spots such as Chicago and Los Angeles.
     However, there was a hitch; these brand-new machines had not yet been approved for safe and effective use by the Food and Drug Administration. For a few days Governor Dewine and Dr. Acton kept us apprised of their argument with the FDA to bypass the standard protocols on new technologies and give emergency approval for use of the sanitizing machines.
     We'd been told last Saturday by Governor Dewine that he would skip the next day's press conference for the sake of giving everybody involved in the conferences a day off, unless some important news broke. Late Sunday morning it was announced on local news websites that the Governor had called a press conference for that afternoon, same time, same place. This meant that there was some important breaking news.
     The news turned out to be that the Food and Drug Administration had given approval for Battelle's mask sanitizing machines to clean 10,000 masks at a time. This number, though, infuriated our Governor who angrily insisted that the FDA relent under the circumstances and give an emergency waiver of its testing regulations to allow the machine to clean 80,000 masks, as, according to the Battelle scientists, it was built to do.
    Late Sunday night the FDA relented and approval was given for the masks to clean 80,000 masks at a time.
At yesterday's press conference the Governor said that the mask sanitizing machine is ready to be up and running today in Columbus and other machines will soon be on their way to other cities around the country.
The Battelle mask sanitizing machine.

The movie version of the above events began rolling in my mind while watching Sunday's press conference.

I saw Ohio Governor Mike Dewine,

...played in the movie by Toby Jones,

...angrily pleading with the recalcitrant FDA officials and convincing them to give emergency approval for the machine that would save the lives of doctors and nurses on the front lines of the corona virus epidemic.

I saw Dr. Amy Acton, brilliant global health scientist and Governor Dewine's vital right hand,

...played by Uma Thurman.

Lt. Governor John Husted, Governor Dewine's other right hand,

...would be played by Neil Patrick Harris.

Among the other characters in the story, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and lead member of the White House Corona Virus Task Force,

...would be played by John Turturro,

... Dr. Deborah Birx, Coronavirus Task Force Response Coordinator,

...would be played by Renee Zellweger,

...and Donald Trump, as he continues to play the comedian throughout this national crisis, would naturally be played by his alter ego, Alex Baldwin.

In my movie, new technology would then evolve at lightening speed that would produce machines to sterilize all existing personal protective gear for health care workers even as production of new, better protective gear reached record speed and the gear began flying off the assembly lines to doctors and nurses. In addition, tests not only for the coronavirus but for blood serum antibodies - to determine who had immunity - were perfected and distributed nationwide in such great quantities that every American could be tested as often as necessary. And a miraculous cure for the virus was discovered, followed by an 100% effective vaccine.
The final scenes would be of people around the world returning to their normal lives.

It's only a movie in my mind. But these days, don't we have time to dream?

References:
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/03/29/coronavirus-ohio-mike-dewine-fda-ruling-battelle-sterilization/2935414001/

https://www.wdtn.com/news/local-news/battelle-allowed-to-sterilize-160k-masks-in-ohio-daily-after-fda-lifts-limit/

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Back To Kroger's

3/28/2020

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"Hail Mary": A woman discovers the naked truth about herself.

"Hail Mary," the sequel to "Equal and opposite Reactions,"

...is now available for pre-order at a 15% discount from Black Rose Writing at:
https://www.blackrosewriting.com/romance/hailmary
...and by using the promo code PREORDER2020.

Back To Kroger's

     Friday, March 13 - exactly two weeks ago yesterday - feels like a lifetime ago. It feels as if that was the last day of life as we knew it. Maybe it was.
       In any case, that was the day I did what I presumed would be my last day of grocery shopping at Kroger's for a while, rounding out with a few final items what Tom referred to as our "war stock," those food and household supplies we figured we'd need to get us through the long period of staying at home that we'd already been warned was coming.
      It was a funny feeling, making that last trip to Kroger's. I suppose that's because I felt that this was going to be the last time I'd be out in a public place for a long time. I'd been to my last movie theater, my last restaurant,

...my last Wednesday morning get-together with my Panera Posse,

...without knowing at the time that that those last times were to be my lasts. Two days earlier I'd unknowingly taught my last piano lesson. Now I was making the last of the lasts, my last trip to Kroger's.
       "You know, we could go back to Kroger's if we need something," Tom reminded me.
        This was true.
       But of course by the day before yesterday when I made my first trip back to Kroger's since my last trip two weeks earlier, it was an altogether different world.
        Up until two weeks ago I used to zip into Kroger's almost every day. Sometimes twice a day. Seems I was always out of something that I'd forgotten to pick up when I was shopping the day before. Going to Kroger's was second nature for me.
         However by this past Thursday the thought of going into Kroger's left me feeling uneasy, edgy, tense, even.
   But then we needed - well, wanted - some fresh food and a few other items to supplement the war stock.
        Tom and I decided we should go to Kroger's together. I don't know why. Somehow, inexplicably, it felt safer for us to go together even though, of course, two of us going to the store was actually half as safe as one of us going. And yet neither of us wanted to send the other out alone.
        We planned for our shopping trip, double- and triple-checking our grocery list so as to be in and out of the store as quickly as possible. The night before we set the alarm for 6:15 am so as to be up in time to arrive at Kroger's by 7am, at which time the store was open for an hour just for senior citizens. (Turned out there were as many non-senior as senior citizens shopping at Kroger's during that hour).

We each grabbed a pair of our disposable latex not-for-medical-use gloves and a couple of disinfectant wipes just in case,

...and we set out for Kroger's.

When we arrived there was a worker at the front of the store holding a bottle of disinfectant spray and a roll of paper toweling who pointed out to us the line of shopping carts which she'd just sanitized. I wiped down my cart handle with my own wipe just in case.
For all the years I'd been coming to Kroger's, this day did feel different. I felt hyper-aware, hyper-vigilant. I expect everybody in the store did. We all kept our distance,

...stopping as necessary to give each other space.

Some of the shelves and bins were well-stocked,

...others less so,

...and still no toilet paper as far as I could see.
A store employee approached me and said in an apologetic tone that some of the customers were wondering why I was taking pictures. I explained to her that I was snapping shots for my blog.
Normally I would have offered the employee one of the "Ailantha" cards I carry in my purse.

This time I didn't.

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Hydroxychloroquine: Silver Bullet Or Fool's Gold?

3/26/2020

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This past Monday night I was listening, as I sometimes do, to Sean Hannity on the radio.

On this night he was jumping through his elbow with excitement.
Apparently the news had just broken of a Florida man who'd contracted coronavirus and was at death's door on the intensive care unit of a South Florida hospital. The man had been told by doctors that there was nothing more they could do for him; he said good-bye to his wife and children and prepared to die. However as a last resort the man was given a dose of hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug being promoted by Donald Trump as a cure for COVID-19. Within hours the man felt as if he'd never even been sick.

The following morning the man, 52-year-old Rio Giardinieri,

...was a guest on Glen Beck's radio program,

...where he told the story of his miraculous cure after having taken one dose of hydroxychloroquine.
I'll admit, the story - even if it was broken by Sean Hannity and Glen Beck - gave me a flash of hope, especially as Sean Hannity added that - and it appeared that he meant based on the case of the Florida man - the Food and Drug Administration was now going to send 10,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine to New York hospitals and Israel was going to send 6 million doses to the United States.
Not surprisingly, I suppose, it appears days later that Hannity, Beck, Fox News,

...and our sugar-spinner in chief,

...had spun the story into a sugary narrative that has not only added to the confusion and misinformation surrounding this maybe-maybe not wonder drug, but has brought out the very worst in some members of a group in whose hands we all place our lives.
      Across the nation there have been doctors who, prompted by unscientifically proven anecdotes such as the one of the Florida man, and banking on the possibility that hydroxychloroquine might in fact prove to be a silver bullet against COVID-19, have been hoarding the drug, writing massive prescriptions for dozens, hundreds, even thousands of pills for themselves and their families. The result of this hoarding of hydroxychloroquine has been that there's been a shortage of the drug for those who desperately need it to treat their rheumatoid arthritis.
      Then there's the story of the Arizona couple in their 60's who ate fish tank cleaner, thinking the chloroquine phosphate ingredient listed on the label was the same as the the drug chloroquine being promoted by Donald Trump as a miracle cure and preventative for the coronavirus. The man died and his wife is in critical condition from ingesting the poisonous chemical.
       As for the rest of us, we read stories of: a French study on two dozen coronavirus patients treated with hydroxychloroquine that was proclaimed a success by the tester; a Chinese study of one hundred coronavirus patients treated with hydroxychloroquine that concluded that the drug is useless against the disease; the drug having not yet undergone enough clinical testing to prove or disprove its efficacy against COVID-19; pharmacists nonetheless being told that they may fill 14-day prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine for patients who have tested positive for COVID-19.
     As it turns out, the 10,000 doses being sent to New York are not for treating coronavirus patients across the board as Sean Hannity had inferred, but for use in running clinical trials. Which brings us back to doctors being allowed to prescribe 14-day prescriptions for coronavirus patients even though clinical trails to prove its efficacy have not yet taken place.
       As for the supposed 6 million doses of hydroxycloroquine sent over from Israel...well, I don't even know what that's about.
      In truth, when it comes to hydroxychloroquine none of us at this point knows what it is. Silver bullet? Fool's gold? Who knows?
      But as for me, for the sake of having one less thing to angst about, I wish that until the conclusion is reached one way or another there would be a news blackout on hydroxychloroquine and all conversation about it would cease.
       Fat chance.

References:
https://nypost.com/2020/03/22/florida-man-with-coronavirus-says-drug-touted-by-trump-saved-his-life/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-man-whose-game-changer-coronavirus-treatment-was-touted-by-trump-is-a-believer-but-warns-dont-try-this-at-home-134453632.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/health/sanjay-gupta-podcast-march-25-treatments-wellness/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/health/chloroquine-hydroxycholoroquine-drugs-explained/index.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8144449/Man-dies-wife-critical-care-took-fish-tank-cleaner-cure-coronavirus.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fauci-won-t-bait-ingraham-034632993.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/hydroxychloroquine-no-better-than-regular-covid-19-care-in-study

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/03/23/health/bc-us-med-virus-outbreak-malaria-drug-evidence.html

https://auburnpub.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/cuomo-ny-to-conduct-drug-trials-for-coronavirus-treatment/article_0fb6c870-7e29-5ee5-8bda-bbda132a5418.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/business/doctors-buying-coronavirus-drugs.html

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They Knew. They Knew.

3/21/2020

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Yesterday the New York Times broke the story that the Trump White House had not only been warned for years by health officials to prepare for a global pandemic, but that the Administration knew well in advance of the covid-19 outbreak that our country was in no way prepared, neither logistically nor materially, to handle the coming pandemic.
During the Ebola epidemic that ravaged West Africa from 2014 to 2016 the Obama White House created an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services whose task it was to prepare for future outbreaks of contagious diseases.

In the wake of the epidemic Obama subsequently called for a study of the lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak.

It was as a result of this study that Obama Administration also created an office at the National Security Council to, according to the Times article, "coordinate responses and raise the alarm early" in the event of an imminent contagious disease outbreak.
After Donald Trump's election Lisa Monaco, President Obama's Homeland Security Adviser, walked a number of incoming high-level Trump officials - among them Rex Tillerson, nominated Secretary of State; John Kelly, designated Secretary of Homeland Security; Rick Perry, designated Energy Secretary, and Tom Bossert, who was to become Trump's Homeland Security Adviser - through an exercise to prepare for the response to a deadly flu outbreak.

John Kelley and Rex Tillerson

     According to Ms. Monaco, all the above officials involved took the threat of an epidemic seriously. But every one of those people had been fired or resigned well before the coronavirus outbreak.
      And in 2018 John Bolton eliminated the National Security office charged with coordinating the nationwide response to the outbreak of a contagious disease.
       However, last year the Trump Administration's Department of Health and Human Services produced a simulation of the outbreak of a deadly epidemic in the United States. The simulation ran in real time from January, 2019 to August, 2019.
      Eerily, the scenario, code-named "Crimson Contagion," was of an outbreak of a highly contagious respiratory virus with symptoms of a dry cough and high fever that originated in China, was quickly spread around the world by air travelers, and within a month-and-a-half was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
    After tracking the fictional virus and its outcome over seven months, Health and Human Services drafted a report that, according to the Times article, "laid our in stark detail repeated cases of confusion in the exercise. Federal agencies jockeyed over who was in charge. State officials and hospitals struggled to figure out what kind of equipment was stockpiled or available. Cities and states went their own ways on school closings."
     The report also predicted shortages of of antiviral medications, personal protective equipment and ventilators. And the report predicted 110 million Americans would become ill, 7.7 million would require hospital care, and 586,000 would die before the pandemic had run its course.
      The "Crimson Contagion" report was completed last October. And here we are today, it's predictions now being played out while our fellow citizens sicken and die, our beleaguered health care workers struggle to keep them alive with insufficient equipment and protective gear, our economy suffers, our governors grapple with the crisis each on their own,

...and Donald Trump spins and shillys and brags and prevaricates and equivocates and rages at any journalist who tries to get an honest answer from him.

Donald Trump has declared that no one ever thought such an pandemic as the coronavirus was coming.
He later stated that he always knew the pandemic was coming.
The second statement is true.

References:
https://news.yahoo.com/virus-outbreak-cascade-warnings-went-193648556.html

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-administration-ran-simulation-virus-192624518.html

https://www.politicususa.com/2020/03/19/trump-claiming-he-knew-pandemic-was-coming-is-actually-worse-its-malpractice-if-true-msnbc-host-says.html

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A Lesson For The Piano Teacher

3/19/2020

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Tonight should have been my students' piano recital at Graves recital hall.

     It's hard to believe that a week and a day ago I was still thinking that our recital would happen. But I think I was still in denial - or at least partial denial - back then (see post from 3/13/202, "My Five Stages of the Coronavirus Epidemic"). It took a call one week ago today from the venue telling me that all performances were cancelled to escort my brain from denial to acceptance of the fact that our piano recital wasn't happening.
     Well, after all we'd been working for six months, my students and I, on this performance. But then we're always working on a performance. I'm a performance-based teacher. In fact, I think I might have a hard time teaching piano if I wasn't always aiming towards the goal of my students performing.
        Mayhaps this is because to me piano is an academic subject just like any other, and the students' twice-yearly recital is the test, as it were.

Of course, as with any academic subject, the real goal of piano lessons isn't intrinsically to pass a test. (It's also not to make children better in math, as I've often informed parents who believe that knowing how to play the piano will make their child better in math. I tell parents, "Well, I can't guarantee that they'll be better in math. All I can guarantee is that if they take piano lessons they'll know how to play the piano." And to myself I add, I mean, isn't that enough?).
And, while I do not assert the proposition that piano lessons are for fun and relaxation initially, I do always tell my students (and their parents) that they are taking lessons so that they can have some music in their lives, and, if they stick with it, playing the piano will eventually be a fun and relaxing past time for them.

But now, all of a sudden, after all my years of teaching and playing piano, the lesson of taking piano lessons - or lessons on any musical instrument - has come home to me in a new way that I never had reason - none of us had - to think of before.
        Because of the world-wide coronavirus outbreak, we are now in a time when all American citizens are expected - and may soon be ordered if our country goes into a lock down - to stay home as much as possible, leaving our houses only for the necessities of work, food shopping, or medical emergencies. This leaves a good number of us - including a whole country full of children home from the closed schools - at home full-time, or at least spending a greater amount of time at home than they've ever had to before.
       So here's my point: During this pandemic when we all must stay at home, if one has the availability of playing a musical instrument, one has something to do to help one pass the time productively and/or enjoyably.
        And now, more than ever, we need good things to do to help us pass the time.

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Uneasily Sheltering In Place

3/17/2020

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Like many of our fellow citizens, Tom and I have been heeding the call of our Ohio Governor Mike Dewine,

...staying home and out of public places, "sheltering in place," as it's being called.
And I must say that, for me, what's not been to like about it?
It's been warm and cozy at home,

...there's plenty of food in the fridge,

...and I'm finding plenty to do:
Writing my blog or working on my next novel,

...playing the piano,

...going for walks around the neighborhood,

...reading the papers and eating ice cream with my mate,

...and sitting on the couch with him every afternoon to listen to the Governor's daily press conference.

And, as I haven't done so since around 1985, I could always organize my house,

...should I so desire.

    In truth, I should be leading a pretty sweet existence right now. And in truth, I would be, because I'm finding sheltering in place to be quite pleasant. Or it would be...If only I weren't so scared.
     Scared for my children. Scared for my mom. Scared for my siblings. Scared for all my family members. Scared for my friends. Scared for everybody I know and everybody I don't know.
     And, of course, scared for myself. Though, actually, the truth is that I'm not so much scared of catching the coronavirus per se, not that I want to, and it's not even so much that I'm scared of dying of the coronavirus per se, though that's probably because, as was pointed out by the chatty, chess-playing Grim Reaper in the movie "The Seventh Seal" (for all you Ingmar Berman buffs),

...that's not really a subject most people can even wrap their heads around, anyway. (I'm paraphrasing the actual movie quote). Anyway, I can't either, at the moment.
     No, what actually terrifies me is the thought of catching the coronavirus, having to go to the hospital, and being put on a ventilator. Somehow I can't stand the thought of having to lie in bed for days - weeks? months? - attached to a tube.
     Late last night I got to thinking about being on a ventilator and I got so frightened my heart started pounding and I was on the verge of crying. I had to take deep breaths and force myself not to cry.
      Seriously, I've never been so frightened that I felt like I was going to cry.

When I was twenty years old and living in Europe I once got lost in Rome on Christmas day and I didn't speak any Italian and had no idea where my youth hostel was, all I knew was that it was on the other side of town from where I was and I had no idea how I was going to get back there, and I still didn't feel this scared.

    But late last night, at the thought of being on a ventilator, I felt like I was going to cry.
    Finally I was able to calm myself down with two thoughts:
     1. I used to think that I'd rather die than have to be put inside a full-body MRI machine. And yet when the time came that I once had to get an hour-and-a-half-long MRI, I ended up feeling so calm and comfortable encapsulated inside the machine that I asked the technician to turn off the James Taylor so I could take a nap. It was a wonderful nap.
      2. Maybe if my turn comes to need a ventilator there won't be enough available for me to be put on one, in which case I figure I'll just have to swim through it on my own...or maybe play chess with the Reaper.

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I Bought A Bidet

3/15/2020

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Ever since a friend of mine returned from a visit to China several years ago and told me about a wonderful warm water jet-spray upward-blowing air-dryer bidet heated toilet seat she encountered there I've wanted a bidet toilet seat of my own. (See post from 11/13/2014, "All I Want For Christmas Is A Toto Washlet.")
My desire to own a bidet increased last year when, during a trip to Honolulu, I experienced a high tech bidet,

....a Toto Washlet Performance Toilet (see post from 5/9/2019, "A Nice Surprise At The Royal Hawaiian Center")

Last September I finally acquired my bidet, a Luxe Bidet Neo 185 (Elite), normally $79.99, specially marked down to $42.99.

Not, alas, the heated-seat, warm-water, air-dryer bidet of my dreams, my Luxe Bidet was, rather, a plastic gizmo that attached to the back of the the toilet and to the water valve.

Me installing the bidet.

Tom fixing my installation job.

Our Luxe Bidet Neo 185 (Elite). Note our Squatty Potty tucked beneath the commode (See post from 5/8/2016, "The Squatty Potty, Part 2").

How have I liked my bidet in all its functional, upward water-shooting simplicity?
Very well, actually, up until now. But now I like my bidet even better. In fact, at this moment time I rather cherish my Luxe Bidet Neo 185 (Elite). Because we are now living in a moment in time when toilet paper has become a precious, hard-to-come-by commodity.

      And with my bidet, though one does need something with which to pat oneself dry after being jet-sprayed, that something doesn't need to be TP. It could be a small square of paper towling or even a piece of cloth that one could wash and re-use, which we in this sequestered household may resort to if our toilet paper stash should run out before the coronavirus has run its course.
       So I guess the moral of this vignette is that mayhaps instead of hoarding and obsessing over toilet paper, folks should be ordering bidets. Here's the Amazon link for bidet toilet seats, in case anybody's interested:
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=aps&k=bidet%20&ref=nb_sb_noss_2&url=search-alias%3Daps
        Of course, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the water doesn't go off.

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My Five Stages Of The Coronavirus Epidemic: Denial, Confusion, Indecision, Flipping Out, And Acceptance

3/13/2020

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"Hail Mary," the sequel to "Equal and opposite Reactions,"

...is now available for pre-order at a 15% discount from Black Rose Writing at:
https://www.blackrosewriting.com/romance/hailmary
...and by using the promo code PREORDER2020.
"Hail Mary": A woman discovers the naked truth about herself.

My Five Stages Of The Coronavirus Epidemic: Denial, Confusion, Indecision, Flipping Out, And Acceptance

     At the beginning of this week I started handing out to the parents of my piano students memos that I typed up requesting that students be sure and wash their hands before their lessons and also asking that the piano keys be wiped down every day with a damp soapy solution or with anti-bacterial wipes.
     On Wednesday as I handed out the memo to one of my piano parents I explained in detail what I meant by wiping down the keys, proposed that keeping the keys clean could be a job for for the student to do, suggested that if mixing a soap and water solution were too complicated a process for the child then anti-bacterial wipes might be easier for them to use in cleaning the keys, I asked the parent if they had a supply of anti-bacterial wipes, seeing as the wipes were now so hard to come by in the stores, though there might still be some wipes available, I wasn't completely sure, but there might be, otherwise a damp soapy cloth would work, though it was good to have some wipes, too.
     The parent looked at me for a moment then asked, "Are you flipping out over this?"
     That actually was a good question. And the answer at that moment was yes. Though, in truth, the parent making me aware that I was momentarily flipping out was the equivalent of a good slap in the face which knocked me back from the Coronavirus Flipping Out stage to the Coronavirus Denial stage, as I found myself suddenly wondering what I was so worried about.
     That's how it has been for me over the past week, and I'm guessing I'm not the only American who has been experiencing divergent mental states in response to the coronavirus epidemic.
     When I was out and about, shopping, working, having a nice visit with my mom and her coronavirus-unaware friends in the Memory Care unit at Sunrise,

...I tended to be in the Denial stage, even as the toilet paper disappeared from the store shelves,

...and Sunrise started instituting more stringent visitation rules, and, along with the now ubiquitous bottles of hand sanitizer, added a pen sanitizer - a really cool concept, thought I - at the sign-in desk.

   But at home, reading and listening to the non-stop coronavirus news and hearing the steady rise in infection numbers and warnings from health-care experts, I'd swing back and forth between the Confusion stage: they're advising me, as an over-60-year-old, to be careful and to protect myself, but what do I do besides washing my hands, not touching my face, and staying home? Am I supposed to stay home all the time? Am I supposed to stop working? If this pandemic is so dangerous why isn't the government stepping in and shutting down public activities? What's going on with the coronavirus testing that there isn't even a fraction of the necessary testing available? to the Indecision stage: Should I cancel my piano recital next weeK? Should I stop teaching in my piano students' homes? Should I stop visiting my mother?
       And all the time I felt an overarching anxiety: I'm in the high risk group. I'm in the group that gets really sick. I'm in the group that dies. And sometimes the Confusion stage and the Indecision stage whirled together and flipped me over to the Flipping Out stage: Will I be one of the ones who's struck by the coronavirus? Will the coronavirus be how I die?
        Nor did it help that I regularly listen to WTVN, our local far right-wing conservative radio station (I like to hear what the other side thinks), where the radio talk show hosts mocked the seriousness with which the coronavirus was being taken as, they declared, the danger of the disease was only to "The Elderly" - meaning people over 60 like me.

Glen Beck emphasized that we must not over-react to the coronavirus, though he did concede that, "There will be some culling of the population." (By "population" meaning people my age).

Said Rush Limbaugh, "The coronavirus is the common cold, folks." (Unless you're my age).

     Mark Blazor, WTVN afternoon radio host, joked in reference to the coronavirus, "Remember when you were young and you'd complain and your grandparents would say, 'Aw, suck it up?' Now you can tell them, 'Aw suck it up!'"
        And so by the beginning of this week my brain was bouncing around from Denial to Confusion to Indecision to Flipping Out, and all I really wanted - doubtless along with most of my fellow Americans, or at least those of us of a certain age - was some clarity. In truth I wanted someone to tell me what to do.
      Yesterday, Thursday, clarity finally came, not all at once, but throughout the day.
     My first flash of clarity came on Thursday morning as I listened on the radio to a local health official who framed the necessary public response to the coronavirus by quoting ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky,

...who said that you must skate not to where the puck is, but to where it will be.
This metaphor cleared up for me the concept that we must behave as if the ravages of the epidemic were already all around us even if they weren't yet, because they would be. And so the rationale for isolating oneself at home as much as possible and avoiding all public places finally resonated with me.
The second moment of clarity came on Thursday afternoon when I received a call from my students' recital venue, Graves Piano and Organ,

...telling me that all upcoming recitals had been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. Rather than feeling disappointed, I was relieved. That hard decision had been made for me.
My final and most epiphanic moment came while listening to Ohio Governor Mike Dewine's press conference - our governor has been giving press conferences daily for the past several days and has shown a level of leadership and decisiveness that the rest of our country's leaders would be wise to emulate - during which he

ordered all schools to be closed for the next three weeks, banned gatherings of more than 100 people, and declared that within a few days he would issue an order that nursing homes and assisted living residences would be off limits to visitors during the epidemic.
      It was after listening to Governor Dewine's directives that I knew that the time had now come for me to suspend my piano teaching and for Tom and me to keep away from public places and to stay home. I contacted all my piano students, made one final trip to the supermarket, and visited my mother to try and explain to her that in a day or two I'd probably no longer be coming to visit her for a while.
     Tom and I won't be traveling to visit our children or grand children any time soon.
       We won't be having our son and his girlfriend and our nephew and his wife over for weekly Sunday dinner anymore, at least for some time.

I've finally come to the final stage of my coronavirus epidemic state of mind: Acceptance.
And while I isolate myself at home I humbly pray for all health care workers, all working parents with school-aged children, and all children of aged parents in the care of others.

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The Age Of Corona Virus Anxiety

3/9/2020

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"Hail Mary," the sequel to "Equal and opposite Reactions,"

The Age Of Corona Virus Anxiety

Tom and I had been planning on traveling this coming Thursday from Columbus, Ohio to Wickenburg, Arizona to attend the quinceañera of the niece of our son-in-law, Miguel.

Miguel with our daughter Claire.

We were quite looking forward to the trip and the event, as we'd attended the quinceañera - the traditional Mexican "coming out" party celebrating a girl's 15th birthday - of another of Miguel's relatives in Wickenburg two years ago (see post from 5/26/2018, "La Quinceañera").

...and it was wonderful.
         But because of the coronavirus and the latest Center for Disease Control directives to people in our age group on avoiding contacting and/or spreading the disease, I spent the better part of this past Saturday cancelling our trip, which process consisted of:
     - a couple of hours spent on the phone on hold waiting to get through to the airline whose representatives were evidently being stampeded by customers like me wanting to cancel their flights;
      - cancelling our hotel room;
   - cancelling our rental car reservation;
   - calling my daughter and son-in-law to tell them we'd cancelled out trip;
     - contacting the parents of La Quinceañera (as the birthday girl is also called) to give our last-minute regrets.
      But even as I went through the motions of cancelling our trip, in truth I kept second guessing myself as to whether calling off the trip was really necessary. After all, as of Saturday there were two cases of coronavirus in Arizona, none in Wickenburg, a tiny town in the middle of the desert,

...and no cases in Ohio.
But the CDC was calling nationwide for the elderly and those with underlying health issues not only to avoid traveling, but to stay home altogether - no movies, no restaurants, no church, no crowds, go out once - at night, when the store will be more empty - and stock on two-weeks' worth of food and then stay home. And by elderly was meant anyone over 60 years old.
But surely that directive wasn't meant for Tom and me? I kept thinking while I bided my time on hold on the American Airlines customer service line. Sure, I'm 68 years old and Tom is 69,

...but we're healthy, we're active, we're globetrotters, I still teach piano (and plan to 'til I drop), the gym is my second home, and Tom is still involved in Boy Scouts and other community activities and can be found outside year round, either digging up the garden, shoveling the snow, or working away on some outdoor project or another.
Surely we're not elderly.
Elderly is my 99-and three-quarters-years old mom and her friends whom I visit every day over in the Sunrise Senior Living Community.

      And, by the way, am I not supposed to visit my mother every day in her dementia unit to make sure she's happy, well cared for, not lonely and has everything she needs?
       And even if Tom and I are (gasp) elderly, do we really need to stay home now, before there are even any confirmed coronavirus cases in our state? Should we not at least wait until the virus shows up before we start quarantining ourselves? And for how long must we stay inside our house? (I mean, the Spanish Flu, lasted for two years).
     Meanwhile the World Health Organization says that most of the world is probably going to contract the coronavirus but that people in my demographic are at the greatest risk of dying from it; the Center for Disease Control wants people my age to stay home;

...my daughter who lives in Los Angeles is urging Tom and me to quarantine ourselves starting right now;

...my daughter who's a nurse in Chicago suggests we could probably wait at least until the coronavirus arrives in Ohio;

...my son's girlfriend, grad student in Health Care Administration at Ohio State, has conjectured that the coronavirus invasion of Ohio might hit us like a tidal wave next week when all the Ohio State Students return to school after having been off and traveling around the country for their spring break;

...and Donald Trump says don't worry, it'll all go away.

So Tom and I have been going out shopping over the past few days and we've been stocking up on a few provisions,

...and necessities.

       We decided that starting next week - when the Ohio State students return to Columbus and mayhaps bring with them the coronavirus, which will doubtless make a beeline for Tom and me and our contemporaries - we will start quarantining - or semi-quarantining - ourselves, leaving the house as seldom as possible. But we will enjoy this week as our last week to be out and about among our fellow human beings. Unless the coronavirus arrives early.
        Still, it all seems so surreal.
       Epilogue: It was announced today that the first three cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Ohio, in Cleveland, which is 140 miles from Columbus.
        It just got real.

Reference
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/06/health/coronavirus-older-people-social-distancing/index.html

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/global-pandemic-harvard-public/2020/02/15/id/954244/

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Bye, Bye, Bernie

3/6/2020

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It looks like it's all over for Bernie Sanders.
I guess technically he could still rack up enough primary votes to win the Democratic Presidential nomination, but most commentators and prognosticators think it's been over for Bernie since this past Tuesday, Super Tuesday,

...when Joe Biden unexpectedly swept up victories in the primaries of nine important states and has now racked more delegates than Bernie Sanders.

Not actually a whole lot more delegates at this point,

...but along with his Super Tuesday primary victories Biden has also garnered a number of key Democratic endorsements.

      And so Joe Biden now has the momentum going and conventional wisdom is that Bernie may fight for a while longer but as a Presidential candidate he's finished.
      I believe this as well, and I'm disappointed over it, sad, even, because I really liked Bernie.
      Though I didn't always. I used to number among the many who still held resentment over the fact that after Bernie Sanders lost the 2016 nomination to Hillary Clinton he went home in a huff and took his Bro's with him,

...which accounted for at least part of the reason why Hillary lost to He Who Should Not Be Named and Should Likewise Not Have Been Named President Because He Actually Lost The Election To Hillary By Over 3,000,000 Votes.

    Hence at the start of this election cycle I liked Bernie Sanders least of all the original 24 candidates. Until I started listening to him speak at the debates and his town halls. Rather than sounding radical or wildly revolutionary, to me what Bernie had to say made the plainest sense: Why not join the rest of the developed world in instituting universal health care for Americans? Why not start acting immediately to combat climate change, which is burning, storming, and flooding our country before our eyes? Why not promote affordable higher education for a well-educated, more productive population? Why not do something about our inexcusably crumbling infrastructure? And to pay for all of the above, and ours being the richest country in the world, why shouldn't everyone pay their fair share of taxes commensurate with their income?
      The more I listened to Bernie, the more I knew what it meant to Feel the Bern, and over time I graduated from fan to super-fan. In describing myself, I wondered what one called the female equivalent of a Bernie Bro?
     One of my children mischievously suggested, "Bernie Ho?"
     When people replied to my enthusiasm for Bernie that he could never beat Trump my come back was, "Of course he can. Enough people in enough states just have to get out and vote for him."
      Alas, so far they haven't. Bernie Sanders hasn't even been able to inspire people to get out and vote for him in the primaries. So I now believe that Bernie as President isn't going to happen, nor are all those things he wanted to accomplish for our country.
      And in truth, Bernie himself is probably mostly to blame. Why did he have to call himself a Democratic Socialist? Why did he need to call himself anything? Why did he have to talk about leading a revolution rather than just talking about doing what needs to be done? Why was it necessary for him to bring up something good that Fidel Castro did? He scared people and offered fodder to his critics with that kind of talk. Nor did it help that he has a history in the Senate of refusing to compromise, of standing apart from his fellow legislators on his high moral ground while they scrabbled and horse-traded and gave-and-took and did all the heavy lifting to get bills passed, policy made, and the American people's business taken care of.
      Still, I'm sorry that it's over for Bernie.
      (Sigh) I guess come September I'll be knocking on doors for old Joe.

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