Mr. Dunnevant Goes Grocery Shopping

So, yesterday afternoon I had a new COVID-19 experience. I went grocery shopping. Sure, I’ve popped in to my local Publix before to pick up random stuff during this pandemic, but not until yesterday was I entrusted with a full grocery run. Pam was feeling worn out so I volunteered to go in her place. Tired as she was, she hesitated to give such an important task to me. My wife is one of those people who knows exactly what she wants and where to find it, and she doesn’t much care for delegating. Nevertheless, there she was handing me...the list...and sending me on my way with great fear and trembling.

Wait...you didn’t expect my wife to send me to the grocery store without specific, written instructions did you? Nooooo. This list was amazing in that it was organized by aisle from the right of the store to the left, and, came with handy idiot-proof notes hand written in green ink. When she handed it to me all she said was, “Make sure you remember to bring a pen with you so you can mark things off the list as you find them.”

I arrived at Publix at exactly 3:07 pm, pen-less. Luckily, the friendly guy at the help desk, displaying male solidarity, handed me a loaner in a gloved hand with the encouraging, “You got this, bro.”

I head to the produce section and start checking stuff off. Everything is going great until I get to the green beans. Pam has written “small bag, if fresh...or none.” I take this to mean, only buy a bag of green beans if they look fresh. Question: how does one discern the freshness of a sealed bag of green beans? I stood there pondering the package looking for freshness clues for what felt like five minutes, eventually throwing a bag in the cart. Then it got even worse when I got to raspberries. Her instructions in green were quite clear...only if they look firm. Ok...she didn’t say only if they feel firm for good reason. These things come in sealed containers as well. No, she asked me to judge their firmness by...sight. Another five minutes of incredulous indecision.

By the time I made it to the canned fruit aisle I was presented with yet another fork in the road moment...the list said pineapple rings. My first thought was WTH is a pineapple ring?? I saw crushed pineapple, pineapple chunks, and even something called pineapple tidbits, but the elusive pineapple rings were nowhere to be found. However, there was one lonely can of pineapple slices:

My powers of deduction came into play here as I reasoned that this pineapple product was shaped suspiciously like a ring. As a bonus, these “slices” came in “100% pineapple juice...which sounded to me like some sort of extra thing. It was thrown into the cart with cocky confidence!

The most difficult purchase was yet to come. There I was standing in front of the dairy case. The item in question was Dannon vanilla yogurt. My eyes scanned the astonishing array of yogurt products in the case. I thought to myself, what in the Sam Hill is this? Don’t people realize how disgusting this stuff is? People actually purchase and voluntarily consume something that smells spoiled and curdled as soon as you open the package!! There must have been 15 different brands of the stuff, but the only thing that said Dannon was one lonely package of...I’m not even kidding...coffee flavored yogurt! I text Pam: nothing in the dairy case that says Dannon. She quickly replies: It says “Dannon” in tiny little print. She wasn’t kidding...

If you squint really hard you might be able to make out the manufacturer’s name in tiny letters right above the light & fit thing. See, even Dannon knows that this stuff is disgusting, even Dannon is embarrassed to be selling such a horrible product!! 

As I reached the 45 minute mark of my foray into grocery shopping while wearing an N95 face mask, I began to sweat profusely. I pawed and picked at the mask, adjusting it to let in some air. Then I got the idea to head over to the ice cream case, not to buy ice cream, but to open the big glass door, stick my sweating head inside the case and slip the mask off for some sweet relief. It was glorious. While doing so, I received a couple of menacing side eyes from professional grocery shoppers passing by. But, I made no apologies. I offered no explanation to these people for my behavior. It was this or I was going to end up creating a scene by ripping the thing off and screaming profanities. You do what you have to do.

By the time I made it through the checkout line and had loaded my groceries into my car, it was 4:17pm. I had spent $124.90. It turned out that my bag of green beans was, in fact, fresh, the raspberries were firm enough, and pineapple slices are the same exact thing as pineapple rings.

It should be pointed out that when it comes to grocery shopping, actually going to the store to fetch these items is the easy part. I’m told that the preparation of the list is the hardest part, and often more time consuming. If so, now I totally understand why Pam so often comes back from the grocery store in such an ill-temper. Add to this having to wear a face mask and you’re talking about some serious first world problems here!!

 

Let Me Introduce You to Your Next Worry!!

I have made excellent use of this quarantine thing by plowing through some great classic works of literature that I had never gotten around to reading. First it was Middlemarch, then The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and just last night I finished, Anna Karenina. While it's true that great big old Russian novels, particularly anything by Tolstoy, can be thickly ponderous things, I thought Anna was brilliant. The old weirdo could write, my friends. There’s a scene in the book where he describes a group of peasants and himself mowing a field of tall grass with scythes. The writing is so beautifully rendered you can smell the grass, hear the sweep of the blade and feel the tightness in your back and shoulders by the time he is through. Incredible.

Then, while scanning through some business news articles—something I don’t recommend—I stumble across a piece in The Atlantic that informs me that not only should I feel appropriate shame and guilt for my white privilege, my stable family privilege, my wealth privilege and all the rest, now there’s another privilege for me to confess to...flour privilege!! That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, it would appear that we have bought up practically every pound of processed wheat left in America for the purposes of satisfying our baking itch. In so doing I suppose we have hogged it all and now there’s a shortage of flour. If it weren’t for that British Baking Show, we wouldn’t be acting this way. I’m not kidding y’all. This is a real thing...

One thing that we will never run out of in this country? Things to feel guilty about, worry about and fret over. There will always be some new fresh catastrophe right around the corner to feed our ulcers. We will never, ever exhaust the raw materials from which our anxieties are manufactured. It is an infinitely renewable resource.

My Reopening Plan

Traffic has picked up on Broad Street. The parking lots around my office are starting to fill up. The lot at Lowe's the other day looked like they were giving away free beer. Whatever might be happening at my State Capital or up in Washington, and no matter what might be happening with the actual Coronavirus, the American people seem to be voting with their feet, and their verdict seems to be...enough already.

This coming Friday, my State begins Phase one of the great reopening. Assuming that there is no corresponding spike in transmissions, two weeks later, Phase two will begin. Like everything else in America, how one feels about this reopening seems to fall along party lines, Democrats generally being against it, while Republicans are for it. Of course, these stances are not absolute. I’m sure that there are plenty of Democrat small business owners out there who are desperate to reopen, while there are also plenty of Republican lobbyists not so keen to hop back on a packed airplane anytime soon. But what about me...Mr. In Between?

It’s weird. We’ve been at this going on nine weeks now. Pam and I have been very careful to abide by every guideline and mandate that has come down. Still, neither of us know anyone who has gotten sick and died from COVID-19. We suspect maybe that our daughter in law might have had it, but that’s about it. Of course, that’s anecdotal and by no means illustrative of anything other than our good fortune. If numbers from Johns Hopkins are to be believed, the United States has had over a million cases and over 80,000 deaths so far. This number is higher than the predictions from the last White House briefing I watched from three or four weeks ago when they were estimating the total deaths would peak at 60,000. This past weekend Pam and I attended a wedding which perfectly illustrates the conundrum in which we find ourselves. The fact that this wedding was held at a drive-in theatre tells you that the families involved were taking the Coronavirus seriously. And yet, when we arrived, the first thing that happened was, my wife and the mother of the groom found each other ...and hugged. Then they separated, startled by the embrace with an exasperated look on their faces...Is this ok? I don’t know, but I’m so happy to see you I just can’t help myself..its a wedding for God’s sake!!! I think that this is how most of us are feeling. We understand that COVID-19 is deadly serious, but as human beings we just don’t know how to proceed, what is proper and what isn’t.

In this regard it sure would help if we could agree on the facts. It would be such a relief if we all had a source of numbers and information that we could all trust. At this point, anything I hear from either the White House or anyone in Congress is highly suspect. Even the veracity of the CDC and WHO have been called into question. One minute I hear one thing, a couple days later the exact opposite, and usually from the same source! It is maddening.

Here are just a few of the many conflicting things I have heard recently:

Kids can’t get it.

Kids can get it.

Animals don’t carry the virus.

Dogs can get it.

Once you’ve been exposed to the virus, you have immunity.

No, you don’t.

We are at least a year away from a vaccine.

A breakthrough might come sooner than you think.

We shouldn’t open until we have a cure...a vaccine.

Forget that, there are so many mutations out there we will probably need several vaccines.

Wearing face masks are critically important.

Wearing face masks makes little difference. At best a placebo effect since it makes the wearer feel safer.

Everyone needs to be tested before we can reopen safely.

That’s impossible and unneeded. We only need to test at risk populations in hotspots.

We are already past the worst of this.

The second wave of this will be twice as bad as what we have seen so far.

People who are sheltered in place in their homes at this point are babies and cowards.

People who are going about their lives are selfish money grabbers.

So, yeah. 

Here’s my plan. I am going to do my best to follow the guidelines handed down by my state and local government. I will wear a face mask when I go inside a store. I will continue to wash my hands a half dozen times a day. I will continue to use hand sanitizer every time I get in my car. When the restaurants open, I will probably limit myself to those with outdoor seating. I will still do my best to honor the six feet distance rule when interacting with others. Probably won’t shake anyone’s hands for quite a while. I will be patient with my church when it decides to reopen...I won’t get bent if I don’t get one of the tickets to attend the service I like. My business will slowly start allowing in-office appointments. We are still trying to figure that out. My gut feeling is that it will take several months of this reopening before I start feeling more normal with regards to personal interaction. It won’t be the end of the world if I have to alter a few lifestyle choices going forward, but they will have to be my choice, my decision as an informed, free citizen.

For me caution will be the theme of any reopening. And also, that old Ronald Reagan line comes to mind...Trust, but verify.

My Daughter’s Birthday

Today is my daughter’s birthday. The very first time her birthday rolled around after I started this blog was in 2011, nine years ago. That’s when I wrote what follows. I have attempted other birthday tributes, but none have ever been able to improve on my first attempt. I read it at her wedding as well, because when I was trying to decide what to say at that momentous occasion, I found that I kept coming back to...this.

Kaitlin Elizabeth Dunnevant. I’ve always liked the way her name rolled off the tongue. Lots of letters and syllables coming together to make a pretty sound. On her birthday I will take a minute to make a partial list of the many things that come together to make her so wonderful.

* She is the lump in my throat every time I watch Father of the Bride.

* She is the unexpected catch in my voice whenever I brag about her at work.

* In a life of mistakes she is evidence that I got something right.

* She is the smile on my face every time I see a blonde curly-haired two year old in a yellow dress.

* She was the pit in my stomach whenever teenage boys with bad intentions came around, and they all had bad intentions.

* When her softball team lost a thrilling game in the bottom of the last inning she was the only one with tears coming down her cheeks. She may be the most competitive Dunnevant of them all. It’s a glorious thing.

* On the five minute drive to school in second grade I could always make her smile at least once no matter how miserable she was and no matter how hard she tried not to.

* I marvel at the level of discipline she has developed.

* She is the pride I feel when I see her curled up on the sofa reading yet another book. My gift to her.

* When I see her fierce loyalty to friends, her tender heart to the less fortunate, her love and devotion to all things family I realize how amazing my grandchildren will be to behold.

* She is the shame I feel still that I spent the first 24 hours of her life disappointed that she wasn’t a son.

Happy birthday to my brave, talented, and beautiful girl with the beautiful name...even though her and I both know that her real name is  Kato Tomato.

Lucy’s Complaint

I try hard not to be drama queen. Hard when I live in booby-trapped house with my humans. Every day find new horror. It not enough that humans not concerned with out of control ceiling fan, trash can, peoples walking just outside of house with small doggers. They not see ghosts that live in corners of every room in house! Every day they walk down scary stairs without caution and expect me to follow them! Not in million years...I must first inspect condition of stair, check light and condition of wind like any self respect dogger. Well, this morning come latest crazy...

I come down for breakfast and not believe what I see. I stop short even though I hungry. I think...is this joke? Human think weird things funny sometime. I look around but nobody laughing. I take closer look. What fresh cat hell is this? Human has put kibble in...water bowl!! I make closer inspect. No two ways about...they have put kibble in water bowl and expect me to eat it. To make matter worst they compound foolish by putting water in kibble bowl!! Chip in very wrong place. Make it impossible to eat without grave worry. Do they not see problem?? I so hungry I could eat cat, but make no difference. Too much danger. Human plead with me to eat. Easy for her to say. Her not eating food out of wrong bowl!

Eventually, I summon courage of ancestors to endure wrong bowl fiasco. Human try very hard...but honestly!!

The Murder of Ahmaud Arbery

My son has taken up running of late. He wants to train to run in a 10 K. Back before the Coronavirus, he would run in a neighborhood adjacent to his office during his lunch hour. Suppose that one day during one of his runs he was gunned down by a couple of vigilantes who wrongly suspected him of a burglary in that neighborhood. Then imagine that the two vigilantes were a black father and son. Cops arrive at the scene and quickly determine that they have probable cause to arrest the two killers but when they present their evidence to the district attorney, who is also black, she refuses to do so because one of the killers used to work for her. The killers go free for two months, my son’s murder in cold blood is ignored and there is no justice for him. How would any of you expect me to react to such injustice? 

But Doug, you might say, wouldn’t this story be just as tragic without mentioning the race of the people involved? Sure it would. But that’s exactly the point. Try to imagine this happening where the victim is white, the assailants and the district attorneys are black and no arrest is made until a video surfaces two months later? You can’t. Because it never would happen. That is the tragedy of what has happened to Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia. It took three district attorneys to finally summon the gumption to arrest Gregory and Travis McMichael for the brutal murder and it took a leaked video splashed all over social media to accomplish that. 

I have written many times in this space about the two separate but unequal systems of justice in this country, one for the rich, powerful and well-connected, and a second for everybody else. This is not a distinctly American problem. It is as old as justice itself. But too often in this country, the people most victimized by the injustices of the system are either black or brown. It can’t be denied by any reasonable person. It is a stain on us and should make all of us angry. I cannot speak for this young man’s family. I can’t begin to understand what they are going through right now. But, there’s one thing I do know. If the victim were my son, I would become the Glynn County Police Department’s worst nightmare.

The attorney for the victim’s family said it best, “They did not arrest the killers of Ahmaud Arbery because they saw the video, they arrested the killers of Ahmaud Arbery because we saw the video.”

Shameful.

Mother’s Day and a Wedding

So, last night we had the fourth different couple over for dinner on our deck over the past three weeks. This time it was my in-laws, Russ and Vi White. Pam wanted to celebrate Mother’s Day a little early since the forecast for Sunday isn’t great. We ordered a meal from Taziki’s which was delicious. Then Pam served up strawberry shortcake for dessert. After dinner we sat around a fire like we have done at least a thousand times up at Dummer’s Beach in Maine. Lucy entertained us with her frisbee-catching skills. It was a lovely evening.

This woman is the only Mother I have left, my Mom having passed away eight years ago. Vi White has been just about the best mother-in-law anyone could ask for in our 36 years of marriage. Whenever we have needed her for anything, she has dropped everything to help. Never once has she interfered in our lives. She has loved and doted on our kids and their spouses. She has even tolerated the constant succession of golden retrievers running around our house all these years, quite the accomplishment for an unrepentant cat person. So, on this Mother’s Day weekend, I salute her.

Tomorrow, we will be attending a socially distant wedding at a drive-in theatre in Christiansburg, Virginia and we are so psyched. We will get in our car and drive three hours, pull into our spot, watch the proceedings from inside our car, then drive three hours back home. I’m thinking about wearing a dress shirt, tie and suit coat along with pajama bottoms and tennis shoes! It’s supposed to be 48 degrees in Christiansburg tomorrow. I’m worried the poor bride is going to freeze to death, but...what price, love?

My Protest Beard

It’s been two weeks since I last shaved. How does it look? Suffice it it to say that I look like an extra in a Zombie apocalypse movie, or for my older readers, I very much resemble Humphrey Bogart in the African Queen. I haven’t had a haircut since the 3rd of March which only adds to the stranded on a deserted island look. I could allow Pam a turn at giving me a trim, and, I could shave. But I choose this version of myself for the moment. Why? Because frankly, it feels right. Call it my protest beard.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not “protesting” against government overreach or bureaucratic incompetence. I’m kinda over that. I’m not even protesting the orgy of corporate greed on display as publicly traded companies with full access to capital markets gobble up stimulus money designed for small, closely held businesses...greed being an ancient vice, nothing new under the sun and all that. No, I’m just protesting the giant, unmitigated disaster that 2020 has become. I figure if this entire year is going to slouch along in such an unkempt, disheveled, thoroughly unbuttoned fashion, why shouldn’t I??

But, I am supposed to be a professional man. Consequently, I feel a twang of guilt when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, enough to make me question the whole no shaving thing but not enough to make me change my behavior. So, like all emotionally conflicted people, I have constructed a compromise...just for today. Wednesday’s agenda does not include any FaceTime appointments. Today is full of case planning, bill paying, and an online continuing education course, all of which could be done in my underwear. Instead, I have decided to get dressed up today. For the first time in over two months, I am going to put on dress pants, a dress shirt, real shoes and socks and see if I have forgotten how to tie a tie. Yes my friends, I am going to dress like I used to dress for a face to face appointment with human beings back before the Coronavirus. I can only hope that I don’t get pulled over by a cop on my way to work:

Me: Yes, Officer? I feel certain that I was going the posted speed limit.

Cop: What? Are you some sort of wise guy? Where do you think you’re going dressed like that?

Me: Like...what?

Cop: What’s that thing around your neck?!

Me: It’s a silk tie.

Cop: So, you going to a funeral or something? You expect me to believe you’re headed to church??

Me: No no...I’m going into the office. It’s just around the corner.

Cop: Out of the car please!! And keep those hands where I can see ‘em!  Wait...you’re wearing dress shoes, with SOCKS? That’s it buddy. I’ll have to take you in for questioning.

Me: But I’m not...

Cop: Save it for the judge, fancy pants!!

About Those Annoying Commercials...

I don’t watch a lot of television. When I do it’s usually Netflix or some other service which doesn’t have commercials. But, during this shutdown I have watched more TV than usual. As a result I have been exposed to my share of these insidious new commercials which have sprouted up like mushrooms after three days of rain. For lack of a better term, I will refer to them as the...We’re all in this together advertisements, or W.A.I.T.

You’ve all seen them, these WAIT ads. They all feature a soft piano followed by swelling orchestration. There are beautiful children on the screen, looking back at the camera as they run in slow motion through fields of grain. An announcer begins his heartfelt message:

During this time of great challenge we are all rediscovering the importance of family, the simple beauty of a sunset, the hopeful smile of a child. We here at Subaru have known all along that we aren’t in the car business, we’re in the people business.

Subaru. Here for you.

I don’t know about you, but before COVID-19, I had no earthly idea how many corporations were in fact not in the automobile, household cleaner, health and beauty aids, real estate, computer, insurance businesses, but rather in the people business. It has been quite a revelation to learn that the real business of Coors Brewing is not to sell me watered down lite beer that taste like horse urine but instead to come along side our neighbors in their hour of need. Seriously? What can Coors possibly offer my neighbors struggling through the isolation and lost revenue of a two months and counting economic shutdown that doesn’t involve a cold six pack of their product? Regardless, I suppose it is comforting to know that Cadillac is there for me if ever I might...need them. I’m trying hard to imagine what I might ask of them. I mean, they have promised to be there for me. Maybe I can call the local dealership and see if they wouldn't mind running over to Publix and doing Pam’s grocery shopping later this week. 

But, its not just big companies killing us with kindness. Even local concerns are jumping on the WAIT bandwagon. I’m telling you, Short Pump is suddenly awash in exemplary corporate citizens, all lining up to assure us that they too are in the people business. Never in my lifetime have the people become such an integral component of the business plans of every thing from Alcoa to Zenith...

(Swelling music slowly building in intensity as design engineer works diligently at a drafting table)

Narrator: When I came to work here at Lexus, I knew that my job wasn’t just to design cars. No, at Lexus my job is about serving humanity for the greater good, which is why we are all now designing the finest personal protective gear that money can buy, which we are offering to all Lexus customers at our cost...

It’s this type of public-mindedness that makes me want to rush right out and buy one of their $60,000 cars.

Listen, I get it. Madison Avenue is a powerful voice and the nature of public relations is to get out in front of things to help shape the narrative. But, merciful fathers, enough already. Here’s a better suggestion. Try honesty:

Look folks, here at Acme Equipment, we are holding on for dear life. Our working capital is almost gone, we’ve had to let half of our employees go and we’re not sure how long we will be able to last if this shutdown stays in effect much longer. So, if we are still here when it ends, we sure would appreciate your business. Until then, please check out the GoFundMe link on our website.

Can I Make a Suggestion To My Church?

Zoomed with my kids yesterday. They are all healthy and handsome. We don’t zoom with them every five minutes, just once every ten days or so. It’s always such a relief to see their faces, to be reassured that they are well. For this I am thankful. But video-chats are a poor substitute for hugs.

What’s today...Monday? Yes, Monday. We had church on the deck yesterday morning when we watched Wes Peterson bring the message via Pam’s iPhone while eating breakfast...so yesterday was Sunday...making today Monday. This is how I keep up with the days of the week now.

Yes...that breakfast was amazing. Pam has been finding recipes all over the place during this...thing...and the results have been stellar. This particular offering was sausage wrapped in a croissant stuffed with cheese, somehow moist and flaky at the same time. Poor Wes didn’t have a chance. It’s hard to concentrate on a sermon when eating such a thing. He spoke about Elisha, I do remember that much. I’m about done with virtual church. It’s been eight weeks since I’ve been in a congregation at my church. I’m missing it more and more with each passing week. I have a half-baked plan in my head of how we should reopen, and since every other response to the Coronavirus has been half-baked, this one should fit right in.

My church normally has four services on Sunday. Our main auditorium seats roughly 700 people. We have an overflow room which seats probably another 100, and we have a separate building down the hill a ways called The Lodge which seats another 100 or so. In normal times each of these services are full or nearly full. In the auditorium the seats are crammed together very closely, too closely I have always thought. Here is my half-baked plan. Let’s say Pam and I wanted to attend the 9:30 service next Sunday. We would have to go to our website and make a reservation...first come, first served. As soon as a pre-determined number make such reservations (say 250), that service would be sold out. We would then be instructed to download a ticket to present when we arrive. Meanwhile, the chairs inside the building would be vastly reconfigured, providing for the proper social distancing requirements. Two chairs together for husbands and wives, space, space, space, then some single seats, space, space space then another couple of seats together etc.. No offering would be taken up, no communion served. This plan would only provide roughly a thousand people to attend on a given Sunday over those four services, far lower than the twenty five hundred that currently attend. But, as the weeks go by, the number allowed in would rise from 250 to 350 etc. No coffee would be served. None of those delicious cookies. (I TOLD you this was half-baked). I have no idea what to do about the kids wing. That’s beyond my pay grade. 

I offer this plan as a starting point. I’m sure that the very bright people on our church leadership team have already discussed similar plans for re-opening, but so far have shared none of their ideas with us. If I could offer any suggestion to them it would be to share their vision of how we will re-open. Their silence on this subject isn’t helpful or hopeful.

Ok, enough of that. How do you all feel about blond jokes? I have to be careful in this day and age. For one thing, I am married to a blond. For another thing, in my experience people either think that blond jokes are hysterical or they think that they are a misogynistic tool of the patriarchy. Such are the treacherous waters of the comedy ocean. But, I will take the risk and the heat for what follows:

An old, blind cowboy wanders into an all-girl biker bar by mistake. He finds his way to a bar stool and orders a shot of Jack Daniels. After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender, "Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?" The bar immediately falls absolutely silent.....

...in a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says,

"Before you tell that joke, Cowboy, I think it is only fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things:

The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat.

The bouncer is a blonde girl.

I'm a 6-foot tall, 175-pound blonde woman with a black belt in karate.

The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weight lifter.

The lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.

Now, think about it seriously, Cowboy. Do you still wanna tell that blonde joke?"

The blind cowboy thinks for a second, shakes his head and mutters, "No, not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times."

Best Day of The Coronavirus

Yesterday was perhaps the best day I’ve had since the onset of COVID-19. It was a premeditated gardening day. I had braved the long line at Strange’s the day before and bought all the necessities. God provided me with picture perfect weather that felt like July 1st in Maine. So, I spent five hours with my hands buried deep into potting soil, laying out my tomato plants and Pam’s herb garden. For the rest of the year we will reap the benefits of the herb garden. The tomatoes, not so much. They are mostly my personal vanity project. I water them, check on their daily progress, fertilize them, take pictures of their prodigious growth, then bask in the glow of pride as dozens of green tomatoes burst forth on their sturdy vines. Then literally hours before I plan on picking them to make BLT’s I will discover large chunks of ripe tomato flesh missing...in the shape of squirrel teeth. My deep, psychotic and clearly deranged hatred of that worthless animal renewed, I will roam my backyard for days afterwards, BB-gun loaded and cocked seeking revenge. Out of the 75-100 tomatoes which these plants will produce during the summer, Pam and I will eat roughly 10-15 of them, making my tomatoes the most expensive vegetables in the western world.* The rest will either get befouled by squirrels or ripen while we are in Maine, providing nourishment for our dog sitter. And yet, every year you will find me laying out my tomato plants. Hope springs eternal.

We will have far better luck with the thyme and parsley...

...two varieties of basal.

...mint and rosemary.

To top off this perfect day, Pam invited my sister Paula and her husband Ron over for a socially distant dinner out on the deck. We ordered our meal from Tazikis, sat ten feet apart while eating, then gathered around a fire that I made in my beloved solostove, the single greatest purchase made in the Dunnevant household since Lucy...

Today looks like another beauty. Maybe another fire tonight.


* before I get inundated with helpful tips on protecting my tomato plants from squirrels, let me save you the trouble. I’ve tried everything in the book...yes, even deer urine. Nothing has been able to prevent the tree rats from stealing them at the peak of their ripeness. Although, I have had the intense pleasure of catching a few of them in the act and skillfully sending them to squirrel hell with one single shot from my Daisy Powerline 35, an activity which makes the entire project feel temporarily worthwhile.

Seven Things I Learned This Week

Having your personal freedoms taken away from you during a pandemic should be viewed as a growth opportunity. At least, that’s what an endless barrage of insufferably upbeat self-help posts on Facebook have been telling me. I should be seizing this golden opportunity at self-reflection presented to me by the evisceration of my liberties. So, this week I have heeded their advice. To that end, may I present to you...seven things I learned this week:

1. When cracking jokes about the most ruthless and ridiculous sociopath to rule a nation since Pol Pot, it is apparently possible to go too far. 

2. There is an enormous amount of difference between growing a beard and simply not shaving, which a surprising number of people don’t understand.

3. Sitting around a blazing fire with people you love might be one of life’s greatest pleasures.

4. If one’s own happiness is temporarily unattainable, there is always the happiness of others to consider. Put another way, get over yourself.

5. Without naming names, there are several Governors who are clearly enjoying their shiny new status as men and women of consequence. Their newfound powers must feel positively intoxicating. I mean, one minute they are lounging around the governor’s mansion in their pajamas asking their aides which outfit they should wear to the new strip mall ribbon cutting and the next thing they know, they’re standing in front of a bank of microphones, with a sign language dude in their peripheral vision ordering people to do this and don't do that and trying desperately to give off a Churchillian vibe, dreaming of the White House.

6. There is possibly no phrase in the English language that I presently despise more than...new normal. Our present circumstances are neither, and for all of you statists out there desperately seeking that generational opportunity to reorder society to your liking...this ain’t it. When this is over, the old normal is coming back with a vengeance.

7....with the possible exception of the movie theatre and the post office, which are both dead.

An Eventful Morning

What do finishing Middlemarch, cutting your thumb while emptying the dishwasher at 5 am, and the anticipation of a day of storms have in common? Virtually nothing. But that won’t stop me from attempting to write about all three this morning. 

So, I thought I would put this pandemic lockdown to good use by reading a couple classic novels that I have somehow never read. The first on my list was George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Set in the 1830’s in the fictional provincial town of Middlemarch, this sprawling epic is the story of the intertwined lives of a set of families who deal with the calamities that befall their fortunes and reputations in mid 19th century England. I have always been told that this is Eliot’s masterwork and one of the finest novels ever written in the English language. Well...

See, here’s the thing. You know that nagging feeling you get when you read anything by Jane Austin that she is way smarter than you? Yeah, well...its twice as bad with George Eliot. This woman could lay down a simple declarative sentence like nobody’s business, with a mixture of grace and intelligence that makes this writer want to give up writing altogether. There is no way in hades that George Eliot would ever write a sentence like...See, here’s the thing...for example.  However, having said all of this, she has that dreadful habit of English writers of a certain time where one gets the feeling that she is being paid by the word. Holy crap, (another expression she wouldn’t have been caught dead using) does she go on and on and on about inconsequential things! Reading this book felt very much like surviving a gauntlet. You just had to plow through the psychological motivations of crossing one’s frail hands on one’s lap to get to the part where something startling happens. Many of the characters in this book are so exasperating in their foolishness, so desperately dense, and so lacking in any ability of getting to the freaking point, you find yourself fighting the urge to give the thing up. But then you encounter a scene rendered with such beautiful writing, such immense talent on display, you find the courage and determination to trudge on...and ultimately you are rewarded. But, seriously, what in God’s name was Dorothea thinking marrying a stiff like Casaubon? A 20 year old woman marries a 49 year old dried up academic and then is shocked to discover that they have nothing in common? And how tedious is Fred Vincy with his worthless laziness, general lack of ambition, and sense of entitlement? Well, I will not retell the story here. If you want to know what happens, read it yourself. Despite it’s frustrations, I’m glad I did.

My morning routine includes emptying the dishwasher while I wait for my coffee to brew. This morning, at the outset of this task I happened to reach for the blade of the chopper ninja thing and sliced my thumb. Have you ever tried emptying a dish washer at 5 am with a bleeding thumb? I don’t recommend it. Of course, it doesn’t help matters that I am on so many blood thinners that even the most minor abrasion produces rivers of blood. Eventually, I prevailed. All the clean dishes are properly put away, the thumb has finally stopped bleeding, and now I can concentrate on the thrill I feel at the gathering wave of storms due to hit us here in Short Pump today. The line of storms on the radar is impressive. There promises to be high wind, thunder and lightening, and heavy downpours which will bring minor flooding! Why this sort of forecast excites me so is a perplexing question since I share a house with Lucy the Lunatic, a dog preternaturally inclined to erratic behavior in such weather, including but not limited to emptying her bladder on inconvenient surfaces. But still I love thunder storms. Don’t you?

COVID-19 and Sophie’s Choice

In an hour or so I will head into the office to begin week 7 of the Coronavirus lockdown here in the Old Dominion. Over the weekend some dude from the State Health Department let slip his view that the stay at home order would probably be in place for two years!! When the manure began hitting the fan, he quickly walked his words back with a weaselly denial, the kind that bureaucrats are famous for. Policy makers in Virginia...Virginia...are rumbling about two more years of lock down, a state ranked 18th out of 50 states by confirmed cases of the virus. Question: How many businesses with less than 50 employees do you know who could survive two more years of being closed? Answer: Zero. 

So, the difficult question that policy makers have to address is, in order to save as many lives as possible from the Coronavirus, how much economic destruction is tolerable? This involves the philosophically difficult question of attaching a financial value on a human life. Some will say that it is impossible to assign a monetary value to a human life since every human life has infinite possibility. On the other hand, we make these decisions all the time whenever cost/benefit analysis is done on public safety questions. For example, governments at all levels in this country know that deaths from automobile accidents could be severely cut by just a few decisions, placing speed restrictions on car engines, forbidding anyone less than 21 or over 70 years old to drive. However, there are strong competing economic reasons not to do so. Apparently, although people are fully aware of the risks associated with the purchase and use of automobiles and motorcycles, they continue to do so. This same calculation is made in a whole host of activities that we all participate in every day. We weigh the benefits and the dangers of all sorts of activities and make our decisions based on what we think is worth the risk. Policy makers here in Virginia are trying to find that balance between public health and the economic activity that sustains our lives. Let’s say that their best estimates are that reopening the economy on June 1st will save 250,000 jobs and save 10,000 businesses from bankruptcy...but...they also have estimates that say reopening on June 1st, rather than say, two years from now, would result in 10,000 more avoidable deaths from the virus? What do you do? For the 10,000 people who would die and their families, the correct decision is obvious. For the 250,000 who lose their jobs and the 10,000 businesses that go under, its a different story.

Obviously, I have plucked all of those numbers out of the air to illustrate a point. However, it is precisely these sorts of calculations that officials in government all over this country are grappling with. It is for this reason that we all should be praying for them. They need wisdom and courage to make the right calls. 

I’m glad its them and not me.

The Light At The End of My Tunnel

The first of May hasn’t quite arrived yet, but during a lockdown pandemic, who’s counting days? This is normally the time of year when I begin the slow, plodding process of becoming useless. No matter what the task, my efforts become perfunctory. I start going through the motions, marking time, making mental etches on the prison cell in my head. Why? Because May the 1st brings Maine inside the 60 day window. Since this year’s trip begins on June 27, tomorrow is the day.

Some of you have asked me if we still plan on going to Maine what with the Coronavirus and it’s quarantine requirements. By way of an answer I will share with you my reply to Tiffany at On The Water In Maine, our amazing real estate company in Camden when she sent me an email reminder that my second half payment for our month of July rental was due:

“Tif, Pam and I can assure you that we will arrive at Loon Call on Crawford Lake on the 27th of June if we have to hitch hike and then be dropped in the lake by helicopter and swim to shore!”

If the month of July still finds us in nationwide lock down, I feel that we can lock ourselves down on a lake in Maine just as easily as we can in Short Pump. All we have to do is get there. To that end I am fully prepared to resurrect a strategy from 25 years ago. Back then, when the kids were little, I would leave the house around 7 o’clock at night and drive straight through...stopping for the first time in New Jersey for gas and a bathroom break, and not again until the first rest area in Maine, 12 hours later. Of course, back then, we still had another hour and a half left to make it to Dummer’s Beach, where Pam essentially grew up. Now we head to Camden, Maine which is slightly closer. But, if we have to forego a night at a hotel on the way up to stay within safety protocols, that is exactly what we will do. This is non-negotiable. If I have to stay in my home in Short Pump, allowed to leave my house only to buy groceries and go for walks, I can do that in Maine.

There are two trips planned this year, the month of July on Crawford Lake in a place called Loon Call:

...and two weeks in October (maybe three if we catch a break) at our favorite place in the Universe, Loon Landing:

This is what keeps me going right now. This is the light at the end of the tunnel. This is the reward for all the hard work, the point of all the patience. If I had the power and the resources, I would take everyone I love on this earth with me. Everyone should get to experience it just once. Coronavirus or no Coronavirus.

“I Have a Good Life”

The last six weeks has been an education. I have learned things about the world, my country and myself, both good and bad. Quarantine and self isolation has clarified some things for me, made me more thankful for friends and family. I saw my country, in the early days of the crisis, momentarily set aside the acrimony and division that has plagued us for so long, and unite around the shared sacrifice of the moment. Six weeks in, it’s all back with a vengeance, but it sure was nice while it lasted.

I’ve listened to the agonizing stories of my clients who own small businesses. They have felt helpless as the losses pile up. They feel a responsibility to their employees but wonder how long they can hold it all together. They are watching what took a lifetime to build slowly slipping away. It is an unprecedented type of agony.

Luckily, I have not lost anyone close to me to the virus, although a dear friend with troubling symptoms has just been tested and is currently waiting for the results. But, I do know friends who have lost parents who were in nursing homes and hospice, and had to suffer the indignity of allowing their Moms and Dads to die alone with no one to hold their hands.

With each passing day, my social media newsfeed grows more and more unhinged, unaccredited rumors and stories from bloggers I’ve never heard of passed along as fact...COVID-19 is a plot hatched in the deep state to take away religious freedom...5G towers are spreading the virus...Trump is going to cancel the election and declare martial law....post pandemic life in America will require a 70% tax rate...I take a deep breath and whisper a prayer.

The other day I was talking to my brave friend about all of this. She shares my profession and is trying to deal with all of this while in a life and death struggle with cancer, chemo poison coursing through her veins. Can you even imagine?? The exchange between us is an excellent summation of the daily battle that takes place within all of us in one way or another...

Me: Every single morning, no matter what hour I wake up, the news is overwhelmingly bad...with very few exceptions. It has been this way for over 6 weeks now. I’ve discovered that every single day, finding the motivation to move forward has to be an act of the will. I have to DECIDE to fight the negativity. It doesn’t happen naturally, I have to force it on myself by an act of the will. Does that make any sense? If I give in to what I read of the news of the day, I wind up wallowing in despair all day. It’s like getting stuck in the mud. Its not screwing on a fake happy face, but rather, a conscious decision to seek out the good, the positive. It takes great intentional effort.

Her: Yes I understand completely.  I’m the same way.  I have to remind myself almost daily that overall I’m doing really well!  I remind myself daily that even in the midst of the storm I’m so very blessed. I have a good life. But, it has been a lot for one person to endure. When you throw in a chilly rain, it makes it worse. Your dumb jokes make me laugh, which is a lot better than crying. The bottom line is, after I have done all I can do, I have to turn everything over to the Lord and trust him.

Me: Easier said than done...

Her: Yes, but it has to be done. Also, embrace joy wherever you find it...in Pam, your children, cookies, beautiful trees and flowers...Tomorrow is a new day!!

...This from a woman who is enduring unspeakable illness and pain every single day, and yet declares with astonishing confidence , “ I have a good life.”

Yes she does.

“How are you doing”?

I am perfectly aware that this is not an appropriate breakfast to be eating at 5:18 in the morning, or any other time for that matter. However, when you’ve been awake since 3:45 and get hungry, you eat what is at hand. These sea salt caramel/chocolate cookies were available to me and I was powerless to resist. But, I am told that eggs and milk were involved in their creation, two perfectly acceptable breakfast staples.

When people ask me how I’m getting along during this pandemic, my answer is usually some version of “pretty well, actually.” The reason that this answer is mostly true is because I am married to Pam Dunnevant.

Since the day that Henrico County schools closed on March the 12th or whenever it was, Pam has been home all day everyday. Like everyone else, the isolation has been troubling. She, like everyone else, is worried about the future, concerned for her family and friends. But, with her it feels and looks different. There is a calmness about her, a serenity about everything. After a half day in the office, I come home at lunchtime a bundle of frayed nerves, often with a vacant expression on my face. More often than not I find her busy with some project or another. She is cheerful, relaxed, calm. I pick up on it and it begins to calm me as if it’s contagious. I begin taking my cues from her. I begin to relax. I start thinking of mundane things, the daily plot of life, the relentless forward progress of things. Yes, rearranging the furniture in the den needed to be done. Yes, she made cookies, a new recipe she’s trying out and yes, I will have one at 5:18 in the morning for my breakfast. No matter what is happening around me, I see in her a cheerful confidence which is infectious and allows me to truthfully answer, “pretty well, actually. I’m doing pretty well.”

Knowledge Is Power

Granted, its not everyday when a photograph like this gets published in a real newspaper. I would expect this in The Onion or The Babylon Bee. But this story came to me courtesy of the New York Post with the terrifying headline...Can the Coronavirus be Spread Through Farts?

Apparently, two Australian doctors just completed a study on the subject, and like so much else on the subject of COVID-19, the conclusion was a definite maybe. Drs. Norman Swan and Andy Tagg sat out to determine whether flatulence in the Age of the Cornoinavirus can be both silent and deadly.

Luckily for humans, most of us wear what amounts to several different masks in the form of underwear, pants...etc, which serve as excellent masks to protect ourselves and others from “aerosolized feces.” However, there are no published data on whether flatulence alone presents any risk of transmission. Still, Dr. Tagg suggests not throwing all caution...to the wind. Instead he suggests keeping your pants on and considering them part of your personal protective equipment, just in case. Dr. Swan added the phrase, “no bare-bum farting.”

Look, I know what you’re thinking here, “You have got to be shi**ing me, right?” Sadly, no. This is real. I reproduce this story here because knowledge is power. Sometimes the “facts” about this deadly virus can be confusing, even contradictory. We shouldn’t be wearing face masks. Yes, we should be wearing face masks..etc. And, the last thing I want to do is spread fear. (When Pam first saw this headline, her response was, “Ok, I’m doomed, then.”)  But, we must not be afraid of where the science takes us here. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

So the lesson here is...we all need to isolate ourselves from beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and lentils. I’m thinking that bean burrito night at the local nudist truck stop would be considered a ground zero hot spot.

On a cautionary note, these two doctors are Australian...from down under. Make of that what you will.

What The Heck??

Ok, what in the Sam Hill is this fresh abomination? 

This ad popped up on my blog this morning for reasons that suggest that there is a bug in the algorithm. Anyone who has known me for more than fifteen minutes knows that I am not exactly what anyone would call a fashionista. My taste in clothing lies more in the direction of whatever is most comfortable, and what happens to be...clean. So, imagine my surprise when...this...monstrosity presents itself to me at 7:27 am. I mean...what is this thing??

First of all, the model is one of those androgynous blade-thin humans who still shave with a hot towel. Thankfully they cut off the picture at the bridge of his nose to save us all from having to stare into the abyss of those limpid pools!! After you get beyond the model, you have to contend with the fact that this dude is wearing a cravat of some sort—under a warm up jacket—wrapped inside a plaid sport coat. The color scheme here seems to be Dijon mustard left out overnight. This outfit comes to us by a company called Bugatchi, a firm with a sufficiently Italian sounding name to attract the people for whom this is illustrative of proper clothing. Luckily for us, this cutting edge get-up is ON SALE. 25% off we are promised, with the dangling carrot of the possibility of up too 50% off.

No...I didn’t click on this ad. I just sort of stared at it listlessly for a while wondering what occasion might be appropriate for me to show up so bedecked? Maybe the next time I am invited to an art gallery featuring avant guard revelatory finger painting. Perhaps one day I will be asked to attend a cocktail party at a Yacht Club fundraiser to benefit Youth Sailing Clubs in the inner city.

Now that I’ve posted my views on this subject, I suspect that some deviously clever member of my family will save this to their Christmas list for 2020.

Another Day in Quarantine

CoronaVirus Quarantine Agenda: Day 34

8:00 am—Coffee and a quick scan of FaceBook where I notice that Becky Baldwin has laid out a counter full of sour bread dough. I suggest that she place one loaf out by her mailbox that I will pick up later in the afternoon. 

8:30 am—Pam whips up a new breakfast recipe which includes sausage links, eggs and cheese buried inside a crescent roll: 

I immediately douse her creation with Salsa and heaven descends.

10:00 am—Since this is the third Saturday since my last vacuuming trip upstairs, I fire up the Shark Duo-Clean 2000 and pick up two full canisters of hair from this girl...

 

...who has decided that there is no place better for sleeping than our new comfy carpet.

10:45 am—I launch myself into a full cleaning of our bathroom. Nothing like the smell of Windex in the morning...

12:00 noon—I take the leaf blower ( Kobalt 80v with lithium battery ) and blow off all the pollen, oak tree strings, helicopter things and leaves from the deck. I will repeat this process three more times before the day is done.

2:00 pm—Go out for what turns out to be a terrible run. I had to stop twice, once for a cramp in my calf and second for a balky knee. These stops lead to a truly pathetic time. Oh well, some days you have it, some days you don’t...

3:00 pm—Naptime

4:45 pm—After one more leaf-blowing of the deck, I settle in for a fine adult beverage, when I am sent the following photograph from a friend who will remain nameless to protect his tenuous reputation...

Of course, I reply with a photograph of my own, far superior choice, Hardywood Singel...

...it has come to this. I have been reduced to debating the proper beer choice for Coronavirus afternoons on the deck with someone who thinks beer should be served in metal cans...by the quart!!!

4:45 pm—Becky Baldwin shows up at my front door with a still warm loaf of sour dough bread, my ingenious plan worked to perfection. I knew that all I had to do is plant the smallest mustard seed of a suggestion that would give Becky the chance to serve someone, and she would be powerless to resist. It was phenomenal!

7:15 pm—Dinner from Wong’s Tacos. Two episodes of creepy Netflix series called You.

9:45 pm—Continue what appears to be an unending quest to finish reading Middlemarch. It’s like War and Peace with no Russians and neither war nor peace...just stuffy British people who don’t seem to have anything to do. Yet, I persist.

11:00ish pm—drift off into dreamland.

And, just like that, the Dunnevant’s survive another day of social distancing, shelter in place and quarantine.

Lucy has clearly let herself go...bed head, ear ka-boom, and proud of it...

One Month

It has only been about a month since our Governor ordered all Virginians to “stay at home.” I have been in strict compliance. Since I’m considered essential I am allowed to drive the mile and a half into my office every day. Once there, new safety protocols are in place limiting exposure. I stay there for roughly half the day, then return to my home for the afternoon and conduct business via the internet and call forwarding. The trips to and from my office have been the extent of my traveling, with the exception of a few trips to the drive thru of my bank and a couple of ice cream meetings with a friends in the largely empty parking lot of Ray’s Italian Ice where social distancing guidelines were strictly enforced. Pam has limited her outings to a once weekly trip to Publix to get groceries. Three times, I have driven to Wong’s Tacos to pick up our Friday night dinner order at their curb. That’s pretty much the extent of our adventuring since the Governor’s declaration. It’s been one month. One month.

Officially this edict is in place through June 10th here in the Commonwealth. Hope exists that it may be lifted before then. However, in the rapidly changing world of viral pandemics, there always exists the possibility that the June 10th date will be extended. For the sake of my personal sanity, I choose not to think of the most negative scenarios. In fact, I choose not to think much of anything which  involves dates on a calendar. I have defaulted to the cliched athletes’ response...I’m just taking it one day at a time.

Having said that, I must here confess to a fierce inner battle raging within me. With each passing day, I’m becoming more and more annoyed with the parameters of my life being set by a Governor. The fact that one man presumes to have the authority over my liberty is an affront to what I consider my natural rights as a free citizen of a Republic which features a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. I have chosen not to fight this because of the nature of the crisis we face, a highly contagious virus with deadly power. But choosing not to fight something is not the same thing as approving of something. I do not approve. I comply out of a moral obligation to my neighbors and my community. I admit my lack of definitive scientific knowledge on the matter and—for the time being—chose to defer to the judgement of those who have been democratically elected to positions of leadership. But my deferral is not infinite. The longer I am asked to forfeit my rights as a free citizen, the more conclusive information I will require from those making such demands.

Understand, this has nothing to do with politics in general or our Governor’s political affiliation in particular. I would feel exactly the same way if the one making such demands of me were a small government Libertarian. This debate isn’t about anyone’s personality. It is about the proper roll of government and the proper limits on its power— even in times of great crisis. I have a natural inclination to resist authority. I have always struggled with any authority in life. It was my mother who warned me many years ago that my unwillingness to submit myself to anyone else’s yoke, though a fine quality when applied judiciously, might wind up being an obstacle to a happy life. She was not entirely wrong in her assessment. My fierce independence has served me well many times. But it has also been the obstacle she warned me it would be in other matters, not the least of which was the necessary submission required in the Christian faith. So, when I watch government at all levels scooping up more and more power over ever greater portions of our daily lives, resentment and suspicion begin to grow roots in my heart.

I watch the daily briefings from Washington with growing disgust, irritated by the self-congratulatory campaign style cheerleading. I see the pettiness, the juvenile score settling, the incessant whining from the podium. Even worse, the vacuous blowhards who populate the press remind me that a free press is worthless if they are so hip deep in politics themselves, they can’t be told apart from the politicians. The specter of government officials casting themselves as our saviors by proposing one free money giveaway after another, making themselves, Washington D.C. the epicenter of our salvation is galling to me. No matter how this thing turns out it will be the central planners who will take the credit, and blame any failures on the public’s failure to properly fall in line. They will be united in their proclamation that in order for a modern society to protect itself from future pandemic, we must bargain away more and more of our liberty for greater safety. Not to worry, they will exercise these new powers with great care and deliberation.

I guess that my essential problem is that I am not a European with continental sensitivities. I know nothing of Monarchies, I have no experience with a feudal history, I am clueless of peerage, I am unfamiliar with the Socialist ethos that has governed much of Europe for most of my lifetime. For better or for worse, I am an American with American sensibilities. My country hasn’t had two world wars fought on our streets, and just one civil war. For more than half of America’s history we were largely ungoverned and frankly, ungovernable.( see the Wild West ). That history has forged in many of us a resistance to and great suspicion of centralized solutions to anything. Thomas Jefferson’s great word that the best government was the government that governs least rings true in my heart and in the hearts of millions more in my country. Today, that phrase seems charmingly naive. When I observe what has happened to the power, size and jurisdiction of government just in the last six weeks it is staggering. Maybe once this crisis passes, they will willingly lay all these new powers down. My gut tells me they will not, but even if they do, all of us will be stuck with the 6 trillion dollar price tag for it all.

Times change and human beings have to adjust. Perhaps I am experiencing a sea change in what life will be like for modern man in modern societies. Maybe the future will include less freedom, less personal autonomy in exchange for a more muscular government strong enough to protect us in the new age of pandemics. Maybe my notions of the proper role of government, along with my understanding of the preeminence of individual liberty have been overtaken by this rapidly changing world. If so, I will adjust. But, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And it doesn’t mean I will ever become comfortable with a man or women in front of a bank of microphones telling me where I can and cannot go, what I can and cannot do.

Tired of Worrying

It’s pouring rain this morning in Short Pump. The wind has picked up. Dark clouds are low in the morning sky. I can hear the roar of the downpour on the roof, washing away the heavy pollen, flooding away the thousands of maple tree helicopters that fell over the weekend. I suppose I would be forgiven for wishing that this storm could also sweep the COVID-19 virus into the storm drains and out to sea. I’m tired of it all. Aren’t you?

I’m tired of the worry. Who will get it? How long will this confinement last? How much more damage will be done to our economic life before it’s done? What will the world look like when it’s over? I have no answers. Despite reading a thousand articles from a thousand perspectives, I am no closer to being able to reach any firm conclusions than I was when I was blissfully ignorant. And now, the uniting power that this crisis had in the early days of March has given way to the same old partisan divides that plagued us before. What camp are you in? Democrat or Republican? Trump or Biden? Fauci or Birx? It is as tiresome as it is infuriating. But, it is who we are now.

I will go into the office this morning as I have since it started. I will have telephone conversations. I will FaceTime with clients and answer their questions, offer my guidance. I will stand apart from some of my best friends in the world and commiserate. I miss the physical closeness. It feels odd to keep people away, the whole six feet thing feels further than that. But at least I get to see them, to hear their views on everything. Then, I leave around noon and head back home. I put call-forwarding on my office phone so that during the afternoon, incoming calls come to my cell phone. Few calls come in the afternoon, I’ve discovered. My clients have also gotten tired of talking about this mess. What more is there to say?

My hope is that we are closer to the end of COVID-19 than we are to its beginning. I have reason to believe that we are, but like everything else with this virus, there are no sure things. But, I choose hope over despair, optimism over negativity. Despite whatever my personal feelings might be about the Coronavirus, I will continue to do everything that I have been asked to do by my government. I will trust that they know better than I do at this point. They are privy to information that I am not, so if they say “shelter in place” “keep social distancing” that’s what I will do. When this is all over, we will know who was “right” and who was “wrong” about it all. But for now I will do my part, if not for my own well-being, for the well being of my neighbors. If we discover that all this economic disruption was unnecessary, then recriminations will follow. There will be plenty of blame to go around after the final reports are written. 

But right now as the rain falls, the last thing I care about is the pettiness of politics. I just want to find the light at the end of this interminable tunnel. I want to be able to hug my friends, order from a menu in a crowded restaurant, shake a client’s hand. I want to get in my car and drive to Maine. I want to never hear the word Zoom again. I want to sit on my aisle seat at Hope church, drop my check into the bread pan as it is passed down my row, the meet up with my Sunday lunch bunch at Anokha’s for Lasooni Gobhi and the Tandoori platter.

Have a safe week, everyone.