Imperfect Algorithms

So, yesterday I received this in the mail...

I wondered, “That’s odd. I don’t remember writing him.” But, it’s not every day when you get a letter from the President of the United States, especially one that requests in bold red letters that you reply at once. It’s no secret to the readers of this blog that I’m not exactly a big Trump guy. Nevertheless, Presidential communications still have the power to stir the imagination. I sat myself down in my library where I traditionally open letters from Presidents and carefully opened it, being careful not to damage the envelope for posterity.

I have highlighted for the reader several undeniable truths found in this intuitive and prescient letter.

1. I am among a select group of conservative grassroots leaders.

There can be no question about this. Select indeed, since last I checked there are no conservatives of any kind left in the Republican Party. Well, maybe Rand Paul might let slip a howl of protest about the trillions of dollars of new spending and sovereign debt piled up over the last couple of years every once in a while, but everybody knows Paul is a crank. No, We’re all Keynesians now.

2. My active political involvement.

Indeed. I have been known to vote from time to time.

3. The experience I bring to the table is critical to our Party’s success.

The word our is carrying an awful lot of weight in that sentence. Pam and I have never been registered Republicans in the 36 years of our marriage. As a single man, I have never been a registered anything, although I think I did register for the draft at one point. It is true that I have cast votes for many Republican candidates, some who won and some who lost. But is also true that I have voted for a Democrat or three along the way. Still, I must confess that I do bring a lot of experience to the table...mostly concerning my photographic memory of Beatle lyrics and a skull full of baseball trivia.

4. As someone who has their finger on the pulse of your community.

Undeniably true. I have always had my ear to the ground and nose to the wind for all things Short Pump. I mean if you want to know who serves the best hot pastrami sandwich around here, it’s Boychiks, am I right? If you need a heads up on speed traps, I’m your guy.

Listen, I might have my finger on the pulse of my community, but the rest of my hand is always grasped firmly around my wallet when it comes to anyone asking for political contributions. When I finally arrived at the purpose of this executive communication...seen at the bottom of the page, I must say I was a little let down. 

When I asked my son about this letter and why it was sent to me of all people since I am none of the things this letter claims me to be, he pointed out that the algorithms that political parties use to compile their mailing lists aren’t perfect. Data is often conflicting but the algorithm only sees...this guy has a blog and seems to have conservative political inclinations...not...this guy’s blog has been making fun of Trump for the past five years. He also pointed out that the poor saps who happened to give money to Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016 are probably getting deluged with letters right about now!

Memorial Day Plans and an Update on My Friend

The family received an email from my big sister, Linda Schwartz last night announcing tentative plans for a socially distant Memorial Day BBQ at her house. I use the word tentative since it will be the first attempted gathering of the Dunnevant Tribe since COVID’s rude arrival nearly three months ago. Linda asked for our input on ideas for making the affair safe and acceptable for all. “Perhaps we can break up into two groups to stay under the 10 person group limit, half of us coming for lunch, the other half for dinner,” she offered as a suggestion. No worries, we all replied. Since it will be outside and the tables will be arranged far enough apart to accommodate CDC protocols, having all of us at the same time would be fine, we reasoned. Then someone suggested that to get around the 10 person group limit, we could simply declare ourselves a church to stay within the law. Of course, I couldn’t pass that up...

“I like the church idea. We could call ourselves the First Church of the Perpetual Holy Ghost Barbecue COVID Cure Congregation.”

To which my wife responded: 

- Covid Congregational

- Pandemic Presbyterian 

- Quarantine Quakers

- Masked Methodists

I immediately saw this for what it was...a cry for help! It was my wife’s way of saying...Oh My God I have been quarantined inside this house with this man for entirely too long!! I am TURNING IN TO MY HUSBAND!!!

But, I have to say, when I read her email I was overcome with great pride.

Speaking of pride...an update on my friend.

So a couple days ago she was out for her daily walk when she took a nasty fall, scraping up her knee and landing awkwardly on her shoulder. Luckily one of her neighbors was out in her yard, saw her fall and came running to the rescue. At first she thought she might have broken something in her shoulder but it turned out to be just a bruise. This bit of news came on the heels of yet another potential setback in her recover when a suspicious polyp was found and biopsied. That too proved benign, a great blessing. But honestly when she shared all of this with me I felt like screaming at God. Her story sounds and feels more like Job every day and occasionally I get angry about it. But she remains supremely confident in her recovery and in the sovereignty of her creator. She is a marvel. A few days ago when Pam was preparing our anniversary slideshow she ran across these pictures from back in 2006...

That’s her and her husband, Johnny.

This is a group picture taken the same night down in Amelia Island in much happier times. My friend with her two big brothers from Short Pump.

Keep her in your prayers. She is tough as nails, but despite that strength needs all the prayers she can get.

36 Years

 

For 36 years now, this woman has endured this man.

Can I get an Amen?

Sofa Church, Socially Distant Umpiring and a Wedding Anniversary

It’s May 18th and there’s no baseball. The MLB is presently in negotiations with the players trying to cobble together a shortened season for 2020, the year of dashed hopes. Meanwhile, my wife and I have pretty much exhausted the present supply of watchable shows on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Starz. On the plus side of the ledger, our COVID-19 Rummikub tournament continues uninterrupted. As of this hour my wife is slightly ahead on points due to her diabolical sandbagging talents. Yesterday was the 10th consecutive Sunday that we have attended Sofa Church. The Live-streamed service is fine. Our staff tries really hard to do it well. It still sucks. When your communion elements are grape flavored Sparkling Ice and a sandwich thin, something of the poignancy of the moment gets lost. 

But, there’s always good news lurking out there if you know where to look. The State of Maine just lifted the quarantine rules for out of state visitors effective July 1. That means that we will not have to confine ourselves in the lake house for the first two weeks of our stay! It had been originally through the month of August so this is a huge relief. Of course I can think of many fates worse than being quarantined here:

With this view every night:

So, I’ve been thinking about how baseball can possibly have a season, even a shortened one, in the world of COVID-19. The first item on the agenda will be...how is anybody going to get professional baseball players to refrain from...spitting??? Assuming that miracle can be performed, how is it possible to maintain social distancing between the catcher and the home plate umpire. If the umpire has to move six feet behind the catcher, his ability to maintain a consistent strike zone (already damn near impossible) will be hilarious to behold...

UMPIRE:  STRIKE ONE!!!

CATCHER: Dude...he hasn’t thrown a pitch yet!!

 The complete elimination of sunflower seeds from the dugouts of the big leagues will be like asking Congressman to go a week without hogging a microphone. It will be like asking Donald Trump to quit Twitter. Unthinkable.

Tomorrow is a big day. It will be our 36th wedding anniversary. It will be pouring down rain. Our kids will be hundreds of miles away. No restaurants will be available. I have yet to come up with a proper plan for the evening. But, we will celebrate nevertheless. She is the love of my life, the one indispensable person in my world. She was my best decision, the one thing about which I am most proud. Although a couple of nights ago, she gave me pause. I happened to be walking through the den and there she was watching a television show about celebrities watching television. She was giggling and chuckling, throughly enjoying herself. I said, “what the heck are you watching?” She replied happily, “Its so funny...there are all these famous people being filmed watching television, just regular shows.” It might have been the very first time I have ever been embarrassed to be married to Pam Dunnevant. Then I thought that after 10 weeks of COVID-19, I should cut her some slack. Right now I suppose we all take our entertainment wherever we can get it.

Anyway, I’ve got 24 hours to come up with a plan for our wedding anniversary. Wish me luck.

His Eye Is On The Sparrow

I was walking around the culdesac yesterday afternoon when I saw one of my neighbors firing up his grill. I walked up his driveway and struck up a conversation. I was interested in how his wife was holding up in her job as an ICU nurse. It was crazy hearing about the protocols they go through each time she returns home from a shift. But then he told me about her very first survivor of COVID-19, a 54 year old man who just recently was taken off the ventilator after five weeks. It looks like he’s going to make it. Every other case they have had has been fatal. The one bit of information I forgot to ask was, how many cases they’ve had? Next time I see him, I’ll remember to ask. He did say that some of the cases have been otherwise healthy people, one guy who was an avid runner. But, think about this 54 year old man who spent five weeks on a ventilator, heavily sedated, isolated from every single person who ever loved him. Think of his wife and children, unable to see him, comfort him as he lay in a hospital bed fighting for his life. Think of the disorientation he must have felt to wake up and be informed that it’s been over a month since he was admitted!

The past two evenings Pam and I have sat out on our deck in this marvelous weather we’ve enjoyed, as the sun has set behind the houses in the distance. We are able to lounge around for hours out back thanks to the wonderful people at the Mosquito Authority, by the way. Best money I’ve ever spent. Both nights right around 8:05 every bird in the neighborhood begins singing all at once, a mad, frantic chorus. Each night it happens just before sunset. Our bird watching son in law informs us that it is their night song, an instinct inbred in birds of all kinds which causes them to herald the rising and setting of the sun. We listen to the delightful sound and marvel. Then it becomes dark and the sun catching lanterns on the railings of our deck come on, having stored up solar energy all day, and now illuminating the stained glass cardinals...

In a minute, the stars will come out and the birds will be silent. Then the crickets will begin their dull chirping, rhythmic and enchanting. My wife lifts her cell phone skyward and watches it’s screen reveal the constellations with a new app she has downloaded. Here is Capricorn, there Sagittarius. I watch her face lit up by the soft glow of the screen and ponder my great good fortune that I am not the 54 year old man on the ventilator, or the avid runner who’s life was snuffed out by a virus.

The birds and the crickets know no such virus. They chirp and sing at every sunrise and every sunset all the while running the risk that some creature larger and more powerful than they will devour them. For them, every minute of their existence is a risk. And yet we are told that their creator takes notice when even one of them falls. As I sit in the darkness of my backyard, listening to the hum of the crickets, I take great comfort in the fact that...his eye is on the sparrow.

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.