HEALTH

Peter

A Tough Job

It’s been 8 months since one of us has needed a visit to hospital. I think all is well at the moment but an incident with Peg sent us to the E.R. over the weekend; we need to do some followup, but an overnight stay wasn’t necessary.

Still, the experience of 6 hours in an E.R. reminded us of the plight of both patients and hospital staff in these days. And by extension to the greater society.

We haven’t spent that long in an E.R. in quite some time. Our other visits were deemed serious enough that we quickly left the waiting room and were assigned a team and a room. This time, thankfully, the issue wasn’t deemed life threatening and we ended up watching other people come and go and come and go in and out of the E.R. while we were waiting. That sounds terrible, but in fact within precious few moments of our arrival fluids were taken and dispatched to the lab on another floor so that even though we were waiting we weren’t waiting.

The E.R. at our nearest hospital has recently been remodeled. We both were struck that there was more treatment space, but significantly LESS waiting area. Late in the afternoon at the end of the week might not have been the best/worst time to be there but the walls were bulging with patients like us, just waiting. And, to the credit of the staff no one in the waiting room appeared to be in desperate straights or bleeding all over the floor or anything.

Still, it’s obvious that there weren’t enough staff to keep the situation under control and that’s not unlike so very many businesses in town at the present time. From restaurants to service facilities to daycare to cleaning crews it seems that every business around has a “Help Wanted” sign out front, or online, or with a recruiting company. Given that so many people are struggling to make ends meet it’s a conundrum that so many jobs are out there and so few are being filled.

And of course that’s the problem. In pursuit of profit every business out there is trying to minimize costs and maximize the inflow of cash. But it’s easy to see that you can push your employees to a point where the pay isn’t worth the hassle.

Peg & I both are the kind of people that even though we may not be super social, we still like to engage with people we are having interactions with. It’s amazing the things people tell you when they are supposed to be helping or serving you and you show an interest in them in some way other than the context of their job. Oh, the life stories we’ve heard while waiting on a phlebotomist to draw a few tubes of blood, or why an ultrasound person is setting up or cleaning up that gungey stuff they put on your skin to make the machine “see” better. And people aren’t bashful about telling you what they really think if you are sincere about your interest in them and they don’t fear reprisals.

The people that took care of us in the E.R. were wonderful. But they are way over worked. Some years ago we had a tenant in one of our apartments who had been an E.R. tech for 15 years. He was a strange person — personally — but boy did he know his job and did he love it. I often wonder if he’s still on the job today because the difference at the same facility from the time we knew him to today is almost unrecognizable and the hours and schedules and the demands that medical staff have made upon them are superhuman.

Almost every time we visit our G.P. I am struck about just the mundanity of the life of a family doctor — the complete opposite of the E.R. situation we were in recently. We finish a visit and immediately we are told to schedule our next visit — 6 months or 1 year ahead. Gosh… I can’t imagine knowing a year in advance that I’m supposed to be in a little consulting room at a set time with someone. I appreciate all that doctors go through to qualify, but I can’t imagine spending my whole working life going from room to room to room seeing people for 5 to 25 minutes and then moving to the next room. Our family doc who retired at the end of last year had been our go-to person for 30+ years — so we came to know her pretty well. We shared family stories, and vacation plans, and anniversaries and such — but I’m sure not all their patients were as much the chatty-cathy’s that we were and I can’t imagine going from sullen, miserable person to nervous grumpy one, to frightened and bruised person all in an hour.

I am always amazed at how cheerful people can be even when they are pushed against their limits. People really are wonderful. Most of them — at least in our experience. If you give a person a chance most of the time they will surprise you in positive ways. Still, moving quickly from one emergency to another does weird things to your brain. I’ve had jobs where I had to react to changing circumstances but not every day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. My challenges were more spaced out — and I feel so much compassion for the courageous people who manage to cope for an entire career and remain happy to have their job — THAT job — it’s wonderful.

It really is important to try to be kind to people you interact with. Not only for your own sake, but also for the sake of whomever might be their next interaction. One of the things I noticed — and who can blame someone if they are in pain or scared when they might lash out or be hard to get along with — that’s part of being human and it happens to all of us. But if, when we ARE NOT that person, and we are dealing with people who work in that situation, if we can be easy to get along with, and not a pain-in-the-butt, then when they go on to the next person not only will OUR experience with them have been good, but also we are sending the employee off to deal with someone in a good, happy frame of mind and much better enabled to do the best job they can for whomever they are tending to next in the queue.

Ok — that’s it for today. We’re as OK as we can be until we have our consult, and I hope you are too. Cheers, and talk to you again soon. :-)

Peter

Cold Oven Artisanal Bread Revisited

Since my post over a month ago I have been tinkering around with my Cold Oven bread technique.

I have tried a few different things to take the bread up a couple notches from the result I got using the original online recipe.

The first problem I had was that using parchment paper with a 83% hydration dough the paper baked into the bottom of the loaf AND the parchment that wasn’t attached to the loaf was pretty much flaky burnt paper. The part of the parchment that wasn’t baked into the bottom broke away easily but the paper that baked into the bottom was annoying.

The second “problem” in MY mind was that the recipe left about an inch of airspace around the loaf. I don’t know if that is good or bad but I wondered whether increasing the size of the loaf so that it would reach the edge of the cast iron pot might help it either raise vertically instead of horizontally, and make it easier to get out of the pot. I say easier to get out of the pot because the charred parchment paper was useless to pull the bread out of the cooking container. Grab hold of the parchment and it flaked off in your hand. After several loaves, each time I was reduced to either tipping the cooking pot upside down to get the bread out, or using a pancake turner to get it out. Both of my kitchen tongs don’t handle the bread very well, so I always used the turners.

My Solution

After three or four loaves I decided that at my age I wasn’t going to go looking for a smaller cast iron dutch oven. For whatever reason it seems that 5+ quarts is about the size that is available. 5.3, 5.5, 5.7, whatever. And they last forever so why would I want to buy a new one now, other than just to get a new toy.

I thought about this and decided to try three modifications in search of a “better” loaf.

  • Increase the size of the batch. Which I did by going from 450 grams of flower to 550 grams.
    That meant I also had to increase the water (to 450 — reducing the hydration by a couple percent) and the yeast and salt — proportionately.
  • I added some addition warm rise time in the pot. — The recipe wanted me to wait 1 hour after turning the dough out onto the board after fermenting all night. But at 83% hydration the pulled and folded dough didn’t seem to do anything that way.
    I also realized that the place we keep our cast iron ware is adjacent an outside wall and during the cool/cold weather when I take it out of the cupboard it’s actually quite cool to the touch, not a reliable way of treating my soon-to-be-loaf. My solution was to use my oven to add some bread proofing time ( at 100 degrees F)
  • And finally I wanted to scrap the parchment paper idea altogether and wanted to substitute just cornmeal between the pot and the loaf.

So, this is what my result has been. I turn the dough out of the container it ferments in all night (in the plant room which is the warmest room in the house). The recipe would have you ferment in the refrigerator and perhaps some day I’ll try that, but 12-14 hours in a large stainless salad bowl from IKEA has been working just fine.

I do a few pull & stretches, trying not to deflate the dough more than needed. When I have an acceptable ball I dust the bottom of the cast iron pot with cornmeal and gently put the loaf in the pot.

I score the top of the loaf with an X-acto blade as best I can — the dough is still quite wet and frankly it wants to stick to the knife blade, but I do the best I can.

Then everything goes into the oven (covered) and I set it for “Bread Proof” @ 100 degrees for 30 minutes ( I may try longer as time goes on).

At 30 minutes I turn on the oven to 450 degrees (covered) and set the timer for 50 minutes.

After 50 minutes I remove the lid and let it go another 25 minutes.

And take it out of the oven.

The loaves aren’t perfect yet. I’ll continue refining and trying — like I do with everything. But I’m finally getting a loaf with a crispy crust, without unnecessary chemicals that I actually like the texture and flavor of. Why I waited so long is beyond me, but this is both the easiest bread and the tastiest bread I’ve made. My poor Zojirushi bread machine is languishing in the corner except for special occasions AND for sandwich-y milk bread.

That’s it for today. Take care of yourself and I’ll be back tomorrow. :-)

Peter

Sell By Dates

This is the tale of a forgetful old man. Not really a rant, but a good personal reminder, I guess.

Three or four weeks ago I went to the grocery. On my shopping list (yeah, I do make a list for groceries, about the only list I ever make) I wrote Brie cheese. There’s a new brand we have been purchasing of late and as I planned on making French bread (longer recipe time) I wanted so brie to use as an evening nosh.

First of all I had a hard time finding where it was supposed to be. I swear the first time we bought it we found it in a different chiller case than where it was on this visit. I reached up to grab two rounds of the stuff and I realized that there was more of the same further back in the chiller.

Now having been burned a couple times by out-of-date food (and cheese in particular) I checked out the dates on the stack closest to the front (4/2/26) and the ones further back (3/26/26). I was surprised by the fact that the older cheeses were way back there and not easily grabbed and thought to myself “not a very good stock plan”, grabbed the two that had the longer sell by and did the rest of my shopping.

Fast forward 2 weeks. Same scenario — on the hunt for more brie. Went to the same chiller, found the cheese, only saw one stack and grabbed two. As there weren’t a lot there I didn’t think about checking the “sell by”.

Got them home, into the fridge right away. A day or two later when I want to eat some with my new batch of bread I take one out and put the factory wrapped package on the counter to warm up before eating it. Mistake number 1. I should have opened the package as it would come up to room temperature quicker.

A couple hours later I slice up 4 pieces of bread, and open the now extremely soft cheese. It feels a bit funny, but as I get the package opened up I realize that the cheese has spoiled. I look at the sell by date and guess what? It’s that 3/26 batch that I refused the first time around and now we are several weeks beyond that date and the cheese is ruined.

So. lesson learned: Don’t be lazy, always check the sell by date on perishables!

It’s too long after the sale to take it back to the store. And then I look at the second package which I had intended for the next day — and it too is 3/26. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Ok — so $15.00 wasted. I’m a bit perturbed. I think what I WILL do, even if I can’t get a refund from the store is have a chat with the manager. Like most groceries, a portion of the shelf stocking is done by vendors, not by the store employees. I’d love to know who stocks the cheese department. So, I might just ask and find out.

I’ll be honest. Most sell by dates I ignore. Dry goods and canned goods, if the packaging is intact are good for far longer than indicated. Produce I pick up and handle and inspect, and except for things like packaged fresh mushrooms a lot of veggies have no sell by attached to them. Meat — yeah, of course I am critical of the proximity of the sell by. But, depending on how it looks I have been known to hit the expired meat chiller just in case there was a good item worth buying. I don’t do it often but I have scored a few really nice pieces of meat (never fish or poultry) that were out by like 1 day and the packaging still looked perfect. In those cases I went home and that was the meal of the day.

Things like pancake mix, or cake mixes are perfectly good if they are beyond.

There was a time in my lifetime when BUGS were a big issue with dry goods. It wasn’t unusual to find little critters in bags of flour — even IN the sell by period.

A good friend had a job with custom’s inspection of food stuffs. He told me that many products are inspected for insect “parts” — like bulk tomato paste that’s being sold to manufacturers who are going to re-package it into home sized containers. There are standards for how many heads, legs, abdomens are allowed in a given sized test sample. That forever changed my attitude about food purity. I realized that nothing we eat is quite as “pure” as we think it is, but that it doesn’t “need” to be as our bodies have their own auto-immune system and we are designed to be able to fight off the effect of a limited number of impurities.

Anyone who has a dog, and has seen all the vile things they will eat if left to their own devices, knows that various animals have immune systems that are radically different than our own. We would die if we ate some of the things they eat, or drink but they manage just fine. And our bodies are stronger than, say, the body of a newborn infant. But we can over-stress about the “idea” of food purity or food cleanliness, or even kitchen sanitation when our (healthy) bodies are able to cope with a lot more then we credit them for. (DISCLAIMER HERE: I’m not speaking about people with immune deficiencies. Depending on your health status you MUST take care for the situation you are in, not some ideal that you’ll never attain because of infection or genetics)

Canned goods, as long as they aren’t dented, likewise. I don’t push the dates on purpose but if they are marginally over I’m not going to discard them. Even in my pantry system foods don’t sit there forever. I stock what we are likely to use in a reasonable period of time, not just haphazardly buying and buying.

Ok — that’s my personal disappointment for the day. It turns out that I found a use for the 4 slices of bread that I had cut into little chunks suitable for putting cheese on. I bagged them up in a freezer bag and left them till the morning. Then I whipped up some eggs and cinnamon and soaked the bits of bread in the eggs and ended up with a french toast casserole the next morning. Gotta be creative!

That’s it for today. Take care of yourself and your loved ones and I’ll be back soon to chat again.

Peter

On Meds

Yesterday was may annual visit with my heart specialist. It was also the day when Peggy’s first shipment of meds arrived from Mauritius! And there begins a story.

The both of us have “loop recorders” installed in our chest. Me, after a suspected stroke related temporary blindness in one eye, and Peggy after an aneurysm in the brain was discovered. After 2 years of no events being recorded she had a long episode of AFIB which caused her doctor to urge her to go on blood thinners.

The protocols nowadays as we understand them give one two choices. Warfarin which has been used for donkey’s years and requires regular frequent bloodwork, and Eliquis which requires no followup bloodwork but costs an arm and a leg. We tried the first couple months doses of Eliquis — one with a free one time coupon, and the other with an out of pocket payment of $400 something. Her doctor suggested that we use a pharmacy in Canada where we could get the same med (generic) for approximately $50.00 for the same number of pills. With all the hubbub over tariffs and Canada we were concerned about the complications but thought, why not? Well, Yesterday we finally received the first shipment from the Canadian pharmacy — a product that they have shipped from Mauritius in the Indian Ocean — and which took 10 weeks to arrive. All their info says that shipments should arrive in 4 to 6 weeks, but this one certainly didn’t. At 6 weeks we called the company and they sent out a second shipment — and from the packaging material I can’t actually tell whether we received the second or the first shipment — we’ll just wait to see what happens from here — maybe there’s another shipment on the way, maybe there isn’t.

So, back to the main story…

The day started out on the theme of new or different medicines, and when I met with my doctor after the usual echocardiogram and EKG we talked about my meds. I’ve been pretty much on the same doses of the same meds for 10 years now. One of them is really pricey, but is also unreliably available. The manufacturer had a fire in the plant, and there aren’t other producers, so there’s been a nationwide availability issue. My condition is Hypertrophic CardioMyopathy — and if you remember Jim Fixx (I think that was his name) — a marathon runner who up and died for no apparent reason while appearing in perfect health — that’s what HE had. It’s a condition that affects heart valves and interferes with blood flow, and guess what, blood flow is kind of important.

Anyway… after talking about the availability of my primary medicine the doc broached the subject of changing meds. Oh…. Scary… They put me in hospital to get me on the first one under controlled circumstances. Not sure I like the sound of a change. Even though I freak out when my med supply gets close to being gone.

Turns out they have a new med that they have been using for a couple years. It’s approved for use by the FDA, but it’s also on the REMS protocol — meaning Risk Evaluation and Mitigations Strategy — an FDA program that monitors patients to insure that it’s safe and prescribed for the right patients. That physicians office has over 100 patients on the protocol and is the only “center” in Wisconsin doing so.

I need to jump through some hoops — which really means that the doctor’s staff and the pre-authorization teams are doing all the work — but it potentially will involved fewer meds to be taken, that are easier on my liver and kidneys with fewer side effects — but which also cost more. Supposedly they have ways to have the net effect to me be zero dollars out of pocket but we’ll see what happens. And if it doesn’t work out right I can always go back to my current regimen. So, I guess I’m going on a medical adventure.

The two events happening on the same day were interesting. I don’t handle stress as well as I used to, and I’m not as quick as I once was. Listening to all the explanations — and the staff there are top notch communicators — and thorough — was a bit overwhelming. A few things I’m not sure I caught, but I know how to ask questions and I will be doing so. But after 10 years of same-oh, same-oh, same-oh it’s exciting and scary both.

The new drug is Camzyos, or mavacamten, for those who may be interested.

That’s it for today. Talk again soon.

Peter

Donating Blood!

I don’t know if you are a REGULAR blood donor, or whether you are a donor at all. But if you aren’t, please consider becoming one. I know they ask a lot of questions every single time you donate. And it’s a pain, and feels like an invasion of privacy, but if you want a healthy, safe supply of blood the questions are only those necessary to insure that you don’t have a condition, or haven’t recently travelled in a place where you could have picked up dangerous pathogens that would make the blood unusable or unsafe for a recipient!

I was hardly out of my teens when a family friend was having open heart surgery — yeah, I’m one of those who lived in the time when it was still being called “open heart surgery.” Nowadays they do a lot with robotic surgery and keyhole surgeries and cracking your entire chest open isn’t nearly as common as it used to be, but that’s what he was having. The call went out for donors — seeing as then the surgeries were becoming common and using a lot more blood than they do now. I realized I could help and went to the local branch of the blood bank and gave my pint of lifesaving fluid.

I was amazed no long after to get a really moving note from the patient and it really got me thinking about how easy it had been and how much good a few minutes resting on a sofa could be. Oh, yeah, there was the “poke,” and it felt funny in my arm for 20 minutes or so. But at the end they gave me COOKIES and something to drink and it’s amazing what a young lad will do for a few cookies!

I got into the habit of donating. Soon I was going back every 8 weeks. Eventually I discovered donating packed red cells which took longer each visit but also offered more opportunities for use and that extended my re-donate visit to 16 weeks because it took the body longer to recoup afterwards.

I got up to some 90 donations and started having issues with the medications I was taking and with my own physical well being so I no longer donate regularly, but — if I’m honest — I miss it. I knew I was doing good, it was easy enough, there was always some pleasant banter with the staff taking care of you and then, of course, there were the cookies — which nowadays are often accompanied by other far more healthy snack options just to help regulate your blood sugar after the donation.

I don’t know what your life is like, or how you feel about such things, but please give some consideration to donating. It’s interesting that blood donations are a very regional thing. Several parts of the country do not have nearly enough donors. I find it telling that the last report I saw on the subject also said that the areas with the lowest donation rates were also the areas where they greatest organ transplants were being done — something that would seem counter-intuitive. One would think that if people were getting the benefit of organ transplants that they would themselves realize the need for donations and help out by donating what they could, when they could. But evidently there are a lot of people who are willing to take without giving. So much for human nature.

Ok — that’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. :-)

Peter

“You’re Fussy About Your Food”

The most popular view of The House on the Rock, Spring Green, WI

It was a good 20 years ago. My granddaughter was 8 or 9 years old and the two of us were on a day trip from Milwaukee to the wonderful House on the Rock. It’s a good 2 hour journey and we had stopped off along the way for breakfast — at a Perkins Pancake House. I have no idea what it was that we were eating, but my granddaughter said to me, “Jaja, You’re fussy about your food.” I was surprised. Who knows what it is that kids notice which adults don’t. It’s a brand new world to them and their insights are often to be envied. But I had never considered that I was “fussy” about much of anything.

Just one of many curious rooms in The House on the Rock, Spring Green, WI

Fast forward a whole bunch of years. At the beginning of this year when our whole “let’s buy a house together” story started my son in law said something to Katy which she then repeated to us, “Well, your dad is particular.”

The subject of Self-Knowledge is rarely spoken about in public. The question of how well we know ourselves, or whether we know ourself at all gives me reason to pause. I know that I am more aware of who/what I am than many, but still I find there are myriad ways in which I seem to know very little about my own thoughts and attitudes.

As we putter around getting the new house in order there have been a few things that have surprised me.

  • Having managed a lock and security hardware company, the state of the locks here shocked me — they offer little security at all.
  • The kitchen flooring had an area where the boards had separated a bit and the finish looked so shiny that it just “looked” like a cheaply done remodel.
  • The kitchen was lacking adequate (for me) storage.
  • The thermostat was a single setting antique model.

None of these things are huge issues. They and many more have been corrected, modified, changed with relatively little effort. Still and all, for a while I was quite miffed about them. I guess I am “particular” or “fussy.” But for most of the time I just don’t think about being that way.

Our friends and family get used to our little idiosyncrasies. We get used to those of others. When I was in my 30’s I was working a job that involved a lot of personal interaction with others and one of my co-workers picked me out in an instant from the other end of a dark room — actually a hotel bar — and when I asked him how he did that he said, “I could tell it was you by the way you stood.” Another situation where someone noticed something about me that I was completely unaware of. But it goes to show you how many and varied are the ways that we manifest who we are. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, philosophically, practically: oh wow, we keep unraveling like a ball of yarn tossed around by a cat!

I find that this whole aging thing has skewed my personality. Some of the most curious things have become infinitely more important to me; while other things I used to care a great deal about don’t mean a hoot any more. Which have grown in importance and which have decreased has often been amusing when I came to realize the changes.

I think it’s good that I’m at least partly aware of how much I am changing. And that I pay attention to the way others react to the changes in their lives. I have seen a lot of anger and frustration in older people when I was younger. I don’t want to be those people. And yet, as I age I find that some of my reactions are more forceful and less predictable than I would have expected. Different things surprise me than ever bothered me in my youth. I know I’m not a quick or capable as I used to be, and there are moments when I get really, really, frustrated that I just can’t do some of the things that used to be second nature to me.

I’m fortunate. I have a loving wife, a loving daughter and son-in-law, and grandkids and great grandkids who I get to see from time to time. Not everyone is so lucky. My mother-in-law passed at age 50 and Peg’s dad lived as a bachelor for 30 years. As did my grandmother (even longer). Continuing on after the passing of a spouse has to be horrendous. I can only with great difficulty imagine what life would be like without Peg — and yet there are friends and neighbors who carry on quite well after the loss of a loving partner. But what must those do who have no one special in their lives?

For the past couple months there has been an uproar over homeless people living in tents and recreational vehicles at the park-n-rides off the Interstate highway. The situation has been ongoing for a couple years it seems but worsening in the past year. This country has oodles and oodles of problems I’m sure. But the fact that as a society we continue to manufacture the poor and destitute as if they were a product of our society — which of course is what they actually are — astonishes me. So many people are upset about the existence of homeless people, but no one has any solutions to offer — or even any ideas of how to solve the problem of people falling between the cracks of the social net. Maybe our society is getting “older” in the same way I am. Maybe our social reactions to what’s going on are as strange and unpredictable as are my own when I’m surprised by something I can no longer do, or a task I once performed with ease and which now takes all my energy. I don’t know. Is society old? Or is it sick? Somehow we dehumanize other humans. I have accepted that the military has always done that. Generals can’t get soldiers to kill other humans for no reason, so soldiers have been taught that the “enemy” are somehow less than human. Are we doing that with the poor? Are they less than human? And who decides where we draw the lines?

Is society fussy? Not just about food, but about things that matter a great deal more?

It will be interesting to see what “society” decides in a few days at the election. Won’t it!

I’ll talk with you tomorrow. Take care of yourself.

Peter

the 120 day root canal

Maybe we need to pay more attention to the subject of antibiotic resistant bacteria!

A couple years ago I had some gum problems and visited a periodontist to get that sorted. I was unsatisfied with regular dentist and went searching for a “replacement”. The new, solo practice was well recommended by locals and I have been very happy with their service. The dentist is caring, precise and a perfectionist. What’s more, I trust them.

When tooth 30 started acting up I waited longer than I should have, and in the end asked for an emergency appointment to deal with what became a root canal.

I was so inflamed that we did a round of antibiotics before opening it up. The next visit we got into the nitty gritty and another round of pills because the infection had gone down but was persistent. Dealing the tooth with medication inside plus more pills and of course time for the meds to do their work interspersed between visits and we were already up to 90 days.

the previous visit to yesterday was a month ago and we tried yet another combination of meds to vanquish those little gremlins that had taken up residence in my mouth. Neither dentist nor patient were very optimistic but we pressed on.

Yesterday I returned to the dentist for the fourth time connected with this root canal. Fortunately the last round of drugs succeeded in getting rid of the infection. That’s multiple rounds of different combinations of drugs to get to what used to be cured by Amoxicillin alone. Not a good sign in general, and definitely not a good sign for me in particular. The over use of antibiotics is causing repercussions we didn’t think about as a society and the outlook is scary. For sure.

I’m on the mend. I have another visit to measure for a crown and then a visit to install the crown and this adventure will be over. I really need to be careful in the future. Not only about my teeth, but about any infection at all. And if you are like me, maybe you should too.

I hope you’re doing well, take care of yourself, and I’ll talk with you tomorrow.

Peter

adaptation post-COVID

Daily writing prompt
How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
View all responses

To be honest I’m not sure how much I’ve adapted. With my health conditions I can’t risk any kind of respiratory infection so I took the masking seriously and to be honest never thought all that much about it. Entire cultures like the Japanese think nothing of masking so why were Americans making such a fuss about it — other than the fact that we simply don’t like people telling us what to do. Specially Republicans who seem not to want any government at all unless it benefits the rich.

COVID did alert me to effort saving tricks. Like grocery pickups. I learned that our local branch of the Kroger empire offered free pickup for grocery orders and in light of the migration from manned checkout to self-serve checkout I figured why not let them both check out my order for me — AND — pick my order for me! I save a lot of time and I don’t have to handle the product until I take it out of my car at home.

We were already retired at the beginning of COVID so our contact with people was already somewhat limited. We saw our family somewhat less and I will forever miss the developing of closeness that an unmasked face would have allowed with our first Great Grandkid. The second one who came along a year and a half ago had the benefit of seeing family faces from the get-go and we are much closer with him as a result. Little things matter a lot in those early months.

Given that Long COVID continues to be a problem we are still cautious about groups of people. Without a doubt we have reduced the number of restaurant meals, and we plan our shopping trips more carefully. — which for us is largely Home Depot, Target and specialty grocery stores. Most of the other things we had been doing we continue doing but we are more apt to spend time in the woods than at a concert — that has always been our personality.

I DO MISS the amount of personal contact we get in the normal run of things. People are or seem to be more reserved and less willing to just be friendly and conversant. Maybe that’s our location? Maybe that’s me? Maybe that’s just the way society is going in the U.S. of A. and would have happened anyway.