Tag Archives: COVID-19

Anxious? Isn’t Everyone?????

Personal Opinion and Analysis, , , , , , ,
The Scream – Wikimedia.org

Maybe you saw the study that came out a few weeks ago. About how anxious we all are? That we’re so anxious doctors should screen us when we come in for a checkup? I mean, this is news?

Think about it. COVID is still a threat, even though countries (except China) have mostly given up enforcing even basic efforts to contain it. And because people don’t seem the least bit interested in getting additional vaccine shots for winter – we’re probably all going to get it. Then there’s Putin’s war against Ukraine. And his repeated nuclear threats. And I’ve only just begun.

The stock market is falling with many stocks back in a bear market – down more than 20 percent as they were in June. Mortgage and credit card rates are soaring. Inflation – except for gasoline prices – remains stubbornly high. Rents are beyond crazy. Food prices are absurd. At the supermarket or even in a lowly diner. The Holidays are coming. What about the Thanksgiving turkey? Christmas toys for under the tree? Ye gods – what about the TREE???

And if all that isn’t enough – The Federal Reserve – and national banks of most advanced nations apparently intend to keep raising interest rates until the whole world slides into recession. Yah – THAT should help cool inflation – when only the rich can afford to eat. Do you think THEY’RE anxious??? Did they even ask any rich people in that study? “Oh hello! Are you anxious about your hedge fund today?”

And if all that isn’t enough – oh wait – I already said that. Well I may have to say it a few more times. Because there’s a soon to be HUGE hurricane bearing down – at this writing – on Florida’s Gulf Coast. And from there – who knows. The hurricane before – Fiona – ripped up Canada’s eastern seaboard last week. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland? Labrador? A hurricane???

Anxious??? We’re all out in front of our homes at night – baying crazily at the moon.
Most of us would be down at the local pub having a few cold ones, and then maybe a few more. Except who can still afford even one? Oh – yes. Those rich people who might be anxious about their hedge funds probably could still afford one. At least one.

Reading about that study did one good thing for my communal anxiety. After I stopped screaming, “Whaaaaaat??? You’re spending money studying WHAAAAAATTTT?” I started to laugh. A very loud laugh. And isn’t a good laugh perhaps the antidote to anxiety? I mean if we’re ALL anxious about – mostly – the same things — maybe we should just start passing that laugh around. You know – to the guy who is anxious about crossing the busy street. Or the woman who is anxious about having to go back to the office 3 days a week. Or that rich guy again who is anxious about taking the elevator up 45 floors to his pencil thin penthouse.

Maybe if we realize we’re pretty much all in this anxiety mess together – and we started a laughing chain – we could help each other a little. And then maybe we wouldn’t be yelling at each other so much about some of those really, REALLY big political issues. We might EVEN be able to get together to fix some of the stuff that’s making us so anxious in the first place.

I’m not sure the laugh would work for Vladimir Putin though. He’s so anxious about losing his hold on Russians that he still might nuke all of them along with the Ukrainians and the rest of us – just to be the last man standing. For a split second anyhow. But then again — does anyone know one of his henchmen? You could try…..

Stress

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Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a reporter who loved stress. She called it “good stress”. And it was mostly about making deadlines and finishing marathons. Interviewing, writing, live shots, telling people’s stories – that all got better under the good stress.  Knowing there wasn’t an option NOT to train for a marathon got her out the door those cold snowy mornings. Before work. And after just four hours sleep.

Ahhhhh good stress. How I miss it.

Stress now is mostly about the endless pandemic. Covid-19. And variant after variant. Almost 2 years of fear, grief, lockdowns, masks, travel bans and Zoom.  Families in mourning. Families divided. Friends not speaking. Children in hospitals.  Vaccine passports. Vaccine mandates. Tests to fly to a foreign country. Tests to get back home. Rules changing overnight. Anti-vaxxers clogging up hospital systems through rounds of different variants. Jobs lost. Or maybe – The Great Resignation. Live events – theater, concerts, clubs – cancelled or restricted.

Only big league sports escaped the shut downs. Even before vaccines. Perhaps because there was so much money at stake. But then this month – as the omicron variant flared – the money suddenly stopped talking.  As the ultimate bad boy story unfolded. Tennis star Novak Djokovic – adamantly unvaccinated – got tossed out of Australia before he could defend his title. For lying on his visa. More or less.

Inflation is soaring, the supply chain has been broken for months and months, The Federal Reserve still seems paralyzed, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was and still is a tragic disaster and President Joe Biden – elected to fix what his predecessor had broken – seems – along with his dysfunctional party – unable to walk and chew gum. Meanwhile the democracy most Americans have cherished for hundreds of years looks ready to collapse under the weight of social media-driven misinformation and Trump-world QAnon lies and conspiracy theories.

You want to talk about stress?

A few months ago I read in a health report that collectively – Americans’ blood pressure has risen markedly since COVID-19 enveloped us.  I know mine has. I’m angry all the time now. So is everyone I know and seemingly, everyone I DON’T know. It’s an inchoate anger.  At everything that keeps going wrong. At a rickety health system where doctors, nurses and other hospital staffs worked until they collapsed and yet somehow loved ones and friends died. It’s an anger that more than a year after vaccines started going into arms – the now militantly UNvaccinated have made it almost a Trumpian religion to stay that way. Even as Trump himself has finally begun touting the virtues of getting the vaccine his administration actually produced. It’s an anger that keeps building because once again the hospitals are full, health workers are exhausted and at least 80% of those on respirators now are unvaccinated. Many of the rest just didn’t bother to get their boosters.

There have always been lots of things which stress us out. They’ve usually varied – person to person. Often in the past, money – or rather the lack of money – has been the biggest stressor. Now – it’s all tied up in COVID. Somehow, in some continually frustrating way, the virus is at the heart of everything. Sometimes it seems we’re not just wobbling under this burden of stress. We’ve all gone down that rabbit hole in some way. Descending into a fragmenting world where everyone seems not just stressed but after almost two pandemic years – almost mentally ill.  Every week it seems we hear of someone pushed onto the subway tracks. Or knocked over from behind on a busy city street. Or shot for literally no reason at all.

Meanwhile the confusing rhetoric from health officials continues. About the omicron variant and masks and maybe a fourth vaccine shot when so few have even gotten the third…..and on and on and on and on.

I yell all the time. At my husband (who yells back at me). At the poor cats. In my car. As everyone else in THEIR cars seems to be doing the same thing.

When will this end? HOW will it end? Where are the psychologists on cable TV or even on Twitter who can explain us to ourselves.  Tie it all together and tell us how to make it stop?

There is seemingly nothing in this world right now (except perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aberrant dream of recreating the Soviet Union) that is not based on or caused by or related to the COVID-19 pandemic. And the way our officials handled or didn’t handle it. And the way we in the free world are reacting to losing the personal freedom we all once believed could never be ripped away.

My Romance with Starbucks? History.

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My email pitched me double stars today and reflexively I opened my Starbucks iPhone app and started looking at the specialty drinks menu. Then I remembered – for the umpteenth time this winter — the Starbucks I loved is gone. At least until we all get vaccinated. And probably forever. Where I live it’s just grab and go. Or sit like a jerk in the car for a half hour waiting for carloads of friends and family ahead of me to order in real time. 5 adults and 3 kids in a Chevy Suburban ordering Artisan drinks like a Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino with extra whipped cream and 5 pumps Frappuccino Roast and Mocha Drizzle and Caramel Brulee topping – oh – and a touch – just a touch of Cinnamon Powder. Apparently people in cars aren’t capable of ordering ahead – in app. Leading me to wonder how the average family can even AFFORD Starbucks with so many jobs lost. And worse – whether ANY of us should be so indulgent when a few miles away so many others – their lives destroyed by the decimated travel industry, closed restaurants and other bankrupt small businesses are lined up at food banks, desperate for a meal.

But the Starbucks habit can be hard to shake. The coffee is really good. And hot in these sub-freezing temperatures. And the zillion calorie grilled cheese sandwich, which the British coffee chain Costa calls a cheese toastie – much truer to form – is totally yummy.

But not in a cramped Mini Cooper – with the cheese dripping onto my coat and the coffee constantly in danger of spilling everywhere. Not now.  Maybe. Not. Ever. Again.

Starbucks used to be the closest thing you could find to a real Greenwich Village coffee house north of Houston Street. Each one was darkish, with big brown couches and easy chairs. The one on Columbus Avenue –  up on New York City’s West Side – was always full, the chairs and tables pulled wherever groups of friends wanted them.  The jazz playlist soothing,  Then Starbucks started opening stores on almost every city corner. They got smaller. Fewer places to sit and work if you were a lonely freelancer, longing just to look at other people. And maybe exchange a smile. Then came the suburbs. Suddenly my nice, darkish,  calming getaway turned corporate. Nothing old and comfortably rumpled. Just oblong, strip mall stores with plain tables and wooden chairs always lined up in rows. Always one big business meeting table. Stuffed into the ever smaller spaces. No charm. The lonely people with their laptops lined up along a wall. Starring out at the empty space.

And then – nearly a year ago now – COVID-19 invaded.  And Starbucks changed its image. Those stores on every corner in the city? Many closed forever, the rest grab and go. The few tables inside – taped off. The office workers who streamed into the cities and into Starbucks for morning coffee or a late lunch – gone. Working at home. Maybe permanently. Whether they want to or not. Stores closing in the suburbs as well. And in their place the ubiquitous drive throughs. MacDonald’s with better but much more expensive coffee. And no fries. You’ve heard about the COVID 15? Pounds, that is? Never getting out of your car hasn’t helped.

So. Double stars Starbucks? I don’t think so. Not today. Probably not tomorrow. Maybe – not ever.

shopping mall

The Apple Store

Personal Opinion and Analysis, , , , , ,

Recently I went to an Apple store. In a suburban mall in New Jersey. It was the week after Black Friday weekend and its deluge of online sales. I had hoped to exchange an iPhone case I also bought on line.

At midafternoon the mall was quiet as most malls are in a state where COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are once again leapfrogging themselves. But the Apple store was more than quiet. it was bare. No new iPhones or MacBooks on the tables. No iPhone or iPad cases on the shelves. Nothing. To. Buy.

It was one of the saddest things I’ve seen in a pandemic year of sad upon sadder things. A store which like all Apple stores has always been brimming with delighted energy – silent. Nearly deserted. 3 weeks before Christmas.

It was suddenly a metaphor for everything I’ve cried over as 2020’s increasing miseries and tragedies and deaths piled up. This Apple store looked like – well – death. Like a place where the lights were about to be snuffed out. As I said, a metaphor for all the human lights snuffed out needlessly this year and all the small business lights snuffed out because Congress couldn’t find enough decency to help them through this financially until the very end of the year. When it was way too late. Then there are all the grandparents who still can’t see their new grandkids and all the kids who still can’t go to real school in person and all the young people in their first or second jobs who still can’t drop by anyone’s desk to ask a newbie’s casual question.

An Apple store means many things to many people. But until now it has never meant lost jobs or food bank lines which stretch forever. Or loved ones who never saw the holiday gifts already bought for them. An Apple store. Deserted and like so much in 2020 and still in 2021- dead.

Musings on Re-opening Our World

Personal Opinion and Analysis, , , ,

So while you’ve been sitting at home munching chips and watching Netflix (its first quarter earnings report showed the streaming entertainment service added twice as many new subscriptions as Wall Streeters had expected), a lot of people have been strategizing how to restart the world. Or at least their small part of it. Among them a guy named Shelly Palmer who’s a well known digital marketing and technology consultant. Palmer sends daily newsletters which often contain provocative theses. And he often asks readers for their ideas and reactions.

So last night – when Shelly Palmer asked how each of his readers would re-open the United States – I opened my big mouth.  And offered my very subjective suggestions. As this is titled – just musings. About the things which matter most to me. In the order which matters most to me. 

Here goes.

Right at the top of the list  – on the first day – I want the larger, spacious gyms re-opened for those of us who desperately need them. And weekend bike and running races reinstated. I want ONLY small restaurants reopened. Where the owner can really be held accountable for sanitizing and distancing.  Oh – and Starbucks.  I said this would be subjective. I want all parks which are meant for vigorous activity reopened if they’ve been closed. And I and most everyone else want to be able to go back to work. Maybe half and half home and work if it’s that kind of job. I want hair salons and barbershops open because  we certainly can’t go back to work looking like we do now. Nail salons can wait. So can large venue concerts and sports stadiums. Sports themselves should be up to the athletes. I want some aspects of schools and colleges open. The situations educators think would be most valuable. Online teaching doesn’t work very well for student engagement. And parents can’t go back to work if their kids are still expected to learn at home.

Having said all this, I’m not crazy. Or stupid. I want it only with reasonable distancing between people at work. Plenty of wipes and chlorine spray to clean work surfaces and bathrooms constantly. Maybe employers can find them. I certainly can’t.  Extra general cleaning and sanitizing at work. The right of any worker who feels uncomfortable to stay home working or – if they must be physically present (warehouses, supermarkets, construction etc) – plenty of protection. Outdoor jobs kind of take care of themselves. It’s being trapped INDOORS with a possible asymptomatic person or with air conditioning which could possibly move that one person’s virus all over the building. I don’t really have an answer for that. I don’t think a temperature check at the door will winnow out enough people. Many people with asymptomatic COVID-19 don’t have a fever.  We each have to be responsible and aware of our own situations. Much as social distancing has become a buzz phrase, let’s make situational awareness one also.

I don’t think it’s realistic to think office workers are going to wear home made, uncomfortable masks all day at work. I don’t think they do much anyhow for the general public. On crowded mass transit – masks may have some protective value but at the least they make people feel safer. Which might convince the fearful to start moving around and going back to work.

We need tests. Especially accurate antibody tests. Even though at this point we don’t know if those people who have antibodies also have immunity. Or for how long. I guess we’ll find out. And – caveat- we may not have enough of these tests till September. But we should have enough to test representative subsections of people – what the pollsters do. And draw some conclusions based on THAT data.  The Czech Republic is doing it that way. So are other countries.

Many countries around the world are reopening. Many with 2 weeks between stages. We have to also and monitor it carefully. We need to dip our toes into flying again. Lower our border “gates”.  If other countries will open their borders again to us and others. Some countries in Europe are throwing around ideas like keeping borders mostly closed for a year or more. Satisfying the most xenophobic. Or perhaps the most nervous. But the airlines will have to step up as well – figuring out how to distance all of us from each other. And find better ways to queue up for boarding, baggage drops and the like. That means repurposing employees to police all those lines. All of this best done with global consultation and cooperation. If that is still possible in the fractured world Donald Trump, Brexit and Hungary’s Victor Orban have helped create.

These ideas reflect  only what I care about, what I see as most important. Others will have other priorities.  Wherever we start – It just has to be done carefully. A lot of people are very frightened. Especially those who have lost a loved one or know people who have died or gotten very ill from the virus. My husband and I will joyously go back to our favorite restaurants as soon as I can get my hair done.  IF we’re sure they’re sanitized and we are properly distanced.

I’m not sure what to do about the bar stools.