Missing Pam

So, Pam’s girls weekend has been extended for another day because of this rain. She doesn’t feel comfortable making the drive carrying three of her family with bladders the size of thimbles. She also has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the the time we drove to Maine in a driving rainstorm a few years ago. It took very little coaxing to convince her to stay another night with Kaitlin. Of course, this means that I will have to actually cook something for dinner tonight.

Now that I think about it, this is the first time I have been separated from my wife for three consecutive nights in I don’t know how long. It’s been a strange experience. Lucy and me alone in the house...while it rains outside. Lucy has been discombobulated by the lack of women. She wanders around, looking out the front door windows waiting for Bernadette to come for a lunch time visit. When Bern didn’t come yesterday, she was quite put out. Once she remembers that it’s just the two of us, she sighs heavily and plops herself on the floor at my feet, dejected. Even now as I write this, she sits at the front door waiting patiently for someone more interesting than Dad to show up...

So, what have I been up to since Thursday? Gallivanting with the boys, drinking copious amounts of adult beverages at a sports bar somewhere, making inappropriately large wagers on a golf course?? A. My gallivanting days are over. B. COVID and C. It’s pouring down rain. Instead, I have busied myself doing a few things around the house trying to distract myself from missing my wife. I spent nearly an hour inside our large shower scrubbing mildew stains and disgusting grout. I vacuumed the house. I cleaned the bathrooms. Then, I flipped the mattress, changed the sheets and dusted the furniture. Which brings me to the task at hand...making dinner.

So far, I have gotten by with left overs and a hearty dinner of tuna fish and crackers. Tonight, it’s time for me to actually cook something, and to that end, Pam left a handy suggestion for me...

That’s right, a Dunnevant family standby...beef nacho Casserole...only Pam has substituted chicken for steak, owing to what she knew would be my horrible eating habits while she was gone. I have taken the time to set out all the ingredients in preparation for the job...

If Pam were here, this meal would be served with a salad to provide vegetables. But, Pam is not here, so tonight’s dinner will be served only with two fine beers that my son bought while in Maine. No vegetables, unless you count hops. Wait, that’s a grain. Yeah, no veggies. I will post an “after” photograph once this comes out of the oven.

As far as the missing my wife thing goes, listen I make no apologies. Can I help it that I would rather be with her than anybody else? She’s smart, pretty and fun. So, shoot me for missing her after only three days!

Six Months of COVID

It’s been six months since I first wrote the word Coronavirus on this blog. Six disturbing, unprecedented months. The sum total of inaccurate predictions about COVID made by very smart people in this country has been staggering. Almost all of us, smart or not, have been spectacularly wrong about everything from how long it would last, how many people it would infect and how many would perish. Wrong. Consistently wrong. The World Health Organization, the Center For Disease Control, and politicians from Bill de Blasio to Donald Trump...wrong. In six months we have been told that mask wearing did little to protect against the virus, only to see mask wearing become ubiquitous as well as a symbol of both virtue and rebellion. Almost weekly some new development shakes our understanding of the thing, and calls into question past assumptions, leaving all of us feeling battered by conflicting and inscrutable data. Some point to the constantly changing official narratives as evidence of some grand conspiracy on the part of either Donald Trump or the Democratic Party to advance nefarious unarticulated agendas. I propose a different interpretation for all of the tumult.

Has the government response been a third world dumpster fire of incompetence? Yes. Has some of the incompetence been intentional and politically motivated? Probably. But incompetence and treachery should to a certain extent be expected when you’re dealing with A. An unprecedented pandemic and B. Politicians who have long traded in the currency of treachery. A better explanation of the constantly changing narrative has to do with the fact that every single day of this fight we are learning something new. Right now, not just here but all around the world, the very best minds on Earth are working on the science of COVID 24/7. Doctors, scientists, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, think tanks, universities, all delving into the nuts and bolts of this virus, scrambling for a vaccine and in the process, the universe of knowledge about COVID-19 continues to expand daily. With all of this brain power, money and institutional focus, we are discovering that earlier information we thought to be true was not true. This isn’t the result of some convoluted Rube Goldberg conspiracy, rather, its the result of the scientific method of trial and error yielding new information. What do you do when you obtain new information that calls into question what you thought to be true in the past? Hopefully, you use this new information to make smarter decisions going forward. Or...you could just say, “what the hell? I’ll just keep doing things the way I’ve always done them.” I personally expect the government to adapt to this new information, even if it means contradicting a previous position. Heck...especially if it means contradicting a previous position. That’s not weakness, that’s simple intelligence.  

So, hearing one thing from leaders one week and something else a couple weeks later might be frustrating and confusing, but it’s the nature of what we are up against. For someone like me, who instinctively distrusts politicians of all stripes, this has been a very difficult six months. It has taken much effort for me to guard against easy cynicism. But there’s nothing easier or quite as intellectually lazy as the false comfort of conspiracy theories. If something goes terribly wrong in the world it’s so much easier to blame it on your political enemies, even with thinly sourced and unverifiable plots undertaken by some shadowy confederacy of dunces on the other side of the aisle. It’s far harder and much less emotionally reassuring to acknowledge that highly contagious and deadly viruses are complex and devilishly difficult to overcome quickly and painlessly. 

So, I’ll wear the mask. I’ll try to socially distance myself from those outside of my circle. I’ll wash my fingers to the bone and use hand sanitizer whenever appropriate...right up until the moment I’m told that new and credible information is available that says these things are unnecessary. What’s credible? I would say, scientifically tested and peer reviewed data produced by someone other than the Daily Kos or World News Daily.

Happy Weekend...

It’s Friday. Make of this what you will...

Back in the day, I took my 8-year old girl to the office with me on, "Take Your Kid to Work Day." As we were walking around the office, she starting crying and getting very cranky, so I asked what was wrong with her. As my coworkers gathered round, she sobbed loudly...

“Daddy, where are all the clowns you said you worked with??”

I looked my Pops straight in the eyes and with my best poker face said, “If I had a dollar for every time someone over forty told me my generation stinks...

...I could afford to buy a house in the economy they ruined!”

I was going to tell a joke about COVID-19...

But there’s a 99.42% chance you won’t get it.

Girls Weekend

My wife is leaving me today. No...it’s not what you’re thinking. She has organized a trip to go see Kaitlin down in South Carolina. She has recruited her mother and two sisters. The four of them haven’t gone anywhere overnight together in years. All of them have been driven half crazy by the isolation and monotony of COVID-life. So, my wife hatched a plot to travel down to see Kaitlin for three days and two nights of girl stuff, which I’m told will include such ghastly things as pedicures and the like, long lazy gab sessions where they will talk about whatever it is that women talk about when they are allowed to assemble without the annoyance of their husbands. Sounds dreadful to me, but she is thrilled to be able to spend some times with her girls. This will also be Kaitlin’s last hurrah of the summer, since next week her school year will be revving up.

Of course, any trip that involves two or more Dunnevant women must have a functioning snack table. Long time readers of this space have been treated to photographic evidence of the many snack tables of past vacations. They are a monument to high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes, and represent the complete and total abandonment of all self restraint, and without them we would all perish. So, despite the fact that this particular trip is only for three days and two nights, a snack table still has to be erected. To that end, Pam spent much of yesterday preparing an assortment of trail mixes and cookies. Because she is Pam, she didn’t forget me, or Bernadette and Isaac...

Since this is 2020, planning for this getaway had to include a whole host of safety protocols. (For the record, the word protocol has become my least favorite word in the English language). Pam has packed enough masks, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes for all of Columbia. The hotel rooms she has booked have already been chosen and set aside for maximum safety and convenience. The next three days will be as COVID-proof as it is possible to be. 

Special prayers should be lifted up on my son-in-law’s behalf, as he must face being the only man in the house with five female members of the Dunnevant /White family. No prayers necessary for Jackson who will think he has died and gone to heaven as soon a Lolly walks thru the door!

As for me, Pam has left me a couple of idiot proof recipes for my consideration. I will miss her. More important, if there is a thunderstorm here while she is gone, Lucy will miss her even more!

Kamala Harris

Joe Biden announced yesterday that he has chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate, making her the first African American woman on a major party ticket, this despite the fact that neither her Mom or Dad were African American, but rather, Indian and Jamaican...so I’m throughly confused. But, add to all that the fact that her husband is a Jewish white guy, and Ms. Harris certainly checks off all the identity politics boxes. So, unless Donald Trump kicks Mike Pence to the curb in favor of Kanye West, the 2020 contest is set. A match for the ages.

I’m told that Kamala Harris’ religious upbringing was split between a Baptist church and a Hindu Temple...think: teetotaler who dreams of being reincarnated as a Confederate General. 

Look, I know that I should have an opinion about this, something erudite and thoughtful, appropriately serious for the momentous moment in which we find ourselves. But I just can’t come up with anything. At a time of such great peril, a time of pandemics, a time when our national finances are as underwater as the Titanic, a time of great racial strife and social unrest, we are running two old men for President, two profoundly compromised old men. Our choices don’t seem to fit the moment. But here we are.

Now, for the next three months I will be bombarded with endless greater of two evils arguments. I will be warned by some that if I don’t climb on the Trump Train, the Republic will be lost. Others will assure me that should we re-elect the sitting President, civil war will be the best case scenario. My facebook feed will soon be crawling with clever memes, grave warnings, over the top fact-free broadsides, and lots of fire-breathing ALL-CAPS screeds from the motivated partisans out there. Part of me envies them their motivation. Part of me wishes I could find a sliver of their confidence. Instead, I wake up every morning, read the news and hope that, like Bob Newhart*, I’ll suddenly wake up and realize that it’s all been a dream.

* For all of you Millennials, Google “Newhart Finale”

August Sucks

I have written more than once in this space about my distaste for the month of August, which, along with February, competes each year for the status of most hated month. February’s sins are obvious enough. It’s the dead of winter. But why should August be singled out for ridicule? It is, after all, a summer month, a time when many people vacation. It should be a time of lazy days and memories.

But, there’s this...

To my friends in Maine, these may be curious images indeed. Why are the windows of your house fogged over with moisture at 6:15 in the morning? Is it raining outside? It looks like the sun is shining. Correct. The sun is shining. In fact, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. No, no...this is August in Short Pump, that delightful time of year when the simple act of walking to the mailbox causes you to sweat off a pound. You will never hear anyone from Virginia begin a sentence with the phrase, “Remember that delightful August day when...” No, August is something to be endured, like gout or diarrhea. There are no holidays in August. What would be the point? 

The conditions under which I took the above photographs were as follows:

6:25 am

Temperature: 73

Relative humidity 97%

Wind: 1 mph

How on Earth can the humidity be 97% if it’s not raining? Excellent question, the answer to which no Southerner knows. All I know is it will be this way until the middle of September. My Mosquito Authority guy is coming today to treat the yard, possible the most pointless exercise of all time, since there isn’t enough money in all of Christendom to make me sit outside on my deck during the month of August. August nights around here are for inside sports...like walking around the house naked lifting prayers of praise and thanksgiving for the invention of Air Conditioning. Speaking of which, why isn’t this man on Mt. Rushmore??

Wills Carrier. Inventor of Air Conditioning.

Is This The Handsomest Man in China?

Li Haotong is a professional golfer from Communist China. At the beginning of the third round of the PGA tournament, he was in sole possession of the lead, a first for a player from his country. The philosophical contradictions of a communist playing the game of golf for insane amounts of money is just one more thing to chalk up to the Twilight Zone that is 2020.

Mr. Haotong, unlike most professional golfers, seems to have a personality, in that he has proclaimed himself the most handsome man in China. Apparently he has the claim etched on the back of his sand wedge. Here’s a picture of him. You be the judge.

 I’ve never been to China. Maybe he is that nation’s handsomest man. I’m the last guy in the world you would want judging a male beauty contest, and handsome is most definitely in the eye of the beholder and all that, not to mention the fact that different cultures have different standards of what makes a human being handsome. But I’m thinking that he looks like a simple doofus, nothing more. Wait...I found a more flattering picture...

Nope...doofus.

Of course, who am I to judge?

Unfortunately for Li, the white hot glare of the spotlight took its toll on his golf game in yesterday’s third round when he lost his lead by shooting a 73, winding up in a tie for 13th place. But, at least he has his good looks to fall back on.